Trying to find ethical porn that doesn’t compromise on your personal values is tough. The mainstream sites hardly prioritise female empowerment – if anything, quite the opposite.

Often women are degraded, virginity is fetishised, and the overall outlook is catered to the straight, cis male gaze.

But ethical porn is very different. It’s paid for, which means it’s safer for your device but more importantly, suggests performers are treated and paid fairly. The storylines are more female-friendly too, with any domination or submission being clearly consensual.

You might not have ever heard of it or know where to go, so we’ve put a handy list together to take out the guess work. If porn sites have always been off-putting or felt taboo, ethical porn is likely to make you feel much more at ease.

These are our top places to look for a self-pleasure session that don’t make you feel morally gross afterwards.

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What is ethical porn?

“Ethical porn is a term used to describe porn that has been produced in a way that honours consent, treats performers with respect, pays fairly, and is created within a fair, respectful, consent-aware and pleasure-aware workplace. The pleasure, consent and comfort of the performers is a number one priority,” says SheSpot’s in-house sexologist and sex therapist Alice Child.

According to Child, ethical porn often aims to be more realistic. “It includes a greater range of diversity of bodies, skin-colours, age, and sexual desires and boundaries. It is often (but not always) created with female pleasure in mind, and the pleasure & communication will feel more ‘true to life’. Ethical porn is therefore an attempt at making a different type of erotic film — making porn more consensual, inclusive, authentic, pleasurable, diverse and creative!”

Common porn concerns

Speaking on common concerns that arise around porn, Anna Richards, founder of ethical porn site FrolicMe, explains, “Porn, unfortunately, has been hijacked by the free tube sites and, with it, has generated associated shame in the viewing of degrading, unregulated imagery. Large corporations have battled for traffic and, in doing so, have contributed to an increase in extreme imagery that is increasingly male-centric.”

She adds, “Women have understandably become sceptical of mainstream porn, when so much online in the mass market feels demeaning or unrealistic. Gratuitous imagery of sex and violence is more the takeaway from so much online that it can lead women in particular to feel emotionally unsafe, unseen and certainly unrepresented in the balancing of sexual pleasure.”

Unsurprisingly, this type of representation in mainstream porn is extremely damaging to expectations of sexual partners. Likewise, “Much of what is seen raises issues over consent, and abuse only helps to normalise the objectification towards women that has formed many people’s opinions of porn today. More acts such as choking and aggressive behaviour are seen against women involved, yet offer no context, consent or balanced pleasure. By viewing such acts in this way only warps normal sexual behaviour and is misconstrued as acceptable in sexual activities.”

Benefits of ethical porn

“Porn can be a wonderful laboratory through which to explore your sexuality through diverse and realistic representations, while helping to teach us more about the joys of healthy sex,” Anna explains.