If, by Pornography
In 2025 we saw many state legislatures take a stand to protect children from online pornography via age verification laws after getting the green light from the US Supreme court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton 🗗. The legal situation continues to evolve but I want to take the opportunity, while the topic is still somewhat fresh, to state for the record exactly my position on the pornography debate.
If, when you say pornography, you mean the corrosive industry that traffics in addiction, comodifies intimacy, and degrades performers, if you mean that nasty habit that breaks apart marriages and bankrupts gullible men, if you mean the chief cause of our loneliness epidemic and a contributing factor to male impotency and our declining fertility rate, if by pornography you mean the record of an impulsive woman's selfish choices that will humiliate every future person to call her "wife" or "mother," if you mean that mind-numbing indulgence called "masturbation" that even loners and losers are mortified to admit, separating men from the voice of God according to every major faith, if you mean the nauseating smut that is constantly trying to find a way onto our children's digital devices, then certainly I stand against it.
But if, by pornography, you mean our heritage of depicting sexual beauty from marble statues to Renaissance canvases to pinup girls painted on WWII bombers, or the flash of realism and artistic flair in the erotic scenes that garnish half our favorite movies and TV shows, if you mean a harmless sale of private videos to liberate a college bachelorette from credit card debt, or the private tender mercy at the end of an overworked bachelor's long week, if you mean the teenager's first glimpse at the divine act of procreation, and the frank confession of every man and woman's secret delight, if by pornography you mean the celebrated freedom of expression that distinguishes our society from totalitarian theocrats, or the chief incentive to each internet technology breakthrough upon which our modern way of life now depends, then I must say I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise 🗗.