Pornhub Bans 'Girls Do Porn': Steps Toward Stopping Online Sex Trafficking

15/10/2019

It started when twenty-two women, all ages 18 to 22, sued the adult company Girls Do Porn for fraud, coercion, and misrepresentation.

According to the lawsuit, Girls Do Porn owners Michael Pratt and Matthew Wolfe, as well as actor and recruiter Andre Garcia, convinced the women to agree to be filmed having sex on camera, but without them realizing that the videos would be widely distributed and sold on the internet.

What Girls Do Porn did, was first posting ads on Craigslist, saying that it was looking for models. When the unsuspecting women answered the ads, they realized that the company was actually looking for women to star on porn videos.

The women were assured that the videos would only be sold on DVDs to "private collectors" in Australia and New Zealand, according to the plaintiffs, and that no one they knew would ever see those films.

"[Girls Do Porn] told me multiple times, 'What are the odds someone you know is going to walk into that one DVD store in Australia and choose that one DVD that you're on,'” said one woman in an interview with NBC 7 as reported by Vice.

Andre Garcia, Matthew Wolfe, Michael Pratt
Owners of Girls Do Porn: Ruben “Andre” Garcia (left), co-owner and videographer Matthew Wolfe (middle), and owner Michael Pratt (right)

What they needed to do, is follow the cue, act like they're enjoying the intimate moment, get paid, and no one they know would ever see the videos.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

The company spread and sold the videos online, even when it promised that the films won't reach a wide audience. The videos were posted on the Girls Do Porn website, and were also spread on free porn websites, like Pornhub.

Girls Do Porn also has an official channel on Pornhub, where it posts clips from the videos. Those videos have gained 672 million views over the eight years the channel has been up.

The 22 women were represented by Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP; Holm Law Group, PC and Stokes O’Brien, LLP, and were seeking damages of more than $22 million, according to a post by Sanford Heisler Sharp.

After some of those women and their lawyers told Motherboard about how more than 100 women were lied and bullied at the Girls Do Porn set, this was the moment Pornhub responded.

The most popular porn site of the web finally removed the footage of those women from its site.

Initially, it only removed the videos from the Pornhub’s official Girls Do Porn channel, and not the rest of its site. But when the federal government of the U.S. revealed that the owners of Girls Do Porn have been arrested and charged with sex trafficking, Pornhub finally removed the Girls Do Porn partner page, as well as the videos corresponding to it.

Pornhub - age verification
Pornhub's age verification welcome page

Pornhub is the largest porn website on the internet.

By having many of those women engaging in sex acts to be viewed by practically anyone with internet connection, the women had their real identities exposed to the communities by their friends, colleagues and family members who came across their videos.

As a result, several of the women in Girls Do Porn videos endured harassment, humiliation, isolation, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Girls Do Porn listed women at their prime sexual age, perched on beds, being interviewed about their first time on camera. The video descriptions emphasize that they're new to porn, and that the moment was their first time in making an adult video.

The videos depict their hesitation, nervousness, and other emotional state that would appeal the fantasy of certain porn audience.

While porn is legal in many parts of the world, and consent sex is more than plenty, Girls Do Porn lied to the women. This made its business considered as sex trafficking, in which the women were trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

In other words, Girls Do Porn monetized the women in ways that weren't in their consent.

This kind of business can be traced back to the "casting couch" porn, which blurs the line between reality and fiction.

With Pornhub starting banning Girls Do Porn, it's considered a step forward towards ending sex trafficking on the web. However, with the many users porn sites have, the attempt should be difficult and may be far from realization.