Ask Stoya: Why’s there so much incest porn?

My question is about the content of the role-playing in porn. I get that people sometimes like to see things that are more extreme than the majority of them would do in reality, but there seems to be a large amount of porn that has really messed-up storylines (like father-daughter or mother-son scenes). I guess there is always going to be a very small percentage of sick people who really do like seeing this material, but I would never have thought it would be so prevalent online. Like WTF is with this. I don’t even like writing this message right now because just thinking about this type of thing makes me feel really sick. I’m not a prude by any means, but this stuff is like being put on the forefront of big porn websites. Even when you try to ignore it, it seems to be all over the place.

Anyway what’s your opinion on why all these messed up story lines are so prevalent? Do more people like this shit than I thought? Maybe I don’t even want to know. Sorry for the language, this just bothers me.

-M

My instincts are telling me that you’re either looking in the wrong-for-you places, or you have a major interest in incest that you feel deeply conflicted about — so you’re fixating on what you do find and projecting self-judgement onto others, instead of grappling with the complicated area where your desires intersect with your moral beliefs. Let’s assume the former, and discuss where porn comes from and what kinds of companies produce videos depicting sexual relations between relatives.

Do a little bit of self-education about who is making the porn you're watching

My first piece of advice is to do a little bit of self-education about who is making the porn you’re watching and then look for porn in places that don’t put much emphasis on familial relations. There are lots of options, you just have to go further than the first page of search results for "porn." I did a little research for you, and here are some options:

• I went to burningangel.com — the website of a multi-award-winning production company which has been in business since 2002 — and didn’t see anything close to role-playing of incest on their front page. In fact, a search of the word "sister" turned up only two videos: one where Joanna Angel refers to longtime co-worker Tommy Pistol as her porno-brother, and another where the plot of the scene involves a character motivated by the death of her sister. Searching for "mom" turns up a video where Joanna plays a mom in a non-sex role; one where one of Joanna’s mom’s real-life friends was cast because she wanted to make a porno; and lastly a scene where the parents are sleeping upstairs, and though they are mentioned, they aren’t part of the sex scene.

• One of the first plot lines in ongoing queer-focused series Crash Pad does involve one character’s sister joining the cast and having sexual interactions with people, but not with a sibling. Crash Pad is produced by Pink & White, which was founded by Shine Louise Houston in 2005. I couldn’t find any implication of incest on their VOD site pinklabel.tv either. User-submission-driven MakeLoveNotPorn.tv’s front page is also incest-free.

• Erika Lust’s xconfessions.com does contain a couple of stories where sex with an in-law (that is, a relative by marriage) happens; a video in which someone returns to their hometown as an adult and finds their friend’s mom on Tinder; and another video of a woman having sex with her brother-in-law in a kitchen. The site contains 60 videos, and only one shows sex with a relative.

MindGeek’s brazzers.com, on the other hand, is full of step-parents and in-laws. Interestingly, MindGeek is the same company that owns Twisty’s, Digital Playground, the Reality Kings network of sites, the Mofos network of sites, babes.com, men.com, and the majority of the large tube sites — including pornhub.com. This is in addition to their management of Wicked Pictures’ websites and their control of Playboy Plus and Playboy TV.

MindGeek tends toward homogenizationMindGeek has what Slate called a monopoly on porn and has a chokehold on the first page of results for a search of "porn." They also tend toward homogenization of both aesthetics and erotic cues; you’ll see the same body types, styles of camera work, wardrobe, and makeup on their sites and waves of presumably search-term-driven trends regarding the sexual activity and context of each video across all of their platforms.

But what about these people who enjoy depictions of step-sons with step-moms, or married women getting it on with their brothers-in-law? One person’s yum is someone else’s yuck, and their squick is another person’s squee. Sexual interests and the reasons for an individual’s interest in a specific thing vary to an incredible degree so generalized guesses at motivations can be both tricky and sloppy, but I’m going to give it a try anyway.

Human sexuality is complicated and unpredictableJudeo-Christian Western culture is pretty freaking dominant; it also tends to frame sexuality as gross, dirty, and shameful outside of a heterosexual marriage where the woman is submissive to her husband’s desires and decisions. This puritanical mindset seeps into everything and can cause an early link between sexual arousal and feelings like shame, taboo, and disgust. This link is not necessarily one-way — sometimes shame and disgust become arousing in and of themselves. While this is by no means the only reason or motivation for seeking out sexual material frequently categorized as "taboo" — like incest — it does seem to be a reasonable explanation for some of it. Another possible explanation is the tendency within pornography to label adult woman as "milfs" and a limited amount of stories that explain why this mom is having sex with a person.

Human sexuality is complicated and unpredictable. Go have fun in places that match with your own complex sexual desires, and maybe relax a little on judging the ways other people satisfy theirs. Even when they squick you out.
After all, nobody is forcing you to watch.