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Greetings from the 2016 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Awards in Las Vegas. I'll be here for the next few days, bouncing between things like a panel on the porn industry's legal challenges to a mummification fetish demonstration to, of course, the main fan, business, and "novelty" expos, and reporting back here (with ample PG-13 pictures) about it all. So expect more than your usual share of porn-related content here at Reason.com this week.
But why is Reason covering porn at all?, as some of our more evidently serious readers asked following my post about porn research Tuesday. Short answer: Because, come on, we need something to break up the Election 2016 coverage, no? Or perhaps a better answer is, why wouldn't Reason cover porn? It's not just prurience or juvenile posturing or the much-alleged libertarian tendency toward libertinism. Here are several important reasons why porn is a very important topic:
It's the Statism, Stupid
Nowhere do so many constitutional abuses converge as with government treatment of pornography. Whether it's the old Moral Majority or the new Safe Space brigade, porn and other forms of sex work are an easy target for authoritarian impulses, be they justified by stodgy old theology or fashionable progressive ideology. And even when either side falls short of wanting to outright ban or severely censor erotic content, they mind little when legislators lobby all sorts of sin taxes, zoning laws, financial barriers, and excessive regulations at it. This should bother anyone concerned with limiting government in general. But even if you can't muster much sympathy for the sex industries, think about it this way: porn tends to serve as a canary in the coal mine, identifying what new loci of state power-grabs and bureaucracy we need to look out for. In other words, you can bet that any new censorship and regulatory precedents we set for sex work aren't going to stay solely in that realm.
Sex Worker Rights
Pornography isn't just the end-product people fap to, of course; it's an industry comprised of lots and lots of individual workers. And these workers, like all workers, deserve equal protection under the law and equal protection from unconstitutional laws. Adult-business owners and sex workers shouldn't be singled out for regulations that similar entrepreneurs are exempt from, and they deserve a workplace free of undue discrimination and harassment at the hands of either unscrupulous employers, customers, or the state.
Free Minds and Free Markets
The proliferation of porn in the 21st century—in all its weird and wonderful and sometimes terrible forms—is above all else a story about human sexuality, sure. But following close behind is a tale of the power of markets to drive entrepreneurial ingenuity and expand consumer choice. With every twist and turn in the technology market, the porn industry has found a way to adapt—and not just make use of new technologies but drive them. Porn performers themselves have also adapted, embracing social-media savvy branding and sidelines into sex toys, strip club performances, and myriad other avenues as appearing in videos alone became less lucrative.
Meanwhile, the ever-decreasing stigma around porn reflects a general loosening of repressive social mores, an increase in sex positivity, and perhaps even a positive narrative about social change more generally. Once a medium made mostly by men for men, porn has blossomed into an arena where female directors and producers can thrive, "feminist porn" is a thing, and racial and sexual minorities are (if too slowly) starting to gain more visibility and get treated with more respect. Add to that the success of amateur porn and all sorts of niche sites and genres, and it's yet more evidence of the industry adapting in ways that benefit not just its own bottom line but all-around creativity and consumer choice.
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