The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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A little over a month ago, I wrote an article about “the shot not yet fired” in the War on Porn, referencing a pledge then-presidential candidate Donald Trump signed back in 2016, averring to “uphold the rule of law by aggressively enforcing existing federal laws…including the federal obscenity laws.”
The gist of my piece was that while, 10 years later, Trump has shown no signs of fulfilling the terms of his pledge, the notion of doing so might make a sudden return, driven in part by a desire to improve his flagging poll numbers and shore up his support among evangelical Christian voters. After all, some of these voters have been wavering a bit in their unquestioning Trump fealty, particularly in the aftermath of Trump posting an image in which he appeared to equate himself with Christ.
Earlier this week, as you might have read, it was reported that Indiana Sen. Jim Banks penned a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche imploring Blanche to ratchet up enforcement of federal obscenity laws.
Noting that he had written a similar letter seven years ago, Blanche asserted that in the interim, “online obscenity has proliferated – and been democratized.”
“It is neither healthy nor safe for sexual content to be so pervasive,” Blanche wrote, presumably clutching his pearls in one hand, a copy of a Playboy magazine with Donald Trump gracing the cover in his other, while typing with his nose. “A wide and intellectually diverse coalition has long warned that pornography carries consequences for children, adults, and communities. Pornography damages the mental and relational well-being of those who consume it and exploits those who participate in creating it.”
“You can stop this,” Blanche asserted. “Obscenity has long been proscribed in the common law tradition and is not protected by the First Amendment. Federal law prohibits the distribution of obscene material, including over the internet. It is a crime to create and disseminate child pornography, as well as content that is obscene for adults. It is also a crime to knowingly display obscene content for children and to mislead minors into viewing adult content or adults into viewing generally obscene content.”
The paragraph above is technically true, so far as it goes, but as those who deplore sexually explicit expression consistently do, Banks conflates illegal “obscenity” – a legal status the state must establish at trial, on a case-by-case basis – with “pornography,” a far broader category that presumably enjoys the protection of the First Amendment.
As the existence of his previous letter to the first Trump Administration demonstrates, Banks banging on this drum doesn’t necessarily mean the Department of Justice will start dancing to that rhythm. But, with Trump’s approval rating currently circling the toilet bowl, he might decide that dispatching a team of Decency Warriors to federal court would be a good way to gin up some enthusiasm among social conservatives in his base. Of course, in so doing, he might lose some of the ‘angry young man’ types who backed him in the 2024 election, seeing as how young men (angry and otherwise) are well-represented in porn’s fan base, too.
So, will Banks’ letter move the needle and inspire a new round of federal obscenity prosecutions? It’s hard to say, naturally. But referencing the fact the Obscenity Task Force was shut down under the Obama Administration probably helps his cause. After all, Trump seems to be on a mission to undo everything done under his Democratic predecessors (and many of his Republican predecessors, too), so that might just be the carrot that leads the big orange horse to water.
As Trump himself is quite fond of saying, we’ll see what happens.
