Inside Ukraine's Fight to Legalize Pornography

While Ukraine continues to defend itself in the ongoing war against Russia, adult creators and activists are defending themselves against corruption, fines, imprisonment and social condemnation. Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria are the only three European countries that ban the production and distribution of pornography, with Ukraine strictly adhering to the punishments for those accused. Even in wartime, Ukraine has made a point of making an example of those who are usually just trying to make a living. 

A Ukrainian adult performer, who uses the name Velma for privacy, started out in the adult content creation space by social media managing for an agency on OnlyFans. Eventually, she became curious and wanted to put herself in front of the camera for a change. While she enjoyed the work and the financial windfall it brought her, Velma says she became scared. She noticed that a growing number of her adult content-creating friends were getting arrested or forced to give up their hard-earned cash to bribe their would-be arresting officers. 

“I know many models who stopped working, but they still face legal problems because of content they created years ago,” said Velma.

 Since pornography cases are so easy to “investigate” and take little time to finish, officers have been prosecuting offenders en masse as a quick way of improving their conviction rates. Over 1,400 cases dealing with the distribution or production of adult content were introduced by prosecutors last year alone, but some cases don’t even make it to court.

It’s a common practice for arresting officers to be aggressive, up to and including slamming through doors and pushing suspects to the floor, treating them like high-risk, violent criminals. Once they’ve made their arrest, the officers will quickly and forcefully get their suspect to sign either a confession or a bribe. Bribes vary and can be as low as $200 or as high as $30,000, depending on the officer and the severity of the offense. Additionally, a signed confession closes the case swiftly and helps the officer’s case closure rate. 

Some of the people arresting suspected adult content creators aren’t even officers. Velma said that one of her OnlyFans cohorts was forcibly placed into a car by a police officer and non-uniformed “friends” of the officer. The officer and his friends threatened Velma’s colleague, saying she’d have “problems” if she didn’t pay them a bribe in under three days.

Ukraine is working through its problems with corrupt police officers, and has arrested many senior officers accused of taking bribes to protect adult content studios from prosecution. However, corruption remains pretty ubiquitous. Ihor Samokhodskyi, who was part of a coalition that drafted the first piece of legislation aimed at decriminalizing pornography in 2022, says that only a complete reversal of the porn ban will stop these frequent, illegitimate raids. 

 While an uphill battle still lies ahead (with some adults still facing fines for consensually sharing naked pictures of themselves), the Ukrainian parliament recently approved a bill harshening penalties for child pornography while decriminalizing production of adult content. The bill still has a few more steps before becoming law, and this war-stricken nation has a lot of other policies to focus on, but supporters say passing this bill into law helps Ukraine focus on what’s important. 

Lesia Mykhalenko is an attorney representing OnlyFans models. She says that industry regulation would instantly give the government millions of dollars through taxation and make sure each dollar earned isn’t wasted. Additionally, instead of paying for judges, prosecutors and special “investigation groups” that look into pornography production, that money could go somewhere it’s actually needed. 

As Mykhalenko puts it, the pornography ban in Ukraine is “a legal norm that is outdated”. She adds that its legalization would save a lot of money from “just going down the drain.”