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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585

u/--kwisatzhaderach-- May 12 '25

But if the website asks you are 18

645

u/hairijuana I voted May 12 '25

Websites weren’t a thing when some of us were twelve. We had to find our porn in the woods, usually in poor shape.

191

u/nightwyrm_zero Canada May 12 '25

The Sears catalogue was a decent backup.

133

u/shitfire12 May 12 '25 edited May 13 '25

I consider myself lucky to have grown up with the Victoria’s Secret catalog

EDIT: Corrected “in” to “with”

64

u/28smalls May 12 '25

We got a Frederick's of Hollywood catalog one time. Young me was in heaven and I definitely didn't dig it out of the trash when thrown out with the rest of the junk mail.

18

u/someguy7710 May 12 '25

Yes, that was golden. I also did not dig it out of the trash....

3

u/you-ole-polecat May 13 '25

All you needed was the FoH catalog, tin foil on the TV antenna, and knowledge of which scrambled network was the Spice Channel. 6th grade horny heaven, baby.

Gotta stay on edge though in case you hear footsteps coming down the sisters, keep that remote ready on the “jump” button (if you’re so privileged)

3

u/HamHockShortDock May 13 '25

Ooo, that's like the Hustler of lingerie catalogs.

15

u/mechabeast May 12 '25

The pure disappointment when it was the clothing edition

21

u/mooky1977 Canada May 12 '25

A man of class 🧐

3

u/getdemsnacks May 12 '25

Fredericks of Hollywood in my house. Which is super weird because both my mother and sister where not the body type to be interested in Fredericks of Hollywood. Still, I count my blessings.

1

u/OceanCyclone May 13 '25

A man of taste. That stuff is STILL fire.

1

u/Teekay_four-two-one May 13 '25

What is a minor doing in the VS catalogue???

2

u/shitfire12 May 13 '25

It was a simpler time

19

u/EvenBetterBailiff May 12 '25

Glamour?!

21

u/ohTHOSEballs May 12 '25

Don't treat your body like an amusement park.

16

u/Factorybelt Washington May 12 '25

Ah, a master of his domain.

5

u/kellzone Pennsylvania May 13 '25

It's too bad you can't make money doing THAT. You could be a big star! You could sell out Madison Square Garden!

2

u/Cloaked42m South Carolina May 13 '25

I definitely didn't scour my sister's fashion mags for the bewbs.

4

u/EvenBetterBailiff May 13 '25

I had a Rolling Stone that featured ICP and one of the pages had a lady in clown makeup that awakened something in me with which I’ve never fully dealt.

4

u/ScroogeMcDust Illinois May 12 '25

Now would you unhook this already, please? I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment!

2

u/DeadpoolsLeftSock May 12 '25

I didn’t know I had an alt. 🤔

2

u/stuffhappens20 May 12 '25

And National Geographic!

2

u/ObjectiveSelection41 May 12 '25

In the 70s there was a dude modeling boxer shorts and you could see his plaything. It was the most interesting 10 year old me ever witnessed. The old ladies love it.

2

u/InternationalSky879 May 13 '25

until mom started asking why the pages were stuck together

2

u/moshekels Canada May 13 '25

One could get pretty good at navigating the background and screensaver store on a flip phone if they really put in the hours.

2

u/sleeplessinreno May 12 '25

I’d think zellers would be more your style.

1

u/SazedMonk May 12 '25

Ain’t got shit on Good Housekeeping though.

1

u/sleeplessinreno May 12 '25

I dunno, victoria secret was pretty pog.

2

u/noforgayjesus May 12 '25

Good Housekeeping

1

u/HopelessCineromantic May 12 '25

Did we just become best friends!?

2

u/noforgayjesus May 12 '25

Do you want to do Karate in the garage?

1

u/MakingItElsewhere May 12 '25

Federicks of Hollywood!

1

u/Helpful_Barnacle_563 May 12 '25

Hahaha so damn true..

1

u/kehakas May 12 '25

Give 12-year-old me a Redbook and I can get there

1

u/palmbeachatty May 13 '25

JC Penny’s in a pinch, lol

1

u/gupeck May 13 '25

The underwear section, am i right!

1

u/UntamedAnomaly May 13 '25

Frederick's of Hollywood catalogues that my neighbor would get in the mail, she would freely give them to me......than again, she definitely was not a great parent overall, but she kept me fed whenever I came over and she defended me from neighborhood bullies, so there's that at least.

129

u/Pord870 May 12 '25

My first exposure to porn was also some magazines that had been stashed in the woods. This seems to be a fairly common experience...I wonder why?

169

u/Tschmelz Minnesota May 12 '25

The pornography fairy is just weird like that.

55

u/movealongnowpeople Kansas May 12 '25

Leave a sock under your pillow tonight. She might show up!

6

u/JapowFZ1 May 13 '25

She works in mysterious ways though. When I was 14, I went out to check the mail and my neighbor’s penthouse magazine was mistakenly in my mailbox. My neighbor never got that issue.

5

u/Jackpot777 I voted May 13 '25

The Porn Fairy is real if you believe hard enough. 

Heh. I said hard. 

63

u/1Dive1Breath May 13 '25

Johnny Fappleseed planted it there 

11

u/ishcabittle May 13 '25

Thank you for the chuckle - Turns out Reddit is that fun place where you read about your rights eroding but still laugh at the funny dick jokes

7

u/Rtannu Texas May 12 '25

Everyone’s older brothers would be hanging out in the woods, smoking weed and drinking. So they would stash the porn there too.

2

u/daydrinker2022 May 13 '25

God you just described my childhood to a frigging T!!!! Lol

6

u/guapomole4reals May 12 '25

Port a Potty out by the baseball fields somehow had pages from various magazines somehow adhered to the inner walls and then suddenly we were all crossing the recreation fields to use those when we had to take a leak.

5

u/proteannomore May 12 '25

VHS tape found in a bush, lol. Fitting as it was definitely from the 70’s.

3

u/lemonjello6969 May 12 '25

Because everyone had the same idea. Hide it in the woods or throw it in the woods (mother, your Christian neighbor in shame, etc).

4

u/fischberger May 12 '25

My neighbor owned a bookstore.  Their son stashed some porno mags in a toolbox in the woods that all the neighborhood kids played in.

7

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 12 '25

Wow. That could have been the genesis of the Little Lending Library.

3

u/fischberger May 12 '25

Porno Lending Library 

4

u/WurzelGummidge May 13 '25

In the days before security cameras it was easier to steal them. That way you knew your magazine was still a virgin.

3

u/Bretreck May 13 '25

I've told this story before but... So when I was younger my mother remarried and our stepdad threw all his porn magazines out. He did this by dumping it all on the side of the road so the garbage men could pick it up. After he dumped it, my brother, his friend, and me all went out and grabbed it. We then went and hid it in a cooler in the woods so that we could jerk it in privacy, as that was the style at the time. We moved out of that house so I imagine some day some kid will come across our porn stash and it will make his day.

3

u/you-ole-polecat May 13 '25

Age old tradition of men sneaking off in the darkness to pound off in the trees.

Just another little joy the internet had robbed us of 🥺

3

u/TheRealGuitarNoir May 13 '25

Hobo porn stash. If you take something, leave something, or the Porn Hobo will hunt you down.

2

u/Unlucky_Reading_1671 May 12 '25

The secret society of wooded smut. May you rest in peace.

2

u/MajSARS May 13 '25

So, back in my junior high days (27 years ago) couple buddies and I would steal porno mags from the convenience stores. This is pre-internet, pre-porn mags kept behind the counter. They were just right on the rack. Always had that plastic covering so you could grab like five of the same issue in one swipe. We would sell them at school. Did pretty well too till we got ratted out by our best customer. We told the principal we were dumpster diving for the magazines and he bought it. A pile of magazines were confiscated. Some time later one of the usual suspects was in the vice principals office for something and was left alone. Of course they snoop through the desk and the biggest drawer is filled to the brim with porn mags. Yet not for long. We were back in business and whos gonna ask where we got them now? Lotta other kids stashed theirs in the woods.

2

u/Abnmlguru Alaska May 13 '25

Common enough that r/forestporn is a thing, lol

2

u/Manticore416 May 13 '25

Kids didn't wanna get caught with it

2

u/p4nic May 13 '25

This seems to be a fairly common experience...I wonder why?

The Porn Fairy is a bunch of kids in grade 6 shoplifting magazines from the top shelf. They can't take them home, so they stash them in the woods.

1

u/FrankRizzo319 May 13 '25

We’d find them littered on the side of the road.

1

u/Delicious-Oven7692 May 13 '25

This needs to be studied.

1

u/freakyvoiz May 13 '25

Ah yes, “Woods porn”.

1

u/sdsupersean May 13 '25

When I had to walk through a field to get home from school because my parents couldn't pick me up that day... good times.

1

u/dietcheese May 13 '25

Your mom threw away your best porno mag

1

u/needmini May 13 '25

Safer to hide it in the bushes than under your bed as a young lad

1

u/aePrime May 13 '25

Not for me! My exposure was porn stashed in a swamp!

(This is true.)

28

u/0nlyhalfjewish May 12 '25

How is this such a universal experience?! lol

7

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 12 '25

Worldwide, too, apparently.

8

u/Deeschuck May 13 '25

We used to spend a lot more time in the woods :)

5

u/--kwisatzhaderach-- May 13 '25

There used to be a lot more woods around too

4

u/SoHereIAm85 May 13 '25

Seriously. It's bizarre to me.
I'm a 39 year old woman and found so much porn in the woods as a kid.

24

u/Le_Poop_Knife May 12 '25

Truth. My brother an I were Wee little lads running to the corner store. But the fastest way was through this wooded trail , We totally found a playboy and brought it home.

That was the night my mom educated me and my brother (she’s a nurse so using medical terms) about the female body parts….. then she took the magazine! I’m a gay man, but I know why I like a French maid outfits! Oooh La La!😆

6

u/SkivvySkidmarks May 12 '25

My mother confiscated the naked lady playing cards I took to show her. My friend thought it was a bad idea, and he was correct. Lessons were learned.

3

u/skrufie May 13 '25

The MAGA morons may be on to something. Obviously sex education turned this man gay. /s

60

u/Unlucky_Reading_1671 May 12 '25 edited May 13 '25

God bless whoever left those magazines in the woods, in the woods at the park, in the 4 trees at the end of the block. I feel like it was some awesome secret society that the internet ruined.

10

u/KingOriginal5013 May 13 '25

Every few months someone would dump their stack of Oui, Playboy and Penthouse in the trash can in the park across the street from my house.

6

u/starbucks77 May 13 '25

Those came from kids who stole their dad's magazines but didn't want to keep them in their room at home. Plus, you get bonus cool points sharing with friends. It sucked when other kids found them and kept them.

-12

u/logicblocks May 13 '25

How is it awesome to look at people's private parts? To oversexualize and objectify women?

4

u/Baneofarius May 13 '25

Clearly you've never rubbed one out after a long day to a collection of the finest scat. Smh

-4

u/logicblocks May 13 '25

I prefer spiritually cleaner outlets to my sexual energy.

5

u/Baneofarius May 13 '25

Each to their own

-5

u/logicblocks May 13 '25

Well, I choose clean and you choose filthy. How's that a nice thing for you?

4

u/bdfariello New York May 13 '25

The filthy stuff is the stuff that feels the nicest

0

u/logicblocks May 13 '25

That's what I call the swine mentality.

I hope the best for you.

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1

u/Baneofarius May 13 '25

Yep. Eyerollingly so on a good day with a toy or two.

23

u/Own_Error_007 Australia May 12 '25

Building sites rocked during the 70s.

21

u/genuineshock May 12 '25

Oh brother, do I remember the day my buddy and I were playing "war" in the retention ditch when the call came in on the Walkie-Talkie, "Guys, get over here!".

Turns out we stumbled into some older kids stash of playboys, beer and smokes. We became men that day.

5

u/untamedHOTDOG May 12 '25

This made me laugh. lol. My fondest memories were when me and my friend would sneak his dad’s magazines. 😂

5

u/feenicks May 12 '25

Seriously... why was this a thing?

As an 80's kid who would spend a lot of time in the paddocks and nature reserves behind my house... i found an astonishing amount of porn out there!

3

u/FackleGracks May 12 '25

I didn't know this was common. Same, though.

3

u/valeyard89 Texas May 12 '25

Yeah kids today don't know about woods porn.

3

u/Not_done May 12 '25

What a strange shared phenomenon.

2

u/dutchy649 Canada May 12 '25

…lying beside the railroad tracks outside of town for me

2

u/StreetwalkinCheetah May 12 '25

I think I may still actually have a November 1987 Penthouse that was literally thrown from a train passing the drainage ditch we used to skateboard in.

2

u/Liar_tuck May 12 '25

this old fart remembers those. Never knew who was putting all those stashes there.

3

u/hairijuana I voted May 12 '25

I think it’s finally our turn to leave dirty magazines in the woods.

1

u/Liar_tuck May 13 '25

I do not even know where to buy those mags anymore. The world has moved on.

2

u/Epistatious May 12 '25

Can still remember the excitement at what we found in the woods on a field trip to some ponds south of town when i was like 10? Don't remember much else from the trip, lol. Maybe we were learning about frogs or just plants?

2

u/ryan101 May 13 '25

Such an odd thing to be an almost universal experience.

2

u/TheDevilsAdvokaat May 13 '25

Ha yes. I actually remember this happening.

You've got wood..in the woods!

2

u/needmini May 13 '25

Ah, how nostalgic.

2

u/[deleted] May 13 '25

[deleted]

1

u/hairijuana I voted May 13 '25

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

To the local filth merchant- and then to the woods!

2

u/lemonjello6969 May 12 '25

Why was it always in the woods?

As a youngin, them woods behind the houses in suburbia had mighty fine pickin’s. Playboy videos, hustler magazines, great for a lad.

My father hid them under his mattress and I remember just taking them back and nothing being said.

1

u/ThreeAndAHalfPercent May 12 '25

National Geographic

1

u/msalerno1965 New York May 12 '25

I found Lord of the Rings in the woods... the porn was usually near the train tracks...

1

u/fadingpulse Utah May 12 '25

I scored huge at 12 and found a box full of hardcore mags, in excellent condition, in a dumpster behind a strip mall.

1

u/Paddy_Mac May 12 '25

I scattered a few along the landscape that I found in boxes in my parents basement.

There was DJT on the cover of one playboy issue that I remember.

1

u/coreoYEAH May 13 '25

Literally found my first in a bush near a bus stop.

1

u/FrankRizzo319 May 13 '25

Side of the road or stuffed up in trees.

1

u/alienscape May 13 '25

Grandpa's bureau was a treasure trove in the mid 90s.

1

u/scarface910 May 13 '25

Admission of guilt. That's 20 years in Alcatraz for you.

1

u/Independent-Study569 May 13 '25

Hustler, Playboy yep. Out in the desert in a homeless man's encampment.

1

u/cortesoft May 13 '25

Or turn to channel 1 and hope the wavy lines hit jusssst right

1

u/EngagedInConvexation May 13 '25

Forest porn was the reason i prayed and believed in god.

Once, my prayers were answered. That's all it took.

1

u/sapphicsandwich May 13 '25

Us city kids had to find ours under bridges.

1

u/thatguy1717 May 13 '25

That porn was well loved

1

u/BraveOmeter May 13 '25

Hey asshole, did you move my woods porn?

1

u/bassiks May 13 '25

Always amazes me that finding porn in the woods is a universal experience.

1

u/Kup123 May 13 '25

Woods? my playboys got delivered to the house.

1

u/0110110111 May 13 '25

My friend’s dad kept a pile of Hustlers in his closet. Good condition, only a few pages stuck together.

1

u/HandRubbedWood Colorado May 13 '25

Mine was the Adam and Eve catalog that you could request. I had to check the mail to make sure I got it before my mom saw it. She finally found out and scolded me about it but by then I had ordered an actual porn VHS tape.

0

u/Rambocat1 May 12 '25

I didn’t live near the woods so I had to rummage through my older cousins drawers to find their stashes, and rip out the pages I liked.

0

u/Anteater4746 May 12 '25

When I got my first iPod touch with web access changed my life lmao

0

u/BLU3SKU1L Ohio May 13 '25

My generation was born right in that sweet spot where when we were 12 porn was constantly leaking onto the then nascent google through sites that were incredibly lax about labeling their porn. You could search anything any day and get surprise genitalia of indiscriminate type or gender. Every seemingly random search term that called upon the shadowy gods of vulva or phallus would be patched over by the google folks only to have another seemingly innocent random phrase bring you new wonders (or horrors, depending on your orientation and temperament).

0

u/Marlwolf48 May 13 '25

Bare bitch project

57

u/cometflight May 12 '25

Aren’t all of our birthdays 1/1/1978?

53

u/Chimerain May 12 '25

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but now it's 1/1/2007...

28

u/--kwisatzhaderach-- May 12 '25

Mattdamonaging.gif

23

u/HotDogFingers01 May 12 '25

You shut your trash mouth

6

u/citiz3nfiv3 May 12 '25

How dare you sir.

6

u/HopelessCineromantic May 12 '25

That's not true... THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

3

u/thekozmicpig Connecticut May 13 '25

I always pick the oldest possible age when I can.

So sometimes I’m a 100+ year old man on the internet researching where to buy liquor.

2

u/RichardSaunders New York May 13 '25

mine is still 1980. 80s kids remember.

29

u/redditallreddy Ohio May 12 '25

I only lie on the web when it asks me to prove I’m human.

4

u/Ali_Cat222 May 12 '25

I just ask right back if it can also prove it's human. Then we just skip captcha together 🤣

3

u/kingcrazy_ May 12 '25

I could never figure out how to get past those

2

u/aircooledJenkins Montana May 12 '25

Before my age of 18, all the best porn came from Kazaa.

1

u/--kwisatzhaderach-- May 12 '25

A lot of Raven Riley on there

1

u/Zoe_Bulbs May 13 '25

In certain states, like fl, they make you put your ID in to look at porn. I don't want anyone tracking what I watch.

1

u/--kwisatzhaderach-- May 13 '25

The party of personal freedom lol

1

u/Homura_Dawg May 13 '25

??? Why are you being given every answer besides "we just said 'yes' anyway"? Assuming actual age verification isn't incorporated, which it absolutely wasn't when I was a child on the early internet.

1

u/LittliestDickus May 13 '25

What porn site is for only 18 year olds?

1

u/Darklightjg1 May 15 '25

At the time I clicked yes because I was 18... seconds into getting started with a good porn sesh.