By Lilly Sparks | Founder & CEO | afterglow | @xoaftergloww
Picture this: you're feeling hot and eager. You grab your trusty toy, pull out some lube from your nightstand, and give your knuckles a nice crack... It's comfortable, fun, safe, but….boring. It’s the same old, same old. It’s become a routine and it’s for something new. Well, I’ve got a secret to get you out of your masturbation rut-- ethical porn!
Porn is correlated with more orgasms and can be a terrific way to explore fantasies, learn about what turns us on, and helps us to prioritize our pleasure. It can even make us better partners depending on how we consume it. On top of this, when it comes to your masturbation routine, ethical porn has the power to drastically change things for the better. This is because porn has the potential to help people tap into their bodies and explore sexual pleasure in a way that is fun, empowering, and safe.
If we talk about the negatives around porn for a hot second, it's easy to understand how this source of mainstream entertainment is a touchy topic in our society. Not only does a lot of mainstream content often depict tropes that give us the ick and leave us unsatisfied, but we worry about what is going on behind the scenes and how much agency everyone involved has. Talk about an orgasm roadblock that is not only tough to break but uncomfortable when we do!
Porn can be a fabulous tool for masturbation and knowing that it aligns with our values can be a great way to turn us on even more. Ethical Porn has no singular definition but creates the space for you to decide what kind of porn you’re comfortable with supporting.
Ethical porn often aims to portray a diversity of bodies, real sex, and drop-dead sexy aesthetics. It's got body-positivity and legit female pleasure centered and written all over it. Ethical porn can also mean something different to every person, especially when we are trying to find the perfect porn to get cozy and feel pleasurable with. When evaluating the ethics of the porn you consume, here are some questions to consider:
1) Are performers paid fairly and promptly?
2) Do performers have bodily autonomy?
3) Is it made with consent?
4) What physical and emotional safety practices are being taken?
5) Does it show both fantasy and realistic pleasure?
6) Does it represent our diverse world?
afterglow is an ethical porn site, made by women, focused on pleasure. We are here to help you reduce stress - whether that means learning how to get out of your head, or helping you find the perfect video to get off to. Our porn does not fetishize nor marginalize bodies and identities, but brings to the surface content for everyone and everybody to gaze at. A lot of on-set consent and negotiations take place between performers before cameras start rolling, but seeing, hearing, and experiencing these dialogues is what makes sex feel safe, consensual, and sexy. This might look like discussing boundaries and sex acts, or asking for lube and taking breaks to clean up. Ethical porn and afterglow is about taking the extra steps to make sure everyone on set feels safe and comfortable, but in many ways this is just the bare naked minimum.
Not sure where to begin? Take the What kind of porn do I like? quiz or read more with this Guide to Ethical Porn.
If you’re already a professional in ethical porn consumption, don’t let us hold you back. Take us for a spin, we got it all right here. However, learning new things that you love to get off to is not only sexy for you but wonderful for your partners too. Learn how to give massages that melt or how to introduce new kinks when you are masturbating.
If I am gonna leave you with a bang, then it's gonna be this: With masturbation month coming around, you should be too. If you are feeling so inclined, let’s make ethical porn an addition to your masturbation routine with a free 7-day trial using the code EMOJIBATOR. The deal is practically foreplay in itself.