What's empowering, and what's appalling? Rashida Jones, coproducer of the new documentary Hot Girls Wanted, has a few thoughts.

In 2014 I wrote a piece for Glamour called "The Pornification of Everything," about the ways in which porn has become part of our everyday lives. I was—and still am—slightly suspicious of the idea that so much supersexual imagery is liberating for women. So after the passionate response to my article, I set out to learn more.

Last year I had the privilege of meeting Ronna Gradus and Jill Bauer, two journalists turned filmmakers who asked me to be a producer on their documentary Hot Girls Wanted. The film, out May 29 on Netflix, follows 18- and 19-year-old girls who flock to Miami to make it as amateur porn stars, and it's a disturbing, personal look at how they become part of this largely unregulated industry. Recently I talked with my coproducer, Mary Anne Franks, an associate professor at the University of Miami School of Law, about some of the questions I still have about the porn industry. If you too are a little baffled by it all, listen in.

Rashida Jones: So let's start big-picture. It really does feel as if porn has exploded everywhere in pop culture—music videos, reality TV, and social media. How did we get here?
Mary Anne Franks: With the Internet, people spend a lot more time looking at porn than they used to, and we see that reflected in mainstream culture. A lot of what a young girl is told about what is attractive resembles porn in some way.

RJ: At the same time there's this idea that owning your sexuality through porn is empowering, respectable, and an evolution for women, right?
MAF: It's become more than respectable—it's aspirational. How many celebrities have become famous because of sex tapes? So as more women are willing to participate, and to upload naked pictures and videos, we're seeing the rise of industries like amateur porn.

Franks, coproducer of Hot Girls Wanted

RJ: To explain a little: In amateur porn, the performers, like the women we follow in the film, are made to look like normal teenage girls who happen to be engaging in sexual activity. But the truth is, they're actresses.
MAF: And very often the women in this type of porn are just starting out, so they can't negotiate the conditions of their employment. They show up thinking they'll be in control and are often asked to do a particularly brutal scene—and the only way to get paid is to do it. Hot Girls Wanted is about that slippery slope toward exploitation, even for women who choose to be in porn.

RJ: When I first started talking about the "pornification" of our culture, I was accused of being antifeminist—which both hurt my feelings and felt inaccurate. I'm not antiporn; my problem is with the idea that porn is always sexually freeing. Can porn be good for women?
MAF: It baffles me how the porn industry has managed to convince people that porn is empowering. I think what they really mean is that porn provides women a chance to rebel against the sexual double standard—to show that women do like sex, and that sex is nothing to be ashamed of. In theory, that's empowering. But the problem is that mainstream porn doesn't do anything subversive. Women are still treated like nothing but sex receptacles.

RJ: So much porn is violent toward women. Every time I try to find a "normal" piece of porn, I get bombarded by the most violent imagery!
MAF: There has to be a conversation about why porn so often involves degrading a woman. And then consumers of porn, like consumers of, say, T-shirts or fair-trade chocolate, should be concerned about the ethical conditions under which this product was produced.

RJ: I've had conversations with women who are trying to make porn for women, by women, and I'm way pro that kind of porn. How do we get more of it?
MAF: There's certainly room for more books and films that center on women's sexual pleasure or on sex as a connection between two people. And then we have to be able to discuss the violence and the exploitation. Right now we trap everybody between two extremes: You either accept everything in porn, or people say you hate sex. It's time we have a mature conversation about these things.

Rashida Jones is an actress, producer, and frequent Glamour contributor.