New Law Could Make Pornography a Federal Offense
Delicious Photo by Deon Black on LetsTalkSex
On 8 May 2025, U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) made his third introduction to the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act, or IODA. The current co-sponsor for the bill is Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL). The bill would broaden the definition of obscenity specifically for the purpose of federally criminalizing it.
In the press release accompanying the introduction, Senator Lee declared, “Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children.”
Congresswoman Miller added, “The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act equips law enforcement with the tools they need to target and remove obscene material from the internet, which is alarmingly destructive and far outside the bounds of protected free speech under the Constitution. I’m proud to lead this effort in the House with Senator Lee to safeguard American families and ensure this dangerous material is kept out of our homes and off our screens.”
Ever since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. California, authorities have used a threefold metric to decide whether or not content is obscene. The questions asked therein are meant to ascertain whether or not the work appeals to prurient interests in sex, nudity or scatology; whether or not the material depicts sexual content in an offensive way and whether or not literary, artistic, political or scientific value can be found within. This metric also takes into account the perspectives of reasonable persons and contemporary community standards.
According to lawmakers, one of the purposes of the law is to adapt to the digital age and create a more uniform standard for defining obscenity, as opposed to guidelines that vary state by state. However, the IODA would take the democratic element away from deciding what constitutes obscenity by shutting out community input and giving the Trump regime, with its majority-Republican House and Senate, the power to broadly enforce an exacting definition of obscenity.
By those standards, works that depict sex as part and parcel of a coming of age, such as Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, or works that hold up the mirror to reflect unpleasant aspects of society, like Last Exit To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, could be considered pornographic.
Oddly enough, the Bible, a book that a lot of Republicans champion, talks about sex, sometimes graphically so. Such passages can be found in Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, Ezekiel, Hosea, Isaiah, Proverbs, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Song of Solomon. Would Mike Lee and other proponents of this law take that under consideration? Would they declare Scripture to be criminally obscene also?
Fantastic photo by Deon Black on LetsTalkSex
The text of the IODA also states that it “strengthens the existing general prohibition on obscenity in the Communications Act (47 U.S.C 223(a)) by removing the ‘intent’ requirement that only prohibits the transmission of obscenity for the purposes of abusing, threatening, or harassing a person.” Essentially, this means that phone sex services, private webcam sessions, or sexual talk between consenting adults for the purposes of erotic stimulation or even simply monitoring physiological health would be subject to prosecution.
Even more worrisome, the IODA gives the Trump regime power to concentrate its dynamic attack on the LGBT community, particularly trans people. The sprawling manifesto known as Project 2025 declares, “Pornography [is] manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.” Obviously, Senator Lee is allied with the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank that drafted Project 2025. Considering all that, along with the proviso allowing for any discussion of sexuality to be prosecuted, this means that a trans person could end up subject to prosecution for simply talking about the mechanics and logistics of transitioning even with a medical professional.
Without a doubt, people who work in the adult entertainment industry have reason to be very fearful of this legislation and the grim prospects associated with it.
“To me, it’s actually a pretty terrifying concept,” says Katy*, an employee at Folsom Gulch, an adult entertainment boutique in SoMa.
“Already, [the Trump administration] has come after a lot of the LGBTQ community. They’ve shut down one of our main manufacturers of poppers, Double Scorpio, which got raided under the guise of ‘poppers are causing AIDS.’ It’s insane, and with Trump’s tariffs and everything, the entire industry has been hit pretty hard because almost all of our products come from China, and now [Folsom Gulch] is having to pay extremely high amounts just to get the products into the country for our customers, and [the IODA] kind of feels like an attack. It’s just another way for [the Trump regime] to keep oppressing an already not-equal-treated group of people, based off of hate and ignorance. We have students getting detained and sent to jail for speaking out for Palestine. [Next, Trump might send people] to come to sweep up all the pornography. Anybody who works in the industry in any type of way is going to go down with it. And, like, we worry that we’re going to get raided one day for just being here and providing a service that we’ve provided for decades.”
Other people aren’t quite so fearful. A manager at one of the Secrets stores in San Francisco who asked that his name not be used says, “Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. Too much money is at stake. There’s bound to be a lot of pushback.”
Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, remarked to Reason magazine, “It really struck me that there’s nothing about that definition that I think would survive constitutional review.”
Then again, when was the last time Trump actually gave a shit about the U.S. Constitution?
*Last name withheld for the benefit of privacy.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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