From Hot Air:

“I’m not sure how you translate that sympathy into government policy,” R Street Institute Vice President of Policy Kevin Kosar, who has four children, including two girls, said to me over the phone. “Setting aside the kind of First Amendment issues, there’s just a more practical problem of A) differentiating what’s gonna count as smut, illicit smut, versus non-illicit smut. It gets very dicey.”

Kosar raised a salient point about what is considered pornography. There are comic books, novels, short stories, video games, and artwork which feature nudity, and could be considered pornographic. John Ashcroft famously covered up Lady Justice’s bare breasts during his tenure as Attorney General. Would movie and TV production companies, plus publishers have to recall all their products to censor them? What about people who already own these products?

“What are we going to do with romance novels?” Kosar wondered incredulously, “Men don’t usually pick them up, but if they did, they would find a lot of them were really outrageous and racy. I mean, absolutely pornographic descriptions in print, are we just going to let that stuff go, are we going to try to take those books away?”

[…]

“All the person-to-person technology, whether it’s I want to video call somebody and make them pay on PayPal a fee to see me strip, I mean, how are you going to stop that from happening?” Kosar asked. “How are you going to stop online meeting software, where you can have 50 people in a meeting, turn into a tool for voyeuristic activity? Good luck.”

It does not mean anti-porn advocates haven’t tried to latch onto, and co-opt, one cause or another. There was a push in 2016 and 2017 for states to require porn-blocking software on every new computer before it could be sold to a consumer. Those who wanted to uninstall the software would have to pay a $20 fee and be in a government database. The push was done under the belief it would help prevent human trafficking. It would not be surprising to see another attempt to ban pornography happen again, should this current one suggested by Douthat and his allies fail, like previous ones.

It should be pointed out neither Olson nor Kosar suggested pornography was some sort of noble endeavor. There are certainly questions about whether it can cause men and women to view the opposite sex as some sort of object to be enjoyed, then cast away when intercourse is over and done with. However, we do live in an age where consenting adults are allowed to pretty much do what they want, and view what they want, as long as no one is being hurt or their liberty being threatened. The better option may be individuals convincing other individuals to not view pornography, while being willing to recognize not everyone is going to agree with abstaining from smut.

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