7 More States Want You to Upload Your Driver's License to Watch Porn
A sign hangs at the Pornhub booth at the 2023 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at Resorts World Las Vegas on January 06, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Ethan Miller/ (Getty Images)
Louisiana last month became the first state to require sites featuring a certain percentage of material “harmful to minors” to verify the age of users by checking official state-issued identification. Now, there are several additional states following close on Louisiana’s heels.
Arkansas’ bill, the Protection of Minors from Distribution of Harmful Material Act, passed the state House on February 1 after the Senate filed in January. The bill requires the same digitized identification card for any site hosting “harmful” materials over a very strange and arbitrary 33.33 percent of the site. From Motherboard:
Like the Louisiana law, the authors of the Arkansas bill wrote that “harmful” content includes “nipple of the female breast, pubic hair, anus, vulva, or genitals; touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, the anus, or genitals; or sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions of sexual acts, or any other sexual act; or the material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”
The Arkansas bill also calls porn a “public health crisis,” mirroring conservative anti-porn language that’s since been debunked, but is still used by religious anti-porn groups that seek to wipe sexual content from the internet. Researchers have found that pathologizing porn use and masturbation is actually antithetical to public health, and so-called “porn addiction” stems from cultures and communities that shame people for exploring their sexuality.
Seven other states are have copy cat bills in various stages of possibly becoming laws. After Louisiana’s bill became law on January 1, 2023, PornHub put special measures in place to prevent users from Louisiana from accessing materials without an official I.D. PornHub accesses an app called LA Wallet App via a third party in order to keep things relatively safe.
Or you could just get a VPN, because if there are two outfits known for tight cybersecurity, it’s government agencies and porn sites.
