Is there too much porn?

"We have made the difficult decision to block access to our site in Mississippi and Virginia, as we have also recently done in Utah," reads a June 30 statement from Pornhub, the world's second-most trafficked porn site and the thirteenth most trafficked site overall.

Pornhub was reacting to the passage of age-verification laws passed in those three states. Similar laws have passed in Louisiana, Texas, Montana, and Arkansas, leading Politico to declare that "A Simple Law is Doing the Impossible. It's Making the Porn Industry Retreat." The industry is fighting back, however, and won a preliminary injunction against Texas' law.

Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel or Facebook page as they discuss the anti-porn laws with sex worker and data scientist Aella. They'll also talk about the psychological literature examining online porn consumption, the privacy implications of age verification laws, and a recent debate Aella attended hosted by the Free Press and FIRE about the effects of "the sexual revolution" on American society.

PornHub statement on new age verification laws, June 30, 2023: https://twitter.com/Pornhub/status/1674774396773318658

Reason: In Scathing Rulings, Federal Courts Block Arkansas and Texas Age Verification Laws, September 1, 2023: https://reason.com/2023/09/01/in-scathing-rulings-federal-courts-block-arkansas-and-texas-age-verification-laws/

Preliminary injunction in NetChoice v. Griffin (Arkansas social media law): https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/GRIFFIN-NETCHOICE-GRANTED.pdf

Preliminary injunction in Free Speech Coalition v. Colmenero (TX porn law): https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/gov.uscourts.txwd_.1172751222.36.0-1.pdf

Politico: A Simple Law Is Doing the Impossible. It’s Making the Online Porn Industry Retreat: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/08/age-law-online-porn-00110148

Aella: Women prefer more violent porn - https://aella.substack.com/p/women-prefer-more-violent-porn-and

U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee: U.S. Marriage rate 1900-2018 - https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2020/4/marriage-rate-blog-test

SimilarWeb: PornHub monthly traffic and rankings: https://www.similarweb.com/website/pornhub.com/#overview

Skeptic: How Porn is Messing with Your Manhood: https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/how-porn-is-messing-with-your-manhood/