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xHamster has said that anyone attempting to upload or view porn videos that depict people having sex where it isn’t clear that it’s consensual will be banned from its platform.
Speaking to the Huffington Post, xHamster says that the new ‘Brock Turner rule’ – named, of course, following the inexplicably light six-month jail sentence handed to Brock Turner for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster – will prevent any non-consensual videos from being uploaded, regardless of the category. This will also include videos of people purportedly sleeping or hypnotized, the company said.
“Our size and influence in the online adult world has proven to be a force for change and we want to use it not only for the advancement of transgender rights, but to end rape culture for good,” it told HuffPo.
Users searching for related terms will be met with a popup informing them of where they can seek help.
Why now?
While it might only be now that the company is putting a name to the policy, it says its one that has been in place for a while now. Generating extra publicity isn’t usually seen as a bad thing by most companies.
As one of the world’s highest traffic porn tube sites, xHamster has already been taking steps in this direction for some time, and has previously blocked the whole of North Carolina for its anti-LGBT legislation.
“What kind of human feeling, empathy, and intimate connections are possible in a world in which bodies are used so routinely in the process of selling and also are for sale virtually everywhere we turn? The implications of that are potentially dramatic, not only in the realm of sexual and domestic violence, but also in those areas of our lives that we want to believe are untouched by the domination/submission dynamic of patriarchy” – Vawnet.
However, it will doubtless get some pushback from people who feel like their right to watch videos of people having sex with full consent is being limited, particularly given the inconclusive nature of research examining the effects of an increase in access to violent pornography on men.
First Amendment rights or not, the wider question of the effects of extended access to increasingly hardcore pornography on both men and women are still unknown. Perhaps a bigger worry than even access to specific types of pornography on individuals is the impact it could be having on the nature of relationships that we form and the unreasonable and unrealistic expectations that it may reinforce.
