Forget about your guns, America. Republicans are coming for your porn.
In keeping with the throwback conservatism and pseudoscience we’ve come to expect from this election cycle, Republican delegates have labeled pornography as a “public health crisis”. The anti-pornography amendment was unanimously added to the draft platform during a Monday Republican National Convention subcommittee meeting on healthcare, education, and crime. While the GOP’s 2012 platform also condemned child pornography and encouraged the enforcement of obscenity laws, this amendment raises the stakes by insisting that, “Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions.” That’s right—pornography is a life-ruiner. It ruins people’s lives.
The amendment was offered by North Carolina delegate Mary Forrester, who worked alongside the conservative Christian group Concerned Women for America to make her archaic dream an unfortunate reality. In addition to the state of their collective sons’ soiled tube socks, the CWA cites feminism, gay marriage, and the siren call of Harry Potter among their numerous concerns. Their self-described mission is “to protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens—first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society—thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation.”
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The doubtlessly well-intentioned CWA misplaces its concern by conflating pornography with sexual exploitation and the trafficking of women. By assuming that all sex work is non-consensual, conservative organizations like the CWA can purport to speak on behalf of the safety of all women, while campaigning to limit the autonomy and criminalize the livelihoods of many of them. Ironically enough, this exploitation argument reflects a brand of radical feminism that would likely feel very alien to Mary Forrester. In the 1980s, a roster of anti-patriarchal powerhouses including Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon publically campaigned against pornography, arguing that onscreen sex perpetuated violence against women and solidified harmful gender roles. Conversely, the GOP’s objections to pornography are based in old school family values, complete with trumped-up charges that porn encourages infidelity and tempts young men away from matrimony.
While the new amendment certainly isn’t cause to move to Canada—or clear your browser history—just yet, the right’s war on pornography is no laughing matter.
In April, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed off on a bold anti-porn resolution. “We hope that people hear and heed this voice of warning,” Herbert pronounced at the signing ceremony. “For our citizens know that there are real health risks that are involved and associated with viewing pornography.” Todd Weiler, the resolution’s chief Senate sponsor, believed that the non-binding resolution would encourage community involvement. “If a library or a McDonald’s or anyone else was giving out cigarettes to our children, we would be picketing them,” Weiler said. “And, yet, our children are accessing pornography on their tablets on these sites and we seem to be okay with that.”
Weiler’s statements mirror the GOP’s invocation of children in its anti-porn platform. This deliberately induced hysteria blurs the line between innocent children and consenting adults, and threatens to persecute the latter while failing to substantively protect the former. It’s easy to induce a moral panic on behalf of children; arguing that you want to keep obscenity away from kids is easier than admitting that you’re a moral puritan who can’t fathom female sexual autonomy. Once children’s safety is invoked, we’re just one slippery slope away from banning pornography as a universal public health hazard.
Unfortunately for Herbert and Weiler, the science behind these anti-porn sentiments just isn’t there. The Utah resolution argued that pornography was a “public health crisis.” In fact, watching pornography is one of the few sexual behaviors that does not carry any risk of unintended pregnancy or disease. Researchers tend to agree that porn is not biologically addictive and exposure to it does not lead to lower self-esteem. Additionally, the availability of porn does not increase rape and sexual violence, and porn is not likely to produce a generation of lifelong bachelors. Studies in countries that have enforced strict laws against pornography found that as access to pornography goes up, rape and sexual violence actually goes down. While other factors were certainly at play, this research seems to refute right-wing assertions that easily accessible porn increases rates of violence.
As clinical psychologist David J. Ley told TIME: “The overwhelming majority of porn users report no ill effects. A very, very small minority are reporting these concerns about ED.” In the 2016 Twilight Zone, it’s no surprise that the Republican Party is attempting to label a largely victimless non-crime as a public health crisis, while simultaneously facilitating the epidemic of gun violence in America. Although, given Trump’s stated obsession with his own Trump Jr., we may very well see an increased focus on ED prevention during his (hopefully hypothetical) presidency.
Anyone who follows American politics, Trump, and/or the Miss USA pageant will be quick to point out the hypocrisy inherent to this GOP initiative. Republicans’ moral outrage when it comes to porn is rivalled only by their love of porn. 2013 Pornhub statistics isolated 23 states where viewers on average spend the longest amount of time tuning in; of those 23 states, 16 voted for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Mississippi led the nation in time spent watching Pornhub videos, and in 18 of 24 conservative-voting states the number one porn search was “creampie.”
Meanwhile, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is as ill-fitted for this puritanical position as the rest of his party. Trump has a rich history of objectifying women, and his penchant for asking women to don bikinis or making jokes about getting them on their knees is more in keeping with a porn producer than an anti-porn politician. His Playboy cover is prominently displayed in his office, sometimes to hilarious effect. While his misogyny often manifests itself in sharp insults, it’s more consistently displayed through objectification—a brand of over-sexualization that’s directly opposed to a family values platform. For proof, look no further than Trump’s numerous Howard Stern Show sound bites, where he rated women on a 1 to 10 scale and divulged that, “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.” Trump also attempted to monetize this misogynist worldview through his 1997 purchase of the Miss USA pageant, promising to get the “bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher.”
As Megyn Kelly or any halfway sentient human being will tell you, this man is not fit to campaign on behalf of any female-identified person. Harry Potter-hating housewives, sex-positive feminists, and everyone in between ought to have serious objections to Trump’s unapologetic phallocentrism. And while Trump, perhaps suffering from a rare bout of self-awareness, hasn’t personally come out against porn, he has signaled that he’ll accept the GOP party platform.
While the anti-porn amendment is at odds with Trump’s passion for objectifying women, it’s certainly in line with his anti-feminist image. Sex positivity is a movement with pragmatic roots; it recognizes that the stigmatization of sex and sex work is the enemy of open dialogue and female autonomy—not to mention health and safety. By actually engaging with pornography as a legitimate industry—as opposed to a health hazard—we can begin to enact helpful regulations that folks actually want. At the end of the day, anti-pornography rhetoric distracts from the issues that actually affect the women and children it purports to protect.
