The Conflict Between Porn, Privacy, and the Safety of Children

I have no interest in bearing witness to naked people doing the things naked people do when they’re naked together. Pornography is not my thing. I’d also prefer not to think about my children—both of whom are adults in the eyes of the law, if not in the eyes of their father—dialing up the dirty either. If that is, in fact, their thing, they clearly care enough for me to spare me their closed-door confessions.

That porn makes me squeamish probably comes as no shock to anyone who knows me. Hugs make me uncomfortable. The sort of unbridled hugging that goes on in adult films is therefore unbearable. Respect the bubble, porn people. Respect the bubble.

But as uncomfortable as pornography makes me, and as insistent as I am that I want no part of it in my perhaps prudish life, I hate the idea of restricting it even more.

As of this writing, the State of Georgia is requiring the submission of identification—in most cases a driver’s license—to access internet sites trafficking primarily in adult material. In theory, this doesn’t restrict access. What it does, however, is force those who find value in that material to strike a kind of Faustian bargain. Yes, access to pornography can be yours—if you’re willing to identify yourself, by name, as a fan.

It’s a law that doesn’t outright bypass the First Amendment; it simply makes the freedoms it guarantees far less attractive.

The reasoning, of course, comes from the very real concern that people too young to access—let alone understand—what they’re seeing on these sites have, in fact, been part of pornography’s audience. That’s probably true. The internet, from its inception, has been the digital equivalent of the Wild West, and no attempt to tame it has ever been wholly successful. It is, was, and to some extent probably will remain the informational equivalent of a truly free market—for better or worse. Pandora’s box wasn’t merely opened; it was carefully constructed. Now we all have to live with the consequences.

Let me tell you what I believe will happen, unfortunately, when it comes to minors and pornography. A slew of hormone-addled young men, attracted to forbidden fruit, will swipe Mom or Dad’s identification and use it to access off-limits sites. These new regulations won’t slow them down. In fact, they may make the prospect of outsmarting the system even more appealing.

When I was young, I’d sneak downstairs late at night to watch R-rated movies on HBO, my nose inches from the screen so I could hear with the volume turned intentionally low. I didn’t always care about the movie itself—but the thrill of the crime was heady stuff indeed. That’s what’s going to happen here.

So what’s the answer? There probably isn’t an easy remedy, although I wonder if registering the device rather than the user might be a solution. If a phone, computer, or tablet were registered as an adult-controlled device—perhaps at the time of purchase—that device could become the mechanism for age verification. Personal identification wouldn’t need to be provided on a per-site basis. Instead, a simple binary system—adult or minor—could be applied across all sites. Not only would this reduce minors’ ability to access pornography, but it could also block other content inappropriate for younger audiences.

I know, for instance, that tobacco and alcohol companies ask for age verification on their sites, but this usually involves little more than ticking a box to claim you’re of age. A registered-device system would likely prove more robust.

What’s at stake here are foundational American ideals—actual Bill of Rights stuff. The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, which includes the right to make those aforementioned naked-people movies. The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination. Some might argue that an admission of interest in prurient material doesn’t precisely qualify as self-incrimination, but it certainly feels like it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but the consenting adult involved.

In a world where cameras capture our every move and algorithms record our habits, protecting what privacy we have left is paramount. These new regulations make that more difficult. And the price we pay—regardless of whether we’re interested in the affected websites—is nothing less than human dignity.