On Thursday, May 8th, Utah Republican Mike Lee and Illinois Rep. Mary Miller introduced a bill known as the ‘Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.’ In a press release about the bill, Lee wrote:
“Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children. Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.”
The act would update the definition of ‘obscenity’ within the Communications Act of 1934 to include any 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, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
The bill would also remove a previous restriction on adult content as being labeled obscene only if it were being used to target or harass others. These restrictions were laid out in the Project 2025 roadmap, and many in the adult industry are worried that even more commercialized activities such as lingerie modelling could be banned. Critics point out that if broadly passed, providers who support VPN and other privacy protections could be held accountable for violations of federal law.
