It’s an open secret that those who work the hardest to make pornographic material difficult to access are the ones who consume it the most. He that doth protest too much about wanting to protect young eyes from the wicked ways of the adult-entertainment industry is often one of the biggest spenders at the local strip club. It’s just a thing. So of course, politicians in Indiana and Ohio are riding in to rescue Texan politicians who are working to make explicit content harder to come by (you’re welcome); because who knows porn better than those who secretly consume it the most?
What on earth am I talking about? Well, an amicus brief has been filed by the attorneys general of Indiana and Ohio that supports a controversial law in Texas that requires age verification for websites containing explicit content. The law purports to protect minors from being harmed by seeing content that they’re too young to be able to safely process, and the conservative Texas government is a big fan. However, free speech advocates, tech groups, and other critics have a big problem with the law. They say that it raises some very real concerns about censorship, privacy violations, and puts First Amendment rights at risk. In an age where we live so much of our lives online, overreaching digital surveillance is a spicy problem that is going to need to be dealt with eventually.
And who better to tackle this issue than the adult entertainment industry? Sex workers belong to an industry that has been around longer than most civilizations, and they’re very used to being under scrutiny. If anyone’s ready for this fight, it’s them.
The conservative lawmakers getting ready to take a swing at them, however? Not so much. Statistically speaking, states that have conservative politicians wielding most of the power tend to have higher rates of porn consumption than states where there’s a more progressive government in place. Basically, those that are pushing for restrictions the most are the very ones who are guilty of the thing they’re trying to make inaccessible to their constituents. It’s like telling people that candy’s bad for them and they can’t have any while skittles are visibly falling from your pockets.
Now, let’s discuss why amicus briefs are silly. They sound fancy, and in order to write one, you have to have a law degree, which costs a fancy amount of money. However, at the end of the day, it’s just a piece of paper that says “we agree with this thing because of reasons”; and that’s essentially how much anecdotal evidence and logic went into the one written by the Ohio and Indiana Attorneys General. “We side with Texas because we do”, is roughly what their fancy legal paper says. That’s where they chose to spend their time and energy. Nevermind a whole host of pressing issues relevant to the constituents of the states of Ohio and Indiana; they’re concerned about supporting another state government’s efforts to restrict online content that is already being consumed responsibly by most adults who utilize it.
Also, that amicus brief? It does about as much to prevent people accessing pornography as that “keep out, mom!” sign you put on your door when you were 7 did to keep your mother from seeing that you hadn’t cleaned your room, actually.
The real reason behind this brief is nothing more than moral posturing, and the moral posturing here? It leads towards a slippery slope that results in the government having a say in people’s private lives. The First Amendment protects the rights of citizens to freely express themselves, and pornographic content— both creating and consuming it— are one way in which many consenting adults choose to do that. Imagine with me for a moment; what if our government focused just as much on maintaining our roads as they did on limiting access to explicit content online? Enjoy the mental picture of smooth streets with me. *sigh*
Regardless of what comes of the law out of Texas, we can at least collectively agree that maybe the AGs behind this fangless amicus brief should step away from drafting useless fancy letters, and get back to working on matters that affect their own constituents. Or they could go back to browsing for their own spank candy. Either works.
