Mr Jon Ronson's new audio series explores what the rise of Pornhub did to the adult industry.

For the past few years, author and journalist Mr Jon Ronson has been thinking about consequences. Particularly in relation to how we behave online. It’s a line of thought that was sparked by the writing of his 2015 book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, which told the stories of men and women whose minor missteps became inflated to life-ruining proportions thanks to moral outrage on social media. In these cases, of course, he discovered that the consequences of a transgression in the digital age can often become far more severe than the transgression itself. But while talking to people who persecuted the transgressors, he discovered something else: that for the most part, we don’t like to seriously think about the consequences of what we do online.

“I interviewed this guy – a Gawker journalist – who started an online onslaught against this woman,” he says. “I asked him how it felt to have started this, and he said it felt ‘delicious’. And then he said, ‘But I’m sure she’s OK now, I’m sure she’s fine.’ I happened to know that she wasn’t.”

And so we come to Mr Ronson’s latest project, The Butterfly Effect, an original audio documentary for Audible, which focuses on a particularly uncomfortable set of consequences: the enduring influence of free, streaming online porn, and particular, the website Pornhub. Starting with an interview with Mr Fabian Thylmann – a German tech mogul who from 2010 turned Pornhub into the world’s largest and most influential adult website – Mr Ronson spends the series’ seven-episode run talking to people whose lives have been deeply affected by the presence of free (and pirated) online porn, from the obvious (the performers and producers, many of whom are making one-off bespoke films for private clients to make ends meet) to the less so (the family of a Southern Baptist pastor; a Norwegian stamp collector; a manufacturer of lifelike sex dolls). The stories he uncovers are not only weird and fascinating, they’re often strangely touching, tempered as they are by Mr Ronson’s charming curiosity and uncanny ability to get people to open up, even about this, somewhat sensitive topic. Below, he talks to MR PORTER about making the series.

Do you think the mainstream has a lack of empathy when it comes to porn?

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Yes, but not just the mainstream media – a lot of porn users as well. Towards the end of the series I talk to this woman, Dakota, who is in a radical honesty group. She’s confessing to her porn addiction. And I say to her, “Do you ever think about the lives of the porn people?” And she says, “No, because it’s like when you kill a deer… you don’t name it because then you can’t eat it.” So in some ways that’s porn... There’s definitely a bunch of people, some sectors of the feminist community, the anti-slut-shaming community and the sex-positive community, who see porn people in a humanistic, empathetic way. But there’s still a lot of stigma. I think most mainstream journalists, if they enter into porn, will come out with some sort of pitying or judgmental story. Whereas I think I’ve come out with a kind and heartfelt, and somehow weirdly lovely story.

The show is all about the consequences of Pornhub. What were the most surprising consequences for you?

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Probably the most upbeat one was the rise of bespoke porn and the extraordinary relationship between the porn producers and their clients. I thought that was just so strange. Such an amazing insight into people’s inner lives. It was like therapy for everyone, the clients and the producers. And it was just so sweet and endearing. So I think that’s my favourite story from the series.

Were there any leads you wanted to follow up but couldn’t?

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One story I suppose I could have done would have been the rise of escorting. I think porn people have always escorted, but everybody told me that there’d been a huge rise in escorting, because of Pornhub and piracy and the tech takeover of porn. I could have done more on that and I didn’t for two reasons. First, I don’t think I would have got any clients to talk, that would have been very difficult. Escorts and escort agencies are very discreet, they wouldn’t have given out too much information. And then the other reason is when I stumbled on the bespoke porn world, I thought: it’s similar because it’s about one-on-one interaction between porn people and their fans, but it’s so much more surprising.

**Do you think the audio format helps you to tell a more empathetic story about this industry? **

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At the beginning, I didn’t think it had to be audio… I did it as an audio series because that was the offer that was on the table at the time. But in retrospect, not seeing sex taking place means that the series is about something else other than sex. I never really wanted this to be a series about sex, I wanted it to be a series about people and relationships and consequences, so it helps that you’re not filming on porn sets.

Do you feel like you changed Mr Thylmann’s opinion of what he has done, and the consequences of it?

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I’d say he’s probably… He doesn’t give that many interviews. He took a lot of convincing. He wasn’t an easy interviewee.

How did you get him to do it?

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I think the timing was right. For many years, he couldn’t talk because he was embroiled in legal difficulties. So the fact that it was me, and I’ve got quite a good reputation and I am seen as quite highfalutin. Coupled with the timing, that he can talk now, and he couldn’t before. And he was game, you know, he only got annoyed once, which was when me and [porn director] Mike Quasar kind of ganged up on him. In many hours of interviews, that was the only time he lost his temper. And when we asked for his consent to use the interview, he was totally game, you know, “Yes of course, it’s been fun.” So I’m grateful to him. And I don’t think there’ll be any hidden surprises.

The Butterfly Effect is available to download for free, exclusively at audible.co.uk/butterflyeffect