Naked Culture: On Canada's First Homegrown Porn Channel

The media has been mulling over a recent CRTC decision made early this week over Canada's first homegrown pornography channel. The channel will be known as Northern Peaks, and is based out of Edmonton. The CRTC was originally created by the Trudeau government as a federal tool for maintaining Canadian culture. For the most part, this has involved and endless string of tired CBC shows about Muslims living in Saskatchewan, comedy shows that air well past their prime, and bizarre movies that nobody will see. Why the CRTC feels that Canada now needs its own porn channel is a bit of a mystery to me. Do we really need a homegrown alternative to Playboy? The debate recently has got me thinking about the nature of our naked culture that we have in North America today.

I feel that we in the west are drowning in our own sexuality. Today, sex is easier to get than ever, and its not just the "world's oldest profession" that's flourishing. Since the mid 1990s, anyone with an internet connection can now log on and see as many men and women as they like doing acts that are said to border on art to stuff that's downright vomit inducing. The problem is that the proliferation of pornography has desensitized our society to sex. When Playboy first hit news stands in the 1950s, it was considered to be scandalous but its now pretty tame compared to what else is being offered. Pornography no longer needs to be purchased and hidden notwithstanding a quick clear of your browser cache.
Religious groups and radical feminists have long been declaring that pornography is evil and should be banned. (For the record, this is about adults over 18, not child pornography) Their reasons for doing so vary though I believe they are largely correct, though it's the solution that I have a problem with. You can argue all sorts of moral and ethical reasons to ban porn. Others have plenty of reasons not to ban it. One of the most common reasons against banning it is that it features consenting adults and in a sexually liberated world, they should be able to do and make money however they choose. The problem I have is with the term "consenting". One of the sad realities is that many of these so called consenting adults are college students desperate for money, or those who are victims of human trafficking. In the case of the former, many girls who need money for school or other habits will often turn to selling their bodies for hardcore sex filmed on camera. Its a quick and easy way to make a lot of money. The latter opens the window to a much darker world. Impoverished and naive girls, from South-East Asia (Thailand and the Philippines being particularly infamous for this, but it is more widespread) and Eastern Europe (former Soviet Bloc) get roped in to sex slavery. Some are sold by their own parents, those who are too uneducated and poor to know what they're getting their daughters into. In this case, they may be adults over the age of consent, but they certainly are not willing participants. We cannot confuse these young men and women with the likes of Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jamason who have made livings and enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, the desensitized public doesn't want that anymore as they seek more and more to fill in their high. For those who consume pornography, it becomes all to easy to forget that there is a thinking, feeling human being on the other end of the camera. I think we all to often focus on those consuming porn rather than those being used in pornography's production. Consumers though are victims in a way. Many men and women have become addicted to chasing the high pornography gives, thus further spreading the misery it fuels. Pornography is a cold, heartless, and mechanical mode of entertainment. Consumers are ultimately the reason for it to exist in the first place.

Clearly pornography is morally and ethically wrong on many levels. However, should it be banned? I have been staunchly anti-censorship for many other cases but this is one of those issues that leaves me conflicted. Banning adult pornography is not going to get rid of it. A ban in this case is simply not realistic. If you ban something like that, you run the risk of pushing it underground. In that case, it can open the door for all sorts of horrific abuses and further increase human trafficking. The demand will still be there, and as long as there is demand somebody will always be there to fill the market. It is currently a legal product and at current, we can exercise some control over it. We can require domestic producers by law to protect their employees from STDs, pay them fairly, and treat them well. The problem is the stuff we can't control; that is porn produced in foreign countries using human slavery and other less-than-willing subjects. In that case, it should be treated in the same way in which we have demonized other negative social habits such as drunk driving and cigarette smoking. Unfortunately, you cannot realistically criminalize it since it's not as black and white as child pornography is. It would be impossible to prove whether the person knew or not that the subject was a sex slave who was being abused. The public should be made blatantly aware of the mistreatment that goes on in an attempt to discourage people from consuming it. More government control should be exerted over domestic pornography produces, not to censor what they are doing, but to make sure employees are not being abused.

So what about Northern Peaks? I can't say I approve of this channel but for the reasons I mentioned, it allows some government control over what the producers are doing in order to keep employees safe. I don't think they should stop them since its their freedom of expression to air that content. By the same token, they should not be openly encouraged to do so by the government. They should also not receive any federal funding to produce "Canadian content" on the station. As Trudeau famously said, the government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation. However, it should also not be providing fuel for the home fires either.