Been :thonk: about a comment made yesterday on a shitpost I made. Hentai is the least exploitative genre of porn in the world.

Perhaps some of the only porn someone can consume ethically. I guess there's an argument to be made about poorly paid animators drawing smut in animation workhouses, but it feels like most of the western world, when it comes to hentai, consumes rule 34 of franchise characters from media. Beat my brain up as I may, I can't see anything wrong in that and would much rather a fictional character be debased than an actual human for money.

38 comments

Consider also:
Homemade sex tapes for personal use between consenting adult partners
Smut and literotica (involves, at most, the exploitation of an author and an editor, rather than whole animation production teams)
- Homemade sex tapes for personal use between consenting adult partners
  I've thought about this but something always makes me feel weird seeing other people's sex tapes, even if it was meant for public consumption, but yeah it's ethical.
  Smut and literotica (involves, at most, the exploitation of an author and an editor, rather than whole animation production teams)
  Yeah I lump that in with self-published rule 34.

The most moral form of pornography is privately commissioned art of macro Falco Lombardi having sex with the Empire State Building then released for free on FurAffinity and e621 for the masses to pleasure themselves to
- e621 is for the people.

And yes before it's deployed on me
- I already did it to myself so nice try.

you're creeping up on SWERFshit with this one, physical sexual labor shouldn't be labelled as 'debased' when the workplace conditions in smut animation/illustration shops are not incapable of damaging and traumatizing their laborers too. can you imagine being asked to draw underage porn, gore porn, even just fetishes you really don't like? skeeves me the fuck out. but i can't imagine all the output of hentai is self-selecting for artists comfortable with all the topics/categories they do in all cases.

I mean, I'm sure there are people who go into porn (or open an OnlyFans, etc) fully consensually and without coersion. But in terms of a random drawing of pornographic content, you will have much better luck choosing something ethical if you go with hentai.

Even then, not to nitpick but then you have exploited animators who are under a lot of crunch time, but that’s definitely much different than someone just wanting to learn how to draw the human body.
Check out c/hentai to learn more!

Some of those renpy adult visual novels can be included here as well. A lot are projects by individuals or cooperative small teams using open-source software, some have voice acting, but they can all be released completely anonymously so there's not even reputational damage of the type typically found in puritanical societies. While they're susceptible to the same kind of :libertarian-approaching: grossness as hentai, most aren't and even tend to appeal to a larger array of audiences.

Eh, I far prefer written smut. May just be part of being ace or something

That"s been my logic for a while. I've known plenty of consenting adults that shoot their own indie flicks, but stuff out on most sites tends to be morally gray until proven otherwise.
It's just a damn shame how much hentai is catered towards people that should be on a list, when I specifically just want to avoid watching someone getting trafficked or blackmailed.

What about the reference material?
Also, I challenge everyone with a libido to try writing your own erotica.
- So long as it's nothing breaking any laws.
  
  My point is that the reference material used in the production of hentai is very commonly "real life" porn. Doesn't it follow from the premise of porn films being unethical, that works whose production made use of such films are also unethical by extent?
  In other words, for that hentai to be as stimulating as it was, the artist(s) behind it probably had to diligently study dozens of different videos of real-world humans fucking for pay. Is watching one hentai then ethically equivalent to watching twenty-four porn films, because those films — rather, the actors and camera and light and sound technicians etc — all contributed to the hentai's final value, be it directly, semi-directly, or indirectly?
  ...I mean, I don't know, that feels like it leads into discussions about copyright and derivative works under capitalism in general, but I don't really have the brains to poke holes in my own logic right now.