Updated June 4, 2025 at 7:00 p.m.*
Reading an essay by Jorge Dioni López is always bound to spark something. His sharp wit and writing slice through the big questions of our time.
Back in 2021, his first book, La España de las piscinas, examined how neoliberal urban planning reshaped not only our way of living, but also our way of voting. Two years later, in La enfermedad de las ciudades, he turned his focus to the housing crisis and gentrification — outcomes of urban policies crafted to serve big capital.
In Pornocracy, his latest book, Dioni turns to a different approach to make sense of our current condition: by exploring pornography. Anxiety, insecurity, technological overload, existential emptiness — even the rising wave of cruelty that Spanish artist Mauro Entrialgo calls “evilism” — he traces it all back to porn.
It’s not that we don’t already know this, he argues, it’s that we’re too ashamed to say it out loud. Porn, and its viral spread across the internet, has shaped modern culture in ways we’re only just beginning to grasp.
LA MAREA: When did you realize porn could explain the malaise we’re feeling?
JORGE DIONI LÓPEZ: Tough one. If I had to pick a moment, I’d say sometime after the 15-M anti-austerity movement, when people started putting their faith in social media and the internet. What we didn’t know back then is that what connected us would also open the door to platforms that jeopardize work, expand capitalism, and fuel wealth accumulation. The internet was supposed to let everyone create and distribute their own stuff. In the end, monopolies won. Look at porn: actresses who used to work for traditional studios moved online to produce their own content. Did they come out ahead? No. Just two companies ended up dominating the whole market.
You say digital porn has normalized more extreme practices — and that this has bled into society at large.
Yes, though I wouldn’t say one caused the other — it’s more that they feed off each other. American Psycho and Fight Club, both nearly 30 years old, already gave us stories steeped in brutal competition, cynicism, and total lack of empathy. That mindset has gone mainstream. That mindset has gone mainstream.
Capitalism exploits you until you drop.
It’s the same with porn: What used to be niche or fringe is now front and center. Back in the day, at a video store or sex shop, you’d find the “regular” stuff upfront, and the hardcore material — violence, scat, bestiality — hidden in the back. Now it all lives side by side on the same digital shelf. Scroll endlessly and you’ll move seamlessly from one category to another. So how do you stand out? You push the limits: eight men-one woman, increasingly extreme acts, one after another.
And it seeps into real life. After reading the book, some women told me: “Now I finally understand why my partner wanted to do that. I found it confusing before. Now I get it.”
You write that consent doesn’t eliminate exploitation. In fact, it can amplify it.
If you look at the careers of actresses now, they’re shorter — but they make way more films. Why? Because they’re told, “You’ve got limited time, make the most of it, work faster.” It leads to this pressure to become your own brand: create your own content, set up your own webcam, film your videos, engage with your subscribers. It’s a 24/7 job. No schedule. No boss. Some may call it freedom.
Isn’t that what the left always wanted? Ownership of the means of production? Where did we go wrong?
We didn’t. The thing is, in this new world, what really matters are the distribution channels. Movement is power. Maybe in the future, we’ll need to fight to take control of data centers, fiber-optic cables, and so on.
It’s hard not to feel hopeless. If we have to produce constantly, and capitalism is all about endless growth, where does that leave us?
I don’t want to sound too bleak… [laughs] but yeah, that’s where we are. Whether you’re doing an online porn show or working on a factory line in Thailand, it makes no difference. Capitalism has always had a death drive. It exploits you until you drop. Even in its so-called golden years, it only gave workers just enough to survive. The welfare state was never about dignity — it was about keeping the workforce alive. “Let’s keep them healthy enough to keep the factory running.” It’s never been about recognizing workers as human beings.
Why does having everything just a click away make us feel worse, not better?
Well, French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has a theory: He says that desire is driven by the obstacle. That resonates with me because storytelling works the same way. In fiction, a character wants something and something gets in their way. No obstacle? No story.
Nobody wants to be Hugh Grant, Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio anymore. Rocco’s the model.
It doesn’t have to be a dragon: it can be time, for instance. Two people love each other, but only have two hours together. That’s gut-wrenching. Think of Brief Encounter (1945), An Affair to Remember (1957), Before Sunrise (1995). The obstacle is what creates tension. Without it, we get bored. That’s what happens with too much choice: it becomes overwhelming. Human beings can’t handle it.
Like when you scroll through Netflix and end up watching nothing.
Exactly. And like in bookstores, too. There’s so much choice, it’s paralyzing. Sometimes I only look at the staff picks just to avoid getting lost. There’s this overload.
But going back to Lacan: limits spark desire. Restrictions spark creativity. When I give students writing prompts like “Write anything,” that always stumps them. But if I say “Write a 600-word story about a rainstorm” — they’re off. It’s the same with sex. Constraints make it erotic.
Up until the 1990s, porn films focused mostly on the actresses. What changed?
Production got cheaper, more accessible, and men, who have always had the symbolic power in the scene, picked up the camera. Suddenly, they were actor, producer, director, screenwriter, and always the star. Early digital porn felt like a game show: lots of contestants, but only one host. Same format, over and over, just with different actresses.
That creates a dynamic where the viewer identifies with the man. You can see that in the number of Rocco Siffredi knockoffs out there: soccer players, reggaeton singers, guys on reality shows — they all play the same part. Nobody wants to be Hugh Grant, Brad Pitt, or Leonardo DiCaprio anymore. Rocco’s the model.
It’s especially noticeable in reality shows. All the men seem cut from the same mold, even if they’re too young to know who Rocco Siffredi is. And around that, a whole aesthetic has developed: male dominance.
Exactly. Domination, lack of empathy, “I’ll grab you by the hair and take control.” And when you hear about certain assaults, it’s hard not to think: “This guy has watched way too much porn.” That’s it. But porn also causes insecurity in men. Young guys today feel they need a certain body, a certain size. That wasn’t the case when I was 20. I had a worse physique back then than I do now, and I never once felt insecure about getting undressed. Now, that kind of anxiety is everywhere.
Men have always raped. We didn’t need porn to do it.
If porn is the only sex ed teenagers are getting, what does that do? Or rather, what is it already doing?
I think we put too much blame on porn for things like gang rapes. Let’s be honest, men have always raped. We didn’t need porn to do it. When we build a monster and pin everything on it…
…we let ourselves off the hook.
Exactly. If porn is to blame, men aren’t. But look: if you start closing courts, defunding support centers for victims, writing lenient verdicts, cutting specialist police units, that sends a message to women. And that message is: “We don’t care.” That’s way more damaging than anything porn can say. Because it’s coming from the institutions.
Why doesn’t the conservative right take an anti-porn stance anymore?
Because it doesn’t exist anymore. What we have now is a conservative left — trying to defend labor rights and public services. And once those are gone, maybe we’ll see a revolutionary left again. Maybe.
But the right figured out long ago that it’s more effective to put on a show, stoke resentment and fear, than actually govern. Guillem Martínez, a writer and a journalist, says politicians today don’t have a social function. They’re not even managers anymore. They’re content creators. Maybe auctioneers, at best. But definitely not planners.
I laughed when you said conservative thinking died in 1998.
[Laughs] Yeah! That’s when Viagra came out. Suddenly, time stood still. Back then, you aged and let go of your libido. Oscar Wilde has this great line: “Young men want to be faithful, and are not. Old men want to be faithless, and cannot.” That’s why they defend fidelity. That’s classic conservative thinking. Then along came Viagra. Then Berlusconi and his bunga bunga parties. And just like that, the old-school conservative mindset — “Christian Democrat,” call it what you will — was over.
*Originally published June 1, 2025, this article was updated June 4, 2025 with enriched media.
