US Sex Sells News

Access to banking services is a basic necessity in our society and adult industry members experience financial discrimination at alarming rates. The upshot is that already stigmatized and marginalized workers and businesses lose control of their own finances, subjecting them to extreme risk of exploitation.

This report, produced by the Free Speech Coalition in collaboration with Sex Work CEO, documents the broad scope of the discrimination faced by performers, content creators, professionals and business owners in the adult industry.

According to our data, nearly 2 out of 3 people who earn money in the adult industry have lost a bank account or financial tool, and nearly 40% have had an account closed in the past year. The report details, for the first time, the issues faced by adult businesses and workers in relation to banks, mobile payments, credit card processing, loans and insurance.

Over 400 members of the adult industry took part in the survey, and the report includes the experiences of performers, creators, business owners, executives, industry professionals, employees and others who earn income from adult entertainment.

See full report [pdf] from action.freespeechcoalition.com

The Arkansas House has approved an amendment to SB 66, a Republican bill that would require age verification before entering a website offering pornography, over confusing language. SB 66 was introduced in January by state Senator Tyler Dees, who later admitted that his state initiative is only a steppingstone toward the ultimate goal of a federal mandate.

A vote in the Arkansas House sent the amended bill back to the Committee on House Rules for further consideration, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported. Representative Mindy McAlindon told the paper that the amendment was needed to clarify distinctions between 'corporate entities' and 'third party vendors' in the bill.

SB 66 is a copycat version of Louisiana's Act 440, a new law enacted in January after being championed by a religious anti-porn activist Republican legislator.

Meanwhile Virginia lawmakers recently passed a bill with near-unanimous support that would require pornography websites to more stringently verify whether a person is 18 before allowing them access to the site. Websites would have to implement more advanced methods of their choosing to verify age, such as requiring users to submit copies of government-issued identification, biometric scans or use other forms of commercial age verification software.

Under the bill, a civil cause of action, or a lawsuit, could be brought on behalf of a minor who suffered damages from access to pornographic websites that didn't use age verification measures. No one spoke in opposition when the bill was debated during the session, but some people took to social media to express their concerns.

The bill now heads to Gov. Glenn Youngkin's desk for his signature.

A bill introduced by North Dakota Republican state senators would redefine obscene material and performance and explicit sexual material in extremely broad terms that would result in creating criminal liability for almost all instances of nudity and references to sex outside of adult venues.

Senate Bill 2360, aiming to amend Obscenity Control provisions, was introduced last week by State Sen. Keith Boehm and four fellow Republicans. State Rep. Jim Kasper sponsored the House version of the bill.

Although the purported aim of the bill is to address a questionable pornography crisis in North Dakota's school libraries, Boehm's bill would in fact redefine obscenity as

Material or a performance which:

Taken as a whole, the average person, applying contemporary North Dakota standards, would find predominantly appeals to a prurient interest; depicts or describes in a patently offensive manner sexual conduct, whether normal or perverted; and taken as a whole, the reasonable person would find lacking in serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Whether material or a performance is obscene must be judged with reference to reasonable adults, unless it appears from the character of the material or the circumstances of its dissemination that the material or performance is designed for minors or other specially susceptible audience, in which case the material or performance must be judged with reference to that type of audience.

Another section of the bill defines objectionable materials or performance and criminalizes anyone who may:

Willfully display at newsstands or any other business establishment frequented by minors, or where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public, any photograph, book, paperback book, pamphlet, or magazine, the exposed cover or available content of which either contains explicit sexual material that is harmful to minors or exploits, is devoted to, or contains depictions or written descriptions of nude or partially denuded human figures posed or presented in a manner to exploit sex, lust or perversion.

Then SB 2360 proceeds to specify a sweeping redefinition of explicit sexual material, which would now mean any written, pictorial, three-dimensional, or visual depiction that is patently offensive, including any photography, picture, or computer-generated image, showing or describing:

1. Human masturbation;
2. Deviant sexual intercourse;
3. Sexual intercourse;
4. Direct physical stimulation of genitals;
5. Sadomasochistic abuse;
6. Postpubertal human genitals;
7. Sexual activity;
8. Sexual perversion; or
9. Sex-based classifications.

Leaving nothing to chance, the Republican senators also defined nude or partially denuded human figures to mean less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic regions, female breasts or a female breast, if the breast or breasts are exposed below a point immediately above the top of the areola, or human buttocks; and includes human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state even if completely and opaquely covered.

Finally, ensuring that any public space not zoned as adult-only would be covered by the censorship bill, the phrase where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public was specifically clarified to mean any public roadway or public walkway, with the exception of a bona fide school, college, university, museum, public library or art gallery.

US Senator Mike Lee has proposed a bill that, if passed, would redefine what obscenity means nationwide, which could effectively decimate the porn industry. The Utah Republican filed the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) based on the Communications Act of 1934, and stated in the IODA that obscenity is not protected speech under the First Amendment and is prohibited from interstate or foreign transmission under U.S. law.

Lee's bill seeks to reinstate the obscenity rules that were established in the Communications Act of 1934. These rules include removing content that appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, depicts, describes, or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person, and, --  lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, the IODA says.

The Free Speech Coalition tweeted its concern for the First Amendment, arguing the bill is a renewed attempt by conservatives to censor free speech and sexual expression. The director of public affairs with the Free Speech Coalition, Mike Stabile, told VICE News:

This bill, among our members, has gotten a huge amount of attention. Our members understand this for what it is: It's a threat to their business, to their livelihood. It's a threat to their community.

Obscenity in the US is currently defined under a Supreme Court test for obscenity: the 'Miller Test.' The Miller Test was introduced in 1973 and is named after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Miller v. California case that year. In that case, a California publisher and author Melvin Miller were prosecuted for publishing what was ruled as containing obscene material. Miller had mailed five unsolicited brochures to his mother and a restaurant manager revealing explicit images and photos of men and women engaged in sexual activities.

Following the court's decision, then-Chief Justice Warren Burger outlined guidelines for jurors to follow when presented with obscenity cases including whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.