The Epidemic Of States Declaring Porn a ‘Public Health Crisis’

CYBERSPACE—With Arizona last week passing a resolution declaring porn a “public health crisis,” as AVN.com reported, more than a dozen states have now reclassified the War on Porn as a pseudo-medical issue, despite a total lack of persuasive evidence that pornography has any significant or deleterious health effects on the general population. In fact, in a recent report on the porn “public health crisis” epidemic, Rolling Stone magazine found “nearly 15 other states” that have adopted some form of usually non-binding legislation that officially recognizes porn as threat to “public health.” The state resolutions have generally had no legal teeth, and do not mandate bans on pornography or penalties for selling or producing adult material. According to Free Speech Coalition spokesperson Mike Stabile, quoted in the Rolling Stone report, the resolutions appear designed primarily “to score political points and rally the evangelical base.” But the “public health” declarations” may simply, and ominously, be laying the groundwork for future legislation, or even legal action. After Utah enacted a similar anti-porn “public health” resolution in 2016, according to the site Jezebel, “it was the beginning of the concerted governmental effort to threaten pornographers’ First Amendment rights, the likes of which the adult entertainment industry hasn’t seen since Reagan’s America.” For example, in 2018, Republican Utah state legislator Todd Weiler—the same anti-porn crusader behind the 2016 “public health” resolution—sponsored a new bill that holds porn producers and distributors liable for civil damages if any minor is “harmed physically or psychologically, or by emotional or medical illnesses as a result of pornographic material.” Exactly how it would be determined that a specific alleged “harm” or “illness” actually resulted from pornographic material” is not specified in the text of the bill. Weiler’s bill supposedly to protect “minors injured by pornography” passed the legislature and was signed into law by the state’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert. Another potential risk, as AVN.com has reported, with last year’s repeal of federal net neutrality regulations, internet service providers are now permitted to block traffic to any sites they choose. In states where porn has been declared a “public health crisis,” ISPs—which depend heavily on realtionships state and local governments—could simply block porn sites as a way to win favor with the states. Many of the state level “public health crisis” resolutions are based on a framework provided by the right-wing advocacy group that calls itself the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, but was formerly known as Morality in Media. The same group has been responsible for mainstream magazines with even mild sexual content, such as Cosmopolitan, being pulled from checkout counters in chain stores such as WalMart.  Photo By Gary / Wikimedia Commons