The adult film industry has launched a campaign against Donald Trump and his conservative allies over fears that Republicans are cracking down against the widespread availability of pornography.
According to the Hands Off My Porn campaign group, Republicans around the country are planning to criminalize pornography by following the “Project 2025” plan put forward by The Heritage Foundation, despite Trump’s public disavowal of the plan.
The website states:
Project 2025 is the $22 million dollar roadmap for the next Trump Administration that uses the full weight of the US government to criminalize pornography.
This plan was written by over 140 Trump Appointees and endorsed by over 100 Conservative Organizations. This “180-day playbook” for the next Trump Administration puts the anti-porn agenda front and center – on page 5 of this nearly 1000-page document that’s endorsed by The Heritage Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch Brothers, and hundreds of conservative organizations.
The site goes on to make a series of dubious claims about how conservatives believe pornography is affecting wider society:
These zealots think that “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare.”
They clearly state that pornography’s “purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.” Women in the adult industry are not victims. They are businesswomen who enjoy their jobs, enjoy full autonomy over their bodies, and have built powerful brands.
Hands Off My Porn takes direct aim at Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, citing their views about pornography:
JD Vance has stated his right-wing positions and desire to ban porn clearly from his earliest days in office, “I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other,” Vance said in a newly unearthed interview with Crisis Magazine from August 2021.
While there are a lot of jerk-offs in Washington DC, the ones you should worry about are the right wing conservatives working to end the porn industry. Even the current Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is on the anti-porn bandwagon. He and his son proudly monitor each other’s porn intake as “accountability buddies.”
The website is also asking its supporters for donations and providing them with information on how they can register to vote.
While there is a growing consensus among conservatives that pornography is harmful for society, there is no evidence that Republican legislators are currently seeking to criminalize its creation or consumption.
Over recent years, some states have implemented stricter regulations on pornography, particularly to address concerns about minors’ access.
Utah and Arkansas are among those to have enacted laws requiring websites hosting adult content to verify the age of users. Louisiana similarly introduced a law mandating age verification using government-issued ID for users accessing explicit content.
