The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce is scheduled to meet Thursday to review and potentially amend the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, a measure that includes provisions establishing federal age-verification requirements for adult websites.

The KIDS Act is an omnibus bill that combines several online safety proposals. Among the measures included in the legislation is the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, a federal age-verification bill introduced last year by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois.

An updated version of the SCREEN Act, amended by Congressman Craig Goldman of Texas, forms the basis of Title I of the KIDS Act. That section of the bill is titled “Shielding Minors From Obscenity.”

The section requires adult websites to implement what the bill describes as a “technology verification measure.” The legislation defines that as “technology that (A) employs a system or process to determine whether it is more likely than not that a user of a covered platform is a minor; and (B) prevents access by minors to any sexual material harmful to minors on a covered platform.”

To comply with the proposal, websites or their third-party age-verification providers would be required to use such a “technology verification measure” to verify a user’s age and take “reasonable measures” to prevent circumvention of those systems. The provision appears intended to address the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and other tools that can bypass age-verification requirements.

About half of U.S. states currently have age-verification laws in place. If the KIDS Act becomes law, its age-verification provisions would supersede those state laws. The bill states: “No State, or political subdivision of a State, may prescribe, maintain, enforce, or continue in effect any law, rule, regulation, requirement, standard, or other provision” that requires age verification by adult sites.

If the bill is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump, it would take effect one year after enactment.

Failure to comply with the proposed law would be treated as a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition against unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Violators could face civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation.

If the Committee on Energy and Commerce approves the KIDS Act following Thursday’s markup session, the bill could then move to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

LONDON — The House of Lords, the U.K.’s upper chamber of Parliament, on Monday approved a series of amendments to the pending Crime and Policing Bill that would invalidate certain talent contracts and ban several categories of adult content, including so-called “step” pornography and scenes in which adult performers appear to portray minors.

The proposals mark another step in the British government’s ongoing effort to tighten regulation of online adult content — an effort that has gathered momentum over the past year as lawmakers debate how far those restrictions should go.

‘Step’ Content Ban

The House of Lords approved an amendment classifying pornographic images depicting sex between relatives as a priority offense under the Online Safety Act — a category that currently includes material such as child sexual abuse imagery and terrorism content.

In December, the government rejected amendments that would have criminalized depictions of sexual activity between stepparents and stepsiblings. At the time, officials maintained that the proposed language should not extend to step-family scenarios.

That position changed during Monday’s debate.

Baroness Gabrielle Bertin, a Conservative member of the House of Lords who previously led an independent government-commissioned review of pornography regulation, introduced language expanding the prohibition to include “step” content. The chamber approved the change.

Bertin told the House of Lords, “Depictions of incest being banned is great, but it is just token if you do not ban step incest as it will all be driven into the step incest category, which is just as damaging.”

If the Crime and Policing Bill becomes law with the amendment intact, possession of such material could carry a penalty of up to two years in prison, a fine, or both. Publishing it could bring a sentence of up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.

Withdrawal of Consent

Lawmakers also approved an amendment granting individuals appearing in adult content the ability to withdraw consent for publication at any time.

Under the proposal, it would become legally “irrelevant” whether a performer had previously agreed to the publication of a video or image. If consent is later withdrawn, platforms hosting the material would be required to remove it within 24 hours.

Before the vote, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Baroness Alison Levitt urged caution about the proposal’s practical consequences.

“The part of the amendment relating to the withdrawal of consent and its application to professional entertainment contracts has a number of practical implications,” Levitt cautioned. “Where content is produced legally, as with the wider film industry, the rules and regulations governing its use are usually a commercial matter to be agreed between the performer and the production company, taking into account the intellectual property framework.”

If adopted into law, violations could result in penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both. Platforms found in breach of the rules could face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their global revenue.

Adult Performers Portraying Minors

Another amendment approved by the House of Lords would outlaw content that “mimics” child sexual abuse by featuring adult performers who appear to be minors or are implied to be minors.

The provision would allow authorities to interpret factors such as costumes, dialogue or settings as indicators that a performer is portraying a child, even if no explicit statement about the character’s age is made.

The government opposed the amendment during debate.

Levitt warned lawmakers that expanding the scope of the law could complicate enforcement efforts targeting actual child sexual abuse material.

“It is important to remember that the purpose of this suite of legislation is to criminalize indecent images of actual children and to help identify and swiftly safeguard children who are subject to sexual abuse,” Levitt said. “Expanding the scope of the Act to include adults who can and have consented to make pornography risks diverting resources for the police to try to distinguish children from adults who are pretending to be children. It risks delaying necessary safeguarding activity and leaving real children at continued risk of harm.”

If enacted with the amendment intact, content interpreted as featuring adults portraying minors would also become a priority offense under the Online Safety Act.

Pornography Review Head Denounces Industry

Momentum for stricter online content regulation intensified following the release, in February 2025, of a government-commissioned “pornography review” launched under the administration of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Among the review’s recommendations was a ban on adult content deemed “degrading, violent and misogynistic.” That recommendation later helped shape provisions in the Crime and Policing Bill addressing depictions of nonfatal strangulation, commonly referred to as “choking.”

Bertin, who led the review, delivered a sharp critique of the adult industry during Monday’s debate.

“It is a sector that has been driven to abusive extremes by powerful, profit-driven algorithms, too often monetizing sexual violence and degradation,” Bertin told the House of Lords. “Exploitation and trafficking are rife. Sexual abuse material remains far too easy to find on these sites, and many survivors tell us that what is filmed as content is in reality recorded abuse. This cannot continue.”

Bertin called for what she described as stronger intervention across the industry’s business structure.

“Porn is ultimately about the money,” she said. “We need far tighter regulation and law that ends the grey area and replaces the passive, light-touch self-regulation with far more proactive scrutiny.”

With the amendments approved by the House of Lords, the Crime and Policing Bill will now return to the House of Commons, where lawmakers will review the newly added provisions before the legislation can move forward.

For those under a certain age, it might be tempting to believe the War on Porn is something new. After all, if you were born in the aughts and are currently in your early to mid-twenties, you came up during a period of minimal regulation of online adult entertainment – and you might not even be aware of the extent to which brick and mortar adult businesses have restricted by the likes of zoning regulations and the threat of being  prosecuted under state-level obscenity laws.

For those of us who were already plying our trade in the adult business when the commercial internet was in its infancy, our memories are filled with historical examples of governments seeking to restrict or eradicate the distribution of sexually explicit materials.

Even attempts to rein in online porn specifically are not new. The “Communications Decency ACT” (CDA) was passed in 1996, 30 years ago. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) passed two years later. Neither accomplished their goals, as both were at least partially enjoined by the courts.

Now, 30 years on, proponents of the CDA and COPA have prevailed, at least to an extent, with the Supreme Court’s ruling in FSC v. Paxton – and age verification is now a fact of life for the online adult industry.

It would be foolish to believe that with the upholding of age verification laws, anti-porn crusaders will be satisfied and turn their attention elsewhere. The goal for some of these folks, including those who composed the infamous “Project 2025” policy framework, is nothing less than a full ban on porn and strictly enforced criminalization of its mere possession, let alone its distribution.

While the technology employed to restrict access to online porn has ‘improved’ (for lack of a better word), the core questions underlying the effort to restrict access to – or indeed, ban – online porn have not changed.

Back in 2004, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh framed the issue quite effectively in an article he wrote for the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. The effort to crack down on porn – at the time something envisioned as an undertaking led by the U.S. Department of Justice under then-Attorney General John Ashcroft – had “three possible outcomes” Volokh wrote.

“(1) The crackdown on porn is doomed to be utterly ineffective at preventing the supposedly harmful effects of porn on its viewers, and on the viewers’ neighbors.

(2) The crackdown on porn will be made effective — by implementing a comprehensive government-mandated filtering system run by some administrative agency that constantly monitors the Net and requires private service providers to block any sites that the agency says are obscene.

(3) The crackdown on porn will turn into a full-fledged War on Smut that will be made effective by prosecuting, imprisoning, and seizing the assets of porn buyers.”

While the primary mode of ‘attack’ has shifted from greatly expanded obscenity prosecutions to mandated age verification, Volokh’s three predicted outcomes still loom as a potential end state. Given the porn prohibitionist maximalism that courses through the veins of Project 2025, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and other similar groups, they will likely never give up on the ultimate goal of banning and criminalizing porn.

As such, it’s worth asking: What if the governments, think tanks and activists who favor the idea of an outright porn ban get what they want? What if instead of merely mandating age verification, governments go further and begin prosecuting ‘users’ of porn in furtherance of the War on Porn, much as they have done for decades in the War on Drugs?

I’ll tell you what won’t happen; people won’t magically lose their interest in watching porn, making porn, or selling porn. Just as the War on Drugs has made prisoners out of many junkies, while making things lucrative (albeit high risk) for those willing to shoulder the perils of drug running and drug dealing, porn will simply become a black market good, as it was for many decades back before the rise of the modern adult industry.

I hate to break it to the anti-porn crusader crowd, but the simple fact is you can’t legislate desire out of existence, and you can’t prosecute people into purity. If the failed experiment of the Prohibition Era wasn’t enough to teach us that lesson, the decades-long, ongoing failure of the War on Drugs surely ought to have done it. But here we are, in 2026, blithely marching ourselves toward another failed deployment of government resources, in vain pursuit of protecting people from themselves.

So, the truth is, the hypothetical question that headlines this article, what if anti-porn forces win the War on Porn, isn’t the right question. The right question is: How much damage will be done in the quixotic pursuit of the unachievable outcome of a porn-free society?

Unfortunately, if history is any guide, the answer is “too much.”

LOS ANGELES — The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) announced that it is providing its members with exclusive access to a new age-verification service called PrivateAV.

In a press release, FSC said the tool is intended to serve as a compliant and affordable option for adult websites while also supporting the organization’s ongoing advocacy efforts.

Beginning immediately, FSC members can access PrivateAV as part of their membership benefits. The organization described the platform as a privacy-focused and cost-conscious solution developed specifically for the adult industry.

PrivateAV includes two verification options: artificial intelligence-based age estimation and document verification with biometric matching. FSC said the system is designed so that personal information is not retained after the verification process is completed, with all data deleted once a session ends.

Pricing structured for a range of businesses

According to FSC, PrivateAV will be available under tiered pricing. Plans start at $30 per month for up to 1,000 verifications, a level the organization said is aimed at smaller and independent operators. Higher-volume options are also available for larger platforms.

“Age verification is now a fact of life for the adult industry,” said Alison Boden, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition. “FSC’s job is to help our members comply without breaking the bank, compromising their users’ privacy, or lining the pockets of the people trying to legislate us out of existence. PrivateAV is our answer to all three.”

Members may test the system in a sandbox environment with up to 100 trial verifications before moving to a paid plan.

Developed with industry input

FSC said PrivateAV was created by professionals with experience in the adult sector, with the goal of addressing compliance demands while accounting for privacy and technical considerations unique to adult platforms.

The press release also stated that some existing age-verification providers have supported legislative campaigns that led to recent mandates. FSC said a portion of each PrivateAV subscription will be directed to the organization to fund its legal defense, policy work and legislative advocacy.

“We built PrivateAV because we knew the industry deserved something better,” said Ákos Hantos of VerityGuard, the technology partner behind the service. “This isn’t a product that was retrofitted for adult platforms. It was designed from the ground up with their needs in mind – fast, private, and built to hold up under real regulatory scrutiny.”

In addition to supporting compliance with U.S. state-level requirements, FSC said the tool is aligned with international standards, including those set by Ofcom, Arcom, KJM and Agcom.

BRASILIA — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week approved new regulations requiring adult websites to verify the ages of users located in Brazil beginning March 17.

Enacted last year, Brazil’s Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents (Digital ECA) is intended to protect minors in digital environments. The law requires adult content providers to implement age verification measures beyond self-declaration and applies regardless of where site operators are based.

The law also extends to marketplaces and delivery applications offering adult or erotic products, requiring them to verify purchasers’ ages and restrict access by minors.

Enforcement will be carried out by the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD), which was recently elevated to the status of a regulatory agency.

Additional implementation details are expected in a forthcoming decree currently being drafted by several government bodies, including Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security, of which the ANPD is a part.

The statute states that providers of information technology products and services must adopt systems and processes to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content.

Article 9, Section 1 of the Digital ECA provides that “Reliable age verification mechanisms must be adopted each time a user accesses the content, product or service … and self-declaration is prohibited.”

Noncompliance will initially result in a warning and a 30-day deadline to implement corrective measures. Continued violations may lead to fines of up to 10% of a site operator’s revenue generated in Brazil or up to 1,000 Brazilian reais (approximately $195) per registered user, with total penalties capped at 50 million reais (approximately $9.73 million).

In advance of the rules taking effect, the ANPD released an English-language version of its publication “Age Assurance Mechanisms,” which outlines technological approaches including biometric estimation, behavioral analysis and document verification aimed at preventing minors from accessing inappropriate content.

According to an ANPD statement, publication of the English version is intended to “broaden knowledge on the subject, given that many technology platforms operate on a cross-border basis.”

Local Representative Requirement

The Brazilian Association of Adult Entertainment Industry Professionals (ABIPEA), which launched in September to represent adult industry professionals and companies operating in Brazil, has participated in technical discussions related to implementation of the Digital ECA.

ABIPEA President Paula Aguiar said the organization has engaged directly with government bodies during the process.

“We have been providing practical input on how the law impacts adult-industry businesses and have submitted contributions and recommendations to the draft of the forthcoming regulatory decree,” Aguiar said.

Aguiar highlighted Article 40, which requires site operators based outside Brazil to appoint a legal representative in the country authorized to receive legal notifications and assume responsibility in administrative and judicial proceedings.

She said ABIPEA is available to provide technical and institutional guidance to companies seeking to comply with the new legal framework.

ABIPEA will also host a dedicated space during the Intimi Expo trade show, scheduled for March 20–22 in São Paulo, focused on “educating and guiding the adult industry regarding the Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents, its practical implications and compliance strategies.”

LOS ANGELES—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a new policy paper recommending that digital platforms operating in the United States implement age-verification measures in line with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Released Wednesday, the document is framed as an “enforcement policy statement promoting the adoption of age-verification technology.” It positions age-gating as a practical safeguard aimed at limiting minors’ exposure to potentially harmful or restricted material, including pornography. The statement follows remarks made weeks earlier by FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who voiced support for age-verification tools during a public seminar examining the technology.

The workshop drew attention in part because adult-industry stakeholders were not included among panel participants. One of the few critical perspectives came from a representative of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, who questioned age verification as a regulatory solution. Beyond that dissent, the policy statement broadly endorses the deployment of age-verification tools across the internet, extending from adult platforms to mainstream social media services that host explicit content, such as Reddit and X.

“Age verification can play a critical role in protecting children online and helping parents as they monitor their children’s online activities,” the document reads.

The paper also states that the Commission “will not exercise its enforcement discretion” under COPPA, which restricts online services from collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. The rationale, according to the statement, is to “encourage the use of robust age-verification mechanisms.”

It adds, “In the coming months, the Commission intends to initiate a review of the COPPA Rule to address age-verification mechanisms.”

Questions remain about how the policy will play out in practice. Critics point to the possibility that prioritizing age-verification adoption could divert regulatory attention from risks tied to the technology itself, including data security failures. Breaches involving age-verification providers have already been reported, affecting systems connected to a vendor used by Discord and the developer behind Louisiana’s digital ID wallet application.

Historically, COPPA enforcement actions have focused on the improper collection, use or disclosure of personal data belonging to children under 13 — particularly in cases involving hacking incidents or data leaks. Under the approach outlined in the new policy statement, the FTC signals that enforcement tied to COPPA violations may be less likely when age-verification tools are actively used to determine a user’s age.

Policy papers rarely feel dramatic in the moment. Still, this one lands with a quiet implication: the internet’s next chapter may hinge not just on what platforms host, but on how they decide who gets through the door.

LONDON — A quiet amendment tucked into a sweeping crime bill is stirring debate across the U.K.’s digital policy landscape. Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and violence against women and girls, announced that changes to the Crime and Policing Bill would prohibit what lawmakers describe as “incest simulation” pornography within the country’s online space.

The Crime and Policing Bill, first introduced last year, has reached the report stage in the House of Lords after clearing the House of Commons during the summer. The latest amendments expand the bill’s scope, adding provisions that address “semen-defaced images” and the nonconsensual act of screenshotting intimate videos. Lawmakers also identified “incest and step-incest pornography” as forms of “hardcore pornography” falling within the “legal but harmful” framework established under the Online Safety Act.

The policy shift draws heavily from recommendations issued by the U.K.’s pornography commission, led by Baroness Gabby Bertin. The commission concluded that simulated incest content should be criminalized in a manner comparable to real-world offenses involving incest and sexual abuse.

“[Some] online pornographic content depicts disturbing ‘role-play’ including incest and adults role-playing as children—evidence shows that this type of pornography is used by perpetrators to permit child sex abuse,” Lady Bertin’s recommendations read. “This is totally unacceptable.”

“I make recommendations to make incest pornography illegal, and for content that might encourage an interest in child sex abuse to be prohibited,” adds the report.

The same commission report also proposed restrictions on strangulation-related pornography, even in cases where content is consensual and controlled. Under the proposed amendments, Ofcom would gain authority to take enforcement action against platforms hosting content depicting strangulation or incest-related scenarios.

“The current criminal justice response is ineffective in tackling illegal pornography online,” notes the Bertin report.

Further recommendations call for a broader legislative review. The report states that the “[government] should conduct its own legislative review of this regime to ensure that legislation and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance is fit-for-purpose in tackling illegal pornography in the online world. […] Pornographic content that depicts incest should be made illegal.”

The proposals arrive against the backdrop of ongoing debate around fetish and BDSM content, where consensual choking and sadomasochistic play remain common categories within adult entertainment.

“Abuse of victims is ever-evolving in the online world and the offline world,” Davies-Jones said in an interview. “We need to act, and we need a criminal justice system that’s fit for modern times.”

The minister clarified that criminalization of simulated incest would not extend to “step-incest” or “step-family” categories, which remain widely produced and consumed across mainstream and niche adult markets. Davies-Jones said the government intends to conduct “a broader review [around extreme pornography] and looking at what more needs to be done.”

“It’s becoming normalised in society, and that is a problem,” she added. “We want everyone to be aware of what a healthy consensual relationship is, which is why this is also part of our violence against women and girls strategy around education and prevention.”

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Senate has passed legislation that would impose a 2% tax on adult websites doing business in the state while expanding rules aimed at preventing minors from bypassing age verification through virtual private networks.

SB 73 would make adult platforms liable if Utah minors access their services by using VPNs to circumvent geolocation safeguards. Earlier versions of the bill proposed a 7% tax on gross receipts, along with requirements for adult sites to notify the state’s Division of Consumer Protection of their in-state activity and pay an annual $500 fee. Lawmakers later revised the measure, removing the notification and fee provisions and reducing the tax rate.

The amended bill now takes a broader approach, covering a range of consumer protection functions across multiple state agencies. While retaining portions of the original proposal, the Senate-approved version would impose a 2% excise tax on adult platforms operating in Utah. The tax would apply to transactions involving “access to digital images, digital audio-visual works, digital audio works, digital books, or gaming services,” including subscription and streaming access.

Industry attorneys have raised concerns about possible legal challenges to the measure. Similar proposals, however, have surfaced in other states. Alabama enacted a 10% tax on adult content revenues in 2025, and lawmakers in Virginia and Pennsylvania have considered comparable initiatives.

Revenue generated by the Utah tax would be directed to a state fund supporting youth mental health initiatives. The bill specifies that funds would support “(a) mental health treatment programs for minors affected by material harmful to minors; (b) educational programs for parents, guardians, educators, and minors on the mental health risks associated with material harmful to minors; (c) early prevention and intervention programs for minors at risk of mental health harm from material harmful to minors; and (d) research and public awareness campaigns addressing mental health harm to minors caused by material harmful to minors.”

VPN Requirements Added

SB 73 also includes provisions addressing VPN usage. The amended language states: “An individual is considered to be accessing the website from this state if the individual is actually located in the state, regardless of whether the individual is using a virtual private network, proxy server, or other means to disguise or misrepresent the individual’s geographic location to make it appear that the individual is accessing a website from a location outside this state.”

In addition, the bill would prohibit adult platforms from facilitating or encouraging users to bypass age verification. The legislation bars websites from providing tools or guidance for circumvention, “including by providing: (a) instructions on how to use a virtual private network or proxy server to access the website; or (b) means for individuals in this state to circumvent geofencing or blocking.”

State-based age verification laws have faced criticism because users can often avoid them through anonymizing technologies. Increased media attention and regulatory focus on VPN use have prompted lawmakers to explore stricter enforcement mechanisms.

West Virginia lawmakers are considering similar language in SB 498, which would mandate that “No online platform, website, or digital entity may allow users to bypass age verification requirements through VPNs, proxy services, or other anonymizing technologies.” That proposal is awaiting committee review.

Meanwhile, Indiana has filed a lawsuit against Aylo, alleging that the company failed to prevent access by users masking their location through VPNs. Although Indiana’s age verification statute does not explicitly reference VPNs, the state argues the company is noncompliant “because Indiana residents, including minors, can still easily access the Defendants’ websites with a VPN IP or proxy address from another jurisdiction or through the use of location spoofing software.”

Utah’s updated VPN provisions could affect enforcement of the state’s age verification law, which took effect in January 2023.

The bill will next be considered by the Utah House Revenue and Taxation Committee. If enacted, SB 73 would take effect Oct. 1.

PHOENIX — A bill moving through the Arizona legislature could introduce new compliance hurdles for adult websites, with industry observers warning that conflicting provisions may make it difficult for platforms to operate in the state.

Arizona’s HB 2133, titled the “Protect Act,” is part of a broader legislative push to address AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery. The bill seeks to ensure that nude or sexual depictions of individuals — including those created with artificial intelligence — cannot be published without the consent of each person shown. It also establishes new consent and verification requirements for adult websites.

Under the proposal, adult platforms would be required to use “reasonable consent verification methods” to confirm that individuals depicted in sexual content have provided consent. The bill would further require websites to maintain records of that verification for at least seven years, making them available for potential review by the state attorney general.

The legislation defines “reasonable consent verification methods” as including “(i) An affidavit that attests to the consent and age of each depicted person. (ii) A verification through an independent third party. (iii) Any other commercially reasonable method that does not retain identifying information after the verification is complete.”

Industry stakeholders say these provisions could create compliance challenges. Affidavits typically require notarization, which may be burdensome in practice. At the same time, the second and third verification options appear to conflict with the separate requirement that verification records be retained.

Free Speech Coalition Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile said, “We are most concerned about the clear conflicts with federal law. It appears that Arizona is asking us to delete age-and-consent records after verification, which is impossible for us to do. We’ve reached out to the legislator to alert him to this issue, and others, as well as to clarify some of the provisions in the bill.”

The Free Speech Coalition has previously raised concerns about similar legislation, pointing to North Carolina’s “Prevent Sexual Exploitation of Women and Minors Act,” which drew criticism for its impact on model contracts, and Alabama’s HB 164, which requires notarized model releases.

If enacted, the Arizona bill would impose civil penalties of $10,000 per day on sites that fail to obtain “verified” consent, along with potential damages and attorney fees.

HB 2133 has passed the Arizona House of Representatives and has been transmitted to the state Senate for further consideration.

When champion skier Lindsey Vonn experienced a terrible crash on what turned out to be her final run in the women’s downhill skiing event at the Winter Olympics in Milan earlier this month, maybe there were a few people out there thinking she shouldn’t have been permitted to take the risk of running the race, given that she already had a torn ACL injury in her left knee. But if a significant number of people felt that way, they seem to have kept it to themselves, for the most part.

Instead, the dominant reaction to Vonn’s knowing acceptance of added risk rightfully has been to praise her bravery, determination and champion spirit. As Madison Chapman wrote for Newsweek, “Winner or not, Vonn is the ideal Olympic champion. Her grit and resilience helped me shed my own fear of risk and learn to see myself as a champion over adversity after my cancer treatment and subsequent knee injury. She may not have clinched gold, but Lindsay Vonn reminded us all how to live.”

I’ve always been fascinated by the way people view the act of taking a physical risk, be it in the context of competitive skiing, climbing a mountain or something as fundamental managing one’s personal health. I’ve long believed that the question of whether something is safe to do is a different question than whether ought to be allowed to do it. As I see it, it’s not complicated; adults should be allowed to take informed risks – including a litany of risks I would never take, myself.

Doubtlessly, one reason Vonn found so much support for her decision is the competitive context. She was attempting to win a gold medal, an achievement for which there’s a very limited window of opportunity, one that only comes around every four years – and only for so many cycles in an athlete’s career.

Make no mistake, though; the reason Vonn’s decision, the Olympic Games themselves and Vonn’s injuries are global news is because sports are popular entertainment – and big business.

In other words, while we support Vonn’s chosen form of risk taking because competition is deemed a worthy enterprise by a significant portion of the human population, we also support it because we accept, at least in the context of sport, that people have a right to risk bodily harm in the process of entertaining other people.

We’re not consistent about this acceptance of risk for entertainment’s sake, of course. The response to people taking risks in the context of porn is less enthusiastic. Sometimes it inspires proposals specifically designed to deter peoplefrom plying their trade in adult entertainment.

I’m not saying I think social media should light up with words of encouragement every time a porn star gets nominated for an award, or when an adult content creator releases a new clip (although that would be nice). But maybe, if society can applaud people for risking grievous bodily harm while competing on the Olympic stage, society can at least also manage to avoid shaming people and subjecting them to paternalistic government regulation when the risks they take involve other, less celebrated forms of entertainment.