Casual Conversation

yeah and i posed both questions just to kind of allow for multiple possibilities because, y'know, i wasn't really sure what was going on in your head

but otherwise, i dunno if you're this comfortable with your dad, but if you are, maybe you could have a conversation about it. ask him if he knows about sex work and how workers in the porn industry are treated, ask if he's considered looking for ethical pornography producers, maybe suggest some (?) LOL

i understand this isn't a conversation everyone is necessarily comfortable having, but i think, if you can overcome the awkwardness, it's worth it to kind of reaffirm your dad's relationship with you and his shared values with you. fwiw i think a lot of people (men?) who are like, strongly feminist would be open to reconsidering this stuff and maybe just don't necessarily have the tools or haven't really had the idea to explicitly pursue more ethical porn. some of it is just accessibility, you know? like, everyone knows pornhub, but i can't name an ethical porn studio offhand

that said, this inspired me to google it (i know, what an idea) and i found a couple of article recommendations as a starting point:

https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a36465164/ethical-porn/

https://sexualalpha.com/ethical-porn-sites/

and then, just for full disclosure, some of the things that prevented me from doing that before were:

• i didn't (and still am not sure) that i could just trust a google search about this (it's still better than nothing and the second article lists some signs that you can look for, at least)
• conflating ethical with soft: sorry if this is too mcuh information LMAO but i'm kind of into people fucking hard (sort of regardless of gender), so it's hard to feel like i'll enjoy ethical porn. i think it's better now, i would have been a lot more concerned ten years ago, but there's probably something nowadays that is ethical and still caters to me
• there's also kind of the concern about like, getting my money's worth, because tbh ethical porn DOES mean paying for it. the money isn't really a huge concern (altho it could be for others), but it's hard to want to manage it without the sort of security of a good return. again, it's not a huge deal, it's a worthwhile investment to spend a few bucks to find out and i think these studios probably have enough available material to evaluate them
• similarly on the accessibility front, is being able to access it on my phone bc my pc is in the goddamn living room (another situation which has probably improved substantially over the last ten years)
• some of it is just like, it wasn't that feasible or good of a situation ten years ago and i just haven't sat down to think about it much since the last time i did until now. and your dad is definitely older than i am, i am not old enough to have a child your age LOL

notably, none of these are really about whether it's a (morally) good idea or not, it's a lot about the practicalities, but yknow not necessarily every feminist guy is on this page

i'm not gonna sit here and pretend these are the best reasons or anything, i'm not the best human being to ever live, but i try to do better than the day before, and i listed those reasons out honestly to hopefully help if you decide to have that conversation with... not even just your dad, but anyone

but you know, if you decide not too, obviously that's totally fine and understandable LOL, i think this was still good to write up and talk about