From Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (1986)

If it is not possible to speak with certainty about the family backgrounds of the young women and men who become "models," it nevertheless seems clear what chiefly motivates their decision to appear in sexually explicit material: financial need. As one former model put it when asked why most women enter nude modeling:

    A lot of women are hurt or crazy women under stress. Yes, most women come in under a lot of stress. They're usually desperate when they first come in-maybe they need money for some emergency, like I did, or they've gone as long as they can doing odds and ends or working at (menial) jobs, and they finally just have to pay their bills. I met a woman whose kid was in the hospital, and I met lots of women who were financially strapped. There were also many illegal aliens there who couldn't work regular jobs even if they had the skills because they didn't have their green cards.... [T]hey certainly know how to get you to do what they want. Some women are so bad off that they just go immediately into hard-core films.[984]

Witnesses attributed to pornography their having been coerced into pornographic performances, bound and beaten in direct imitation of pornography, and forcibly imprisoned for the purpose of manufacturing pornography. Although this Commission can neither conclusively determine that pornography caused these physical harms nor conclusively determine that it did not, it was the opinion of the witnesses that pornography played a central role in the pattern of abuse within which they were harmed.

In addition to the myriad of other harms and anti-social effects brought about by obscenity[1175] there is a link between traditional organized crime group involvement in the obscenity business and many other types of criminal activity. Physical violence, injury, prostitution and other forms of sexual abuse are so interlinked in many cases as to be almost inseparable except according to statutory definitions

"Prostitution is the foundation upon which pornography is built.... Pornography cannot exist without prostitution.... It is impossible to separate pornography from prostitution. The acts are identical except in pornography there is a permanent record of the woman's abuse."[1192]

The damage and injuries range from those sustained by performers[1183] forced to engage in physically harmful acts which can often result in permanent injury, [1184] to damage to property,[1185] "knee-breaking"[1186] and arson.[1187]

Narcotics are often distributed to performers who appear in pornographic materials to lower their inhibitions and to create a dependency.[1198] Profits earned by organized crime from pornography sales have been used to finance drug smuggling.[1199]

Even though some performers state that they receive regular medical check-ups,[1028] the odds of contracting sexually transmitted diseases are very high-particularly because performers do not even have the option of using condoms or other "safe sex" techniques.[1029]


Obviously the porn industry has expanded massively since 1986. Does that mean it is any better? I doubt it.

From wikipedia:

In 1949, the United Nations adopted a convention stating that prostitution is incompatible with human dignity, requiring all signing parties to punish pimps and brothel owners and operators, and to abolish all special treatment or registration of prostitutes. The convention was ratified by 89 countries, with the exception of Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States and others.