What’s up with PornHub in Virginia?

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Here’s the original question:

The Virginia senate has passed an age-verification law that restricts access to websites like PornHub. Earlier this year, a lawsuit was filed against the state of Utah for a similar age-restriction law, citing that pornography is constitutionally protected as a form of free speech. Is there precedent for cases like this? And what can I do to influence my local senators?

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I appreciate you bringing up Utah because I think that we’re going to see a repeat of some of the legal challenges we saw there, in states like Virginia and other places that are enacting similar laws.

In Utah both the ACLU and FSC (Free Speech Coalition) have gotten involved in the legal battle over the age requirement.

The reason for these bills is to supposedly protect children from accessing pornography. And as was mentioned in the question, pornography is covered by the first amendment, but there can be times when your first amendment rights can be limited. (Shout out to my lawyer friends who gave me some insight on this).

I have a lot of doubts about how much these kind of laws actually protect children from seeing porn. And for me, as a sex educator, I’m concerned with adults not being able to view porn if they want to.

Porn can be beneficial to people for a lot of reasons. Some people just really enjoy watching it! Some use it for masturbation. Some use it as a form of release. For example, maybe you get turned on by BDSM, or role play, or a threesome, but your partner isn’t okay with that. Watching porn that has those elements can let you live out your fantasy without jeopardizing your relationship.

Porn can give people ideas that they might want to try with their partner.

With the wide range of porn that’s out there, it can help you to figure out what turns you on. And if you see porn that has people that look like you, it can help you feel more sexual and more desirable.

And for some people that live in states, like Virginia, where sex education is not mandated, porn may be the only way people can learn about sex. Granted they may not always be learning realistic things about sex from porn, but people are desperate for information about sex. And if not porn, where else are you going to go to learn about sex? I can’t tell you how many time I get basic sex questions from adults who never got the chance to learn about sex. It’s one of the reasons I do my weekly Q&A.

The bottom line is that there are hundreds of reasons why adults choose to watch porn.

As for influencing your local senators and other elected officials, I’m not sure what you can do. You can try reaching out to them and voicing your concerns, but I know for a lot of people who do this, all they get is a canned response or a form letter. I wish that all elected officials had to pass my sex class before they could make laws about sex, but sadly that will never happen.

One of the things you can do is learn more about the laws that are impacting you, and to support organizations that are trying to fight these laws. I know I mentioned the ACLU and FSC. There’s also the Woodhull Freedom Foundation (full disclosure, I’m an ambassador for the foundation). They are doing a whole series of webinars on censorship. You can find out more here.

Until next, be safe and have fun!

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