WE HAVE fair-trade coffee and humanely raised chicken. So why can’t we create a market for ethically sourced pornography? A couple of decades ago, people didn’t give much thought to their food’s provenance. We didn’t care about carbon footprints or the working conditions of the poor Africans who sold us our coffee beans. Slowly, however, consumption habits began to shift under the weight of scientific evidence and cultural change. We’re becoming a little more selective in our consumer choices.
Yet not with that multibillion-dollar elephant in the room: pornography. We hear rumblings here and there about the sexual trafficking of women and children, and it’s always a relief when a criminal ring is busted for what’s euphemistically called “abuse.’’ For a majority of Americans, it’s reassuring to know that whatever was going on in the far reaches of a few sick minds has little to do with their own primitive - but relatively harmless - impulses.
