It happens a handful of times every year. Someone will introduce legislation or write an opinion piece advocating for pornography to be banned, and soon enough, the internet is buzzing with support for both sides of the debate. This time, a New York Times op-ed by Ross Douthat titled “Let’s Ban Porn” sparked things up.
But is Douthat’s call for action possible in the United States?
Douthat argues porn is corrupting the minds of young men, teaching them that gang-bangs and female degradation are normal ways to approach sex. He argues not that porn is turning all men into a Harvey Weinstein, but that it creates a mentality among even the most decent of men that women should be submissive and easy, and that the sex learned by men from watching porn makes for an unpleasant experience for their female partners.
He adds that not only is banning porn a positive, but that it is something we can pass laws to make happen. He says porn is a product to be bought and sold, so we can place regulation and restriction on it. And although anything can be found somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of the internet, he says limiting porn to those corners will vastly reduce its hold on the male psyche.
Perhaps the biggest sign that porn may someday be banned or at least heavily-regulated in the United States are the changes sweeping the industry in the UK. Come April, every porn site in the UK must implement a complex age-verification system or face a hefty fine (250,000 Euros or 309,065 USD), according to Wired.
MindGeek, the company building this system, claims it will be more advanced than a simple “Check ‘yes’ to confirm you are at least 18” text box. MindGeek says the system, called AgeID, will require an email address and password, then “use a third party” to confirm someone’s age. This would undoubtedly cause porn sites to take a significant hit in traffic.
But as MindGeek fails to point out on its website, they also owns some of the largest porn sites in the world, including Pornhub. So we’ll see how that one shakes out.
A Slate op-ed by Christina Cauterucci titled “The US Will Never Ban Porn” responded to Douthat’s piece. She argues banning porn is both legally impossible and ethically unnecessary.
She says strong freedom of speech laws protect pretty much all variations of consensual pornography, and with two-thirds of males and one-third of females admitting to watching it at least once a month, nobody would vote to change anything.
When it comes to actual legislative moves taken towards the eradication of porn, there’s not a whole lot in the works aside from Utah declaring it a “public health crisis” — which doesn’t do much other than let people know they dislike it.
So it seems as though porn is not going anywhere, especially in the US. But for people who detest the way the porn industry is right now, things may be looking up. The Rolling Stone just wrote about a woman-driven future of porn, as women are increasingly directing and producing the videos they star in. The piece says this will lead to more sex-positive videos where women reject the submissive role and take charge. And hey, I always thought those were the hottest videos anyway.
