Commentary

The last time I thought about Pennsylvania in an adult industry context, the idea being batted around the state’s legislature was a proposal to levy a 10% tax on revenue generated by adult websites operating in the state.

This time around, Pennsylvania is considering something more in line with recent regulatory efforts by its fellow states: Requiring sites to verify the age of users, if those sites offer “a substantial portion of material that is harmful to minors.”

The bill, SB 603, defines “substantial portion” as “more than 33.3% of total material on the publicly accessible Internet website.” As such, I suppose the good news is if you run an adult site that currently offers 66.6% non-adult content, you could conceivably skirt the requirement by adding to your website a few thousand pictures of cats, or something.

Most likely, this bill is a legislative case of “follow the leader.” Dozens of states around the country have established age verification requirements for adult websites and the Supreme Court has given its constitutional stamp of approvalto such laws, so Pennsylvania certainly isn’t breaking any new ground here.

Still, part of me wonders if there isn’t another, less obvious inspiration for the new law. Perhaps, weary of constantly being confused with a product designed to lubricate the engines of motor vehicles, Pennsylvania is simply shooting for a new nickname.

Let’s face it, “The Keystone State” just never caught on. Poll a thousand Americans outside of Pennsylvania and I bet 667 of them wouldn’t even know that’s one of the state’s nicknames. And as for the “Quaker State,” well, today’s smaller, higher-revving engines… wait, sorry; that was Castrol, wasn’t it?

Anyway, regardless of which motor oil is best for small, high-revving engines, there’s no doubt the “Quaker State” branding is now more closely associated with motor oil than it is the state’s namesake – which isn’t BJ Penn, despite what my brain just thought would be funny to assert.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would the legislature pass a law mandating age verification to inspire a change in nicknames when they could just issue a resolution adopting a new nickname? Put bluntly, nicknaming yourself is just lame. Try that shit in your average fraternal organization and instead of being called “Razor” as you’d asked, your bros are liable to opt for something a bit less prosaic, like “Gilette” or “Sandy Crotch” or “Pathetic Douche Nozzle.”

And of course, the last thing Pennsylvania should do is open their state nickname rebranding campaign to suggestions from general internet users. That’s nothing but a recipe for ending up being called “Statey McStateface.”

Proceeding on the assumption this bill is being considered at least in part as a reputation and nickname reset, here are some things for the Pennsylvania legislature to consider:

• “The Age-Gate State” has a nice rhyme scheme and cadence to it, I think.
• “The Share Your Personally Identifying Information with Mysterious Third-Parties State” has the benefit of being highly accurate, but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
• “The Abscam State” would encourage a generation of young Pennsylvanians to learn a bit of political history about the state, but might face blowback from other states that are proud of their role in that story (especially New Jersey).
• I think we can rule out “The Kids for Cash State,” in part because the optics of that phrase just aren’t great.

I don’t think I’m alone here in thinking the first possibility on the list above is the one likely to get the most traction. That said, they’re all more interesting than “The Keystone State” and significantly less oily than “The Quaker State.”

Of course, none of this will matter if the state doesn’t pass SB 603. At that point, the legislature may well have no choice but to go down the route of re-nicknaming itself by legislative decree – unless, of course, they like the sound of Statey McStateface.

I went to a concert the other night and while I wasn’t thrilled to find myself paying $20 for a “large” beer sized somewhere between a reasonable drinking glass and a typical Dixie Cup, I was thrilled when the cashier asked me to produce my ID before selling me the beer.

For a 56-year-old man who sports a rather full, very white beard, it doesn’t get much better than being carded by a twenty or thirty-something (or even a forty-something) cashier, because it suggests the cashier believes you might be younger than they are.

Granted, the lighting inside the arena was dimmed for the performance and the strobing lights from the stage were all the cashiers had to work with, but it still gave me a momentary jolt of belief: Maybe I still look closer to the cradle than the grave, if you will.

Other nice things about this incident of IRL age verification included:

• When I returned to the counter later for another overpriced beer, the same cashier didn’t card me a second time
• The cashier didn’t make a copy of my ID, including sensitive personally identifiable information, to be stored indefinitely on a server somewhere
• I wasn’t issued a “Beer PIN” or “Secure Adult Beverage Password” to forget in between trips to the concession stand
• Neither the national, state nor local government seemed to give a shit whether I was there having a beer that night

I find myself contrasting this experience – which took place in the context of a physical space where old farts like myself were mixed in with minors (mostly accompanied by their parents, but not legally obliged to be), as alcohol was sold from behind the same counter as the popcorn – with the one many elected officials want you to have when consuming adult content on the internet.

For example, in the UK, apparently even if you are using an age verification method offered by a major manufacturer of digital devices like Apple, that might not be good enough to satisfy the government.

The folks from Ofcom, the UK’s regulatory body responsible for administering the country’s Online Safety Act, say they “expect tech firms to ensure age checks are highly effective before introducing them.”

Honestly, that seems reasonable enough an expectation. But are we allowed to have the same opinion concerning government regulations? Is it unreasonable to expect our legislators to demonstrate the laws they pass will be effective before those regulations get scrawled into enforceable form?

And therein lies the rub. Absent an ID check that is even more obtrusive than those required under UK law (or U.S. law, for that matter), age verification remains an uncertain proposition.

As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “most platforms offer age estimation options like face scans as a first line of age assurance.” While these options “vary in intrusiveness… their main problem is inaccuracy, particularly for marginalized users.” (Emphasis added)

Thus far, age verification mandates established by state and national governments have included a fair degree of wiggle room to those implementing age verification schemes. So long as you rely on a commercially available method that conforms to what the law requires, you’re likely in compliance with the law.

If, on the other hand, you are an adult user who gets denied access because one of these methods decides you’re a minor… oh well. Sucks to be you, I guess?

Here’s my concern: what happens the first time there’s a high-profile case involving a minor who circumvents age verification technology in some way to access restricted materials online? When that minors’ parents raise a stink, will the legislature behind the law in their jurisdiction shrug and say “Well, a few kids are bound to slip through the cracks,” or will there be a push to tighten the law and require substantially more intrusive age verification methods?

I have little confidence that our elected officials will err to the site of liberty on this one. Before you know it, we might be scanning our retinas and thumbprints simply for the privilege of accessing online smut.

Here’s hoping those scans don’t cost $20 a pop – or if they do, they at least come with a reasonably large beer.

As you might have noticed in recent months and years, there’s a growing number of regulations, both existent and proposed, being aimed at the online adult entertainment industry.

From the Digital Age Assurance Act and SCREEN Act under consideration at the federal level, to a growing number of states that have enacted age verification mandates, it seems like owners of online adult businesses can’t walk into their offices without clearing another regulatory hurdle on the way in.

But where others might see reason to despair in this environment of increasing regulatory scrutiny, I see opportunity. What the porn industry needs isn’t a lack of regulatory scrutiny; what we need is to be scrutinized by the right regulators. And without a doubt, the right regulator for the online adult industry – or at least for a new segment of the online adult industry I’m about to propose – clearly is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

If you’ve been hearing about CFTC a lot lately, that’s because CFTC is the agency charged with oversight of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. Thus far though, CFTC’s primary regulatory activity has been asserting its primacy and exclusivity of authority over prediction markets, as opposed to truly overseeing them in any meaningful fashion.

Back in the summer of 2024, while under the Biden Administration, CFTC published proposed rulemaking that would have pegged sports and politics-related event contracts as “contrary to the public interest,” which likely would have meant they couldn’t operate as CFTC-regulated exchanges. That proposal was never finalized and was formally withdrawn by CFTC in February of this year.

With the changing of the guard in the White House in January 2025, CFTC’s perspective on these markets has shifted dramatically. In March of this year, CFTC published a predictions market advisory stating that prediction markets “are rapidly increasing in popularity with the American public” and that CFTC staff “believe it is important to encourage innovation and growth in these markets, within the federal oversight framework for Commission-registered derivatives exchanges set forth in the Commodity Exchange Act and Commission regulations.”

For the most part, CFTC’s involvement with prediction market regulation has thus far been limited to telling states to keep their mitts off platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. And this is where my sudden interest in being regulated by the CFTC comes in, naturally.

In early August, the CFTC sued Minnesota over the state’s prediction market ban. They’ve also pushed back on states with lawsuits targeting New York, Arizona, Illinois and Connecticut to block enforcement of state gambling laws against prediction market platforms.

If I can get my porn prediction market to be regulated by CFTC, can Mr. Selig do me a little favor with respect to various state-level age verification laws? While he’s at it, can he talk to Congress about all the innovation, expression and… uh… American greatness they’re stifling with all this talk of DAAA and SCREEN and SAVE and BLORT and whatever other legislative acronyms they might come up with on Capitol Hill?

How would a porn prediction market work, I can hear you asking? Honestly, that’s the easiest part in this whole scheme.

My forthcoming “Erotic Prediction Market Platform” (sounds much nicer and more official than “Filthy Porno Gambling Site,” don’t you think?)  would offer live feeds of sex shows, then permit gamblers users to wager betspurchase contracts on things that might happen during the live sex shows.

Contracts could include questions like “How long will the strip tease go on before true foreplay ensues?” and “At what point will heavy petting transition to oral sex?”  and “Will any performer involved say “Sleepy Joe?” Other contracts could explore whether or not the male talent(s) will be able to maintain their erections, whether and where ejaculate will be visible at the culmination of the encounter and assorted other important, meaningful questions that are best answered by the ‘wisdom of crowds’ – in this case, crowds of mostly young men who will put money down on literally anything.

I’m sure there will be some pushback to my Erotic Prediction Market Platform (tentatively branded “PrognASSticate”) from people who say it’s not really a legit prediction market, or that it’s too easily manipulated by people with insider information, or by people directly participating in the sex shows at its core – or by me, because frankly who is going to stop me, as the answer obviously isn’t Michael Selig.

Just in case even the CFTC can’t bring itself to look the other way with respect to PrognASSticate, I also plan to retain a member of the Trump family as a “strategic advisor,” whatever that term might mean in this context.

I hereby invite all members and stakeholders of the online adult entertainment industry to join me in the revolution that will be the Erotic Prediction Market space! And don’t just climb aboard the PrognASSticate train, launch EPMs of your own!

Among other things, that way I can offer contracts on my EPM about the exact date your EPMs will transition from beta to full launch.

When your nickname is “Hang ’em High Henry,” it’s a safe bet that you’re not a figure famous for demonstrating excessive compassion or forgiveness.

And when the best you can muster after finding out that you’ve prosecuted and convicted the wrong man for a murder is to say “I certainly wish him the best, and regret what happened. However, I offer no apologies,” chances are you’re an even bigger prick than your nickname implies.

Of course, what brings former prosecutor and current U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson to the pages of this website isn’t his general reputation as a “hard-on-crime” figure in the criminal justice system, but specifically his anti-porn activism, which reaches back to his early days as the Commonwealth Attorney of Arlington County, Virginia.

Back then, Hudson was leading the charge against adult bookstores and any other sort of establishment that might sell sexually explicit materials. His crusade not only resonated with his fellow social conservatives there in Arlington County, but it also earned him a seat at the table of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, better known as the “Meese Commission.” In fact, Hudson didn’t just earn any seat on the Commission; he was placed in the captain’s chair, tapped to lead the Commission’s work.

Ultimately, even thought the Commission claimed pornography has a causal connection to sex crimes (something disputed by most mainstream social scientists and academics, both then and now) and made dozens of recommendations on ways to staunch the distribution of porn and the growth of the adult entertainment industry, Hudson felt their conclusions were too timid.

Among other things, Hudson griped that the report should have been “couched in more forceful language” and that its “recommendations for enhanced law enforcement, particularly with respect to violent and degrading materials,” also should have been more pronounced.

While Hudson certainly agreed with the Commissions’ conclusions with respect to visual pornography, he dissented from the panel’s recommendation that obscenity prosecutions should not be brought in connection with written works that included sexually explicit descriptions or descriptions of sexual conduct.

It’s worth noting that around 16 years before the Meese Commission concluded that porn was driving a wave of sex crimes, a different Commission empaneled by a different Commander in Chief, Lyndon B. Johnson, came to a very difficult conclusion. The President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, which published its findings in 1970, recommended the repeal of legislation that prohibited the sale of sexually explicit material to adults.

If you follow the rhetoric surrounding the current wave of age verification mandates and other efforts to curb the distribution of porn, the reasoning offered by the Meese Commission as to how it came to a conclusion directly opposite its predecessor will sound hauntingly familiar: There had been “enormous technological changes” in the years between the two Commissions doing their respective work.

“These technological developments have themselves caused such significant changes in the practices relating to the distribution of pornography that the analysis of 16 years ago is starkly obsolete,” the Meese Commission wrote.

During oral argument in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a case which has fundamentally altered the framework of constitutional analysis for First Amendment claims involving statutes like those at play in state-level age verification mandates, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted “it’s been 20 years since Ashcroft,” referencing the case Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft, then proceeded to detail how things have changed.

“The iPhone was introduced in 2007, and Ashcroft was decided in 2004,” Barrett said. “I mean, kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers. It’s – let me just say that content filtering for all those different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with. So… I think that the explosion of addiction in – to online porn has shown that content filtering isn’t working.”

I’m sure Hang ‘em High Henry would agree! For that matter, Hudson would probably go one further and assert that even though it’s hard to argue books represent some form of emerging technology, now that we can read them on screens instead of off paper pages, this emphasizes the urgency of indicting some bookstore for its flagrant distribution of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

And if they prosecuted and convicted the wrong bookseller? Well, Henry would regret it, sure – but he’d certainly offer no apologies.

Any time someone says they favor “family values,” I wince a little – not because I am against families, of course, but because almost invariably, that person is talking about a specific kind of family, with a specific sort of ‘values.’

Generally, when people talk about family values, they mean a family with two heterosexual parents, at least a couple children and an inclination towards Bible-reading. (For the record, the family I grew up in was two for three on that family values matrix, as the Bible never made the family reading list, alas.)

Take anti-porn crusader and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, for example. Dobson wasn’t one to mince words when it came to what constituted a ‘real’ family. When then-President Jimmy Carter set up a Conference on Families that included a “diversity of families” Dobson lost his shit. Only the “traditional” family unit – with a male head of household who brings home the bacon and a female caregiver who then fries the bacon and dutifully feeds it to her husband and spawn – ought to be endorsed, or even recognized, by the government, as Dobson saw it.

Dobson’s presence on my list of people and organizations who deserve ‘credit’ for starting the modern War on Porn isn’t because he thought just about anything other than a conservative Christian value set to be anathema, however. He’s here because included in his ceaseless lobbying and activism in favor of a variety of socially conservative policy positions was his drive to convince people pornography was among the roots of all evil.

To establish just how Very Bad porn is, Dobson went straight to the most credible, respected expert he could find: Convicted serial killer Ted Bundy.

Now, some might say the statements of a guy like Ted Bundy shouldn’t be given a whole lot of weight, in part because at different times, he made contradicting claims when asked the same sort of questions. But all Dobson cared about was that Bundy was willing to go on record saying that violent pornography had played a big role in shaping and driving his fantasies. Acting out those fantasies is what made him a serial killer, ergo – in the world of Dobson logic, at least – watching porn turns people into rapists and killers!

As noted by one of his many critics, Dobson’s interview with Bundy was “widely discredited as little more than a Dobson being willingly and eagerly duped by Bundy’s pathological manipulation. But Bundy’s fabricated narrative fit perfectly with Dobson’s view that it was the unchecked liberal, un-Christian, feminist, sex-crazed, anything-goes social context that led to the breakdown of society and created serial killers.”

One doesn’t have to put much thought into the “porn makes men into serial killers” argument to know it’s utter hogwash, of course. While it’s not true that researchers have been unable to find any men who haven’t watched porn to serve as control group subjects, it is doubtlessly true that a lot of men (and women) watch porn. It’s also true, I think it safe to say, comparatively few men become murderers or rapists.

No question, our society has far too many of both murderers and rapists, but if it was true that prolonged exposure to porn makes people into killers and rapists, that sort of clear causal connection would mean we had a great many more rapists and killers in our midst, surely. Not only is Dobson’s claim one that can’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny, but it also can’t even stand up to momentary rumination.

I’m sure Dobson wasn’t troubled by the criticism of his interview with Bundy, or even particularly concerned with whether Bundy was telling the truth about anything covered in their conversation. The Bundy interview tapes reportedly generated over a million bucks in revenue for Focus on the Family, the bulk of which it donated to anti-porn and anti-abortion groups.

Dobson continued his activism through the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute (founded in 2010) through 2022, when he handed off the reins to the organization’s new president. He continued to record his radio show, Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, and his frequent appearances on Fox News, though, until shortly before his death in August 2025.

Dobson’s advocacy lives on, of course, through the various organizations he founded and a new generation of self-righteous, censorious social conservatives – each of whom I’m sure is just as certain as Dobson that their definition of “family values” is the only one that matters.

Over on WIRED right now, there’s an article about the unexpected role adult content creators are playing in identifying potential security breaches on government (.gov) and university (.edu) websites.

To make a long (and well worth reading) story short, phishers, scammers and other folks of their distasteful ilk have been downloading content from these adult creators, uploading it to .gov and .edu sites they’ve compromised (or otherwise have access to) and using it as clickbait to draw people in to click malicious links, download malware or otherwise expose themselves to risk of becoming a cybercrime victim.

Since many adult content creators use DMCA takedown services, or sent out takedown notices themselves, by reporting links to Google for removal, these creators have unwittingly contributed to the cyber security of both the sites themselves and users who might stumble across the links in Google’s search results.

Near the end of the article, content creator Laura Lux is asked what she made of the DMCA notices potentially notifying site administrators they’ve had a breach. Her response? “I guess sex workers save the world again.”

The story got me thinking about adult content piracy and a different kind of possibly unwitting role being played, this one related to the War on Porn.

I suspect a lot of people who download and “share” the pictures and videos made by adult content creators don’t think of what they’re doing as harmful. Those of them who aren’t trying to make a buck off the content in some way might even believe they’re doing the creators a service, promoting them via ‘word of mouth,’ in effect.

But when you download and distribute content that was made to be sold, you’re not only devaluing the product and undermining the creator’s business model. You’re often also encouraging the perception that adult content is being distributed without thought of complying with the law by the creators themselves, even though your distribution of the content is something they actively don’t want to occur.

Redistributing content without the consent of the rightsholders is bad enough, but pirated adult content is often uploaded to platforms that make no pretense of following any law or complying with any regulation. Platforms that turn a willfully blind eye to regulations then stoke the ire of people like legislators, anti-porn activists and self-righteous TV bloviators, who inevitably tar the entire adult industry with the brush of criminality. (They also sometimes inspire attorneys general to take unusual actions in court, but that’s another story.)

It’s worth remembering that outside of the people who make, sell, distribute or otherwise profit from porn, we don’t enjoy much support in the public sphere. It’s undoubtedly true a hefty percentage of voters enjoy watching porn. But for a variety of reasons, mostly tied up in shame and/or a desire to keep certain aspects of our lives private, we’re probably not going to see big pro-porn rallies in the streets at times when some overreaching new law targeting the adult industry is being debated.

Given that, this is my simple appeal to those outside the adult industry, but who are on “our side” when it comes to the War on Porn: If you can’t openly support us, please at least consider not fighting against us, accidentally or otherwise.

The guidelines here are quite simple, really. Pay for porn when its creators intend for it to be sold and buy it on the platforms its creators have authorized to distribute their work. Don’t ‘share’ their content with tens of millions of ‘friends.’ When you get opportunities to interact with adult content creators, be respectful. If you feel shame because you watch porn, don’t take that shame out on those who make it by denouncing us as whores and panderers; just hire a fucking therapist already and sort yourself out!

And for fuck’s sake, don’t go around hacking university or government websites and uploading porn to them. That’s not just working against “our side;” that’s declaring that the only side you’re on is one that should be in prison.

In the current legal and regulatory climate surrounding online adult entertainment, it feels like it’s a rare day when those of us who work in the adult industry get to celebrate a development that breaks in our favor. This week we were granted such an opportunity however, following a federal judge’s decision holding that an adult website operator domiciled in Spain can’t be sued for failing to comply with Kansas’ age verification mandate.

While there’s more to the decision than this aspect alone, the crux of the court’s decision is a holding that the company and website involved, Pump Lab SL and SuperPorn.com, simply don’t have sufficient “contacts” with Kansas to support the court exercising “personal jurisdiction” over Pump Lab.

In the decision, U.S. District Court Judge Holly Teeter noted that “visitors from Kansas represent 0.086% of the website’s visitors,” and “does not have employees in Kansas, does not own or lease real estate in Kansas, does not conduct business in Kansas, is not licensed to conduct business in Kansas, does not pay taxes in Kansas, and does not have employees in Kansas (or who travel to Kansas).”

If you’re thinking it sounds like Pump Lab truly has fuck-all to do with Kansas, you’re right – and that fact is what sank the attempt to haul them into a Kansas court to face repercussions for alleged failures to comply with Kansas law.

If only to temper my own enthusiasm a bit, it’s important to note that the other recent decisions I’ve hailed as good news for the adult industry were also authored by Judge Teeter, which means it’s possible they’ll all be overturned on related appeals. I doubt that will happen though, mostly because none of this is happening in a vacuum.

If a judge in Teeter’s position in these cases were to hold that citizens of Kansas can haul a foreign company into court based on connections as flimsy as the ones at play in the Pump Lab case, that ruling could ripple out into disputes between U.S. consumers and foreign companies in a broad swath of business sectors nowhere near as controversial or disfavored by the government as porn is – inevitably touching on areas of international commerce the government wants to encourage and see prosper.

The other thing to note here is these sorts of decisions are highly fact dependent – and facts will vary greatly from case to case. As Judge Teeter observed in a previous decision dismissing a case filed under the relevant Kansas law, finding that the defendant’s CDN usage in that case was irrelevant “does not mean that a website owner’s use of a CDN is never relevant” and “does not mean that a website owner’s use of a CDN could never show purposeful direction.”

The same can be said of the lack of sufficient contacts with a jurisdiction like Kansas. Another, otherwise, similarly-situated foreign defendant certainly could do business in a way that creates sufficient contacts in the state for the court to exercise jurisdiction – which would change everything, obviously. At that point, the case would turn on other issues entirely, issues which very well might break against the hypothetical online adult company in question.

So yes, today let us celebrate Judge Teeter’s very rational and measured decision in the cumbersomely titled case of Q.R., a minor, by and through Jane Doe v. Pump Lab, SL – but let’s do so with clear eyes about what the decision does and doesn’t mean for the future.

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows – and honestly, bedfellows don’t get much stranger than when a radical feminist like Andrea Dworkin found herself testifying before the so-called “Meese Commission” (which was actually called “The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography), ostensibly on the same side of the issue with the likes of James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, an organization which largely occupies itself with lobbying against LGBTQ+ rights.

In many ways, Dworkin doesn’t fit the mold of a typical anti-porn activist. Among other things, Dworkin was againstthe existence and enforcement of federal obscenity laws. In an essay included in a collection of her writings called Letters from a War Zone, Dworkin wrote she and her likeminded feminists were “against obscenity laws.”

“We do not want them,” Dworkin added. “I want you to understand why, whether you end up agreeing or not… Obscenity laws are also woman-hating in their very construction. Their basic presumption is that it’s women’s bodies that are dirty.”

This certainly does not mean Dworkin opposed legal efforts targeting the porn industry, however. In her testimony before the Meese Commission, Dworkin suggesting the government consider “creating a criminal conspiracy provision under the civil rights law, such that conspiring to deprive a person of their civil rights by coercing them into pornography is a crime, and that conspiring to traffic in pornography is conspiring to deprive women of our civil rights.”

By the time she made that suggestion, Dworkin, along with fellow anti-porn activist Catharine MacKinnon, had worked with the city government of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to craft an anti-porn regulation for the city to incorporate into its broader civil rights ordinances. Under the regulation, pornography was defined as a civil rights violation against women, and enabled women who alleged they’d been harmed by porn to sue porn producers and distributors for damages.

(Decades later, we’ve seen something of a return of this approach, as various states have passed legislation creating a right of private action against adult companies for alleged harms incurred by minors who access porn on websites that fail to comply with state age verification laws.)

The law in Minneapolis passed twice, but was vetoed by Mayor Don Fraser both times, decisions rooted in his belief the language of the ordinance was too vague to survive court scrutiny. Mayor Fraser’s belief was later vindicated by the courts, after a similar ordinance was passed in Indianapolis, Indiana. The ordinance was challenged by the American Booksellers Association, with a U.S. District Court’s ruling invalidating the ordinance later upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Undeterred, Dworkin continued to back similar anti-pornography civil rights legislation in Massachusetts and Washington state, where attempts were made to pass similar ordinances through voter initiatives.

Occasionally, you’ll hear one of Dworkin’s critics assert that she argued all heterosexual sex is “rape” – but an honest reading of her work reveals this as an unfair oversimplification. Dworkin did assert that to the extent the sexual subordination of women depicted in pornography reflected broader societal beliefs and attitudes towards sex, that heterosexual sex in a patriarchal society is inherently coercive to (and degrading of) women and that the act of sexual penetration may by its nature condemn women to a submissive, inferior position that “may be immune to reform.” Nowhere did she write anything like “all heterosexual sex is rape,” however.

In response to her critics, Dworkin later said she believed “both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.”

“Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape,” Dworkin added. “I do not think they need it.”

In any case, nuanced as though her broader social and political views might have been, Dworkin’s opposition to porn was perfectly clear throughout and a big part of her legacy – whether she would want it this way or not – lies in the anti-porn legislation, rhetoric and lobbying she inspired and endorsed over the decades.

Prominent adult attorney Corey Silverstein wrote an article on XBIZ about Utah’s law SB 73.

Here is a summary:

Utah’s new law, SB 73, significantly expands the state’s regulation of adult websites by going beyond traditional age-verification requirements. The legislation requires age verification for users accessing adult content and introduces new provisions aimed at preventing users from bypassing those requirements through VPNs, proxy services, or other location-masking technologies. Under the law, a person physically located in Utah is considered a Utah user regardless of any efforts to conceal their location online.

The measure also adds several enforcement tools, including a 2% excise tax on covered companies, administrative oversight by Utah’s consumer protection authorities, civil penalties for violations, and restrictions on platforms that encourage or assist users in circumventing age-verification systems. Supporters describe the law as a child-protection effort, while critics argue that it places unrealistic compliance burdens on websites and could create liability even when platforms make good-faith efforts to comply.

Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub and other adult platforms, has filed a lawsuit challenging the law, particularly its VPN-related provisions. The company argues that Utah is attempting to hold websites responsible for actions they cannot fully control and that the law interferes with adults’ access to constitutionally protected content. Some portions of the law have reportedly been temporarily paused while the case moves through federal court.

The legal challenge comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’s age-verification law in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, but observers note that Utah’s statute extends much further. Rather than simply requiring age checks, SB 73 seeks to regulate technological circumvention and may raise broader constitutional questions involving due process, vagueness, overbreadth, interstate commerce, and the extent to which states can require online platforms to monitor user behavior.

Privacy concerns have also become a major part of the debate. Critics argue that requiring users to submit identification documents, facial scans, or other personal information to access legal adult content creates security risks and could expose sensitive data to breaches or misuse. The outcome of Aylo’s lawsuit is expected to have implications far beyond Utah, potentially influencing how other states approach age verification, VPN regulation, online privacy, and platform liability in the future.

Here’s the full article: https://www.xbiz.com/features/298906/what-utahs-sb-73-means-for-compliance-requirements

While it’s probably not what the man is most remembered for, Charles Humprey Keating Jr. was a seminal figure in the early days of the War on Porn in the United States. A staunch proponent of censorship, Keating was one of the founders of Citizens for Decent Literature (“CDL”), a group established in 1958 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Over the years, CDL rebranded several times, including as “Citizens for Decency through Law,” but the mission remained the same: To advocate for reading ‘the classics,’ as opposed to “smut” – and to vigorously enforce the nation’s obscenity laws, of course.

CDL would grow into an organization with over 300 chapters across the country, claiming membership of over 100,000 people. Over the years, the group would go on to mail tens of millions of letters advancing its agenda and submit amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in numerous cases that went before the Supreme Court. The group also counseled municipalities on prosecuting retailers who sold pornographic material and lobbied legislatures around the country on how to amend and strengthen their obscenity laws.

Keating believed pornography was the root of many societal ills, including a variety of criminal behaviors. In testimony he gave before the House Judiciary Committee on mail-order porn in 1958, Keating asserted that pornography was “capable of poisoning any mind at any age and of perverting our entire younger generation.” Seeking to tie porn to another animating fear prevalent in the late 50s, Keating also quoted a Senate Committee report which claimed that “part of the Communist conspiracy was to print” pornographic material.

In 1969, Keating was appointed to the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, which had launched under Nixon’s predecessor in the Oval Office, Lyndon Johnson. (The Commission also included members of Operation Yorkville, subject of another Origins of the War on Porn article.)

When the Commission eventually published a report holding that porn isn’t degrading the morals of adults or causing crime – and recommending that existing obscenity laws that prohibited adults from obtaining and possessing obscene materials be repealed – Keating was incensed. He went so far as to obtain a temporary restraining order on publication of the report until he could prepare a rebuttal. Keating was granted the TRO and two weeks to craft his response.

“At a time when the spread of pornography has reached epidemic proportions in our country and when the moral fiber of our nation seems to be rapidly unravelling, the desperate need is for enlightenment and intelligent control of the poisons which threaten us – not the declaration of moral bankruptcy inherent in the repeal of the laws which have been the defense of decent people against the pornographer for profit,” Keating wrote. “One can consult all the experts he chooses, can write reports, make studies, etc., but the fact that obscenity corrupts lies within the common sense, the reason, and the logic of every man.”

Keating’s participation in the Commission boosted his standing and gave him a platform for continuing to push for censorship and prosecution of obscenity crimes. He and CDL would go on to lead efforts to block the screening of Russ Meyer films, prevent the performance of theatrical releases like Oh! Calcutta! and push for the censorship of publications like Playboy and other softcore adult magazines.

Keating’s name would come to resonate in the public consciousness quite differently as the decades wore on. While he maintained his fight against “indecency,” what he became better known for, arguably at least, was his role in the country’s nationwide “savings and loan crisis,” in which Keating’s company, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, played a central role.

The facts surrounding Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal and the eventual prosecution related to it are complicated and well beyond the scope of this article. But to make a long story somewhat shorter, the savings and loan crises eventually metastasized into fiasco with an impact of over $500 billion and even a summarized version of the tale presents a winding road.

In September 1989, Regulators filed a $1.1 billion action against Keating and his associates for fraud and racketeering. Keating was later indicted on 42 counts in California, accusing Lincoln of fooling customers of ‘junk bonds’ pertaining to the American Continental Corporation, which had gone bankrupt in April,1989. Keating was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge Lance Ito, the same jurist who presided over the infamous O.J. Simpson double-homicide case.

In January 1993, a federal conviction followed his state crime conviction and Keating was found guilty on 73 counts of fraud, conspiracy and racketeering. He was given a 12.5-year sentence and ordered to pay restitution of $122 million.

Keating’s convictions were later overturned on appeal, but he also entered into a plea agreement in a federal case in which he admitted to four counts of wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud. Prosecutors dropped the other charges against Keating and his son, and Keating was sentenced to time served.

Charles Keating died in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2014 at the age of 90. Until the end, he maintained his innocence in the savings and loan fiasco (a claim that didn’t square particularly well with his admission of guilt in the plea bargain) – and continued to rail against sexually explicit expression.

In the end, it appears Keating’s definition of “decency” didn’t include a need to stick to fair dealing in business, or to take accountability when his reckless actions harmed tens of thousands of his customers.