Generation Porn

S01E02 Today porn is more easily accessible than ever before. Whether on your computer, laptop or smartphone it’s just a click away. And what’s more, it's free. The world’s biggest porn site, Pornhub, uploaded 1 million hours of new videos to its platform last year. As part of the online explosion, something else has happened in the porn industry. What we once considered to be hardcore has now crept into the mainstream. So it begs the question: is porn starting to change us? 19 year old Gia, from Ohio, moved to LA and has been working as a porn star for 6 months. She specialises in extreme content and is already making around $4-6,000 a month. Gia is part of a generation for whom porn has become normalised - this is a job she’s aspired to since she began watching adult movies when she was 12. Among the companies Gia works for is Evil Angel. 35 years ago it’s founder John Stagliano pioneered “Gonzo”, an extreme point-of-view porn that places the audience in the position of the male performer. It used to be niche but today it’s the dominant style in porn. In the offices of Evil Angel we meet employee Fallon, a photo editor, who’s becoming increasingly disturbed by the extreme images she’s seeing every day. In the UK we meet people who are watching hardcore porn. Rob became addicted to pornography. Things became so bad that his wife Lydia had to ‘police’ him using a mobile app which would flag if Rob attempted to search for adult content. We’ll hear from young men who’ve grown up watching porn and continue to do so on a daily basis. And we meet Tracy, a woman who watches porn with her partner but worries if the way he’s watching it borders on being unfaithful. For 19 year old newcomer Gia, the extreme nature of the porn she’s making could be having long term physical consequences, but as we spend time with her and hear her story we understand it is a world in which she feels accepted for the first time in her life.