I recently came across the strange phrase “Ethical Porn” in the context of a parent wanting to find “good” pornography for their sons to look at.

The idea of ethical porn is that we can clean up the pornography industry by removing the nasty bits of the industry.

Porn has long been associated with people trafficking, slavery, non-consensual activities and a string of other nasty practices.

Many performers have to resort to drugs to cope with the dehumanising effects of the industry. Like any film productions, porn movies require multiple takes of specific actions in what is usually a more violent activity than most of us would consider to be normal sex. Often a day’s shooting leaves the actors in pain and looking for chemical relief.

Ethical porn involves people not being coerced into performing and removing the trafficking element. They supposedly give consent before and during the filming to demonstrate that everything is consensual.

This is just pure fantasy, as is everything around the consumption of porn.

Many movies already feature the performers discussing the scene before and their experience afterwards. In fact, it is part of their contract. Actors who refuse to do this, or do so in an honest way that suggests that they did not enjoy the session, don’t get paid. They run the risk of not being employed by the same production company or other companies in the industry.

Many actors claim that the actual contents of a movie might be entirely different to that which was discussed before. More men might be brought into the studio so that a straight sex scene becomes gang rape, or a “rough sex” video turns into bondage and sadism.

There can never be any such thing as “ethical porn” because pornography overturns God’s plan for human flourishing.

Sex was designed for intimacy within a marriage- one man and one woman voluntarily bound to one another for life.

Sex was designed for the production of babies and, within marriage, is a part of an ecosystem of healthy relationships providing nurture and love for children.

Sex was never meant to be a performance. When it is turned into entertainment for the pleasure of viewers, it strips the performers of all human dignity. It can never be anything but exploitative, because the audience is not seeing human beings, just body parts.

All porn is unethical.

We live in an age where people call good things bad and bad things good. We love things that appeal to our fleshly nature. When it is clear that there are potential dark sides to the things we enjoy, we tell ourselves we can clean it up and salve our consciences.

God has told us what He wants from us to promote human flourishing. Vicarious adultery is not part of that plan, even when we dress it in mice clothes like “ethical porn.”