Presented with one or more of the innumerable crises currently facing our ailing planet, it’s easy to succumb to frustration; to think, “But what can someone like me do to help?” By this one usually means, “What can I do that doesn’t involve giving any money, or sacrificing anything, or looking up from my computer screen?”
To the two most common courses of action – “nothing” and “retweet the outrage of others” – we may now add a third: “watch porn”. From now until the end of the month, Pornhub – a sort of giant online sex video clearing house - is mounting a campaign to save the whales, through its “official philanthropic division”, Pornhub Cares. The oceans, you may have heard, are Not Safe for Whales (or NSFW, as it’s commonly abbreviated), and Pornhub wants to put that right.
For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of the pornography-philanthropy nexus, it works like this: for every 2,000 dirty videos viewed, Pornhub Cares will donate one cent to a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the conservation of whales. Pornhub’s Save the Whales webpage (which is totally Safe For Whales, by the way; just don’t click on the “Blow your load” button) has a video view counter at the bottom which, if accurate, tells us that the whales will net $27,000 by 29 February. Traffic varies, though – it goes up during blizzards, and apparently dropped 10% on the day Fallout 4 was launched. It’s impossible to tell how many of those views were undertaken solely to help whales.
This is not Pornhub’s first philanthropic initiative. In the past the website has launched campaigns to coincide with breast cancer and testicular cancer awareness months. Last year someone was awarded the first annual Pornhub Cares scholarship. Most of its campaigns make liberal use of double entendres designed to cement the connection between masturbation and good works - a tree-planting scheme was called Pornhub Gives America Wood - and this whale initiative is no exception. “We’re now asking our community to turn its attention to - and help save - a different type of blowhole, said Pornhub VP Corey Price, “one that belongs to a majestic species which once swelled in numbers throughout the oceans.” It doesn’t get more heartfelt than that.
Onanism for orcas
You may now be thinking, “What sort of whale preservation organisation accepts large donations from a porn site?” The answer is the Moclips Cetological Society of Washington state, the sole beneficiary of Pornhub Cares’ generosity.
The MCS was founded in 1969, according to Pornhub’s press release, although the organisation was only recently reconstituted in 2014, after being dormant for over a decade. I emailed its president, Ken Balcomb, who confirmed the arrangement. “We do agree to receive contributions from Pornhub and its viewers,” he wrote, perhaps forgetting that they’re not just viewers - they’re a community. He said tax-deductible contributions would be redirected to the Center for Whale Research, which is primarily concerned with orcas in the Pacific Northwest, despite Pornhub’s efforts to shoehorn sperm whales into the story. According to Balcomb the MCS intends to investigate the effects of US navy sonar and bombing exercises in critical whale habitats. “That is really the major obscenity in this issue,” he said.
Shhh! Don’t tell the whales
Balcomb is right: the porn industry may have its remarkably unpleasant side, but there’s no reason for the whales to find out about that. Only time and more further research will reveal whether cetaceans are intelligent enough to refuse charity on principle, or because a particular initiative gave rise to one excruciating double entendre too many.
In the meantime we must ask ourselves this: is it possible to do less in the name of philanthropy? You don’t have to run any distance, or collect any sponsors. The porn itself is free, so you don’t even have to stick your hand in your pocket, although I gather most people … no. For the sake of the whales, this time I’m not going to go there.