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Monday, September 29, 2025
Michigan anti-porn bill would criminalize ASMR, written erotica, and nonsexual depictions of trans people
reason.com: An "Anticorruption of Public Morals Act" sounds like something out of the Victorian era. But far from the brainchild of Comstock-era Progressive scold, it's a new bill in Michigan. Introduced September 11 by state Rep. Josh Schriver (R–Oxford), the act would ban the online distribution of material "that corrupts the public morals."
3 comments:
DogBlog
said...
Although I do not (want to) believe a bill like this could pass, it sets an alarming precedent for how the state is able to police its citizens identity and personal expression. Now don’t get me wrong, I have some very strong opinions about the harm that pornography has on women and our society as a whole. However, even I can see how problematic the language and ideas in this bill are. What really stood out to me about this bill was how all encompassing it is. It looks to ban the distribution of all media that contains sexual acts. I think about books such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984, both extremely influential and powerful pieces of literature that look at tyranny, dictatorship, and fascism. Under this law, both of these books would be banned for their explicit sexual material. This law was not written to protect women, children, or public decency. It was written to restrict the general public from access to ideas. The fact that this is even a bill on the docket is terrifying.
Religious doctrine has become so overwhelming for so many people that even when it fails to uphold their core beliefs they fight for it like vultures on a rotting corpse. These laws that target transgender and queer people are not trying to protect and love their neighbor, they are trying to persecute them. Whether this is due to republicans following their fearful leader or their own fear of not conforming to antiquated norms they are only mucking the water. All these bills that are trying to be snuck into bills, budgets, and other legislation only keep people fearful and from targeting the real problem. The wealth inequality in this country is at record highs and as new tax breaks for already rich corporations and individuals will continue to receive record breaking tax breaks and consolidation of wealth as citizens pay the price in tariffs and cuts to benefits that would otherwise help the people.
Oh wow that actually sounds horrible. First with any banning of sexual content in general, this seems like an impeachment of any person’s rights. Even including porn, there is art in sexual scenes in media that is being completely erased in this bill. There are actors, intimacy coordinators, directors, lighting technicians and more that all work to create intimate scenes. From an objective lens, even if someone does not wish to watch these scenes, this bill is a form of censorship that censors the creative production of citizens. And then out of nowhere it ties in trans people into the anti-sexual displays bill. This is definitely the bill-makers’ opinions of trans people, viewing them as purely sexual people. This bill is so astoundingly terrible I cannot fully put it into words. The amalgamation of different ideas that are combined into one bill are terrible by themselves, and even more confusingly terrible combined.
3 comments:
Although I do not (want to) believe a bill like this could pass, it sets an alarming precedent for how the state is able to police its citizens identity and personal expression. Now don’t get me wrong, I have some very strong opinions about the harm that pornography has on women and our society as a whole. However, even I can see how problematic the language and ideas in this bill are. What really stood out to me about this bill was how all encompassing it is. It looks to ban the distribution of all media that contains sexual acts. I think about books such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984, both extremely influential and powerful pieces of literature that look at tyranny, dictatorship, and fascism. Under this law, both of these books would be banned for their explicit sexual material. This law was not written to protect women, children, or public decency. It was written to restrict the general public from access to ideas. The fact that this is even a bill on the docket is terrifying.
Religious doctrine has become so overwhelming for so many people that even when it fails to uphold their core beliefs they fight for it like vultures on a rotting corpse. These laws that target transgender and queer people are not trying to protect and love their neighbor, they are trying to persecute them. Whether this is due to republicans following their fearful leader or their own fear of not conforming to antiquated norms they are only mucking the water. All these bills that are trying to be snuck into bills, budgets, and other legislation only keep people fearful and from targeting the real problem. The wealth inequality in this country is at record highs and as new tax breaks for already rich corporations and individuals will continue to receive record breaking tax breaks and consolidation of wealth as citizens pay the price in tariffs and cuts to benefits that would otherwise help the people.
Oh wow that actually sounds horrible. First with any banning of sexual content in general, this seems like an impeachment of any person’s rights. Even including porn, there is art in sexual scenes in media that is being completely erased in this bill. There are actors, intimacy coordinators, directors, lighting technicians and more that all work to create intimate scenes. From an objective lens, even if someone does not wish to watch these scenes, this bill is a form of censorship that censors the creative production of citizens. And then out of nowhere it ties in trans people into the anti-sexual displays bill. This is definitely the bill-makers’ opinions of trans people, viewing them as purely sexual people. This bill is so astoundingly terrible I cannot fully put it into words. The amalgamation of different ideas that are combined into one bill are terrible by themselves, and even more confusingly terrible combined.
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