Political Perceptions Diminish "Porn as a Public Health Crisis"

Last year, Utah adopted a resolution declaring pornography a “public health crisis.”   So did the Republican Party in last year's platform.  Recently, similar resolutions have cleared legislative hurdles in four more state legislatures - Virginia, Tennessee, South Dakota, and Arkansas.    “Porn as a public health crisis” has all the makings of a political movement.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the effort to label porn a “public health crisis” has fostered controversy.  Look around the internet and you’ll find articles in favor of and opposed to treating porn as a public health issue.  Beyond the usual (puzzling) disconnect between the “pro” and “con” camps over the growing scientific evidence regarding porn’s ill effects, the debate seems at least in part driven by the fact that “public health crisis” has no uniform definition.  But, despite our well-established linguistic inclinations, we’re not going to wade into that morass here.

Instead, today we want to focus on the political side of the ledger.   So far as we can tell, all of the state lawmakers who have thus far introduced measures on “porn as a public health crisis” have been Republicans.  Republicans also hold the majority the lawmaking bodies in all five states that have taken up these measures.  Some Democrats have voted in favor of the resolutions in the states where they’ve come to a vote, and have served as undercard sponsors of the measures.  But, we are not aware of a single Democrat (or Independent) who has been the principal champion of a “porn as a public health crisis” measure to date.

That's unfortunate.  As we’ve written in the past, pornography ignores political affiliation.  Problematic porn use (call it addiction, compulsivity, hypersexuality, etc.) is widespread, and it lays waste to the lives of people across the political spectrum.  The widely-reported effects of porn’s production, distribution, and consumption, such as human trafficking, sexual violence, and sexual disfunction, have nothing whatsoever to do with politics.  These are deeply human issues that demand the attention and action of every citizen. 

So, why are Republicans occupying the field when it comes to introducing measures addressing porn’s effects?  One simple reason could be that Republicans dominate a large majority of state legislatures nationwide.  The “porn as a public health crisis” measures that have passed so far are not “law” in the sense of dictating executive policy or action.  They are statements of factual findings and broad principles, and rarely face significant opposition - the sort of measures that tend to sail through legislatures dominated by one party.  Also, the base of the “anti-pornography” movement has historically lived on the political right.  So, it might not be surprising if the impetus for the “porn as a public health crisis” initiative comes from conservative quarters.

Still, that doesn’t quite explain why a Democrat hasn’t yet stepped up to champion one of these measures, not even in a legislature where Democrats are in the majority.  After all, fears about the effects of porn are no longer predominately the domain of right-leaning conservatives.  The internet has transformed the landscape.  What was once a relatively inaccessible, taboo product is now available for free, in unlimited quantities, twenty-four hours per day, on any screen, to anyone, anywhere.  Porn demand, production and consumption have exploded and are evolving at a furious pace.  With that explosion, the reasons for concern over porn’s effects continue to grow.  There’s cause for alarm for everyone, no matter their politics, gender, faith, or sexual orientation.  

We think the explanation for the political left's relative absence from the "porn as a public health crisis" movement (from which we're excluding the subject of "revenge porn", which is not porn so much as a form of assault and invasion of privacy) instead lies in some unfortunate and longstanding habits of American political culture.  Though porn is a universal issue, you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the text of the resolutions that have passed statehouses so far.  Somewhere along the line, partisan buzzwords crept into these measures, all but ensuring that they would be perceived by a weary and cynical public as extensions of our polarized - and paralyzed - politics.  Democrats, we suspect, have followed suit.

Here’s what we mean.  The measures that have passed cover the gamut of concerns posed by modern porn, and employ the reassuringly secular terminology of “public health."  That's all good.  But, they also employ language distinctive of the conservative side of the “culture wars” that have dominated U.S. politics for generations.  For example, the measures focus disproportionately on pornography’s effects on heterosexuals, and warn that porn leads to “deviant sexual arousal,” which many left-leaning readers will interpret as antagonism toward homosexuality and other sexual minorities.  The measures place asymmetric emphases on how porn may affect one gender or the other, which, likewise, will be seen as patriarchal and an invasion of the privacy of our bedrooms.  And, though they rightly decry that porn has become a de facto form of sex education, the measures risk being seen as hypocritical in failing to acknowledge how inadequate public health education may drive porn demand.  

Please don’t get us wrong.  We’re not necessarily endorsing these critiques.  If Democrats were pushing “porn as a public health crisis” measures in statehouses using their own historical culture war vocabulary (often received as an affront to conservatives’ religious beliefs and commitment to family values), that, too, would be unhelpful.  Our commentary here is on the tendency of political partisans of all stripes to shoot themselves in the foot when an issue evolves beyond its historical sphere of focus and requires broader political attention. 

We do not doubt not that the authors of “porn as a public health crisis” measures choose their words carefully, nor do we question whether they hold their views genuinely and in good faith.  They do.   But it’s time for a little realpolitik.  We live in a highly toxic political era.  Once we occupy a political camp, the language we employ to express our views risks alienating the other half of the country.  So it is with Republican-sponsored "porn as a public health crisis” measures.  By salting their well-intended legislation with culture war tropes, legislators are playing directly into the inaccurate and demeaning (to all involved) perception that the only people paying attention to the negative effects of porn are religious conservatives in the throes of a full-fledged “moral panic.”   

That’s not a good thing.  If “porn as a public health crisis” and similar measures continue to be seen as a uniquely Republican venture, the issue will fall victim to political paralysis and we will all be the worse for wear.  We encourage Democrats and Republicans and Independents to sponsor measures raising awareness about porn’s effects that use non-polarizing language that emphasizes universal themes everyone’s constituents can agree on.  

The stakes are too high to be playing politics over porn any longer.