Porn performers are sex workers. Porn performers and digital content creators have always been part of our community, in NSW, across Australia and around the world. In the past few years, many sex workers who do in-person work have also started doing digital sex work. This includes camming, making and selling content, and performing in studio-produced porn.

New platforms like OnlyFans have made it easier for sex workers to sell their content independently. These platforms also helped sex workers deal with COVID-19 restrictions and the growing instability of gig work.

Any consultation on porn regulation needs to properly involve sex workers who make porn. It should not add to the stigma and discrimination our communities already face.

This Inquiry is about the impact of ‘harmful pornography’ on mental, emotional and physical health. That framing assumes two things:

• that everyone agrees on what ‘pornography’ and ‘harmful pornography’ mean, and
• that ‘harmful pornography’ causes health problems that can be measured and studied.

Neither of these assumptions are true. When Australian researchers asked 36 pornography experts from different fields to define ‘pornography,’ no two gave the same definition. A review of 50 years of international porn research found that many studies claimed or implied porn causes problems with sexual consent, even though their data didn’t actually show this.

Porn in Australia is already tightly regulated. The National Classification Scheme covers things like porn magazines and DVDs. Critics say this scheme relies on outdated ideas about ‘obscenity,’ treats LGBTQI+ people’s bodies and sex lives as something wrong, and makes it harder to show consent negotiation and safer sex in porn. The Online Safety Act works the same way but covers all online communication, including websites, social media, messaging apps and search engines. It’s enforced by the eSafety Commissioner, who has been called the best-resourced regulator of its kind in the world.

There is no agreement, in academia or the wider community, on what counts as ‘pornography,’ what counts as ‘harmful,’ or how to measure any impact. The laws that already exist are broad and controversial. Without solid evidence to work from, this Inquiry can’t produce sound policy recommendations.