2022 has been one of the best and worst years to be a porn star. On the one hand, OnlyFans continued to help performers sell their content, driving a significant comeback for an industry that had nearly died because of online piracy. But while becoming a sex worker is less stigmatized than ever in some circles, backlash brewed in other arenas. Right-wing evangelical Laila Mickelwait teamed up with billionaire Bill Ackman to demand credit card companies stop processing payments on PornHub, and the protests worked. Instagram subsequently de-platformed the tube company’s account without explanation, and PornHub’s parent company, MindGeek, remains in court over several lawsuits.
The war on porn could get even worse in 2023 thanks to new Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who has said he wants to ban porn nationwide. Vance’s proclamations come at a time when fringe extremists, including Ye (the rapper formerly known as Kanye West), are pushing for porn prohibition. Their demands may lack legal grounding, but they pose serious threats.
If you’re unfamiliar with Vance, here are the Cliff Notes: The Yale Law School grad rose to prominence with his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up poor and white in America. After the mainstream media embraced him (Netflix made a film adaptation of his life, starring Glenn Close as his grandmother), Vance pivoted far right, running as a MAGA Republican in Ohio and winning a Senate seat last month.
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Among the several scary opinions Vance voiced during his campaign was his belief in a complete ban on porn. “I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a really lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married,” Vance complained to Crisis magazine in 2021. “They’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other.”
If Vance were a lone anti-porn senator, he would be frightening but less dangerous. Unfortunately, many other Republicans hold anti-porn views. According to The Guardian, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley blames feminism for driving men to porn (whatever that means), while West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice blamed porn for school shootings. Most frighteningly of all, these are mainstream Republicans. More fringe actors take things even further. In a recent episode of Vice Media and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes’ streaming show, Ye pushed a gross antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews operated MindGeek to poison people’s minds.
Ironically, Ye made these statements while complaining about being “canceled.” Similarly, Republicans have painted themselves as free-speech warriors while seeking to silence pornographers’ speech. I have heard conservatives argue that the First Amendment only protects political speech. But the last time I checked, it was the Supreme Court—not conservative senators or political consultants—who ruled on speech, and the court long ago protected legal consenting adults’ rights to create and sell porn. Free speech also protects visual art, parody, and other non-political speech. The First Amendment covers more than Ye’s and other conservatives’ rights to spout nonsense.
It’s unlikely that Vance could actually pass a law banning porn (good luck getting Congress to pass anything), and if he successfully pushed legislation, the Supreme Court would likely overturn it. But politicians’ and fringe voices’ agendas can nonetheless create a mood that stifles speech. Just look at MindGeek. The U.S. government hasn’t taken action against the company, but because Ackman and activists pressured MasterCard and Visa, PornHub can no longer process payments. Ackman and Mickelwait claim their agenda is to protect children, but as I’ve written countless times before, MindGeek never sold child porn, and Facebook hosts way more disgusting illegal content than MindGeek ever did. Of course, there’s a historical precedent for using “protecting children” as an excuse to tarnish porn. In 1986, 7-Eleven stopped selling Playboy, Penthouse, and other adult magazines because Attorney General Ed Meese investigated porn and highlighted the lone case of Traci Lords, a former underage porn star who went on to publicly denounce her time as a performer. Meece didn’t ban porn, but he didn’t need to; his fury managed to harm the legal adult industry.
It’s likely porn stars like myself won’t suffer from whatever 2023 has in store for this industry; I live in liberal California and am an older successful performer with a diversified business. I’ve survived several porn eras, and I won’t go away. But pornographers in red states and younger stars could find their livelihoods threatened by political leaders like Vance. Sure, there wasn’t a red wave in the midterms, but it doesn’t take a red wave to threaten speech. As Ackman and others show, it just takes a few loud, rich nutjobs.
