NEW YORK – A PornHub pop up shop recently opened in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. In response, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), the National Organization for Women-New York (NOW-NY) and feminist author and leader Gloria Steinem held a press conference on Dec. 8 to highlight “the detrimental impact the PornHub pop-up shop has on our culture.” Protesters also called on elected officials to halt the expansion of more porn-related pop ups in the city.

Not everyone is opposed to the pop up. The New York Daily News reported excited shoppers visiting the shop’s Black Friday opening. The New York Times described it as an antidote to the dearth of smut in the city, and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office brushed it off as not that interesting.

But Melanie Thompson, reported by PIX11, disagreed. Thompson was kidnapped and sexually assaulted at age twelve. She said the internet is one of the biggest platforms of exploitation and believes the store ignores “the dark side of pornography.” Protesters including Thompson asserted that the physical presence of PornHub — an “internet warehouse of graphic, violent pornographic videos” — promotes and normalizes sexual violence against women and girls.

Though her history is undeniably tragic, Thompson and her co-protestors conflate sexual exploitation, trafficking and other illegal behavior occurring in wider society with porn consumption, as well as with professional adult content production and distribution.

Without question, PornHub engages many policies and practices wherein critics could take issue. Conflating issues such as sex trafficking – a terrible crime – with things like disparate tastes in erotica, however, is counterproductive on many levels. In addition to being paternalistic, over-reaching and retrograde, this sort of demonstration detracts from actual instances of exploitation, trafficking and more.

CATW and NOW-NY would be better served by actually reaching out to survivors with services, as well as engaging known preventative measures. Developing media savvy around sex depictions and fostering education and awareness around sexuality and sex behaviors are only two ways in which these organizations’ time and resources could be better spent.

Instead, they have served to draw even more attention to PornHub’s most recent PR stunt, as well as catapulting the mainstream feminist standpoint further into outer space.

PornHub’s pop up will close on Dec. 20.

Image via Dan Kim.