The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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Most adult creators didn’t need a push notification to feel it. The moment the news started circulating, it landed with a familiar weight: Clips4Sale has restricted access in Alabama after the passage of House Bill 164, a law that introduces notarized consent requirements for performers and platforms. The company frames the decision as compliance—necessary, even prudent. Creators read it differently. To many, it felt like the ground quietly disappearing beneath their feet.
Both interpretations can coexist. And maybe that’s the most unsettling part.
Legislation like Alabama’s is almost always sold as “protective.” The language is comforting, even noble—designed to reassure the public that something dangerous is being handled. But when you listen to the people living under these laws—performers, indie creators, small operators—the tone shifts. What comes through isn’t relief. It’s confusion. Anxiety. A creeping sense that they’re being legislated out of existence without anyone actually talking to them.
House Bill 164 didn’t arrive out of nowhere. It’s part of a broader pattern unfolding across the country, where states are targeting adult platforms through new consent rules, age checks, and documentation standards. On paper, they sound reasonable. In reality, they unravel fast.
What they create isn’t safety. It’s splintering.
A Law That Misses the Reality of the Industry
Adult performers aren’t operating without rules. They never have been. For decades, the industry has been bound by strict federal record-keeping requirements—ID verification, age documentation, signed releases. These systems already exist. They’re already enforced. They’re already audited. And they’re treated seriously because the penalties for failure are brutal.
Which is exactly why Alabama’s law sparked disbelief instead of reassurance.
Adult performer Leilani Lei cut through the noise on X by asking a simple question: do lawmakers actually understand what notarization does? A notary verifies identity and witnesses a signature. That’s the full job description. They don’t assess consent. They don’t evaluate content. They don’t make legal judgments. Requiring notarization doesn’t increase safety—it adds friction, expense, and logistical chaos.
Is a notary expected on every set? For every solo clip? For content created privately by independent performers in their own homes? These aren’t dramatic hypotheticals. They’re practical questions that expose how disconnected the law is from how adult work actually functions.
When laws ignore operational reality, compliance stops being ethical and starts being geographic. Platforms block states. Creators lose access. Income vanishes—not because of misconduct, but because following the rules becomes impossible.
When “Protection” Quietly Becomes Economic Damage
One consequence of laws like HB 164 rarely gets discussed out loud: money.
Adult creators aren’t faceless entities. They’re people paying rent, covering medical bills, supporting families. For many, digital platforms aren’t side hustles—they’re lifelines. When a state gets geoblocked, creators living there lose their audience instantly. When platforms restrict access, creators with fans in that state watch sales drop overnight.
Cupcake SinClair’s response on X captured the mood perfectly—not panic, but dread. Not fear of regulation itself, but fear of where this path leads. If these laws keep spreading—each state tweaking the rules just enough—what does the landscape look like in a year? Two years? Does access slowly shrink until it’s determined entirely by ZIP code?
That’s not protection. That’s erosion.
And while platforms like Clips4Sale may view geoblocking as the least damaging option on the table, the fallout doesn’t land on the platform. It lands on creators. The backlash reflects more than anger—it reflects a growing sense that major decisions are being made without creators in the room, reshaping livelihoods without alternatives or support.
From the creator’s side, these aren’t abstract compliance choices. They translate into fewer customers, lower visibility, and more instability in an already fragile industry.
The Patchwork Problem Everyone Pretends Isn’t a Problem
One of the most dangerous aspects of this legislative trend is how inconsistent it is.
Each state passes its own version of “protective” law, often without coordination, consultation, or technical understanding. The result is a patchwork of requirements no platform can realistically meet across the board. What’s compliant in one state may be illegal in the next.
For massive tech companies, patchwork laws are an inconvenience. For adult platforms—already operating under heavier scrutiny, higher fees, and greater risk—they can be fatal.
For independent creators, they’re destabilizing by design.
When lawmakers ignore the cumulative effect of these laws, compliance becomes less about doing the right thing and more about surviving. Platforms that can’t afford bespoke, state-by-state systems opt out entirely. Creators are left scrambling to adapt, relocate, or rebuild somewhere else.
Who Is Actually Being Protected Here?
Supporters of laws like HB 164 often speak in moral absolutes. They invoke exploitation, trafficking, consent—serious issues that deserve serious responses.
But when legislation refuses to distinguish between criminal behavior and lawful adult work, it ends up punishing the latter while barely touching the former.
Bad actors don’t notarize forms. They don’t operate transparently. They don’t comply with documentation requirements. Meanwhile, compliant creators and legitimate platforms absorb the cost of laws that don’t meaningfully address wrongdoing.
Protection that collapses under scrutiny isn’t protection. It’s performance.
A Future Built on Exclusion Isn’t a Fix
The adult industry isn’t asking for no rules. It’s asking for rules that reflect reality.
That means lawmakers engaging with performers, platforms, and legal experts who understand how consent, documentation, and digital distribution actually work. It means recognizing that piling on procedural hurdles doesn’t automatically make anyone safer—and that cutting off access often harms the very people these laws claim to defend.
If this trend continues unchecked, the future of adult content in the U.S. won’t look like reform. It will look like retreat. More geoblocking. More platform withdrawals. More creators pushed out of legitimate marketplaces and into less secure corners of the internet.
That outcome serves no one—not performers, not platforms, and not the public.
Until the conversation moves beyond slogans and starts grappling with consequences, laws like Alabama’s will keep feeling less like protection and more like disappearance.
