Conservatives are fighting back against the exploitative pornography industry, but it is becoming a tougher battle every day.
Pornhub, the largest pornographic website, announced that it is blocking access in Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska by the end of July because those states passed legislation requiring age verification to access adult websites. This means that Pornhub will be blocked in almost one-fourth of the country, as it had previously pulled out of Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia due to similar child safety laws.
Pornhub does not care about protecting children, and its parent company recently had to pay a fine for profiting from sex trafficking. However, Pornhub is only a small part of the growing pornography problem.
More than half of teenagers say they first saw adult content by the age of 13, at least 11% of men are addicted to pornography, and 69% of men view pornography online every year. Among young adults ages 18-25 specifically, 57% use pornography monthly or more. While it is difficult to talk about, pornography is a malignant tumor in society.
The problem has been compounded by the rise of deepfake technology, resulting in the increased production of nonconsensual nude images and simulated child pornography. In Texas last year, a high school freshman was targeted by a teenage boy who shared images of her that had been edited to be sexually explicit. However, it took more than eight months for Snapchat to take down the images after numerous requests and the help of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
This incident inspired Cruz to introduce the Take It Down Act, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The legislation would require social media websites to remove nonconsensual deepfake pornography within 48 hours of a request from the victim.
Public policy is the best place to start in the fight against pornography and can address some of the most harmful practices. However, a long-term approach requires changing the culture. Pornography is an evil in itself, whether the individuals participating in its production or consumption have fully consented or not.
The normalization of adult content on social media platforms such as X is extremely disturbing. So is the promotion of electronic prostitution websites such as OnlyFans and Slushy, which recently raised $10.2 million in seed funding, suggesting that investors are now more willing to invest in adult entertainment companies.
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Pornography has been destigmatized, but it is only a symptom of the broader decline in morality and the family. Birthrates and marriage rates are crashing, real human connections have been replaced with social media and dating apps, and many people are simply lonely. The sickness in our culture runs so much deeper than just what people watch in a dark room.
Protecting children from accessing adult content and protecting people from having their faces superimposed on pornography is critical, but changing the law is not enough to fix the core of our problems.