“Religion, Pornography, And Section 230” by George Myers

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve by After Domenichino, Italian, 1581-1641 (US-PD-Art).

The Religious Right was a consortium of mostly evangelical pastors and public activists who saw modern American culture as godless and degenerate, and sought the regulation of many social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and pornography. Over time however, the Religious Right decisively lost its culture war. After its defeat, the porn industry in the United States had gone largely unregulated, which has led to addiction problems and negative side effects for men, women, and children in different ways. The high-speed internet pornography of today is far different that that of the 90s. This article argues that we ought to recognize that the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater after the defeat of the Religious Right, and it has indeed become an industry that exploits women and children and harms our citizens. Citizens must demand reform at the state and local level on legislation like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes porn companies, and judges should begin to read Miller v. California in light of these unique new circumstances.  

“Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however, there are those who are littering this information superhighway with obscene, indecent, and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality. Violent people with sexual pathology are able to stalk and harass the innocent. Cyber solicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of online victimization.” – Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie on June 12, 1995

The prayer above was spoken by Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie in 1995, just a little more than thirty years ago, as an opening prayer before the Senate debate on the Communications Decency Act introduced by Senator James Exon. At that time, a bitter conflict had been festering between the so-called “Religious Right”, American evangelicals concerned with what they saw as the degradation and destruction of morality in America, and those who either opposed moralization in government or believed the fears of the Religious Right were entirely overblown. 

When most think of the Religious Right, they tend to think about Jerry Falwell. Falwell was a colorful American Baptist televangelist who could be considered emblematic of American fundamentalism. Regarding the September 11 attacks, Falwell said “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen’”. Falwell opposed every shade of social liberalization between 1970 onward, and his opposition resulted in what many have considered to be paranoid, hysterical outcries against normal American culture.

The Religious Right had decisively lost its moral crusade by the 2000s. This defeat has all but ruled out the regulation of pornography in the United States. In Reno v. ACLU, for example, the Supreme Court held that the Communications Decency Act’s  “indecent transmission” portion, which prohibited the transmission of pornographic material to those under 18 years of age, was unconstitutional. Indeed, judges began to read Miller in light of these more laissez-faire values, and with the passage of Section 230, many pornographers were immunized from private suits as well. Until very recently, much of the legislation surrounding pornography has been ineffectual and weak, and history will regard this as a grave error. 

Why Modern Pornography Is Different 

In the 1990s, when the Communications Decency Act was passed, pornography was something more of a hobby. In order to find adult films, one had to go to a seedy adult theater, a video shop, or access it on primitive computers and magazines, none of which were commonplace. While society did not endorse such behavior, people were largely indifferent to these hobbies and viewed them as a novelty. 

Today, pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. The images and clips are shocking, high-speed, and functionally infinite. Pornography sites carefully curate their pages to keep their users hooked, using taboo scenes and increasingly hardcore, inappropriate material to further entice their users. Additionally, modern internet porn causes intense addiction. For those who grew up in the era of Playboy magazines this may be difficult to believe, but credible scientific research has demonstrated over and over that pornography usage leads to addiction, which in turn leads to a host of negative effects, such as depression, erectile dysfunction, and even marital issues.

Unlike the pornography of yesteryear, those watching pornography today are not curious, if perverted, adults seeking a thrill. They are children. Common Sense Media estimates that the average child discovers pornograpy at age 12 years old. This is despite the fact that it is illegal by law to distribute pornography to minors. How would the government react if it found that liquor stores across America had distributed alcohol to millions of minors across the states? 

The idea that the state should not regulate the choice of consenting adults to consume pornography is misguided for two reasons: (1) The most impressionable victims of pornography are children, and the overwhelming majority of people introduced to porn today are introduced at a time when they are far too young to make informed decisions; (2) Pornography use is an addiction, chosen in no sense more than one chooses any other controlled substance. 

Pornography’s Impact on Sexuality

Outside forces can have a dramatic effect on our sexuality and the sexual health of children. It should be a cause for concern then that millions upon millions of children and adults in this country are consuming heavy doses of pornography for years of their lives. So if pornography does affect the sexuality of the young people, how does it? One of the most concerning developments is the glorification of sexual violence.

According to a systematic review of various porn sites, violence against women is incredibly commonplace in pornography.  Another study showed credible evidence that consumers of pornography are far more likely to foster attitudes of violence against women. The two studies are not unrelated. Pornography feeds the fetish, and the fetish feeds the porn addiction. This should be alarming for those on the left and the right. Some studies have suggested that the number of men who use pornography on a monthly basis may be as high as 90% in the U.S. With the age of pornography use becoming younger and younger with each generation, what will the consequences be of allowing millions of young people to consume videos and pictures where people are victimized and abused for pleasure? 

We’re also finding out that heavy pornography use can lead to desensitization and sexual apathy. Interestingly, pornography has exploded in use at the same time that the adolescents are having less sex with real partners. It is not difficult to imagine what sort of effect this might have on a civilizational level. Those in relationships may become much more sexually distant, to the frustration of their partners. Those who are single may even decline to pursue a relationship at all, engaging in their endless online harem rather than dealing with the complications of a real person. 

It is for this reason that the use of pornography cannot and should not be tied in with sexual and social liberation movements. Society is not shaping the taste of porn with its inner sexuality, pornography is shaping the sexual tastes of men, women, and children.

OnlyFans and Exploitation 

OnlyFans is a site where “creators,” typically young women, sell photos and videos of their bodies online for money. Some have praised this development as an extension of feminism into the world of “sex work,” and claim that women have taken agency over their own bodies without a pimp or other abusive male figure. 

First and foremost, the premise is sadly mistaken. OnlyFans takes a 20% cut of every transaction, and until his recent death the company was principally owned by Leonid Radvinsky, who was the majority shareholder of the parent company Fenix International Limited.

Radvinsky began his career hosting sites which purported to give users access to illegal content, including “illegal pre-teen” and “bestiality” content. OnlyFans has consistently been a well-documented nexus of child exploitation and sexual slavery, yet OnlyFans and Radvinsky have instituted very little safeguards or even comments on the issue. Because Section 230 protections don’t hold social media companies liable for the content on their platforms, Radvinsky and OnlyFans have been able to profit off of this content. Normally when a man takes a 20% cut of a woman’s sexual liaisons, we would call it “pimpery”. Make no mistake: Radvinsky and others like him are pimps who make millions of dollars on the exploitation of women. Experts have claimed that sexual exploitation on OnlyFans is so common it is impossible to know how much it is happening.

Take for example the case of a Wisconsin woman, who I will refer to as Jane. Jane moved in with her boyfriend in 2020, and soon began to be abused and forced to make porn for him. For years, Jane was forced to sell her body on sites like OnlyFans, as well as MyFreeCams (founded by Radvinsky). Jane was worked to the bone, forced to make content 60 hours a week and without breaks when she was sick and fatigued. She lost 50 pounds, and when she tried to escape her sexual enslavement, she was chased by her abuser with a shotgun who proclaimed: “If I shot this, it would leave a big hole in your body.” By the time her abuser was caught, he had made $422,000 on her rape and abuse, of which Jane only saw $2,000. 

What did the victim get for all of her trouble? Was she issued an apology, perhaps financial compensation to account for her horrific exploitation, some cases of which take over a year to take down? Did the company even commit to practices which would ensure these sorts of events would not happen in the future? 

No. Jane herself blames the porn companies for being complicit in her exploitation, and rightfully so. There are connections in such accounts between sites like OnlyFans and human trafficking. Because of Section 230 protections, Jane and others like her have no legal recourse against the platforms where their abuse takes place, which is why so many lawsuits against these companies have failed. Because of the epidemic nature of child and rape pornography online, it is impossible to know how much these companies have profited from illegal content on their platforms, but it could be in the millions. 

The Need for Decency Laws 

That the modern proliferation of pornography should be regulated is something upon which opponents and defenders should be able to agree. Religious opponents should be able to denounce pornography as dangerous and morally reprehensible, and those concerned to defend pornography in the name of freedom of expression or women’s autonomy should recognize that pornography contributes to the exploitation of women and children.

The U.S. needs an interreligious, bipartisan agreement on what is decent and what is not. Federal courts should begin to read Miller v. California in light of the changing digital landscape, and the Supreme Court should consider whether modern interpretations of its ruling have become anachronistic. To do so would not even require overruling, The Miller test states that the government can regulate content which “depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct”, something that can easily be said of modern pornography. The Supreme Court has already recognized the regulation of porn at the state level as legitimate. States and the federal government should pass legislation that will disenfranchise these exploitative digital cartels. In particular, Section 230 should be amended to hold social media platforms liable for failing to regulate sexual content on their websites, where children are almost certain to encounter it with no safeguards. 

Indeed there has been some progress on this front already. In 2018, Congress passed the FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) bills, removing legal immunity for websites that facilitate trafficking. Congress should subpoena people like Radvinsky and ask them why in some cases it can take up to a year for victims to have their videos removed. At the bare minimum, the federal government could condition the billions and billions of dollars it spends on IT every year on the regulation of pornography on their platforms, much like it does with the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Finally and most importantly, the DOJ and state agencies must uphold the rule of law and continue to aggressively go after the well-documented child and adult trafficking cases that pornography companies profit from. Much of the law doesn’t even need to be reformed, voters can simply hold their representatives accountable, Democrat and Republican, to confront these problems in our society. 

We must recognize however that our society is open and permissive, and individuals are permitted to do what would not harm others. That is understandable and compatible with a porn regulation regime, and the right to consume pornography in the privacy of one’s own home has already been recognized by the Supreme Court. If adults still wish to consume pornography, they are welcome to go to adult video stores and pursue the activity in the privacy of their own home, but enough with the harmful and exploitative material which until very recently has been broadcast into the American home 24/7 with no oversight. On this point, the Religious Right was right. ♦

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Recommended Citation

Myers, George. “Religion, Pornography, And Section 230.” Canopy Forum, July 21, 2026. https://canopyforum.org/2026/07/21/religion-pornography-and-section-230/.

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