California assembly passes bill requiring age verification for viewing porn

[Mr. Reactionary]

My worry would also be that this will soon expand to cover sites with any sort of "adult" or restricted content, regardless of whether it is sexual. Will we need to show our IDs to read an article about Ukraine or Gaza if it includes graphic descriptions or pictures?

Brown v. Merchants Entertainment Association and US v. Stevens pretty clearly limit obscenity as to minors to sex stuff. In Brown the Court was 7-2 that California could not require age verification for violent video games that werent also obscene, and Stevens said obscene is limited to sex and not violence.

I think these laws are good. These shady sites that ignore the law arent likely to sue if the government uses DDOS attacks, takedown notices, and injunctions to cripple or remove their degenerate garbage. May not get everything but certainly gets rid of more than just throwing up your hands and claiming the purported right of adults to look at obscenity "anonymously" without fear that someone may find out the degenerate crap they look at is more important that protecting kids from seeing it. Porn isnt speech.

[Mr. Reactionary]

My worry would also be that this will soon expand to cover sites with any sort of "adult" or restricted content, regardless of whether it is sexual. Will we need to show our IDs to read an article about Ukraine or Gaza if it includes graphic descriptions or pictures?

Brown v. Merchants Entertainment Association and US v. Stevens pretty clearly limit obscenity as to minors to sex stuff. In Brown the Court was 7-2 that California could not require age verification for violent video games that werent also obscene, and Stevens said obscene is limited to sex and not violence.

I think these laws are good. These shady sites that ignore the law arent likely to sue if the government uses DDOS attacks, takedown notices, and injunctions to cripple or remove their degenerate garbage. May not get everything but certainly gets rid of more than just throwing up your hands and claiming the purported right of adults to look at obscenity "anonymously" without fear that someone may find out the degenerate crap they look at is more important that protecting kids from seeing it. Porn isnt speech.

If the right drifts back into the violent video games moral panic then laws like these will set the stage for mandatory IDs and government monitoring of violent media as well. SCOTUS crap is made to be overturned and half the judges who heard that case are probably dead or retired now. 

The Brown in Brown v. MEA was Jerry Brown. It was a Hillary backed Dem law in California targeting violent video games.

[Mr. Reactionary]

My worry would also be that this will soon expand to cover sites with any sort of "adult" or restricted content, regardless of whether it is sexual. Will we need to show our IDs to read an article about Ukraine or Gaza if it includes graphic descriptions or pictures?

Brown v. Merchants Entertainment Association and US v. Stevens pretty clearly limit obscenity as to minors to sex stuff. In Brown the Court was 7-2 that California could not require age verification for violent video games that werent also obscene, and Stevens said obscene is limited to sex and not violence.

Does "sex" include nudity and/or topless women or just sex acts?

Typically nudity requires something else in additon to nudity to be obscene. It can be obscene as to minors if its public nudity with a commercial purpose.

Public nudity (as in a place where the general public is invited such as a private restaurant) generally is a separate crime from obscenity with a lesser punishment.

Nudity + simulated sex acts/stroking self/sexually gratifying flashing is usually classified as obscenity.

Public nudity + money changing hands is a mid tier analysis. In Virginia, our supreme court has ruled if the purpose of your nudity is financial gain you cannot raise free speech claims. I had to draft a zoning interpretation this year for the City Zoning Administrator denying a business license clearance for a nude cleaning service. A few years ago though I drafted a legal memo that a planned wet t-shirt contest in a bar did not violate our obscenity ordinance due to the participants not being paid and minors not being allowed inside.

The current formula for obscenity under SCOTUS excludes bona fide artistic/literary/scientific material. The Virginia flag, the book Ulysses, the film Taxi Driver, science text books, none of these are classified as obscene given the purpose. The purpose of porn is fap material. A 20 minute video with 1 minute of the pizza delivery guy knocking and flirting with a woman and 19 minutes of sex is plainly not bona fide art within the meaning of obscenity.

So in other words nudity is obscene if:

- it also includes some other act to sexualize the nudity;
- it is being done in a public place around kids; or
- it is being done in a public place in exchange for money

[Mr. Reactionary]

The march of prudishness continues onward. And the same members on this site will continue to deny it. The average 15 year old knows full well what sex is. What's truly frightening is that not a single member of the assembly voted against it, this is the kind of unanimity we see in authoritarian states like North Korea.

When I used DoorDash to order Vodka to my house , I had to take a photo of my ID before I was allowed to order . So is that anti freedom too because I didn’t view it as that

Well do you think ordering and consuming a controlled substance that alters your state of mind and damages your internal organs the same as watching people get it on

Yes. In the same way that there is also no special right to buy alcohol, water balloons, sex toys, fireworks, transfats, chia pets, lava lamps, lawn darts, leafblowers, bic lighters, airplanes, or most other classes of personal property without showing an ID. You can certainly argue its a foolish governmental policy to mandate it, but the 1st Amendment has never been interpreted as including obscenity, even if judges argue over what exactly obscenity includes. This mythical sacred right to see porn without age verification must be next to Roe v. Wade in the shadows of the penumbras.