A Netflix documentary aims to show all sides of a politicized battle between protecting and destroying a long-running porn site and its many workers
documentary on the biggest porn website in the world, opens with a simple question: do you remember the first porn you ever saw? The film’s older subjects , including several adult film performers, recall bespoke, analog porn, illicit and enticing – movies of Mother Goose fairy tales given a raunchy twist, a neighbor’s video tape of women using a giant ice dildo, Playgirl and Playboy spreads.Noelle Perdue, an internet porn historian and multimedia artist, harkens a shift.
Such is the conundrum of Pornhub, the gateway to adult content for many young people, a website so popular it’s basically synonymous with online porn in general. And, as such, a place that encapsulates both the potential and the peril of the internet – private exploration amid furtive data collection, boundless opportunity and information warped toward extremity, the freedom to view and post tied to the ability to steal, harass and abuse.
The film, produced by Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, begins as a brief explainer on Pornhub’s history as the pre-eminent digital disrupter of the porn industry. Owned by the Canadian company MindGeek, Pornhub originated as a tube site to view pirated or amateur erotic content for free – think the Pirate Bay for movies or LimeWire for music, but for porn.
The majority of the 90-minute film, however, focuses on the scrutiny and backlash the site has faced in recent years, from the perspective of porn professionals and performers often lost in the tug of war between anti-porn activists and the platforms hosting adult content.
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