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Porn Politics: Porn Industry Spends $100K on Ads to Get Men to Vote for Harris  

Photo by Parker Johnson on Unsplash

Porn Politics: Porn Industry Spends $100K on Ads to Get Men to Vote for Harris  

 Movieguide® Contributor 

An organization called “Hands Off My Porn” has launched a campaign that’s spent $100,000 on ads for Kamala Harris’s campaign.

” Their motive? To prevent more age verification laws from going into effect—a development they fear could significantly affect their profit margins by making it harder for underage and anonymous users to access explicit material,” Evie reported Oct. 9. 

“The ad campaign comes in the wake of Harris’s recent appearance on ‘Call Her Daddy,’ a sex podcast known for its vulgar and explicit language,” The Washington Stand reported.  

Studies have shown the detrimental effects of pornography on mental health, relationships, and perceptions of sex. The pervasive nature of pornography, especially in the digital age, normalizes misogyny, violent behavior, and a transactional view of intimacy. It’s an industry that has been linked to trafficking, abuse, and exploitation—particularly of children and young women, often coerced or manipulated into participating in degrading acts.” 

Movieguide® reported:  

Porn elicits the same brain reactions that drugs produce for a drug addict. Valerie Voon, a psychiatry professor at the University of Cambridge, found that when her team showed porn to young men with compulsive porn habits, their brain scans mirrored the brain scans of drug addicts when shown pictures of drugs. 

Her study also found that, for young people, porn caused “greater activity in the reward centers of the brain than the older participants when shown porn.” 

This occurs because the “brain’s emotional center develops faster than the part of the brain that controls impulse.” This disparity “helps explain why teens lack the maturity to ‘suppress sexual cravings, thoughts and behaviors elicited by pornographic content,’” a review of research on the subject explained. 

Evie states that the industry is fueled by addiction. Its concern is with protecting profits, not people and minds.  

“Republicans have historically been more aggressive in pushing for regulations that impact the porn industry, resulting in significant setbacks for the industry in various states,” Evie reported. “These efforts have often centered on protecting children, promoting public health, and ensuring accountability for content distribution. 

Republican-led states like Utah and Louisiana have been pioneers in passing age verification laws for accessing pornographic websites,” Evie reported. “These laws require users to provide proof of age before entering porn sites, directly reducing access for minors and significantly impacting website traffic in these states. The industry has fought back, citing privacy concerns, but the results have been clear—less traffic and fewer opportunities to exploit underage users.” 

Utah recently declared pornography a public health crisis, and the republican-backed bills, “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA) and “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA), were essential to regulate online content. After they were implemented, platforms could be held responsible for sex trafficking more easily.  

“Under Republican administrations, there have also been more aggressive efforts to enforce federal obscenity laws, particularly targeting extreme content,” Evie reported. “These prosecutions have historically served as a deterrent to producing and distributing particularly harmful or illegal pornography. The threat of prosecution under Republican leadership limits what the industry can legally distribute.” 

“In contrast, Democrats have generally shown little to no interest in pursuing these kinds of regulations, often citing concerns about privacy, free speech, or sexual freedom. This unregulated approach has made the porn industry favor Democratic candidates who are less likely to pass restrictive laws that impact their profits,” Evie continued. “In fact, many Democrats argue that age verification laws could infringe on privacy rights or unfairly target adult consumers. This has made them less likely to support similar measures, allowing the porn industry to flourish with fewer obstacles.” 

The porn industry supports Harris because it realizes a democratic-led government will be more lax with porn regulations

The Seattle Times said the masterminds behind the Hands Off My Porn campaign are aware that Harris’s outlook against Trump isn’t great at the moment, but young men might be convinced. And porn sites are hot spots for that demographic.  

“This willingness of the Democratic Party to align with industries like porn exposes a troubling contradiction: how can a party that claims to stand for women’s rights, mental health, and the well-being of children continue to look the other way when it comes to the real-world harms inflicted by the porn industry?” Evie asks. “Are they really going to keep ignoring the harmful impact of a business that thrives on addiction and exploitation because they’re willing to cut a campaign check?” 

“The rise of easily accessible pornography has been devastating to young men and women alike, distorting views on sex, relationships, and consent before they’ve even had a chance to develop a healthy understanding of these concepts. Parents, educators, and even young adults themselves have been calling for better regulation to shield minors from this toxic content.”