Thoughts and prayers to Ted Cruz in this trying time
March 16, 2024 9:58 PM Subscribe
As you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. Not only does this impinge on the rights of adults to access protected speech, it fails strict scrutiny by employing the least effective and yet also most restrictive means of accomplishing Texas’s stated purpose of allegedly protecting minors. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk. [...] We believe that the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to verify users’ age on their device and to either deny or allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that verification. We call on all adult sites to comply with the law. Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas.Ars Technica: Pornhub blocks all of Texas to protest state law—Paxton says “good riddance”
The measure may seem grievously unpopular, but it is merely following in the footsteps of successful conservative pushes abroad; see for example the Tories' long struggle to institute a mandatory porn ID scheme in the UK. It also presages growing alt-right attacks on birth control and "recreational sex".
In unrelated news, Texas search traffic for "VPN" has skyrocketed in recent days.
Of course, the best headline that's being used for this story: "Pornhub pulls out of Texas."
posted by flod at 1:18 AM on March 17 [18 favorites]
posted by flod at 1:18 AM on March 17 [18 favorites]
And left Texas to clean up the mess.
posted by pracowity at 1:23 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 1:23 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
Ted Cruz, the senator that flew to Cancun while hundreds of Texans were freezing in a winter apocalypse we were vastly under prepared for, in pat because Texas isn't on the power grid? Yeah. Stupid state.
An astounding number of people in my social circles reveal the terror of the bell curve by going.... It's just porn? There are other sites? I don't care if it's illegal? Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things. Even when I point out that they can't get an abortion or decide how to raise their own kids and all the other vile Republicana. Some people just see any sort of negativity as the problem, not the actual people lighting the boat on fire.
posted by Jacen at 1:53 AM on March 17 [44 favorites]
An astounding number of people in my social circles reveal the terror of the bell curve by going.... It's just porn? There are other sites? I don't care if it's illegal? Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things. Even when I point out that they can't get an abortion or decide how to raise their own kids and all the other vile Republicana. Some people just see any sort of negativity as the problem, not the actual people lighting the boat on fire.
posted by Jacen at 1:53 AM on March 17 [44 favorites]
I can hardly wait for what I am sure will be a very coherent and principled reaction to this from Texas fan and self-described free speech crusader Elmo Muskmelon.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:06 AM on March 17 [9 favorites]
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:06 AM on March 17 [9 favorites]
How does the Texas law get applied to foreign-hosted porn sites? Are Texans about to flee to sketchy, malware-laden, .ru sites?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:50 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 2:50 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Texas makes it easier to buy guns to slaughter children, no background check or identification required. Wild.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:43 AM on March 17 [29 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:43 AM on March 17 [29 favorites]
While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, providing identification every time you want to visit an adult platform is not an effective solution for protecting users online, and in fact, will put minors and your privacy at risk.
So Pornhub has a ... missionary position?
posted by chavenet at 4:21 AM on March 17 [29 favorites]
So Pornhub has a ... missionary position?
posted by chavenet at 4:21 AM on March 17 [29 favorites]
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia. And they won't be the last. The GOP, party of old folks and incels.
posted by rikschell at 4:53 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:53 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
The GOP, party of old folks and incels.
You left out the 30-something evangelicals. Or the 30-something techbros. Or the 30-something tradespeople. Or your 30-something neighbors.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:20 AM on March 17 [26 favorites]
You left out the 30-something evangelicals. Or the 30-something techbros. Or the 30-something tradespeople. Or your 30-something neighbors.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:20 AM on March 17 [26 favorites]
Ars commenter waffletaco nails it:
Let's all be honest here. The stuff conservative Texans are watching wouldn't be on PornHub anyway.posted by flabdablet at 5:49 AM on March 17 [21 favorites]
Some people just see any sort of negativity as the problem, not the actual people lighting the boat on fire.
What do you expect us to do, sail in the dark?
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
What do you expect us to do, sail in the dark?
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
Porn and sex work, both regularly used by lots of people, are never given any respect, so are vulnerable to having tons of hoops to jump through, making it a difficult industry to work in. This also goes hand in hand with the FOSTA/SESTA and KOSA acts that are basically censorship laws wrapped in "protect the kids" dressing, which resulted in an increase of sex trafficking--something sex workers warned about but nobody listened. Right now gumroad and patreon are also trying to ban sexual content even in drawings and artwork due to pressure from payment processors--the very processors who should have the card-holder's age on file 🤷
Sadly this kind of stuff will continue unless we change our cultural perspective of sex in general, and that is not happening any time soon. Even though the very people who chastise sex feel the urge to look at/engage with it regularly...
posted by picklenickle at 5:51 AM on March 17 [19 favorites]
Sadly this kind of stuff will continue unless we change our cultural perspective of sex in general, and that is not happening any time soon. Even though the very people who chastise sex feel the urge to look at/engage with it regularly...
posted by picklenickle at 5:51 AM on March 17 [19 favorites]
Paxton's probably in bed with Big VPN.
Which is kinda funny because there actually is Big VPN.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:16 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Which is kinda funny because there actually is Big VPN.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:16 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
If I needed a flexible general-purpose VPN, I'd use Wireguard with exit nodes rented from Mullvad.
posted by flabdablet at 6:37 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 6:37 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
The stars at night!
Are big and bright!
(fap-fap-fap-fap)
Deep in the Heart of Texas!
posted by bartleby at 6:40 AM on March 17 [15 favorites]
Are big and bright!
(fap-fap-fap-fap)
Deep in the Heart of Texas!
posted by bartleby at 6:40 AM on March 17 [15 favorites]
The stars at night!
Are big and bright!
(fap-fap-fap-fap)
Deep in theHeart of Hard On Texas!
ftfy
posted by evilDoug at 7:15 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
Are big and bright!
(fap-fap-fap-fap)
Deep in the
ftfy
posted by evilDoug at 7:15 AM on March 17 [8 favorites]
I don't think this is just old people; I've seen lots of talk on Tumblr about young people on Twitter and Tumblr being really anti-sex, not wanting sex scenes in movies, etc. I don't have a link, but there is one post around pointing out young people literally recreated part of the Hayes Code.
I don't know what is driving it but it seems linked to the movement that wants the characters and stories they consume to be ideologically pure and for the heroes in them to be perfect and unproblematic.
At some point I hope to read an article by an anthropologist explaining what is going on.
posted by Canageek at 7:34 AM on March 17 [9 favorites]
I don't know what is driving it but it seems linked to the movement that wants the characters and stories they consume to be ideologically pure and for the heroes in them to be perfect and unproblematic.
At some point I hope to read an article by an anthropologist explaining what is going on.
posted by Canageek at 7:34 AM on March 17 [9 favorites]
Rebellion against the previous generation being "too permissive" and the somewhat successful push to rebrand conservatism as the new "rebellion" probably. Plus online no one knows you are a (dog) ultra-religious culture warrior with eight sock puppet accounts waging religious war while pretending to be a 16 year old questioning lesbian.
posted by subdee at 7:43 AM on March 17 [19 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:43 AM on March 17 [19 favorites]
Pornhub's proposal to have age verified by the device and websites broadly allowed and blocked based on age is exactly what Lawrence Lessig proposed in "Code is Law"in 2000.... 24 years on and his ideas are still circulating and we still haven't thought seriously about implementing them. But with so many people accessing the Internet from devices that collect all your personal information, they'd be easier to implement than ever. And to get around the restriction you'd just have to buy a desktop computer.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html
posted by subdee at 7:46 AM on March 17
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html
posted by subdee at 7:46 AM on March 17
As a parent I’m split on this. I’d very much like to delay the moment my child has access to porn so I’m not entirely against making porn unavailable to minors, but on the other hand this is a chilling development in regard to freedom of speech/expression and giving identifying details to porn sites and making them responsible for this seems like a terrible terrible idea.
This is really the responsibility of the parent to limit this access but this seems to currently be a losing battle, it only takes one kid with a phone at school to undo what you do at home, so a bit of extra help from everybody would be appreciated.
Instead of making this the responsibility of the site to verify age I’d rather we could tag our subscriptions to ISPs as fully opened or kid-safe, and if you want to access those site as an adult you have a way to unlock it for this session on this endpoint. It’s not providing more info than you already provide to your ISP (they know you’re going to pornhub). If you use a VPN it could piggy back on same mechanism to prevent your kids from outsmarting you (as long as VPN providers play along ).
The technical solution is probably the easiest part of this whole thing, tagging what should be blocked is sometimes trivial (pornhub) or ‘it depends’ (Reddit/usenet/…) and while a parent might want to block porn some evangelical will want to block anything related to birth control / sex-Ed and we can all see where that’s going…especially if it’s by default for the whole state.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 7:49 AM on March 17 [11 favorites]
This is really the responsibility of the parent to limit this access but this seems to currently be a losing battle, it only takes one kid with a phone at school to undo what you do at home, so a bit of extra help from everybody would be appreciated.
Instead of making this the responsibility of the site to verify age I’d rather we could tag our subscriptions to ISPs as fully opened or kid-safe, and if you want to access those site as an adult you have a way to unlock it for this session on this endpoint. It’s not providing more info than you already provide to your ISP (they know you’re going to pornhub). If you use a VPN it could piggy back on same mechanism to prevent your kids from outsmarting you (as long as VPN providers play along ).
The technical solution is probably the easiest part of this whole thing, tagging what should be blocked is sometimes trivial (pornhub) or ‘it depends’ (Reddit/usenet/…) and while a parent might want to block porn some evangelical will want to block anything related to birth control / sex-Ed and we can all see where that’s going…especially if it’s by default for the whole state.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 7:49 AM on March 17 [11 favorites]
we still haven't thought seriously about implementing them
Actually, it exists already in other parts of the world: iDIN. You sign in to online banking and confirm which information you're allowing them to share with the other party.
posted by demi-octopus at 8:18 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Actually, it exists already in other parts of the world: iDIN. You sign in to online banking and confirm which information you're allowing them to share with the other party.
posted by demi-octopus at 8:18 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
not wanting sex scenes in movies,
Considering that sex scenes have a long history of being an excuse for, "Hey, look at Famous Actress's boobs!" and bring the movie to a screeching halt while the audience ogles her boobs, I can't say I'd necessarily take this as some kind of New Puritanism amongst the younger set.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:34 AM on March 17 [24 favorites]
Considering that sex scenes have a long history of being an excuse for, "Hey, look at Famous Actress's boobs!" and bring the movie to a screeching halt while the audience ogles her boobs, I can't say I'd necessarily take this as some kind of New Puritanism amongst the younger set.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:34 AM on March 17 [24 favorites]
I've seen lots of talk on Tumblr about young people on Twitter and Tumblr being really anti-sex
Going to Tumblr to get a finger on the pulse of the young people is basically the same as going to Nextdoor, only instead of "There're young people near my lawn and I can't tell what they're up to, they're in a gang, right?" it's "There're young people near my lawn and I can't tell if they fuck, I'm still hip, right?"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:40 AM on March 17 [13 favorites]
Going to Tumblr to get a finger on the pulse of the young people is basically the same as going to Nextdoor, only instead of "There're young people near my lawn and I can't tell what they're up to, they're in a gang, right?" it's "There're young people near my lawn and I can't tell if they fuck, I'm still hip, right?"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:40 AM on March 17 [13 favorites]
That McAfee video posted upthread was really gross. A lot of grossness for the xHamster joke. Very bad ratio of grossness:xHamster joke.
posted by Well I never at 8:43 AM on March 17
posted by Well I never at 8:43 AM on March 17
Apple offers a VPN (iCloud Private Relay) as part of their iCloud+ subscription plan. To learn more, open a Private Window in Safari.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I would never trust any of you with choices for my sexual expression. Nor Texas nor pornhub.
And bringing up Hollywood's old habit of bewbs and the HBO/GOT's recent gains in dong seems ... off topic. I don't masturbate to Bessie.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:53 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
And bringing up Hollywood's old habit of bewbs and the HBO/GOT's recent gains in dong seems ... off topic. I don't masturbate to Bessie.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:53 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
I’d rather we could tag our subscriptions to ISPs as fully opened or kid-safe, and if you want to access those site as an adult you have a way to unlock it for this session on this endpoint. It’s not providing more info than you already provide to your ISP (they know you’re going to pornhub).
If any of my ISPs were to examine all of their logs, they would not find evidence of my ever having visited Pornhub. Have I ever visited Pornhub? I'm not saying, and nobody else is in any position to know for sure.
If you use a VPN it could piggy back on same mechanism to prevent your kids from outsmarting you (as long as VPN providers play along ).
Mullvad accepts snail-mailed cash payments in exchange for randomized account identifiers and collects no information about its customers. Good luck getting them to "play along" with any kind of content monitoring, which is absolutely antithetical to their business model as a trustworthy privacy provider. Other VPN vendors will have similar considerations. Closest you can get to selective content blocking over VPNs is hard-blocking every VPN provider's entry nodes and good luck tracking down every last one.
The technical solution is probably the easiest part of this whole thing, tagging what should be blocked is sometimes trivial (pornhub) or ‘it depends’ (Reddit/usenet/…)
I spent fourteen years working as a school netadmin. Part of my job involved keeping unacceptable material off the screens of school computers, and I can assure you that it's not easy, not even slightly, not even in a networking environment as controllable and controlled as a K-6 school.
The idea that not-super-tech-savvy parents could actually succeed at stopping a motivated kid from looking at any damn thing they pleased in the privacy of their own bedroom, given the lengths I had to go to just trying to stop it from happening in the computer lab, strikes me as absolutely unrealistic. Kids conspire, and if you're the kind of parent who creates incentives for kids to hide shit from you, you're even less likely to find out when they do.
The closest that could possibly be achieved by any technical measure would have to involve tight control over the endpoints, much as proposed by Pornhub, and relies on everything that runs on those endpoints being itself tightly controlled by the device manufacturer. This might be doable to some extent with Apple devices. Android, not so much. Cheap used laptop bought clandestinely from the thrift store, not at all.
As a parent I have always given my kids the privacy I firmly believe they're entitled to as human beings, and this was part and parcel of creating the kind of relationships with them that led them not to want to hide stuff from me that troubles them, not even if they think I'll find it upsetting too.
Closest I ever got to restricting Internet access was creating a timed-access SSID on our wifi access points and refusing to disclose the wifi password for the unscheduled adults-only SSID, and I made it perfectly clear to them that if they found a way to work around that restriction and told me how they'd done it, I'd lift it to save them the bother. None of them did, mainly because the time restrictions were negotiated and never draconian. Closest any of them got was paying for their own cellular data plan.
I firmly believe that the resulting relationships of mutual trust and respect have been a big part of the reason why those kids have now all matured into confident, competent adults, despite having grown up in what can only be described as an absolute cultural minefield compared to what existed when I was a kid myself.
posted by flabdablet at 8:54 AM on March 17 [36 favorites]
If any of my ISPs were to examine all of their logs, they would not find evidence of my ever having visited Pornhub. Have I ever visited Pornhub? I'm not saying, and nobody else is in any position to know for sure.
If you use a VPN it could piggy back on same mechanism to prevent your kids from outsmarting you (as long as VPN providers play along ).
Mullvad accepts snail-mailed cash payments in exchange for randomized account identifiers and collects no information about its customers. Good luck getting them to "play along" with any kind of content monitoring, which is absolutely antithetical to their business model as a trustworthy privacy provider. Other VPN vendors will have similar considerations. Closest you can get to selective content blocking over VPNs is hard-blocking every VPN provider's entry nodes and good luck tracking down every last one.
The technical solution is probably the easiest part of this whole thing, tagging what should be blocked is sometimes trivial (pornhub) or ‘it depends’ (Reddit/usenet/…)
I spent fourteen years working as a school netadmin. Part of my job involved keeping unacceptable material off the screens of school computers, and I can assure you that it's not easy, not even slightly, not even in a networking environment as controllable and controlled as a K-6 school.
The idea that not-super-tech-savvy parents could actually succeed at stopping a motivated kid from looking at any damn thing they pleased in the privacy of their own bedroom, given the lengths I had to go to just trying to stop it from happening in the computer lab, strikes me as absolutely unrealistic. Kids conspire, and if you're the kind of parent who creates incentives for kids to hide shit from you, you're even less likely to find out when they do.
The closest that could possibly be achieved by any technical measure would have to involve tight control over the endpoints, much as proposed by Pornhub, and relies on everything that runs on those endpoints being itself tightly controlled by the device manufacturer. This might be doable to some extent with Apple devices. Android, not so much. Cheap used laptop bought clandestinely from the thrift store, not at all.
As a parent I have always given my kids the privacy I firmly believe they're entitled to as human beings, and this was part and parcel of creating the kind of relationships with them that led them not to want to hide stuff from me that troubles them, not even if they think I'll find it upsetting too.
Closest I ever got to restricting Internet access was creating a timed-access SSID on our wifi access points and refusing to disclose the wifi password for the unscheduled adults-only SSID, and I made it perfectly clear to them that if they found a way to work around that restriction and told me how they'd done it, I'd lift it to save them the bother. None of them did, mainly because the time restrictions were negotiated and never draconian. Closest any of them got was paying for their own cellular data plan.
I firmly believe that the resulting relationships of mutual trust and respect have been a big part of the reason why those kids have now all matured into confident, competent adults, despite having grown up in what can only be described as an absolute cultural minefield compared to what existed when I was a kid myself.
posted by flabdablet at 8:54 AM on March 17 [36 favorites]
Very bad ratio of grossness:xHamster joke
and yet somehow not tagged by YouTube as unsuitable for minors, despite having been exactly that gross for the ten years they've been hosting it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
and yet somehow not tagged by YouTube as unsuitable for minors, despite having been exactly that gross for the ten years they've been hosting it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Will Texas democrats have the blueballs to campaign on this issue?
posted by srboisvert at 9:17 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 9:17 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
I can assure you that it's not easy, not even slightly
I'm curious to know, is it not possible to run networking so that only safelisted IPs and/or .edu/.gov domains are allowed? it's massively restrictive, yes, but on the upside it's probably beneficial that students learn to navigate actual academic resources at some point - modern corpoweb UX often renders skills like applying search filters moot and that's a skill that seems massively under-taught given how widely used it is in the actual working world
posted by paimapi at 9:30 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I'm curious to know, is it not possible to run networking so that only safelisted IPs and/or .edu/.gov domains are allowed? it's massively restrictive, yes, but on the upside it's probably beneficial that students learn to navigate actual academic resources at some point - modern corpoweb UX often renders skills like applying search filters moot and that's a skill that seems massively under-taught given how widely used it is in the actual working world
posted by paimapi at 9:30 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Pornhub's proposal to have age verified by the device
Having a device verify your age doesn't change the underlying privacy issue: whether a government knows/gate-keeps what you watch, or private entity does the same on behalf of the same local authority by way of some technical feature, at the end of the day this would still just be a bunch of Texas right-wing extremists policing your sexuality.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:34 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Having a device verify your age doesn't change the underlying privacy issue: whether a government knows/gate-keeps what you watch, or private entity does the same on behalf of the same local authority by way of some technical feature, at the end of the day this would still just be a bunch of Texas right-wing extremists policing your sexuality.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:34 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Canada is considering similar legislation. Write to your MP about Bill S-210.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:35 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:35 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
The party that loudly proclaims it wants to get government off your back is constantly looking for ways to get into your pants.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:38 AM on March 17 [22 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:38 AM on March 17 [22 favorites]
Considering that sex scenes have a long history of being an excuse for, "Hey, look at Famous Actress's boobs!" and bring the movie to a screeching halt while the audience ogles her boobs, I can't say I'd necessarily take this as some kind of New Puritanism amongst the younger set.
To be honest, I feel like serious films don't do this, even as they present naked hot people as pleasurable to see. If our reaction to nudity is "hur hur, boobies," I think that's a problem with us, not with the film. I'm not sure that hiding away from sexuality is going to make us, as a culture, grow up about it any faster, or at all.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:41 AM on March 17 [13 favorites]
To be honest, I feel like serious films don't do this, even as they present naked hot people as pleasurable to see. If our reaction to nudity is "hur hur, boobies," I think that's a problem with us, not with the film. I'm not sure that hiding away from sexuality is going to make us, as a culture, grow up about it any faster, or at all.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:41 AM on March 17 [13 favorites]
is it not possible to run networking so that only safelisted IPs and/or .edu/.gov domains are allowed?
Sure, but configuring it that way completely destroys its usefulness as a workable educational resource. Deny lists, for all their faults, are the only practical approach.
Both the Victorian Government and the Catholic Education Office did at various points attempt to curate allow lists to create walled Internet gardens in support of their respective school curricula. Both systems quickly proved so useless that all the schools just bypassed and ignored them.
That's the thing about genies: people like the wish-granting aspect. Even if you could stuff the bastards back in their bottles, nobody actually wants you to.
posted by flabdablet at 9:49 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
Sure, but configuring it that way completely destroys its usefulness as a workable educational resource. Deny lists, for all their faults, are the only practical approach.
Both the Victorian Government and the Catholic Education Office did at various points attempt to curate allow lists to create walled Internet gardens in support of their respective school curricula. Both systems quickly proved so useless that all the schools just bypassed and ignored them.
That's the thing about genies: people like the wish-granting aspect. Even if you could stuff the bastards back in their bottles, nobody actually wants you to.
posted by flabdablet at 9:49 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
i don't like sex and don't much like most sex scenes in movies, but .... people do have sex. typically they have sex more than they murder other people, and we seem to be fine with depicting that. you could totally write an action movie where people are only killed in implied ways, but then john wick wouldn't be quite so compelling. how john wick murders people is important.
it's like we categorize sex as this extra, 'other' thing that isn't necessary to show because it's somehow less relevant than that. but as an asexual i'm told that sex is actually pretty important to most people and how they have sex with each other has a lot to do with who they are and how they relate to each other. also apparently some people like to watch sex, like some people like to watch action scenes?
i'm not saying that the industry is never gross about sex scenes, because it really can be, but i don't think that problem is inherent in depicting sex.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:21 AM on March 17 [23 favorites]
it's like we categorize sex as this extra, 'other' thing that isn't necessary to show because it's somehow less relevant than that. but as an asexual i'm told that sex is actually pretty important to most people and how they have sex with each other has a lot to do with who they are and how they relate to each other. also apparently some people like to watch sex, like some people like to watch action scenes?
i'm not saying that the industry is never gross about sex scenes, because it really can be, but i don't think that problem is inherent in depicting sex.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:21 AM on March 17 [23 favorites]
I want more sex scenes in media. I want happy, loving people of all races and genders expressing their love and lust for each other in creative and exciting ways. I want media to reflect reality: sex is normal, it's awesome if done responsibly, and there is no 'normal' way to do it.
I want violence in media to be portrayed to the same realistic standards; it's rare, it rarely ever solves anything, usually fucks up the lives of anybody participating, and should be avoided at all costs.
If there's been more violence than sex in your life, something is seriously wrong with you.
Unless you're in a movie.
You know what damages children? Going your entire fucking childhood without a single example of a healthy relationship that involves your sexuality. Being told that there is only one way to be, the heterosexual, slightly sex-repulsed, non-kinky, monogamous, strictly-gendered stereotype that everyone must conform to or else.
I spent my whole childhood being told that any expression of my sexuality at all was obscene. A man and a woman kissing was fine, but two men? Obscene. It was a codified decision by media companies in collusion with the government to suppress people like me. It was, quite specifically, a tool of oppression.
So please remember when you're pooh-poohing things like sex scenes in movies (and there are some great sex scenes in movies, don't make me break out my Terminator lecture, I have Powerpoint) just remember; sexual oppression is a tool of authoritarianism.
Don't give them any more tools.
posted by MrVisible at 11:31 AM on March 17 [69 favorites]
I want violence in media to be portrayed to the same realistic standards; it's rare, it rarely ever solves anything, usually fucks up the lives of anybody participating, and should be avoided at all costs.
If there's been more violence than sex in your life, something is seriously wrong with you.
Unless you're in a movie.
You know what damages children? Going your entire fucking childhood without a single example of a healthy relationship that involves your sexuality. Being told that there is only one way to be, the heterosexual, slightly sex-repulsed, non-kinky, monogamous, strictly-gendered stereotype that everyone must conform to or else.
I spent my whole childhood being told that any expression of my sexuality at all was obscene. A man and a woman kissing was fine, but two men? Obscene. It was a codified decision by media companies in collusion with the government to suppress people like me. It was, quite specifically, a tool of oppression.
So please remember when you're pooh-poohing things like sex scenes in movies (and there are some great sex scenes in movies, don't make me break out my Terminator lecture, I have Powerpoint) just remember; sexual oppression is a tool of authoritarianism.
Don't give them any more tools.
posted by MrVisible at 11:31 AM on March 17 [69 favorites]
"Protection" is the motto of the surveillance state. I don't know what the solution is, but I doubt Texas has people's best interests in mind.
posted by lock robster at 11:38 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 11:38 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
The movie sex scene thing is kind of tangential to TFA... I think it's a totally different thing from conservative desires to ban porn while gobbling it up ("We need you but we won't respect you" is really a repeating pattern among labor). Sex scenes don't usually show you gratuitous penis going in holes; they just show some dryhump under the sheets and cut to the next scene. The people wanting to be intrusive about our porn consumption or use "kids" as an excuse for draconian censorship are not really going after a titty in some HBO drama (unless the woman is enjoying it or the tit belongs to an lgbt person or something horrifying like that). Care about who's holding the pen and what they're really trying to do!! FYI, conservative orgs like The Heritage Foundation have literally bragged about using these kinds of laws to curb lgbt educational resources, sex ed, etc under the guise of it being "sexual content." That is their actual aim. Much like Hayes Code/Comics Code was for suppressing criticism of racism, antisemitism, sexism, etc. Same shit, new toilet.
posted by picklenickle at 12:05 PM on March 17 [12 favorites]
posted by picklenickle at 12:05 PM on March 17 [12 favorites]
Also as to the "kids hate sex these days" thing... I don't think you can actually generalize. Millennials, for example, had feminists campaigning for Yes Means Yes and Free The Nipple to combat rape and change priority about consent, but they ALSO had the beginnings of groypers and those kids spamming the N word in video game chats who grew up to become incels and gamergaters, and now those millennials can sway votes. Similarly, todays kids have varying progressive/conservative views going all which way, and it's not to say "don't worry!" but rather--
- access to sex education that is comprehensive and covers topics like consent and pornography is important.
- not having those resources can lead to trauma, sex negativity as a reaction to that trauma
- pay attention to these laws written by adults NOW so that you don't have to worry about Hayes Code 2.0 Internet Edition later
posted by picklenickle at 12:24 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
- access to sex education that is comprehensive and covers topics like consent and pornography is important.
- not having those resources can lead to trauma, sex negativity as a reaction to that trauma
- pay attention to these laws written by adults NOW so that you don't have to worry about Hayes Code 2.0 Internet Edition later
posted by picklenickle at 12:24 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ftoffknbrfc&t=2m06s
....Until it just sort of ends
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 12:34 PM on March 17
....Until it just sort of ends
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 12:34 PM on March 17
sextus nextus Texas
posted by clavdivs at 1:49 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 1:49 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
soundguy99: "Considering that sex scenes have a long history of being an excuse for, "Hey, look at Famous Actress's boobs!" and bring the movie to a screeching halt while the audience ogles her boobs…"
You might need to to watch better movies.
posted by signal at 1:51 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
You might need to to watch better movies.
posted by signal at 1:51 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
I want more sex scenes in media. I want happy, loving people of all races and genders expressing their love and lust for each other in creative and exciting ways. I want media to reflect reality: sex is normal, it's awesome if done responsibly, and there is no 'normal' way to do it.
As long as you're not in Texas, this is not a million miles away from what PornHub has to offer.
posted by chavenet at 2:40 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
As long as you're not in Texas, this is not a million miles away from what PornHub has to offer.
posted by chavenet at 2:40 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Pornhub did recently take some actions that could be seen as responsible, but they’re still terrible. They’re the least terrible ‘tube site, in the same way that McDonald’s is the healthiest fast food food - if you squint, turn your head sideways, and only select certain options you can believe that they’re both good for you. But they both filter a basic human impulse/need through a set of horrific capitalist lenses.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:22 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 3:22 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Reminder that urls aren’t automatically turned into links, but can easily be made linkable (thus contributing to site accessibility) by using the “link” button in the quick-access edit buttons immediately below the comment input window. (The link button is the one on the far right of the row of buttons just under the comment box.) Linking urls properly ourselves saves mod time for actual site moderation, too!
posted by eviemath at 4:31 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 4:31 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
One of the more interesting theories I've seen about younger folks being Hayes Code-inclined is that the rise in surveillance across society may be causing people to seek agency in whatever way they can. So, if the fear is that any "undesirable" behaviors are going to be seen by the panopticon and punished, then the way you can make yourself safe is to avoid actions that could be seen as impure. And then having embraced that behavior as a means of agency, you now have a set of behavioral expectations that you can use against others to further shore up your own social standing. In short, that this puritan behavior is a really a way of protecting one's self and gaining the high ground against others.
I don't think that surveillance would necessarily have to result in this behavior because there are certainly people who did what they wanted under dangerous circumstances in earlier decades, but nonetheless I thought it an interesting idea.
posted by past unusual at 4:54 PM on March 17 [8 favorites]
I don't think that surveillance would necessarily have to result in this behavior because there are certainly people who did what they wanted under dangerous circumstances in earlier decades, but nonetheless I thought it an interesting idea.
posted by past unusual at 4:54 PM on March 17 [8 favorites]
I think this is an amazing opportunity for the Democrats to come out as the pro-sex party.
The hell with meeting this halfway, going, 'I dunno, maybe porn is kinda bad' and waffling our way further towards an authoritarian future, maybe we should be going, um, no.
People like porn. People have always liked porn. There's porn going back as far as humanity made art. The Vatican has an epic porn collection, you should see it.
We should safeguard our children from being exposed to inappropriate materials as best we can, but kids have been sneaking their way into your porn collection for as long as humanity has existed, and if you think banning websites is going to help, you're just plain ignorant about computers. Kids need to be educated about the fact that porn is out there and why it can be bad for them if they see it too soon, they need their parents involved in their education, they need clear guidance on the web to make sure they don't stumble into adult material accidentally.
But if they're going to go looking for it, there's no stopping them. And there never has been. You can ban the entire internet tomorrow, and the next day some enterprising kid is going to show up at school with a backpack full of ancient Playboys for sale, just like back in the day.
So why take away porn for consenting adults? What kind of lunatic would do that to you? You deserve some healthy pornography at the end of a long working day. What the hell are they going to take away from you next?
posted by MrVisible at 5:04 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
The hell with meeting this halfway, going, 'I dunno, maybe porn is kinda bad' and waffling our way further towards an authoritarian future, maybe we should be going, um, no.
People like porn. People have always liked porn. There's porn going back as far as humanity made art. The Vatican has an epic porn collection, you should see it.
We should safeguard our children from being exposed to inappropriate materials as best we can, but kids have been sneaking their way into your porn collection for as long as humanity has existed, and if you think banning websites is going to help, you're just plain ignorant about computers. Kids need to be educated about the fact that porn is out there and why it can be bad for them if they see it too soon, they need their parents involved in their education, they need clear guidance on the web to make sure they don't stumble into adult material accidentally.
But if they're going to go looking for it, there's no stopping them. And there never has been. You can ban the entire internet tomorrow, and the next day some enterprising kid is going to show up at school with a backpack full of ancient Playboys for sale, just like back in the day.
So why take away porn for consenting adults? What kind of lunatic would do that to you? You deserve some healthy pornography at the end of a long working day. What the hell are they going to take away from you next?
posted by MrVisible at 5:04 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
The democratic party seems pretty committed to the Republican Lite bit, come hell or high water; not much room for a pro-fuckin' stance in that jazz.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:51 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:51 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]
My read that the more puritanical impulses among younger people is another negative consequence of the corporate algorithmically mediated walled garden of an internet they grew up in. Because most of the internet the younger generation has interacted in is a theoretically mainstream and moderated environment (even if moderated halfassedly or malevolently) while running engagement algorithms wanting to shove lowest common denominator stuff in peoples faces, which in addition includes shoving a lot of people's horny fantasies where they don't belong. They don't fundamentally conceive of the internet as a fragmented place where people mind their own business and do what they want because the corporate walled garden is constricting and mushing everything together and you can't avoid other people's freaky shit that isn't your thing all that easily.
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:44 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:44 PM on March 17 [7 favorites]
Hi! Zillennial here. I have never actually met a truly anti-sex/puritanical person in my age cohort. I have no clue why this is a stereotype, and seems like a misinterpretation of being porn-skeptical (which is not sex negative, nor wishes to stigmatize sex workers).
What is happening, in my experience, is that we are the age group (as well as gen alpha) that is seeing the impacts of unrestricted access to violent/fetishistic porn from a young age. Most people in this thread likely didn't see the kind of extreme stuff in their teens that my generation has seen, and for many you don't understand just how far the needle has been pushed for what constitutes average sexual behaviour. Hardcore porn has set up a generation of young people to think that things like choking, anal, face slapping, and other common tropes are just the standard for intimacy. Most young women I know have had a partner choke them without permission or be excessively rough in their touch, and when they say no, these partners are shocked because they genuinely think that's just what's expected and pleasurable.
There's also a ton of shaming towards men and women that are "vanilla", and a common assumption that being uncomfortable with physical violence in the bedroom is a sign of trauma or prudishness. Kink is pretty much considered the baseline now.
We are submerged in a culture where sex is everywhere, and the erotic is entirely missing. Every form of fantasy is accepted, but actual intimacy and love is taboo. My friends who are older millennials seem kind of shocked hearing how intimacy is going for us. Often for them, things like kink and hardcore porn were explored in their late teens and older, with partners who'd had plenty of "vanilla" encounters beforehand, so there's an exploration and novelty there, and usually no assumption that consent to sex means consent to rough sex.
When I was 12, there were already boys at my school who were talking about liking painal or about wanting to see girls "crying for it". They obviously didn't learn this terminology from having the talk... they learned it from pornhub.
I remember having to console a friend who felt violated because she was told she was a bitch for not putting out or sucking dick on a first date AT 15 (!!!). Most of us lost all sense of innocence before we had even had our first encounters, and I have no doubt that why so many of us are anxious and lonely.
So in my view, the gen z pushback against porn is not about wanting to be pure, or wanting to shy away from sexuality. We just want genuine intimacy and dare I say, romance, back. But even this fairly milquetoast stance is considered unenlightened now.
Also are we just going to forget that pornhub became a hot button issue because they were basically distributing CP and revenge porn?
I personally think the only way to have safe and ethical porn is to paywall it, or age restrict. If there are places that allow user-generated content, a lot of it is going to be ethically questionable at best.
I am someone who's fairly kinky and for a time paid my bills working as an erotic illustrator/artist, and I don't think having barriers to entry for this culture is a bad thing (and if you think it's a bad thing, I ask you in good faith: Why do you want children watching porn?).
posted by Pemberly at 9:35 PM on March 17 [41 favorites]
What is happening, in my experience, is that we are the age group (as well as gen alpha) that is seeing the impacts of unrestricted access to violent/fetishistic porn from a young age. Most people in this thread likely didn't see the kind of extreme stuff in their teens that my generation has seen, and for many you don't understand just how far the needle has been pushed for what constitutes average sexual behaviour. Hardcore porn has set up a generation of young people to think that things like choking, anal, face slapping, and other common tropes are just the standard for intimacy. Most young women I know have had a partner choke them without permission or be excessively rough in their touch, and when they say no, these partners are shocked because they genuinely think that's just what's expected and pleasurable.
There's also a ton of shaming towards men and women that are "vanilla", and a common assumption that being uncomfortable with physical violence in the bedroom is a sign of trauma or prudishness. Kink is pretty much considered the baseline now.
We are submerged in a culture where sex is everywhere, and the erotic is entirely missing. Every form of fantasy is accepted, but actual intimacy and love is taboo. My friends who are older millennials seem kind of shocked hearing how intimacy is going for us. Often for them, things like kink and hardcore porn were explored in their late teens and older, with partners who'd had plenty of "vanilla" encounters beforehand, so there's an exploration and novelty there, and usually no assumption that consent to sex means consent to rough sex.
When I was 12, there were already boys at my school who were talking about liking painal or about wanting to see girls "crying for it". They obviously didn't learn this terminology from having the talk... they learned it from pornhub.
I remember having to console a friend who felt violated because she was told she was a bitch for not putting out or sucking dick on a first date AT 15 (!!!). Most of us lost all sense of innocence before we had even had our first encounters, and I have no doubt that why so many of us are anxious and lonely.
So in my view, the gen z pushback against porn is not about wanting to be pure, or wanting to shy away from sexuality. We just want genuine intimacy and dare I say, romance, back. But even this fairly milquetoast stance is considered unenlightened now.
Also are we just going to forget that pornhub became a hot button issue because they were basically distributing CP and revenge porn?
I personally think the only way to have safe and ethical porn is to paywall it, or age restrict. If there are places that allow user-generated content, a lot of it is going to be ethically questionable at best.
I am someone who's fairly kinky and for a time paid my bills working as an erotic illustrator/artist, and I don't think having barriers to entry for this culture is a bad thing (and if you think it's a bad thing, I ask you in good faith: Why do you want children watching porn?).
posted by Pemberly at 9:35 PM on March 17 [41 favorites]
Also are we just going to forget that pornhub became a hot button issue because they were basically distributing CP and revenge porn?
So the obvious answer is to have everyone give them their state IDs to hold onto, then, right?
Nobody is arguing for unlimited access to porn, take that strawman elsewhere. We're pointing out that the law that Texas has enacted is obviously a transparent attempt at banning porn without acutally banning porn by putting ridiculous requirements in place, like giving your ID to porn providers.
Nobody wants children watching porn, for fuck's sake. What an incredibly disingenuous way to frame the argument. Shame on you for bringing the discussion down to that level.
posted by MrVisible at 9:56 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
So the obvious answer is to have everyone give them their state IDs to hold onto, then, right?
Nobody is arguing for unlimited access to porn, take that strawman elsewhere. We're pointing out that the law that Texas has enacted is obviously a transparent attempt at banning porn without acutally banning porn by putting ridiculous requirements in place, like giving your ID to porn providers.
Nobody wants children watching porn, for fuck's sake. What an incredibly disingenuous way to frame the argument. Shame on you for bringing the discussion down to that level.
posted by MrVisible at 9:56 PM on March 17 [11 favorites]
Hey dude above, consider not talking to people like that.
I'm mostly addressing those in the thread who are blanket-labelling all pro-regulation people as backwards/evangelical, and offering a bit of vulnerability and an alternative take. I don't know why you feel the need to attack me for that.
I also genuinely don't see the issue with presenting ID. I have to upload my ID to a ton of government websites as well as for employment stuff. I have to show ID when I buy booze. If suddenly people draw the line at giving ID for porn but are fine uploading it online for other reasons, I just wonder why they are resistant to this in particular. I understand why such a bill doesn't appeal to the more dedicated pro-privacy crowd, but I don't generally think most people are at that level. I don't like that it's Texas doing it, because with their track record as of late there is no way this will be implemented well... but I also don't completely disagree with the concept like most in this thread.
posted by Pemberly at 10:12 PM on March 17 [14 favorites]
I'm mostly addressing those in the thread who are blanket-labelling all pro-regulation people as backwards/evangelical, and offering a bit of vulnerability and an alternative take. I don't know why you feel the need to attack me for that.
I also genuinely don't see the issue with presenting ID. I have to upload my ID to a ton of government websites as well as for employment stuff. I have to show ID when I buy booze. If suddenly people draw the line at giving ID for porn but are fine uploading it online for other reasons, I just wonder why they are resistant to this in particular. I understand why such a bill doesn't appeal to the more dedicated pro-privacy crowd, but I don't generally think most people are at that level. I don't like that it's Texas doing it, because with their track record as of late there is no way this will be implemented well... but I also don't completely disagree with the concept like most in this thread.
posted by Pemberly at 10:12 PM on March 17 [14 favorites]
Thoughts and prayers to Ted Cruz in this trying time
Flagged for putting the idea of Ted Cruz and Internet sexytime in the same mental space.
On the other hand, rather than requiring any kind of ID or age verification, if the goal is to reduce access to porn, just have the login page have an auto playing, unblock able video of Ted Cruz talking to the user. Even better if it’s Cruz forced to read descriptions of the video the user has chosen.
Porn use would plummet overnight, aside from people with, let’s call them very, very niche interests.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:29 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Flagged for putting the idea of Ted Cruz and Internet sexytime in the same mental space.
On the other hand, rather than requiring any kind of ID or age verification, if the goal is to reduce access to porn, just have the login page have an auto playing, unblock able video of Ted Cruz talking to the user. Even better if it’s Cruz forced to read descriptions of the video the user has chosen.
Porn use would plummet overnight, aside from people with, let’s call them very, very niche interests.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:29 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Hey dude above, consider not talking to people like that.
Consider not accusing people of wanting to show children porn, then.
I also genuinely don't see the issue with presenting ID.
...to porn companies?
Because that's how the law we're discussing works.
You're comfortable giving porn companies your ID, so that they can correlate your porn viewing habits with your real identity?
You don't see how that could go horribly wrong? You don't see the potential for extortion or political persecution? You don't see how scam websites would have a field day?
Nobody wants everyone to have unbridled access to porn regardless of age; that's a strawman. We want a reasonable age verification system that can't be easily hijacked for nefarious purposes.
Sheesh.
posted by MrVisible at 10:32 PM on March 17 [12 favorites]
Consider not accusing people of wanting to show children porn, then.
I also genuinely don't see the issue with presenting ID.
...to porn companies?
Because that's how the law we're discussing works.
You're comfortable giving porn companies your ID, so that they can correlate your porn viewing habits with your real identity?
You don't see how that could go horribly wrong? You don't see the potential for extortion or political persecution? You don't see how scam websites would have a field day?
Nobody wants everyone to have unbridled access to porn regardless of age; that's a strawman. We want a reasonable age verification system that can't be easily hijacked for nefarious purposes.
Sheesh.
posted by MrVisible at 10:32 PM on March 17 [12 favorites]
I also genuinely don't see the issue with presenting ID.
>...to porn companies?
I realize I say this as a solution for every political quandary but the privacy issues with ID for smut access could easily be addressed if we simply nationalized porn.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:34 PM on March 17 [15 favorites]
>...to porn companies?
I realize I say this as a solution for every political quandary but the privacy issues with ID for smut access could easily be addressed if we simply nationalized porn.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:34 PM on March 17 [15 favorites]
A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, a PornHub account in every home!
posted by lock robster at 1:59 AM on March 18 [2 favorites]
posted by lock robster at 1:59 AM on March 18 [2 favorites]
Pemberly, thanks for your perspective but it's pretty much always Republicans trying to censor sex-related things and putting the actual law in place. There are many ways to prevent kid's access to porn and the way Rs are doing it makes no sense, unless you look at all their other censorship attempts (like all the book bans going on), and then it makes perfect sense what their goals are.
And, every generation has complained about rampant sex. It's like the most consistent thing every generation complains about. Expecting a teen girl to "put out" on the first date? Trying to do kink without asking about it? Yes, it's really bad and not new. It's actually a really old problem, a part of rape culture, and part of what feminists have been trying to combat for decades. The bad part of that scenario is not "teens trying out sex with each other is wrong" or "kink is wrong." Why do I say this? Because expecting someone wants vanilla sex without asking is also wrong. Adults expecting other adults to put out on the first date and getting upset when turned down is also wrong!!! The wrong part is that pressuring people to do sexual activities they don't like or aren't ready for is a violation of consent, and consent is important. Hence those Yes Means Yes/No Means No movements to try and prevent that behavior. X/millennial feminists want consent to be a part of sex education to talk about how you should ASK what your partner wants before doing it or assuming they'll be okay with something.
But "ban porn because porn must be causing it" is not what progressives were asking for, mainly because the root of the problem is not porn, but abuse and power, much of it patriarchal (even for male victims, even for queer people... long topic) shaping our perception of how we approach sex. It's like thinking gang violence comes from Grand Theft Auto video games. Those societal problems come from issues that are way, way bigger and deeper than what we watch on a screen. Of course these are things you can learn in a sociology class but--oh that's right, Republicans have been trying to suppress non-STEM education for decades! Ok well, there ya go.
Did you know before the internet, they used to sell Hustler in corner stores and play erotic films on giant drive-in theaters where you could just go outside and look at it? People were boning in those cars. Or watch any teen movie from the 80s and it's obvious people expected teens were having sex. A common trope is teen couples going to some unofficially designated area (like a forested cliff overlooking the city) where all the 16 year olds with new drivers licenses go to have their intimate moments. The internet is a comparatively private space.
Now, what IS different is younger people are waaaay less sensitized to having corporations know those intimate details. Older people ARE creeped out by uploading their IDs on websites or even things you might think are benign like having creepy targeted ads because banks, vendors and advertisers are all communicating with each other about our purchasing and browsing habits. That used to not be a thing. It IS a violation of privacy. Not a legal violation (for now) but a personal one.
posted by picklenickle at 4:24 AM on March 18 [12 favorites]
And, every generation has complained about rampant sex. It's like the most consistent thing every generation complains about. Expecting a teen girl to "put out" on the first date? Trying to do kink without asking about it? Yes, it's really bad and not new. It's actually a really old problem, a part of rape culture, and part of what feminists have been trying to combat for decades. The bad part of that scenario is not "teens trying out sex with each other is wrong" or "kink is wrong." Why do I say this? Because expecting someone wants vanilla sex without asking is also wrong. Adults expecting other adults to put out on the first date and getting upset when turned down is also wrong!!! The wrong part is that pressuring people to do sexual activities they don't like or aren't ready for is a violation of consent, and consent is important. Hence those Yes Means Yes/No Means No movements to try and prevent that behavior. X/millennial feminists want consent to be a part of sex education to talk about how you should ASK what your partner wants before doing it or assuming they'll be okay with something.
But "ban porn because porn must be causing it" is not what progressives were asking for, mainly because the root of the problem is not porn, but abuse and power, much of it patriarchal (even for male victims, even for queer people... long topic) shaping our perception of how we approach sex. It's like thinking gang violence comes from Grand Theft Auto video games. Those societal problems come from issues that are way, way bigger and deeper than what we watch on a screen. Of course these are things you can learn in a sociology class but--oh that's right, Republicans have been trying to suppress non-STEM education for decades! Ok well, there ya go.
Did you know before the internet, they used to sell Hustler in corner stores and play erotic films on giant drive-in theaters where you could just go outside and look at it? People were boning in those cars. Or watch any teen movie from the 80s and it's obvious people expected teens were having sex. A common trope is teen couples going to some unofficially designated area (like a forested cliff overlooking the city) where all the 16 year olds with new drivers licenses go to have their intimate moments. The internet is a comparatively private space.
Now, what IS different is younger people are waaaay less sensitized to having corporations know those intimate details. Older people ARE creeped out by uploading their IDs on websites or even things you might think are benign like having creepy targeted ads because banks, vendors and advertisers are all communicating with each other about our purchasing and browsing habits. That used to not be a thing. It IS a violation of privacy. Not a legal violation (for now) but a personal one.
posted by picklenickle at 4:24 AM on March 18 [12 favorites]
This is a trial run for what Cruz and and his ilk have as their next target: banning all contraception. I expect this will go about as well as prohibition did back in the day. Good luck when you try and take condoms away from cowboys and cowgirls.
Please make your own jokes about Texas, guns, and condoms in the privacy of you own home. I don't want to know anything about it, just like I want to know nothing about your PornHub preferences or lack of same.
posted by Metacircular at 5:38 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Please make your own jokes about Texas, guns, and condoms in the privacy of you own home. I don't want to know anything about it, just like I want to know nothing about your PornHub preferences or lack of same.
posted by Metacircular at 5:38 AM on March 18 [1 favorite]
I don't think the idea of connecting someone's legal identity to their sexual interests is at all safe given the rising tide of queerphobic fascism.
There are good arguments against the form pornography has taken on the capitalist internet. Those concerns are rooted in the welfare of children and workers in the industry. I don't think either group is going to actually be protected by this legislation.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:03 AM on March 18 [9 favorites]
There are good arguments against the form pornography has taken on the capitalist internet. Those concerns are rooted in the welfare of children and workers in the industry. I don't think either group is going to actually be protected by this legislation.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:03 AM on March 18 [9 favorites]
Yeah... there are actually a lot of parallels between porn ban and prohibition. Even trying to spin prohibition as progressive or family-focused by pointing at drunken husbands beating their wives/children so that parents and first wave feminists would get on board with it. Completely ignoring the fact that alcohol was not the thing making husbands abusive. War On Drugs, same shit. Just a vehicle for their desire for control and racism, not any actual concern for addicts or the situations that put them there.
Banning porn, banning abortion, banning comprehensive sex ed, banning books, banning trans and gay people, and banning contraception are all things that point in a single direction of conservative rich white men having control over everyone's bodies and lives
posted by picklenickle at 6:14 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
Banning porn, banning abortion, banning comprehensive sex ed, banning books, banning trans and gay people, and banning contraception are all things that point in a single direction of conservative rich white men having control over everyone's bodies and lives
posted by picklenickle at 6:14 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
If suddenly people draw the line at giving ID for porn but are fine uploading it online for other reasons, I just wonder why they are resistant to this in particular.
I have genuinely never had to upload my ID to any site for any reason, though? Not even for buying alcohol online. Maybe I did this at some point to speed along a process of student loan repayment or applying for mortgage preapproval or something like that, but those aren't comparable scenarios at all. It's not a normal thing, and it's not people "suddenly" drawing a line.
posted by knotty knots at 7:13 AM on March 18 [7 favorites]
I have genuinely never had to upload my ID to any site for any reason, though? Not even for buying alcohol online. Maybe I did this at some point to speed along a process of student loan repayment or applying for mortgage preapproval or something like that, but those aren't comparable scenarios at all. It's not a normal thing, and it's not people "suddenly" drawing a line.
posted by knotty knots at 7:13 AM on March 18 [7 favorites]
If suddenly people draw the line at giving ID for porn but are fine uploading it online for other reasons, I just wonder why they are resistant to this in particular.
This is like textbook strawmanning.
posted by nonethefewer at 7:39 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
This is like textbook strawmanning.
posted by nonethefewer at 7:39 AM on March 18 [4 favorites]
The problem with internet pornography is there is one level of NSFW, and if you go to a site like pornhub you see sex tip videos and relatively normal porn but you also see extreme and dangerous fetish content like choking, vomiting, and pain play. Like right wing content on YouTube, the algorithm is always trying to insert content that is more extreme because your usage increases when you start consuming that content. This content, while likely made with consent by all involved and worthwhile for someone seeking it out, is likely dangerous if it is someone's first exposure to watching people have sex.
Meanwhile if you read basically any thread about young people's sexual experiences there is a pretty direct route from, for example, choking porn on PornHub to women being non-consensually choked in real life sexual encounters.
posted by hermanubis at 10:19 AM on March 18 [3 favorites]
Meanwhile if you read basically any thread about young people's sexual experiences there is a pretty direct route from, for example, choking porn on PornHub to women being non-consensually choked in real life sexual encounters.
posted by hermanubis at 10:19 AM on March 18 [3 favorites]
If extreme kink were lessened or put out of reach, all those problems would still exist. It would just be vanilla misunderstandings, vanilla assumptions, vanilla pressure, vanilla rape. That doesn't get rid of any problems.
The way to combat that is with comprehensive sex education. Comprehensive sex education that covers consent, pornography, and sexuality, combined with freely accessible contraceptives leads to lower incidences of rape, child abuse, and teen pregnancy. This is an actual observable truth. When you go onto DV and child abuse centers, those are the things they encourage. They don't campaign for hiding porn or even "extreme" porn. Only conservative think tanks advocate that shit.
Same with drugs, same with abortion, same with combatting every kind of systemic injustice.
See also: people being scandalized that sex ed in kindergarten involves teaching very young kids words like PENIS and VAGINA. It's because hiding or sugarcoating words and turning it into "cookie" or whatever makes it really really hard for kids to realize they're being abused and communicate when it's is happening because "dad touched my cookie" sounds like gibberish. Knowledge is everything and ignorance solves nothing. Similarly, equipping people with knowledge of porn, consent, relationship, resources allows better communication.
Alternatively, consider: hiding extreme gore horror won't do a single fucking thing to murder rates. Why would it? We learn from a very young age that murder is wrong. But when it comes to sex for some reason we don't provide the same level of communication and knowledge and think sweeping it under a rug or sanitizing it to be ~acceptable knowledge only~ until age 18 is the appropriate thing to do. LOL. It is so backwards... our entire culture around sex is horrible.
posted by picklenickle at 12:43 PM on March 18 [10 favorites]
The way to combat that is with comprehensive sex education. Comprehensive sex education that covers consent, pornography, and sexuality, combined with freely accessible contraceptives leads to lower incidences of rape, child abuse, and teen pregnancy. This is an actual observable truth. When you go onto DV and child abuse centers, those are the things they encourage. They don't campaign for hiding porn or even "extreme" porn. Only conservative think tanks advocate that shit.
Same with drugs, same with abortion, same with combatting every kind of systemic injustice.
See also: people being scandalized that sex ed in kindergarten involves teaching very young kids words like PENIS and VAGINA. It's because hiding or sugarcoating words and turning it into "cookie" or whatever makes it really really hard for kids to realize they're being abused and communicate when it's is happening because "dad touched my cookie" sounds like gibberish. Knowledge is everything and ignorance solves nothing. Similarly, equipping people with knowledge of porn, consent, relationship, resources allows better communication.
Alternatively, consider: hiding extreme gore horror won't do a single fucking thing to murder rates. Why would it? We learn from a very young age that murder is wrong. But when it comes to sex for some reason we don't provide the same level of communication and knowledge and think sweeping it under a rug or sanitizing it to be ~acceptable knowledge only~ until age 18 is the appropriate thing to do. LOL. It is so backwards... our entire culture around sex is horrible.
posted by picklenickle at 12:43 PM on March 18 [10 favorites]
Just to be clear, incorporating pornography as a topic of sex ed means:
"Hey kids, pornography is not an instruction manual. It's entertainment, it's often scripted, and some actions are dangerous and should never be performed by untrained or uninformed people, especially not you."
Then, explanations on what is kink, what are fetishes, how to communicate with your partner about what you want to do or not do, how to put a condom on a banana, etc.
Most sex ed does not cover this, but it's something sex positive progressives have been advocating for decades and conservatives HATE that idea. But conservatives do love lowering the legal age for marriage and child labor, soooo yeah, you can put 2 + 2 together.
posted by picklenickle at 1:41 PM on March 18 [12 favorites]
"Hey kids, pornography is not an instruction manual. It's entertainment, it's often scripted, and some actions are dangerous and should never be performed by untrained or uninformed people, especially not you."
Then, explanations on what is kink, what are fetishes, how to communicate with your partner about what you want to do or not do, how to put a condom on a banana, etc.
Most sex ed does not cover this, but it's something sex positive progressives have been advocating for decades and conservatives HATE that idea. But conservatives do love lowering the legal age for marriage and child labor, soooo yeah, you can put 2 + 2 together.
posted by picklenickle at 1:41 PM on March 18 [12 favorites]
Most sex ed does not cover this, but it's something sex positive progressives have been advocating for decades and conservatives HATE that idea.
You are flashing me back to the time I was in a health class in high school, and they required every single last damn one of us to bring in a permission slip to show us a very chastely-staged sex ed film....but then when we had a free study for the class the following week, one kid said he had a VHS of PORKY'S 2 and asked if they could watch it and the teacher shrugged and said "sure".
I later got to tell that story to our school board during a public meeting concerning the school's attempt to open a more beefed-up student health center, and the town pearl-clutchers were having a hissy fit because they thought it would be like a Planned Parenthood outlet. Their reaction to my tale was uniquely gratifying.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:56 PM on March 18 [5 favorites]
You are flashing me back to the time I was in a health class in high school, and they required every single last damn one of us to bring in a permission slip to show us a very chastely-staged sex ed film....but then when we had a free study for the class the following week, one kid said he had a VHS of PORKY'S 2 and asked if they could watch it and the teacher shrugged and said "sure".
I later got to tell that story to our school board during a public meeting concerning the school's attempt to open a more beefed-up student health center, and the town pearl-clutchers were having a hissy fit because they thought it would be like a Planned Parenthood outlet. Their reaction to my tale was uniquely gratifying.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:56 PM on March 18 [5 favorites]
Are Texans about to flee to sketchy, malware-laden, .ru sites?
Indeed they are!
posted by aspersioncast at 2:14 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
Indeed they are!
posted by aspersioncast at 2:14 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]
the algorithm is always trying to insert content that is more extreme because your usage increases when you start consuming that content
Obviously porn as a whole has popularized some acts that used to be seen as relatively extreme, but it is not really my experience that porn sites have that strong an algorithmic funnel. I suppose this is probably affected by the use of private browsing/lack of persistent sessions but - are you going to tell me you don’t?
This topic actually highlights a basic limitation of this kind of regulation - while the legal and moral shortcomings of sites like Pornhub are well documented, they are definitely on the more scrupulous end of the spectrum compared to the many shady smaller players hosted god knows where that will certainly not make any effort to comply with anything. It’s one of those classic ironies of prohibition.
posted by atoxyl at 6:01 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
Obviously porn as a whole has popularized some acts that used to be seen as relatively extreme, but it is not really my experience that porn sites have that strong an algorithmic funnel. I suppose this is probably affected by the use of private browsing/lack of persistent sessions but - are you going to tell me you don’t?
This topic actually highlights a basic limitation of this kind of regulation - while the legal and moral shortcomings of sites like Pornhub are well documented, they are definitely on the more scrupulous end of the spectrum compared to the many shady smaller players hosted god knows where that will certainly not make any effort to comply with anything. It’s one of those classic ironies of prohibition.
posted by atoxyl at 6:01 PM on March 18 [1 favorite]
“ buy guns to slaughter children, no background check or identification required”
As does every gangbanger in every city or town.
And no, The Vatican does not have a large porn collection.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:50 AM on March 22
As does every gangbanger in every city or town.
And no, The Vatican does not have a large porn collection.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:50 AM on March 22
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