Modern politics is like a creepy stalker. I don't want to have anything to do with it. I just wish it felt the same way about me.
Recent news has been targeting me on two separate fronts, as a gender-nonconforming individual who occasionally stars in sexually explicit media. All of these anti-trans bills going around are legitimately heartbreaking (almost as much as the relative silence they're being met with, outside of dedicated trans activist circles), but what I want to talk about today is these attempts at enacting stricter regulations on sexual expression.
But first, let me direct your attention to the fact that in both of these cases, the issue is disingenuously being framed as a measure designed to protect children (when the literal opposite is true), because that is absolutely the best way to silence opposition. It's clear to me that any bill or policy that mentions children should be held under the highest scrutiny.
"The political figure of the innocent and imperiled child just has a never-ending purchase on American politics ... [it] essentially shuts down debate because it immediately creates a binary in which anybody who disagrees with you is [a] perverted groomer." - Whitney Strub, associate professor of history at Rutgers University [source]
This time, the forces of chastity are pressuring the government to require you to transmit your ID online (opening yourself up to the risk of identity theft, and the possibility for discrimination and blackmail), just to watch porn. And they're disguising it as age verification, because who can argue with that? I've struggled in the past to explain why these sorts of restrictions are an egregious assault on our rights, but the way they're framed (as "protecting" children) makes it very hard to do, and that's what makes these bills so insidious.
Others are better at constructing effective arguments against the meat and potatoes of these bills (click the Guardian and FSC links above), but what gets to me is that the most specious argument (which most stances, for or against, tend to agree on) is also the hardest one to refute, on emotional grounds. It just kills me that, in what hails itself to be the land of free speech and civil protest, I can't find a way to say "the perceived harm of a person under the age of 18 being exposed to pornography is exaggerated, and most certainly does not justify an unconstitutional overreach into individual liberty and privacy" without feeling like I'm shooting myself in the foot, because nobody is going to take me seriously.
But I do believe that. And I'm not dangerously insane. I agree that it's reasonable to take precautions to prevent young children from being exposed to hardcore pornography - the industry already does that. On the other hand, discovering porn is practically a rite of passage for older kids who actively seek it out. Sexuality doesn't switch on at 18. Maybe we shouldn't encourage this, but it happens. And it doesn't destroy their lives. And though porn isn't the best education, it's not like we do a good job of educating them otherwise.
Whatever harm is caused by watching porn (and believe me, these harms are exaggerated by a sex-negative bias), I simply don't think it's reasonable to unquestionably go to such lengths as violating people's Constitutional rights to freedom of expression and privacy, all to prevent some teenager from consenting to something the law doesn't permit them to consent to. This is textbook nanny state politics. Why is the "party of small government" not opposing this?
I mean, it seems particularly ludicrous to me, because I look after kids, and I don't want them exposed to that kind of material at their age, but they're exposed to it anyway, outside of my control. And you know what? They're just fine. But I can't say "the kids are alright" without making it sound like I don't care about the kids - and I absolutely do! But even if I think it's too much too early (not that the standard approach of "too little too late" is any better), I still don't think it justifies Draconian measures of prevention, that are informed by and contribute to the deadly stigma of sex work. What makes it even more frustrating, is that I can't prevent these kids from voluntarily exposing themselves to this material (no matter what restrictions we enact, you cannot kill the human spirit), yet I'm not realistically given the option of introducing them to the healthful benefits of nonsexual nudism. It's backwards!
But make no mistake, this has nothing to do with kids watching porn. This is puritans who have a categorical opposition to pornography. When they talk about the negative impact on kids being exposed to pornography, they're talking about everybody. They just know that focusing on kids is the way they're gonna get average people to agree with them. This is how we swallow discriminatory stereotypes about pornography - which is a vast and varied medium.
In a truly free society, if somebody else doesn't like porn, they have no control over your choice to watch it. In our society, the government will be pressured by religious conservatives to do whatever it takes to discourage you from watching porn, and punish you if you go through with it anyway. And it works, because we will "happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty for the benefit of the most precious treasure of the people" - the innocent, defenseless child.
