The Case for a Pornography Ban
The Republican candidate for Ohio’s vacant Senate seat, J.D. Vance, recently made headlines for comments from an unearthed 2021 interview with a Catholic magazine in which he voiced support for a ban on pornography. Mr. Vance’s comments, at face value, might seem like a politically-motivated effort to win over the traditionalist right, and since he seems to be the only aspiring Federal lawmaker to speak out about a porn ban, there is no reason to believe that pornography is immediately under threat. Many critics were quick to call out what they saw as regressive rhetoric and the ironic fact that Mr. Vance wants to ban porn, what some view as relatively harmless, but not assault weapons. However, I believe that such flippant dismissal of Mr. Vance’s proposition is disturbing. Our society has grown far too comfortable with pornography—it is highly addictive and outrageously destructive in body and mind to those who view it, and also those who help to produce it. It is time for America to have a serious discussion about banning porn, no matter how difficult it might be to do so.
THE NEW DRUG
It is difficult to talk candidly about pornography, especially for men. So many Americans, mostly males, have subjected themselves to it for so long that porn viewership is often seen as an integral part of the evolution of their sex life. In most cases, a male is first exposed to porn as young as 13 years old, just when he is beginning puberty. Research on the effects of pornography on the consumer’s psychology is damning. Watching porn has been shown to lead to depression and feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem. Most of this damage to the evaluation of one’s self comes from porn’s debilitating effect on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain which oversees complex decision-making and self control. It is the same lack of activity in the prefrontal cortex that is found in the brains of gambling and drug addicts, as well as porn addicts. Hard drugs and gambling (in most states) are illegal for legitimate reasons, not just as an exercise in governmental power. This raises the question that if using illicit drugs and gambling are illegal in most of the country, why do we allow pornography to continue even if it has the same harmful effects? Is porn a form of entertainment, no different than a video game or movie, or is it a substance that exists purely to exploit in its viewers a feeling of false ecstasy like a drug? I, like Ross Douthat in his 2019 New York Times op-ed, believe the latter: porn is an addictive and harmful product, not mere art or entertainment.
Porn viewers can also experience negative effects in their actual sexual relationships, with one Utah State study showing that porn viewers are less likely to be aroused by real sexual contact with their partner, less likely to experience sexual satisfaction with their partner, and that the viewer’s partner may object to their desire for certain sexual activities. Relating to the latter, one study found that a 42 percent of female sexual violence victims either expressed that their abusers regularly viewed pornography, imitated pornography during the abuse, or that pornography was used during their abuse itself. While it is untrue to say that porn always results in sexual violence, the evidence shows that viewing porn may unleash a certain libertine hedonism in the viewer, corrupting their senses of intimacy, trust, morality, and connection. Some advocates for pornography’s legality and consumption say that when used in moderation, porn can be healthy for satisfying one’s sexual appetites, but there is negligible evidence to prove this other than anecdotally. In fact, I challenge the reader to find any evidence to support these claims, for I could not.
It is also necessary to examine the effects of porn on the people performing on screen. Whereas men bear the brunt of their scars of porn from viewing it, women are more likely to be damaged by performing in it. A study of the pornography industry in Sweden found that female performers were by and large forced into the industry due to financial desperation, past sexual trama, poor mental health, and youthful recklessness. Once in the porn industry, female performers are often subject to sexism, racism, objectification, and coercion into risky or masochistic sexual acts that can result in STDs, violence, or other trauma. A 2012 study of 168 porn actors in Los Angeles County found that 28 percent of the subjects tested positive for chlamydia or gonorrhea, a higher percentage of afflicted persons than found among prostitutes in Nevada. Female porn performers also face a serious challenge upon exiting the porn industry, as porn videos remain on the Internet forever. Once you’re in, you are very unlikely to be able to get out. And for many performers, the end of their career is the literal end of their life. Suicide and drug overdose are common causes of death for porn actors in the middle of their careers.
WOULD A PORN BAN BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?
Okay, porn is bad, and maybe it should be banned. But could it? Doesn’t pornography fall within the freedom of expression protected under the Constitution? The answer to this question is complicated, though there are a few established legal precedents from Supreme Court cases that let us know where the Constitution stands on pornography. Stanley v. Georgia (1969) is the most famous of these cases, which saw the Supreme Court rule that the possession of pornographic material was not a crime, due to the implied right of privacy in U.S. law. What this case failed to address was the production and exhibition of pornographic material. In fact, the Court recognized the state's “broad power to regulate obscenity”, giving legislatures the power to curtail or prohibit the production of obscene material in part or in totality.
This leads to another problem of deciding where we draw the line between obscenity and pornography. Obscenity is not protected under federal law, which is why a person can be arrested for exposing their genitals in a public place, for instance. Pornography, however, is technically protected under the First Amendment, owing to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. California (1973), which states that a pornographic film is only considered obscene if it, according to the average person, “appeals to the prurient interest” and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” This means that a Court’s ruling on pornographic material more or less depends on the Court’s interpretation of the content being displayed, but let’s not be finicky here. A porn video depicting people having meaningless sex solely appeals to the viewer’s lust and certainly does not contain any sort of artisitic value. This is what separates porn from a sex scene in a movie like, say, Titanic, which uses intimacy to further the artistic development of the story. No one watches porn for the plot, and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. In the Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), which ruled that theater manager Nico Jacobellis did not break obscenity laws by displaying the sensual film The Lovers, Justice Potter Stewart wrote “I know it when I see it” when it comes to identifying hardcore pornography, which The Lovers lacked. Though Jacobellis v. Ohio was superseded by Miller v. California, a similar test of “knowing it when you see it” could form the basis of what Congress would identify as criminal or legal displays of sex in media.
ANOTHER BATTLE OF THE CULTURE WAR?
Even with scientific evidence piling up to show the negative effects of porn, as well as a legal window that would allow for its prohibition, there remains the question of whether or not a ban on porn would be a regression from liberalism and liberty in our free and open society. Though we Americans do value our tradition of liberty, we must also remember that our Constitution was written at the time of the Enlightenment. Our Founding Fathers, adherents to Enlightenment philosophy, recognized the theory of the “social contract,” which argues that the government’s purpose is to protect the well-being and security of the citizens it represents. This is why pieces of legislation that are odious to our sense of liberty, like the Patriot Act, can pass muster in our democracy: the state has an obligation to protect us from that which is harmful, which porn certainly is. Another argument against a porn ban airs from those who ask: “Why ban porn but not alcohol, even though alcohol kills far more people?” This sentiment is little more than a red herring. As unhealthy as it is, alcohol is an integral part of Western society and, in moderation, has some redeeming social qualities that porn is devoid of. Historically, restrictions on alcohol have generated more risks than rewards, and even stoked rebellion.
A contemporary fight to ban porn would come at a turbulent time and place in history, where the future of civil rights and the sexual revolution in America is uncertain, fluid, and increasingly contentious. Those who defend the pornography industry may criticize those attacking it as Christian fundamentalists hoping to revert the country into some kind of an ascetic and dystopian dark age that oppresses any kind of sexual liberty. Surely, should the debate over pornography become nationally mainstream, it would be sensationalized as another battle in the ongoing culture war between Democrats and Republicans, progressivism and conservatism. This is a battle that our deeply dysfunctional and factional country certainly does not need to fight.
Yet, when looking at American attitudes towards porn, this would not be as bloody a battle as one might think. In a Gallup poll from 2019, 61 percent of respondents stated that pornography was morally unacceptable, compared to 37 percent stating the opposite. For reference, the same poll shows that 35 percent of Americans view same-sex relationships as immoral, with 63 percent the opposite. If a majority of Americans are in consensus that porn is immoral and malicious, why do we not have legislation to reflect these beliefs? Some would say that due to the tense political climate in our country, and our unwillingness to make compromises on cultural issues, Congress would not have the appetite or consensus for enacting a ban on porn. However, I disagree, for there is evidence that both Republicans and Democrats find common ground on the ill effects of pornography. A bipartisan Senate bill was introduced in 2020, the Stop Internet Exploitation Act, which would have required uploaders of pornographic material to sign forms verifying that the sex depicted was between legally aged and consenting actors. Unfortunately, this bill never took off the ground, and it was far from calling for a total ban on porn production, but it shows that many members of Congress are at least aware of one of the problems within the porn industry and willing to work across the aisle to address it. Besides this bill, very few pieces of serious porn legislation have ever bounced around the walls of the Capitol. The only other legislation worth mentioning is H.R.4361, the Government Reform and Improvement Act of 2016, which the House of Representatives passed, which would have prohibited federal employees from watching pornography on federal computers in an effort to minimize security risks. Though this legislation never made it to the Senate, it highlights an important question: if Congress wanted to ban porn for federal employees on federal computers, why should they allow us to be exposed to pornography’s risks on ours?
IN CLOSING
It should go without saying that there is a crisis of confidence within the people of our country. Today, America is a mentally and physically ill nation. We are depressed. We are overweight. We are violent. For decades, we have outlawed illicit chemical substances that, like porn, poison our brains and bodies. Most people agree that the prohibition on these drugs is justified by their destructive capabilities, but where is the consensus on porn given that the evidence is similarly stacked up against it? Who is defending this industry? Porn is a drug, a substance to be used and abused at the detriment of those exploited people who help to produce it. I do not believe a debate over pornography should or would take on a controversial form. With such a debate, no true civil liberties would be on the line, nor would there be any assaults on gender identities or sexual orientations. Simply put, this is an issue of mental health in a mentally ill country. Why do we allow that which is killing us to proliferate? We must stop watching pornography, stop defending it, and start talking talking about it. In order to preserve the mental, sexual, and familial health of United States citizens, the federal government must enact and enforce a total ban on pornography.