Conservative lawmakers want to ban porn, but they’re the ones consuming most of it. What’s going on here?

As bans on drag and gender-affirming care advance through state legislatures, conservative lawmakers are turning their attention to internet pornography.

Republican lawmakers in congress and 19 states from coast to coast are creating laws aimed at requiring visitors to pornographic websites provide their government ID to access the X-rated material. The effort, lawmakers say, is keep people under 18 from viewing porn.

People living in conservative states are far more likely to search for porn online and spend more time on porn websites, according to a 2015 study analyzing data from Gallup. PornHub’s 2022 data shows states where viewers spent the most time on the site include Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia—four of the most religious states in America, according to Pew Research Center.

So why such an ardent push when they’re the ones watching the most porn?

The conservative pushback on the sexual revolution of the 80s and the sexual scandal surrounding prominent evangelical pastors have also informed the anti-porn movement, but strong religious beliefs and porn use (one of those forbidden behaviors) are connected.

People who have strict views on sexuality like believing sex is for one cis man and one cis women forever in marriage were more likely to violate their own values, according to a 2023 study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

But why this association? We don’t know, but there are several ideas, said Samuel Perry, sociology professor at the University of Omaha, and author of several studies on pornography and religious beliefs.

“It could be something psychologists call ‘experiential avoidance’ where people who hate some behavior become kind of obsessed with it and end up engaging in the behavior more because they think about it all the time,” Perry said in an email to Reckon.

Some of the studies linking more conservative locales and porn searches need more detail, as Perry said he wonders if children living in homes where sexuality is stigmatized are searching for the material on Google.

“People who search for ‘porn’ or ‘free porn’ on Google, for example, are obviously not very sophisticated in their search habits, or at the very least are not aware of the actual opportunities out there. So I can imagine children in a family that doesn’t talk about sex much, and sees no opportunities to explore that with an actual person, just going online and Googling ‘sex’ and ‘porn,’” he said.

Much of Burke’s work addresses the contradictory messages about porn the Christian church communicates to men.

“Men are told they shouldn’t look at porn, but at the same time, there is this discourse about men’s sexuality in particular--that men have these natural biological urges, that they’re visually stimulated, unlike women--so it’s completely natural and normal for men to gravitate towards pornography. Men are basically told you shouldn’t watch porn, but at the same time, there’s almost an expectation to watch porn,” she said.

Is porn bad for you? Great question: we aren’t sure

These efforts to ban or further regulate online pornography are not new—they date back to the Civil War era, when the Comstock laws went into effect, Burke explained.

For years, anti-porn influencers have linked pornography with violence toward women, poor mental health outcomes and human trafficking, but the data propping up these claims is inconsistent at best, Burke said.

One study anti-porn campaigners often reference is a 2010 study that found that 88% of scenes on popular porn sites depicted “high levels of aggression.” However, the definition of “aggression” included any instance of spanking—a sexual act at least 30% of Americans enjoy, according to a 2018 survey.

Multiple studies have also linked porn to an increased risk of depression, but other studies have shown a connection between pornography use and improved sexual satisfaction and better mental health outcomes. A 2021 study found couples who watch porn together have more functional relationships, and a study published in January found the popular subscription site OnlyFans, which is commonly used by sex workers, was connected to more sexual satisfaction and other positive sexual outcomes.

It’s also getting more dangerous for sex workers

What’s been presented by conservatives as a tool to protect children actually won’t--and will make online sex work more dangerous, experts say.

The quandary at the middle of the issue is sex work and human trafficking, said Kelsy Burke, sociology professor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and author of the upcoming book “The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession.”

“Sex workers I interviewed for my book said this is actually doing more harm and making their work more dangerous,” Burke said. “It’s not that lawmakers just aren’t talking to sex workers about the issue—it’s that they see all forms of sex work as wrong. That’s the thread that connects the anti- porn movement of the past to the anti- sex trafficking movement today.”

Conservative lawmakers in 19 states want to ban or limit who has access to pornography through requiring age verification for any site visitor. The age verification methods vary, but experts on pornography say the bills will do little to protect children from harmful material online, as lawmakers claim.

These additional restrictions could make sex work more dangerous despite technology advancements and platforms like OnlyFans, which sex workers often use to sell their content or services available through the site.

Implementing ID verification requirements could drive away clients, which has led more sex workers to seek clients in public for physical encounters—a far more dangerous encounter than interacting with clients online, she said.

The Backpage shutdown in 2018 sent more sex workers to the street, and advocates worry these ID verification measures will do the same.

Bills in at least 10 states are aimed at copying a Louisiana law that requires sites whose content is at least 33% sexually explicit material require site visitors enter their state ID number for age verification and thus, entry to the site, according to data from the Free Speech Coalition, which is tracking the bills. The Louisiana law went into effect in January.

Nine other states have bills that would require another form of age verification to access pornographic websites.

The Free Speech Coalition has opposed these bills, which they say will not keep children from accessing pornography and will threaten the privacy of users by requiring them to enter sensitive information online—creating an opportunity for simple phishing scams.

A deeper look at PornHub

So far, experts say, PornHub is the only major porn site to comply with Louisiana’s age verification law. It’s one of the largest pornography streaming site in the world, racking up 42 billion site visits in 2019. The same year, PornHub said it had 11 petabytes of material.

Despite all the big numbers, PornHub has been mired in controversy in recent years as videos from a known sex trafficking operation continually resurfaced on the site.

An upcoming Netflix documentary “Money Shot” documents the scandal surrounding the X-rated giant and shares perspectives from sex workers and porn actors about how censorship has affected their safety and livelihoods.

“Money Shot” premiers on Netflix March 15. Watch the trailer below: