In early March, when the COVID-19 outbreak rolled across Europe and then the U.S., many companies joined the fight against the pandemic. From tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Alibaba to luxury fashion houses, from distilleries and breweries to pharma companies, from major industrial manufacturers like General Motors and Ford to numerous retailers, big names in the world of business are sending medical help and donating loads of cash. The porn industry decided to “lend a helping hand,” too.

Corey Price, Vice President of Pornhub, said the company wanted to provide a way for people to pass the time under lockdown: “With nearly one billion people in lockdown across the world because of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s important that we lend a hand and provide them with an enjoyable way to pass the time.” They are also donating surgical masks for the first responders and healthcare workers in NY; and €50,000 ($54,700) to various European organizations to purchase additional masks.

Cheering the news of the free premium subscription, editor of Rare.us based in Washington, D.C. was so excited he even wrote in his column, “Who said the Coronavirus outbreak was a bad thing, huh?! Pornhub is here, trying to save the day by giving out free premium subscriptions!” Never mind that the pandemic cost global economy trillions of dollars, 701,000 people in U.S. lost their job, and 2.7 billion workers affected by the lockdown worldwide, stock market indexes fell from the record highs to bear-market territory, with global financial markets being extremely volatile. None of it is a bad thing since everyone can enjoy some “light entertainment,” as Rare.us put it, for free. Other media platforms and users worldwide have greeted the frisky offer with enthusiasm and praised PornHub: “God bless Pornhub for giving them [people in quarantine] a reason to stay in” and “cure a lockdown blues.”

I scrolled past this clickbait news and forgot all about it until I came across the story of a Florida teenage girl who had been missing for nearly a year and was found after sexually explicit pictures of her were spotted by relatives on Pornhub. It appeared that there were 58 videos of that girl being raped in open access. So much for “light entertainment!”

Pornhub is the world’s biggest porn site and was visited 42 billion times in 2019. It is free to access, with no age restrictions, and raises revenue through advertising and paid-for promotions by porn producers. Scroll through the site and you’ll discover titles such as “Meth wh**e f**ked so hard she cries,” “Passed out woman gets filmed without her knowing,” and “Scared teen cries while f**ked!” When questioned by the BBC as to why they continue to allow such videos on their platform, the company stated that they allow “all forms of sexual expression that follow our Terms of Use, and while some people may find these fantasies inappropriate, they do appeal to many people around the world.”

In a society that is becoming increasingly desensitized to explicit sexual material while raging about the “rape culture” promoted by “patriarchy,” the kind of content featuring seemingly passed out, drugged, coerced, or abducted women and children being brutally abused is hard to ignore. And people are not ignoring it. Over 7,464,000 – and counting -- Internet users have signed a petition demanding the government to “Shut down PornHub and hold its executives accountable for aiding trafficking.”  The petition was started by a non-profit group called Exodus Cry, and harshly criticizes PornHub for allegedly failing to have a system to reliably verify the age and consent of those depicted in pornography. Pornhub responded to the petition, calling it “factually wrong and intentionally misleading,” adding that Exodus Cry is a “radical right wing fundamentalist group.” Thankfully, the issue is getting attention on Capitol Hill, too: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) asked the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into PornHub after the allegations. Lawmakers on the left are also concerned: “Pornhub’s failure to remove nonconsensual pornography from its website is destroying lives," said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) in a statement provided for Fox News.

Even though Pornhub claims that it introduced a “non-consensual content removal system” in 2015, stories about videos of abuse on the website continue to surface, like the aforementioned one involving the Florida teen. In 2019 Pornhub removed a channel called GirlsDoPorn, when 22 women sued it for forcing them to take part in videos, and the channel's owners were charged with child pornography and sex trafficking. Still thrilled by the PornHub’s “helping hand?” There’s more, like a story of Rose Kalemba, who had been raped at the age of 14, which had been filmed and uploaded on Pornhub. “I sent Pornhub begging emails. I pleaded with them. I wrote, ‘Please, I'm a minor, this was assault, please take it down’,” She received no reply and the videos remained live for months. And there are many more similar stories.

It does not take right-wing fundamentalists or religious devotees or prudes to be outraged by this kind of business. The first to strike against it should have been the feminists (a few do, though they are outnumbered), as the porn industry profits from showing extreme and shocking sex acts that depict women as less-than-human sex objects. An LA Times article titled “Internet porn is an experiment in dehumanization” puts it perfectly: “Women are no more than a set of orifices intended for the use and abuse of men, and men are nothing more than anonymous phalluses demanding to be serviced.” Yet sex-positive feminists view it as a display of sexual liberation and destruction of the traditional gender stereotypes. Thus, far from boycotting the industry, the “progressive” corners of the feminist movement encourage watching pornography, and the viewership is notably growing among women.

Sadly, contemporary America seems to be utterly confused and conflicted at the deepest levels about sex, sexuality, and social norms that should guide men’s and women’s intimate relations. It is hard to comprehend a combination of the feverish sensitivity to sexual impropriety, on the one hand, and eager embrace of sex-drenched popular culture, including porn, on the other.

The fact is, consenting adults viewing other consenting adults engaging in sex acts online is something that happens routinely. People might have differing views on the prevalence of free online pornography, but there is a whole different ball game when videos show non-consensual sex, and when the participants are not even adults. In this case, PornHub has to upgrade its filtering algorithms that allow anyone to upload anything, anytime, and consider the possibility of collaborating with the law enforcement agencies or be shut down.