Amid the battle against abortion and the LGBTQ agenda, the issue of pornography—particularly that accessible to children—is perhaps less prominently discussed. However, the liberal movement has not forgotten this element of the all-pervasive attack on marriage and the family.
Ensuring ready access to pornography remains a clear objective in the wide range of weapons designed to undermine society. However, signs are increasingly emerging suggesting that the porn lobby is facing resistance to its global dominance.
States Push Back
On May 3, a state law in Utah went into effect, restricting the availability of online pornography for citizens in Utah. Senate Bill 287, sponsored by State Senator Todd Weiler, requires online pornographic websites to use age verification to ensure that content is not accessed by those under 18. Among other things, it “requires a commercial entity that provides pornography and other materials defined as being harmful to minors as a substantial portion of the entity’s content to verify the age of individuals accessing the material.”
In response, Pornhub—one of the worst purveyors of online pornography—announced that it would make the site inaccessible for people entering the internet in Utah, citing privacy concerns regarding the age-verification process. “As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” read a statement.
The pornographic website even argued that S.B. 287’s requirements would harm children: “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your I.D. card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”
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However, Utah is not alone in enacting such legislation. Mr. Weiler’s bill follows close on the heels of a similar law in Louisiana, which came into force at the start of this year. Act 440 stated, “Pornography is creating a public health crisis and having a corroding influence on minors.”
The law requires a government-issued form of I.D., proving the user is over 18, before allowing access to the pornographic site.
States Defend Restrictions, Though Criticisms Remain
The two laws in Utah and Louisiana are not examples of mere individual legislative whimsy. Rather, they are presented as acts defending children’s health. Utah’s S.B. 287 even passed with unanimous approval, demonstrating how widely lawmakers realized a problem.
Utah’s law refers to pornographic content as “material harmful to minors,” which it defines as “any material that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest.”
The Utah law also explicitly mentions certain kinds of pornographic content, which is banned under the law, along with a more general inclusion of “any other sexual act” not specifically outlined.
State Sen. Weiler defended the bill, saying, “I’m not gonna blame all of society’s ills on pornography, but I don’t think it’s helpful when a kid is forming their impressions of sex and gender to have all of this filth and lewd depictions on their mind.”
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Meanwhile, Louisiana’s restrictions were presented with a brief summary of the harms caused by such material. Act 440 reads: “Pornography contributes to the hypersexualization of teens and prepubescent children and may lead to low self-esteem, body image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior. Pornography may also impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promoting problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction.”
State Rep. Laurie Schlegel, who proposed the Louisiana law, strongly defends it as necessary. In comments echoing those of state Sen. Weiler, she referred to pornographic content as a direct harm to the young in society: “Pornography is destroying our children, and they’re getting unlimited access to it on the internet, and so if the pornography companies aren’t going to be responsible, I thought we need to go ahead and hold them accountable.”
Imperfect Laws that Reveal Resistance
While indeed restricting such material, the respective laws are not perfect in any way.
Firstly, they are confused about the morality of pornography. They describe it as “harmful” for minors. Thus the laws insinuated that they are not harmful to those over 18. The laws recognize the well-documented harms of porn for children but do not tackle the issue of pornography’s very existence.
In addition, technological loopholes can allow individuals to bypass the restrictions in the respective laws. For example, Louisiana only restricts sites that have 33.3% of material as pornographic. The new laws do not bind sites that fall below this limit. Furthermore, as numerous websites and lawmakers have observed, restrictions based on an individual’s location can be easily bypassed by using a VPN to reroute one’s internet address.
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However, even with such failings, the laws restricting pornographic content online represent a positive move to curtail the spread of immorality among youth. The supporters of porn recognize this threat and are fighting back.
The “Free Speech Coalition” (FSC)—which is a “non-partisan nonprofit trade association for the adult industry”—joined erotica authors and websites in filing a suit against Utah’s porn restrictions. In a press statement issued at the time, the FSC’s executive director Alison Boden stated: “We are fighting not only for the rights of our members and the larger adult entertainment community, but for the right of all Americans to access constitutionally-protected expression in the privacy of their own home.”
A similar argument has been made against Louisiana’s restrictions. The pro-LGBT Pink News cited one “sex worker” warning that the state’s law was “really just further marginalizing sex workers, which I think is going to be the primary effect.”
“I imagine this means that there will be an increased black market of premium content that’s non-consensually disseminated,” she added. Such an argument bears notable comparisons to those who—in protesting any restrictions on abortion—argue that abortion restrictions would only lead to more back-street abortions.
The First Dominoes to Fall?
Despite the outrage from porn activists, Utah and Louisiana are leading the way in the fight against porn access, with other states set to follow suit. A New York Magazine interview with state Sen. Weiler even ran under the title “Is the Tide Turning Against Internet Porn?” In his comments, Weiler highlighted how Utah and Louisiana were not alone but that Arizona and Alabama were also soon to issue very similar restrictions.
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He predicted that many Republican states would follow suit and enact similar restrictions against pornography access. Notably, Sen. Weiler also highlighted what he perceived as an underlying issue behind the backlash from one particular pornographic website, Pornhub.
Citing the example of Louisiana, Weiler stated that users on the pornographic website dropped by 80% following the restrictions in the state. “I believe that their argument about privacy and all of that is a pretext,” he said.
Not only are a number of U.S. states considering restricting porn, but the movement has spread internationally, with France and the Netherlands also considering such measures. French officials, by way of example, are looking to give internet regulators the power to force internet search engines to block certain pornographic websites that refuse to enact a policy of age verification.
With these kinds of legislative actions, the enormous porn industry faces some pushback after having risen to such dominance in recent years. Indeed, its prevalence can be readily seen by analyzing internet usage, with three porn websites ranking in the world’s top 15 most accessed internet sites as of May 1. Some estimates even put the global porn industry’s worth at around $97 billion.
With such worldwide wealth and dominance on the internet—a tool that has become so interlinked and all-pervasive in daily life—it is not surprising that the porn industry will fight any attempt to clip its wings. The growing number of states and countries engaging in this battle indicates that many people have had enough.
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