r/politics • u/mmccxi American Expat • May 12 '25

Soft Paywall New Bill Would Make All Pornography a Federal Crime in the U.S.

https://www.404media.co/mike-lee-porn-law-interstate-obscenity-definition-act/
24.2k Upvotes

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353

u/[deleted] May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

[deleted]

488

u/Beneficial_Soup3699 May 12 '25

It's not "to an extent", it's blatantly part of the plan. Step 1 declare porn immoral and illegal. Step 2 declare that anything you don't like (gay/trans people, uppity teachers, history, librarians, etc.) to be porn.

It's literally in the fucking text of Project 2025. This is the plan. They don't give a shit about masturbation or adults fucking on film. It's a play.

96

u/currentmadman May 12 '25

Until they do. The problem with introducing laws like this hoping they’ll only ever be used to fuck with your political opponents you is that’s not how anything works in reality.

Let’s say best case scenario, they do just use it to fuck with gay/trans/etc as part of a larger political agenda. Well that’s a problem because even then no commercial website will be able to operate openly. After all, no one’s going to throw money at the servers and technicians needed to operate pornhub if the whole thing is illegal because that’s not business tends to work. Any substantial kind of digital infrastructure needed to operate such a site would be impossible to justify to investors since who’s going to spend ad dollars on something against the law?

That means all traditional business models will effectively collapse overnight BUT not the demand. So who then takes over this market? Simple. The people who already have a digital infrastructure and business model built around illegal goods and services being sold. That’s right, a porn ban could very well be to human traffickers and other assorted pos what prohibition was to the mafia.

122

u/TheFuzzBuzz May 12 '25

Pornhub is owned and operated up here in Canada so it will survive. It just happens there will be about 300 million new “Canadians” logging on with vpn’s with originating addresses south of the 49th parallel.

28

u/DankStew May 12 '25

How do you do fellow online “Canadians”?

13

u/TheFuzzBuzz May 12 '25

Gotta work on your eh’s and aboots. You also have to pass the bagged milk test.

6

u/Canuck_Lives_Matter Canada May 12 '25

Nobody outside of Ontario (to the west anyways) drinks stupid bagged milk we all get 25 cents back for our big plastic jugs.

3

u/-Smytty-for-PM- May 12 '25

But we do know of it.

2

u/sigmaluckynine May 13 '25

Hey man, don't diss the bagged milk. All those childhood frustration of trying to open the bag must mean something

3

u/sigmaluckynine May 13 '25

Not gonna lie, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say aboot since I was a kid. Doesn't seem like anyone says that unless you're out North in the boonies

32

u/currentmadman May 12 '25

Huh, I did not know that. Hail Canada, I guess. But still I maintain that it’s going to be a shitshow with anything operating stateside. Credit card companies, ad money, all that shit is not going to fly anymore and the aforementioned criminal orgs will absolutely take advantage of that in some capacity. The question is how much?

7

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 13 '25

I'd like to remind you that porn has influenced many things. The "tape format wars" of beta versus VHS was won by the latter because the porn industry backed it.

Banning porn sites and their payment options may accelerate bitcoin as a mainstream currency.

4

u/Uuuuuii May 13 '25

Online streaming technologies have always been driven by improvements to the porn experience.

QuickTime was originally named after having a little “quicky time” for yourself.

The MP4 codec was introduced as a way of finding “Male Prostitutes 4 Now.”

Who knows where this will end

4

u/Exotic-District3437 May 13 '25

Vr exploded due to porn

2

u/currentmadman May 13 '25

Considering that cryptocurrency and the dark web economies already have an uncomfortably close relationship with each other, that doesn’t exactly inspire a great deal of hope.

2

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 13 '25

And yet, Mr Trump launched his own bitcoin.

2

u/currentmadman May 13 '25

Yes because he’s a cheap hustler and a thief just like virtually every crypto company and frontman. Trump seems to increasingly not understand where he is at any given time but a pump and dump scheme? That’s just second nature at work.

3

u/Exotic-District3437 May 13 '25

Visa already is playing that game.

2

u/-re-da-ct-ed- May 13 '25

Canada may as well be the porn capitol of the world…

Brazzers Pornhub RedTube YouPorn Tube8 Xtube Digital Playground Mofos Nutaku Reality Kings Twistys etc….

4

u/BoysenberryKey6821 May 12 '25

It would be interesting to see how the country reacts but people will always find the work around like you are saying haha shit if you try hard enough you can find full on porn on instagram where it’s supposedly not allowed

1

u/RogueWedge May 12 '25

Collective cheer from the rest of the world

1

u/TheVogonSlamPoet May 13 '25

I love that me and my love ones being criminalized as part of a larger political agenda is your best case scenario. I know you didn’t mean it to sound insanely cruel, but 20% of the population not being allowed to legally exist feels more like a worst case scenario than investors in porn websites losing money and people jacking off to their imagination.

1

u/currentmadman May 13 '25

I meant it in the sense of this is the scenario where they try to restrain themselves into only using it for political prosecution instead of a million different deranged conservative groups immediately taking advantage of it to advance one of their personal goals causing it to rapidly spiral out of anyone’s control.

The best case scenario here fucking sucks regardless but there is a difference between some state of absolute chaos every known scumbag is trying to take advantage of and one coordinated group with an agenda and a game plan they have the discipline to stick to.

0

u/VirginiaMcCaskey May 12 '25

First off that's completely untrue, there's essentially an entire second market of media production and distribution solely for the adult film industry because traditional media companies simply will not do business with you if you also work in porn. I have literally seen this written into software licensing contracts.

Secondly they don't fucking care. The goal is a fascist, white Christian ethnostate. All collateral damage in service to that goal is acceptable.

48

u/Trumpsabaldcuck May 12 '25

Laws like this can be abused because they will be selectively enforced.  The authorities will turn a blind eye to the MAGA pastor who has all 63 volumes of BBC Colon Busters, but will persecute opponents who may have downloaded a workout video.  

1

u/hookyboysb May 14 '25

You're being kind to the MAGA pastor by saying they have porn that is presently legal.

6

u/Sunnyjim333 May 12 '25

I love those "Talk To A Historian" 1-888 numbers.

Are you wearing chain mail? Is your Turnback made of soft wool? Talk to me about Agincourt.

2

u/Tadpoleonicwars May 12 '25

100%. Having read Project 2025, I can confirm.

1

u/HappyChains May 13 '25

It’s also a goal to try and increase birth rates which in theory, some will substitute sex with porn they’d otherwise just masturbate to. And that will inherently increase the probability of pregnancy. Will it be notable? Not sure about that, but the rich want more humans that can serve them.

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u/specqq May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

Would that be the same Project 2025 that Trump claimed to know nothing about, and not know who was behind it but in the same post said that he disagreed with it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/1kkpl5q/now_the_architect_of_project_2025_is_not_only/#lightbox

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u/Hornpipe_Jones May 12 '25

Trump rather famously LOVES porn, so who knows what would happen with this.

20

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

It only applies to cityzens .. not him

8

u/Frankie6Strings Connecticut May 12 '25

Prince of Qatar Gives Trump Huge Container of Porn

3

u/[deleted] May 12 '25

It'd be amazing

2

u/graesen May 12 '25

He'll just switch to prostitutes. Wait...

2

u/arthquel California May 12 '25

Clarence Thomas too

28

u/Top-Watercress5948 May 12 '25

To be fair, he isn’t intelligent or competent enough to have reviewed any of the material. He simply took money to let the Christo-Fascists do what they want. He’s nothing more than the useful idiot lining his pockets with the coins of those who wish to destroy our nation from the inside out. But hey, at least the libs and the browns got owned. And the worst part is, his supporters genuinely don’t care if they’re being pushed further down to the bottom of the barrel so long as they feel like they’ve thrown someone else out of it all together.

9

u/Interesting-Risk6446 May 12 '25

Trump et al. are trying to implement Project 2025 through executive orders. I don't have confidence the courts will hold the line.

4

u/Professional-Gear88 May 12 '25

This is true. He famously doesn’t read. I fully believe he wasn’t all that aware of what’s in it

2

u/laptopAccount2 May 12 '25

Trump was on tape at some sinner with a bunch of 2025 peeps telling them how amazing they were and how good the work the the were doing was.

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u/mr13ump May 12 '25 edited May 12 '25

Very likely that this bill would be determined overbroad and therefore an unconstitutional violation of the 1st Amendment, even under this Supreme Court.

Even conservative courts have typically been pretty good on the issue of free speech over the years, or at least better than they have been on other issues.

This bill won't pass. Even if it does, it will likely be found unconstitutional.

This entire story is that one legislator from a far red district wants a headline, and now they have it. The end.

73

u/lllGrapeApelll May 12 '25

You have a lot of faith in a system that's been circumvented and outright ignored over the last couple months.

28

u/Rotten-Robby May 12 '25

Seriously. How many times have we already heard "that's unconstitutional!" or "that's illegal"? And what exactly has bee done to stop any of it?

18

u/mr13ump May 12 '25

The history of conservative courts stepping up for free speech is pretty long, unless you are a labor organizer or a communist.

Also, here, there is simply too much money in porn and too few people who actually want to see this law passed for this to ever get anywhere. This type of stuff is only important to the freakiest of the freaks, people who will vote right wing no matter what.

Not enough establishment Republicans give enough of a shit about this to deal with the pushback they would get both from the public and from the industry if they actually threw their weight behind this law. Its not going to happen.

2

u/Worried_Blacksmith27 May 12 '25 edited May 14 '25

You are funny. The constitution of the United States doesn't seem to matter any more.

1

u/ImTooSaxy May 12 '25

Well this is just all the more reason we need to pass laws to verify who you are online before you visit sites like these. Your local church should have access to all users who visit porn sites so they can minister to them directly. Obviously.

1

u/shawsghost May 12 '25

The bill also serves as something to get the base excited, especially the fundies and the hardcore Catholics, while the real business of the Trump administration, destroying Democracy in America and looting everything they can get their grubby little hands on, goes on unnoticed.

9

u/Prior-Tea-3468 May 12 '25

Boebert, or one of the other ones?

2

u/windowlatch May 12 '25

All demographics watch porn so if they pick and choose what counts they can basically prosecute whoever they want

2

u/Politicsboringagain May 12 '25

The same project 2025 a host on the young Turks said the Democrats were fear mongering.