Kanye West: Of Porn and Privilege
Originally published on this blog, 01-03-2020
On September 6th, 2018, Pornhub hosted their first-ever awards show inside of Los Angeles’ Belasco Theater. Social media really started picking up on the Pornhub Awards when Kanye West was announced as Creative Director. Mind you, I had little-to-no interest in the event. Just because I had been posting videos on Pornhub for over a year-and-a-half at that point doesn’t mean I had any reason to watch the ceremony. (Even when I’m nominated for awards in the vanilla world, I have to make sure that I break my no-show habit.) I did not see any other performers within my adult network enthused by Kanye West’s presence; actually, I can’t say I saw any positive reactions about the whole event. (At this point I would include tweets from Pornhub critics about the show that I remember seeing, but because I barely ever like posts on Twitter or maybe because the shadowban has made such posts practically unsearchable, you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.)
From what I read, adult critics didn’t have problems, per se, with Kanye West being involved, but with Pornhub hosting an awards show in the first place. So here was Pornhub spending hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars, while amateur porn creators like myself are making just a pocketful of change from the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of views from our videos. While I am not totally salty towards Pornhub hosting an awards ceremony, I greatly emphasize with those who were. If you’re new to working in the adult industry, unfamiliar with porn in general, or have only been a consumer of this media, you’re probably unfamiliar with how violently Pornhub, other free streaming services, and online pirating disrupted the industry. From what I’ve read through both popular media and within my network, adult performers had to scramble to make a living, many unwillingly (but not forced to) turn to escorting. Whether or not you agree with the existence of free streaming services or behemoths such as MindGeek (parent company of Pornhub), you have to acknowledge the pain many performers and production staff went through, especially since its rise happened around the same time as the Great Recession.
“So a lot of [adult industry workers] are making a lot less money and are working much, much longer hours to make that money[…]Whereas the people in charge of PornHub are making so much money they don’t know what to do with it.” – Jon Ronson
Kanye used this chance as Creative Director to debut his music video for “I Love It” and showcase his fashion brand, Yeezy, with an array of porn performers wearing his garments. Having such a collaboration makes business sense. If I had brands like those, for sure I would be using such chances in the spotlight to help promote them. However, come the end of 2019, upon his “Jesus Is King” album release, Kanye opened up about a porn addiction during an interview, saying things such as:
“And it just presents itself in the open like it’s okay and I stand up and say, ‘No it’s not okay.’ ”
“[Sex trafficking is] a picture of a woman on a billboard and says ‘come to this strip club.’ ” (Source)
“There’s times where I was asking people to not have premarital sex while they were working on the album.” (Source)
I think it was brave for him to come out with something so personal that he’s been struggling with for decades, but he uses it as a weird scapegoat – even blaming his porn addiction for interrupting Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs – and is now pushing potentially dangerous mindsets about the adult industry, much to the delight of Christian anti-porn crusaders. In the span of over a little over one year, he helped to bring the Pornhub Awards to the attention of mainstream and social media, then started preaching about the evils of the adult industry.
I don’t care that he’s become a born-again Christian or wants to bring attention to problems such as sex trafficking (despite his apparent lack of education on the issue). What he’s done is use porn performers and the adult industry as a stepping stone to promote his brands, and has since left us in the dust. He can walk away practically unaffected because his income isn’t dependent on this industry. He can spew well-meaning, but misleading judgements about sex workers and the industry, yet retain an audience base, and even gain more followers from his mischaracterizations. That’s the privilege non-porn business leaders and performers have over us; we’re useful to them until they decide we’re not, and, like in the case of Kanye, may actively become our antagonists, when what we really need are influencers of all sorts who acknowledge our well-being and dedication to our work.
