DISCLAIMER: Never share or distribute scenes or movies involving child pornography of any sort. Distributing these scenes to raise awareness can cause further victimization of children and may have legal consequences. Report child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

My husband accidentally showed me child pornography.

It happened a couple of years ago, when we first started dating. We were in that “getting to know you” stage and would frequently choose our own favorite movies to show the other when we went on dates. My husband decided on Moonrise Kingdom, thinking it would be right up my alley since I love coming-of-age stories. I understand why: Moonrise Kingdom is a poignant, critically acclaimed, visually stunning movie that paints a very realistic portrayal of the complicated emotions children experience when they are in the process of exploring their own growing independence. I was captivated by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s skillful storytelling, until the scene.

The two lead actors, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, were both twelve years old at the time of filming. I didn’t know this at the time. All I knew is that there were two children stripping down to their underwear on camera and French kissing each other. The young girl says that the boy “feels hard,” but that she likes it. The boy gropes the girl’s chest and the girl says she thinks they’re going to grow more.

I have post-traumatic stress disorder partly from childhood sexual assault. When I saw that scene for the first time, I felt like someone was sitting inside of my ribcage. I felt like I was suffocating under the weight of what I had just witnessed: two children being exploited in a public and permanent way. I sobbed so hard that we had to stop the movie.

“Anderson would have to get their parents’ permission, first,” my husband said. “He wouldn’t be able to do it without their consent.” My husband has always been incredibly sensitive and supportive toward my PTSD. He checks movies with me before we watch them to make sure they don’t have sexual content or nudity that might trigger a panic attack. When we decided to watch Moonrise Kingdom, he told me that I would have no problems watching it: since the main actors were children, the film contained no sex or nudity. I felt furious at my husband for showing me two children involved in a sexually exploitative scene. But beyond that, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t see anything wrong with it.

When I saw that scene for the first time, I felt like someone was sitting inside of my ribcage.
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Maricsa Evans, a licensed marriage and family therapist, explains that “Introducing children to sexualized behavior at an early age causes a lot of problems later on developmentally, emotionally, and mentally.” According to Evans, the children’s lack of ability to fully understand the situations they are being exposed to can lead to serious developmental problems, such as engaging in reckless sexual behaviors from a young age. “If they feel traumatized or violated from experiences like this, it can lead to dangerous behaviors such as drug addiction or emotional distress where they need to have mental health services,” Evans said. Later on, if the children become uncomfortable or feel that they were unable to truly consent, it can cause them to have a troubled or negative relationship with their own sexuality or even lead to disorders such as PTSD.

Considering that children are not able to consent to these scenes, their parents shouldn’t have the right to consent on their behalf. “It’s exploitation of your children,” Evans said. “That in itself is child pornography.”

Federal child pornography laws, as specified in 18 U.S.C. § 2258 (b), apply to “any parent, legal guardian, or person having custody or control of a minor who knowingly permits such minor to engage in, or to assist any other person to engage in, sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct or for the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct.” Child pornography is defined as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving children under the age of eighteen. According to federal law, the scene in Moonrise Kingdom falls squarely under child pornography. Why, then, were no lawsuits filed over this movie?

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When it comes to pornography, many people still subscribe to Justice Potter Stewart’s statement, “I know it when I see it.” In the case of Moonrise Kingdom, people fail to question whether the film constitutes as child pornography simply because it seems so “artistic.” Anderson relies on his signature storybook cinematography to entice viewers to feel detached from reality. Due to the soft fairytale aesthetics in Moonrise Kingdom, people are reminded that it is just a movie—thus, “art” and not pornography. Furthermore, people rarely question the scene because the children are engaging in exploratory behavior. “There is a normal developmental curiosity with children when it comes to sex,” Evans said. However, this behavior is never something an adult should facilitate—especially not for a film.

People are now opening up the discussion of films that include child pornography after Netflix began streaming Diego Kaplan’s 2017 film Desire. Viewers were outraged by the opening scene of Desire, which features two girls under the age of ten playing with pillows while watching a cowboy movie. One of the girls, mimicking the cowboy riding on a horse, begins to masturbate on the pillow. She eventually reaches orgasm. After Netflix’s choice to stream the film sparked such controversy, Kaplan released a statement defending the scene:

The girls never understood what they were doing, they were just copying what they were seeing on the screen. No adult interacted with the girls, other than the child acting coach. Everything was done under the careful surveillance of the girls’ mothers.

This defense misses the point entirely. If the children are too young to understand what they are doing, they are too young to consent to these behaviors. “Children involved in these situations might start questioning themselves: ‘What does that mean? What does that mean about me?’” Evans said. “A lot of doubt and questioning about themselves is going to happen, which is why certain things shouldn’t be introduced to kids too early in their life. It can impact their ability to trust their parents later on if they feel like their parents made the wrong calls protecting them, they’ll have a hard time trusting anyone.” This situation can be damaging to the young actress if she grows up and feels violated by what she was asked to do for the film.

In the case of Moonrise Kingdom, people fail to question whether the film constitutes as child pornography simply because it seems so artistic.
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These consequences become even more disturbing when I considered what Anderson was actually trying to accomplish with the kissing scene in Moonrise Kingdom. Gilman stated that in the month before filming began, Wes Anderson wanted him and Hayward to exchange letters in the style of the “Dear Sam”/”Dear Suzy” letters. He also said that they did not rehearse the kissing scene beforehand. The scene was both of the actors’ first kiss and, as Gilman explained, “Wes wanted it to be authentic.” Hayward further noted, “Wes wanted it to be these two kids’ first kiss. So that’s how we did that.” Gilman also noted that, for the sake of their privacy, they were given a closed set for filming.

Closed sets are used for actors who are filming scenes that involve nudity or sexual activity that they might want a greater deal of privacy for. A child actor should not need a closed set because a child actor should never be put in the same position adult actors are in when they require closed sets.

It is clear from the beginning that Anderson wanted to foster a certain kind of relationship between the two children. Gilman stated that he e-mailed Hayward at first, but then Anderson decided that the actual act of writing letters was important to help the actors get in character. Anderson did not want the children to act out a scene of two characters’ first kisses: he wanted to create and capture a real sexual experience between these two children. And regardless of whether parents or filmmakers intended on pressuring these children, the pressure of this being a job can make it even more difficult for the children to feel comfortable about the decisions their parents made for them.

How, then, can filmmakers responsibly tell coming-of-age stories? The rules are pretty simple. “Filmmakers have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect children from scenes involving touching, nakedness, and implications of sexuality,” Evans said. “I feel they have a higher call to prevent this type of thing from happening. Children should never be in real sexual situations for these movies.” Parents have an even greater responsibility to protect their children by not consenting on behalf of them for scenes that can be developmentally damaging.

“Parents should not let anything slightly related to a sexual encounter guide them to do anything but protect their children and others that are out there,” Evans said. “If no one else, your own children.”

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However, there are ways of telling stories about childhood sexuality without harming children. Gregg Araki’s film Mysterious Skin tells the coming-of-age story of two boys, one of whom is molested as a child and becomes a sex worker as he grows up. It’s a graphic, NC-17 rated film that has no issues depicting adult sexuality—but the filmmakers were careful to protect children when shooting scenes that had to imply child sexual abuse. In one scene, it is implied that an adult man is about to engage in sexual acts with a young boy. In order to accomplish this, the scene relies on close-ups of the actors faces that imply physical contact that is never actually depicted. This technique approximates intimacy between the actors without involving any actual interactions between them. By approaching the scene this way, the filmmakers ensured that they would not have to compromise their artistic expression when treating the scene—and the young actor—with the sensitivity they deserve.

Recent movies Love, Simon and Edge of Seventeen also create beautiful coming-of-age stories without featuring scenes of sexuality. The use of clever dialogue and imagery capture the relatable conflicts growing up. Teens in these movies experience the excitement and awkwardness of growing up, and struggle with trying to embrace an adult world they aren’t quite ready for while learning how to assert their independence and autonomy. Much of the beauty in these movies lies in the dialogue, which expresses the teens unique experiences with love, fear, and confusion in ways that are raw and nuanced.  

Dialogue, imagery, and point-of-view narration are just three tools that filmmakers can use to create poignant and realistic coming-of-age stories. Children should never have to be in legitimate sexual situations on camera. “It’s child pornography,” Evans stated. “No one should be able to consent to children doing sexual acts on camera.”

Thirteen years ago, Erika Lust, a political science graduate who specialized in gender studies, decided to start making porn films. Frustrated by the tacky, chauvinistic content of mainstream porn, she wanted to see if it was possible to make a different kind of adult film — one that focused on story, characters, and the female gaze. Since then, she has since gone on to create over 100 highly crafted, ethically produced porn films, a host of which have won awards.

Her latest project is a continuation of her engagement with dominant porn culture — but from a decidedly different angle. Inspired by her role as a mother, and her desire to give something back in her area of expertise, she and her husband Pablo Dobner launched The Porn Conversation, a nonprofit initiative that aims to help parents talk to their children about porn. The website offers age-specific guides, starting with kids under 11 years old, that were put together in consultation with parents, sexologists, and psychologists, as well as other tools and resources for parents and educators.

I interviewed Erika in Berlin, where she recently spoke about The Porn Conversation at Tech Open Air, an interdisciplinary festival that brings together technology, arts, and culture.

Madhvi Ramani: Why is it important for parents to have “the porn conversation” with their children?

Erika Lust: Porn is part of the reality we live in. It has grown enormously in the last 10 years, because of the internet and the proliferation of porn tubes [free porn sites that do not require registration], which are the biggest part of pornography today. The kind of content available on these porn tubes is highly racist, misogynistic, and chauvinistic. It is something that parents can’t ignore because children, at a very early age, are coming across this content online. They are going to find it, and look at it, and it’s going to influence their perceptions about sexuality and gender roles. So, if parents talk to their children before or during this time of discovery, they can help them think more analytically and critically about the images they are seeing.

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Madhvi: Do you think porn should be part of sex education in schools?

Erika: Yes. I think it’s absolutely necessary. I’m not saying that classes should watch porn and learn from porn. You would teach it in the same way you teach kids about alcohol without having them drinking it. We don’t have to delve into every single genre of porn. We just need to touch on the subject, acknowledge it exists, ask children if they have been watching it, and if they realize what kinds of structures and values there are in it.

It’s a basic fact that sex education in so many countries and so many schools does not go deep enough for most young people, so what kids do is go online, look at porn, and think they learned about sex. Porn has become today’s sex education. And unlike most adults, who have had actual sexual experiences, kids don’t realize that sex is not equal to porn. More and more, I am seeing people who have already watched hundreds of hours of pornography before they have their first sexual encounter. They think that having sex is doing the same things that the porn stars are doing so they get very frustrated, because they don’t really understand how normal sexual encounters work.

Madhvi: Describe what you think a typical classroom lesson on porn for, say, 9-year-olds would entail.

Erika: I would say the best age is fifth grade, 10-year-old boys and girls. I think that the talk should evolve around the internet, the good and the bad things. I’d tell them that those films and tubes are not intended for them, because they are minors. And I would encourage them to talk with an adult if they find explicit sexual content online. I would also warn them that what’s displayed on those tubes is not an accurate representation of human sexuality, which is richer and more complex.

Madhvi: Any other tips for teachers on approaching the topic in school?

Erika: Do not blame, do not shame. If you take the drama away from the talk, they will feel that porn is not such a big thing. At that age they trust adults, and if we explain things with patience and love, they will trust us in return with if and when they find porn online.

Madhvi: There seems to be a disconnect between the amount of violence we can legally expose young people to — in films and video games — and the amount of sexual content we are comfortable with in society, which could explain why so many young people turn to online porn. Do you think there is space for more sexually explicit content for teens or even a kind of porn for teens?

Erika: I think there could be a kind of erotic content for them, where they could see how people relate to each other sexually, which you can definitely do without showing any explicit sex. There might be a market for that kind of material, although it’s not what I’m doing.

It would be interesting to see more real situations portrayed between younger actors and actresses. I made a short film called Coming Of Age, with two performers who were 22. I normally work with older people, because I am interested in telling stories about people who have already had a sexual life. But this film was part of my XConfessions series, where people write to me with their fantasies and I make films out of them. One young girl wrote to me asking for something where young people were together in a natural way, because all she saw online was horrible teen porn, and younger girls with older men. It’s never teens with teens.

Madhvi: Talking about sex is an awkward conversation for many parents, let alone talking about porn. What are your tips for how to approach this conversation as a parent?

Erika: It’s important to remember that this is not just a five-minute talk. When we started this [Porn Conversation] project, we were going to call it The Porn Talk, but then we reconsidered, because it’s not a talk, it’s a conversation that has to happen over a longer period of time. You can find various ways to start it without making a big deal out of it. For example, depending on the age of your child, you could say, “Lately I’ve been getting some ugly pop-ups on the computer. Has this happened to you?” Or if you’re very afraid of doing it, you could get someone to help you out. Maybe invite a friend to dinner, and get them to start a conversation with your son or daughter.

Madhvi: You have two daughters. How is your conversation going with them?

Erika: Right now, they are very interested in feminism and are trying to figure out the difference between what is sexy and what is chauvinistic. It’s difficult as a mother to try to tell them about sex positiveness and that being sexy and feeling sexy is okay, but that objectifying women is not okay. It’s very complicated to see the boundaries between these things. My 9-year-old daughter is interested in video games, and she gets upset every time she sees a female heroine in bikini.

She always comes to me and says, “Why doesn’t she want to protect herself if she’s going into the jungle?” It doesn’t make sense to her. I taught her to think critically, and this is exactly what we need to do with younger generations. So I hope that by the time she gets to the point where she does come across porn, she will be intellectually prepared to judge the kind of images she finds for herself.

Madhvi: What kind of feedback have you had from parents who have used your site?

Erika: I have had many emails from parents saying, “Thank you so much for bringing my attention to this, because I felt I had to address it, but didn’t really know how, or when, or why — especially when.” Most parents think that this is probably a topic they should tackle when their children are 13 or 14, but then they realize that I am right when I say that children as young as 9 have access to technology where they can stumble upon pornographic content. They say, “Thanks for warning me, because I was not prepared for this. She was a baby and now she is looking at Harry Potter’s magic wand — and it’s not a wand.”

Parents appreciate the guidance. There are so many new subjects on the table when it comes to technology and sex. You need to inform children about grooming, about sexting, that the person contacting them on social media might not be who they say they are. The porn conversation is part of a very important internet conversation that parents should have with their children.

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Madhvi: How did you come up with the guides for different age groups?

Erika: We collaborated with many people. We talked to a lot of parents with kids of different ages to get their experiences and find out what they thought, as well as a range of psychologists and sexologists. All the professionals today — sexologists, psychologists, etc. — say you should start talking to children about sex from a very early age. You cannot wait too long to talk about sex because then they get to the embarrassment age and they won’t want to discuss it. Most kids, even when they are 4 or 5, start touching themselves. In this situation, the most important thing is to not shame them. They do it naturally. So you just have to explain that maybe they should do it in their rooms, and not in front of everyone in the living room.

Madhvi: With the growth of online porn, and new technology, such as virtual reality, what do you think the future of sex entertainment is?

Erika: As a filmmaker, I feel like virtual reality is a totally different media. I work with framing and lighting and storytelling, whereas VR is a different experience.

As for the future of sex and porn, I hope for more awareness. I think the porn industry is going the same way as the food industry in that people are becoming more responsible consumers. I hope that people will start to ask who is behind the content they are consuming, how it’s produced, and whether it is pirated. I hope for more diversity, so that different people, with different sexualities and preferences, can see themselves represented in an honest and correct way without having to be fetishized as a group.

I am a cinema aficionado. I love to watch a movie that has been crafted with passion and thought, and I hope that in porn we can see other visual creators getting [involved]. And I believe in female participation. We’ve changed other areas — politics, advertising, etc. — so if we get more women into porn, I am confident that we can change [the porn industry], too. I think that if we raise awareness about porn, people will think about it, and make better choices.

Madhvi: What are your plans for the site?

Erika: Our original idea was just to put up an informative website. At first it was only available in Spanish and English, and now it’s in French, German, and Italian, too. We’ve talked about adding a part where people can share their experiences, and we are working on a section where you can find sexologists and other people in your area who can help you with this process.

The Establishment is the proud home of sex, gender, love, kink, and what-the-hell-is-that-all-about podcast “Why Are People Into That?!” hosted by educator, activist, and media maven Tina Horn. (Listen to previous episodes on the kinky pleasure of getting inked, the glory of bodily fluids with Jenny Zhang, and the leather-studded world of BDSM with dominatrix Troy Orleans!)

In this episode and accompanying essay, you’ll hear from kinky porn power couple Maitresse Madeline Marlowe and Will Havoc discussing the technical, romantic, artistic, and queer potential of creating the bodily wonder that is gang bang porn.

— LISTEN TO PART 1 OF THE PODCAST —

— LISTEN TO PART 2 OF THE PODCAST —

In February of this year, I traveled to San Francisco to stay at the Kink.com Armory and report on the final week of porn production there. During a break from observing and interviewing, I had brunch with two of my oldest friends from Oakland—Dylan and Isobelle—whose band Vvd Wndws makes the moody disco theme music for Why Are People Into That?!.

Over scrambled eggs and black coffee, I told them about the shoot I would be attending the next day; it was for the site Hard Core Gang Bang. Directed by Maitresse Madeline Marlowe, the sex scene would feature five male performers topping one female performer, Amber Ivy. She would be sucking all of their dicks, then having vaginal and anal sex with each of the men, sometimes all at once in various configurations. There would be bondage and verbal degradation, double penetration, and facial cum shots.

The site’s entire conceit is based on the real sexual fantasy of the women involved. Amber’s fantasy was to play the role of Audrey Horne in a surreal Twin Peaks parody.

Gang bangs are some of the trickiest sex performances to choreograph; the result is a frenzied cacophony of limbs and genitals designed to overstimulate the viewer. It also happens to be my favorite kind of porn to watch while masturbating.

Seeing a woman accept all that stimulation, all that flesh, fills me with arousing wonder. It’s like the old joke about the reason straight men like girl-on-girl porn: “I agree with both of them.” When I watch a gang bang I agree with the woman who wants all the dicks in her mouth, her cunt, and her ass; and, I agree with the men who find this beautiful woman irresistible.

Gang bangs are some of the trickiest sex performances to choreograph.
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Dylan and Isobelle were curious about the work I was doing, but Isobelle told me she was very disturbed by the concept of a gang bang. I was surprised by her reaction. I have grown to have a very positive association with the term. This is partially to do with coming up in a community of sex workers, who might commonly say, “I’ve gotta get some sleep, guys, I have an early call for a gang bang tomorrow!”

A good friend of mine recently exorcised some post-divorce emotional demons by staging a Satanic wedding gang bang. But it’s also from running with leather pervert crowds, where clubs like the Gang Bang Girls will arrange group sex scenarios with the same careful attention to detail of friends planning a surprise birthday party. When I think gang bang, I think of sporting envelope-pushing fun with friends.

To Isobelle though, and probably to many others, gang bang is not a pleasant term. It evokes violation, humiliation, and assault. A non-porn, non-kinky gang bang means rape. Rape as conspiracy, rape as ritual, rape as social camaraderie, rape as a bonding experience for rapists. The fear of masculine power is a very real fear many of us live with every day. The truth, which can be uncomfortable, is that fear and arousal are inextricably linked.

The scenes depicted on Hard Core Gang Bang are not rape. They are defined by the “magic key” of consent, as Rush Limbaugh recent put it. He meant it sarcastically, but actually provided a tidy guide to group sex ethics: “If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it’s perfectly fine.”

The night before her Twin Peaks scene, I asked Amber if she was nervous about shooting her first gang bang. For her, there was an appealing promise of being the center of all the erotic attention.

“I love group sex,” she said. “Everyone is on their own level, but you can meet someone where they’re at and experience another person and another feeling. I think being the focal point is the charm of it all. I like men swooning over me.”

Maitresse Madeline shoots gang bangs for a living, and she says she loves the dance of a special group of people collaborating with their bodies. One of the men she works with most often is her real-life partner Will Havoc. The morning after the shoot, we met to record a podcast episode about their art and livelihood.

Asked what she likes about facilitating these fantasies for female performers, Madeline says:

“I love seeing the woman going from pristine and on a pedestal to the end when she’s just destroyed, covered in cum like a toaster strudel, hair a mess, eye makeup running down, clothes ripped off, adrenaline pumping. I look at her in that moment and I see the huge smile on her face. Her power is thick in the air.”

Madeline is one of the most creative pornographers I’ve ever met. She takes time to get the art direction details right. She writes scripts, requiring porn stars to memorize actual lines and get into actual character. Sitting behind the lights to watch her direct Amber, Will, and four other experienced bangers, I knew I was in the presence of a great conductor.

And for those who may think gang bang porn literally recreates the subjugation of women, Will has a different perspective:

“Sure it’s macho sometimes, and that can be fun,” he tells me. However, not all male porn stars will do this kind of scene, and he suspects it’s because it’s more than a little homoerotic.

“We have a female performer friend,” Will says, “who once told me she likes to rub the dicks together just a little extra in her mouth.”