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Online porn was an occasional guilty secret for me before I started investing in pleasure. I’d cue up PornHub or another tube site and scroll through for a scene that piqued my interests without seeming too fake or degrading. The quick hit of free smut always did the trick for me, orgasmically speaking, but it still left me feeling unclean in the way that, say, using a truck stop bathroom did. I was always left wondering if the female performers I’d just gotten off to had been mistreated behind the scenes.
It’s hard to resist the lure of free content, which is why the male-centered PornHub is one of the top 20 most-trafficked websites in the U.S. Even after I’d decided it was probably not worth the guilt, I still returned to the tube sites sporadically, not really satisfied but also not bold enough to research other options.
Then I read Emily Witt’s Future Sex, which took me inside a live porn shoot in San Francisco filmed by kink.com. After the scene Ms. Witt interviewed the blond star, Penny Pax, and asked if she’d experienced any “moments of genuine pleasure.”
“Yeah. Like, the whole thing!” Pax told her. (Penny Pax has since become one of my favorite performers.)
Curious, I put the book down and cued up kink.com, where a brand new BDSM world awaited me. Other than some light spanking, I’d never ventured into rough play before, but I was starting to realize I enjoyed being dominated—and seeing it happen to others in a situation that I knew was safe.
What Kink offered was an entire fantasy universe, a place where imagination reigned supreme was treated as a key aspect of porn and where consent was built into every video. Kink let me watch a few 45-second trailers for free—just enough to whet my appetite for the full menu—and then told me I needed to pony up and become a paying member.
So for the first time in my life, I got out my credit card and bought a subscription. I justified the monthly cost as a kind of gym membership, except it was working out a very specific set of muscles. And let’s just say that once I was liberated from guilt and determined to get my money’s worth, I definitely got into shape.
After I made the consumer leap, I tried out Lust Cinema and The Crash Pad too—although I kept coming back to Kink for its efficient format, smart sense of humor, and unique before-and-after interviews in which female performers name their safewords, list the sex acts they won’t do, and (afterward) say what they liked best about filming the scene. On all three sites, I could search for my particular turn-ons and enjoy great aesthetic value, especially when I compared it to the seedy porn tubes I used to frequent.
Paying for porn is not only the best way to get the hottest content and satisfy your specific interests; it’s also an ethical choice. According to adult entertainment journalist and Glamour contributor Lynsey G (who chronicles her years writing about the industry in a new memoir, Watching Porn), paying is the only way to guarantee that you’re not accidentally endorsing exploitation. You want to support a company that pays its actors fairly, treats them well on set, and always prioritizes consent. Think of it like the locavore movement for sex: It’s better to know where your content comes from before you consume it.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a governing body to set ethical standards in the porn industry, but the Feminist Porn Awards is a fantastic source for quality online smut, offering a huge database of videos, stream rentals, and a handy pay-per-minute option.
During my adventures as a porn customer, I found The Crash Pad (queer porn made in the Bay Area) had the most impressive consent policy. “If you see a sex act on the site, it's because the performers wanted to do it and the crew consented to film it,” the company states. Crash Pad creator Shine Louise Houston says she views pornography as “a place where money, sex, media, and ethics converge”—which sounds to me like a healthy vision for adult entertainment. The Crash Pad also discloses its pay structure ($600 for a full day, $400 for a half day). Plus, their scenes feature real-life couples having sex the way they want to, resulting in genuine laughter and chemistry, some awkward fumbling of clothing, and plenty of real orgasms.
Other than a clean conscience, I love the practical benefits of membership, like getting to watch a scene without the distraction of gross pop-up ads or endlessly opening windows. When you pay, you’re less likely to get a weird virus on your computer (the cyber version of safer sex!), which is a possibility when clicking through a free tube site. And you often get access to cool behind-the-scenes interviews and outtakes.
Though, if you do decide to start paying for porn (and you should!), I do have one warning: Beware of hidden costs and sneaky extras when you enter your credit card. Lust Cinema’s holding company, Vendo Media, billed me $39.95 for a monthly subscription to Couples Fantasies, an option I never signed up for. After I filed a complaint about the charge, the Vendo customer service rep told me I hadn’t “unchecked a box” at the bottom of the membership page. As much as I enjoy Erika Lust’s beautifully curated erotic movies, I decided to cancel my subscription and take my, uh, workout elsewhere.
But I’ll stick with my investment in kink.com. I love how Kink brings the fantasy element into focus with its various fetish channels, like The Upper Floor. Do I actually want to attend a black-tie, S&M orgy at the San Francisco Armory? No, thank you. Do I get off on watching it online? Hell yeah. And that’s a luxury I’m willing to pay for.
This article is part of Summer of Sex, our 12-week long exploration of how women are having sex in 2017.
More Summer of Sex:
—Does Mainstream Porn Have a Race Problem?
—What It's Really Like Living With Sex and Love Addiction
—Meet 6 Sex-Positive Instagrammers Changing the Internet
