Today’s Porn Industry: 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know

This article was originally published on 11/10/2020 and updated on 1/16/2024

I often say, “No child deserves to face the porn industry alone!” But what exactly is the porn industry. And what should you know about it?

Parents should know that the porn industry is powerful and it’s coming after your child’s eyeballs, time and sexual template, not to mention their future. And along the way, it can destroy a child’s future--the ability to enjoy strong, loving relationships, healthy sexual intimacy, and a life free from addiction. 

Here are 5 things every parent should know about the porn industry. 

The better you understand your enemy, the better you can protect your child. 

#1 The Porn Industry is Complicit with Sex Trafficking of Minors, Rape and Pedophilia

It’s no secret that pornography is regularly made of trafficked women--which is bad enough! But there’s more and more evidence that Pornhub allows the promotion of sex videos made with trafficked minors and they rack up millions of views on the website.

In fact, after the original publishing of this article, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff exposed Pornhub's gross abuse of minors in his article The Children of Pornhub.

Exodus Cry, an anti-trafficking organization, has raised awareness of this horrific practice disguised as adult entertainment: 

The #Traffickinghub movement has exposed a rampant and consistent culture of rape, sex trafficking, and pedophilia on Porhhub. The many stories emerging from both victims and the media, not to mention expository, documented research by Laila Mickewait, Kate Isaacs, and others, have all revealed the same thing—that Pornhub has become synonymous with sex crimes.

As Exodus Cry makes clear, Pornhub is a crime scene, filled with child sex abuse images (historically called child pornography). And with no real means to monitor the millions of videos uploaded every year to keep it off of their site. 

Related:

Baffling Irony! In an Age of Female Empowerment, Porn Normalizes Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women

Child Sex Trafficking–The Most Dangerous Myth and 3 Ways to Keep Your Kid Safe

The Shocking Tactics Sex Traffickers Use to Trap Your Kids and 5 Ways You Can Protect Them

Instagram Alert! Are Sex Traffickers Targeting Your Kids?

#2 Easy Access for Kids: The Porn Industry’s Business Model Makes Access to Hard Core Porn FREE

Back in the day, porn was distributed via magazines, then VHS tapes and then DVD’s. You had to seek them out and pay for them. The films that contained violence or children (or both), were more expensive. 

Today consumers access porn via streaming from tube sites and social media platforms that make money via advertising. For example, Pornhub is one of the most popular porn sites in the world--it’s like the YouTube of porn. You can watch porn all day long for the rest of your life and only pay for your internet connection and your time watching ads.

Of course, you can upgrade to a premium membership with a credit card. But there’s plenty of free porn available for kids to find.

Here are just a few 2023 stats from ONE website--Pornhub:

• 5.81 Billion visits per month (that's nearly 70 billion per year!)
• 193.6 Million visits PER DAY

Social media also has tons of porn. For example, porn performers have accounts on Snapchat and Instagram and post teaser videos that lure followers into paying for premium access. They hold contests to choose winners who will co-star in their porn videos. (Yep, that’s a thing.) A recent UK report listed X (Formerly Twitter) as the top platform where young people are most likely to see porn.

Even video games that are designed for gaming and popular with kids can expose them to porn. In fact, Pornhub reports Traffic by Game Console, including 

• Playstation (81.7%) 
• Xbox (16.7%)
• Other: PS Vita/3DS (1.6%)

All of this means that your kids have unprecedented access to free hard core porn from any internet-connected device. (Of course they might have to pretend to be “Over 18” but clicking that button is pretty easy for a curious kid.)

Related: Gateway to Porn? Sexual Objectification in Video Games

TikTok: The Sound of an App Stealing Your Kid’s Life Away

#3 The Porn Industry Promotes and Normalizes Incest, Racism, and Degrading Violence to Women

Every year Pornhub posts their stats and lists their most popular search terms. The list for 2023 includes:

• MILF (porn of older moms with young men or even teens)
• GILF (porn of grandmas with young men)
• Step mom (sounds like incest to me)
• Teen
• Threesome
• Anal
• Gangbang (rape scenes with several men violating one woman)
• Anime
• Cartoon
• BBC (big black men with white women--can you spell racist?)

But it gets worse! If I showed you the video titles uploaded to Pornhub and other sites, you’d be shocked and disgusted. You’d see how horrific violence against women is celebrated in pornography.

Related: Racism in Porn: A Powerful Way to Teach Kids to Reject XXX

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#4 The Porn Industry Is Corporate and Mainstream

From the perspective of the viewer, it can seem that the porn industry is made up of small, independent filmmakers. “Mom & Pop” Porn Shops. However, the truth is that the vast majority of content is funneled through just a few popular porn sites owned by ONE company: Aylo (formerly Mindgeek). 

Aylo is located in Montreal and owns Pornhub, Xhamster and YouPorn, three of the most visited porn sites. But when you go to Aylo's website, they say they’re a “tech company” and invite potential employees to “work with purpose.”

The porn industry employs accountants, computer scientists, lawyers, statisticians, and HR executives. The porn industry has: 

• trade publications (AVN, XBIZ)
• a powerful lobby (The Free Speech Coalition)
• annual trade shows (the biggest one in Vegas attracts over 35,000 attendees from 35 countries)
• award galas (one of the 2020 AVN winners was for a film called Teenage Lesbians) 

They even make training videos for their actors. And to improve their image, they donate to worthy causes (planting trees, cleaning up beaches, donating to war-torn countries). Or give free premium access to help people through pandemics. All of this is to camouflage their toxic, racist, misogynist, addicting, abusive industry.

Even Forbes loves PornHub. Their annual statistics report gets reviewed by Forbes with this final line:

“If you like data as much as you like porn, or just really love data, then there is something for everyone. Just like porn itself.”

Something for everyone--the very definition of mainstream.

#5 The Porn Industry Uses the Big Tobacco Playbook to Deny, Disinform and Defame Their Opponents

The porn industry is following a typical playbook that the tobacco industry used decades ago to deny, disinform and defame. 

• They deny the decades of science that shows that porn is addictive and harmful, causing negative changes in attitudes and behavior. 
• They produce sham science to disinform, assuring the public that porn is simply harmless entertainment. 
• And finally they defame the courageous people who are speaking up about the public health crisis of pornography. (And it gets ugly!)

This is all laid out in a short video by Gabe Deem, founder of Reboot Nation--a website devoted to helping young men recover from porn-induced erectile dysfunction. It’s obvious the porn industry wants to shut down their opponents who are shining the light on the toxic harms of porn.

The bottom line is that parents need to be savvy when it comes to industries that directly harm their children. The more you know, the better you can prepare your kids to reject the toxic, sexually exploitive content that is modern day pornography.