Imagine every seat filled at a major league baseball stadium. That’s how many people logged on to Pornhub in March 2026 every thirty seconds. Over 41,000 people, to be precise.
Before the 21st century, pornography was consumed in basements or dingy theaters by adults who were willing to be seen purchasing obscene materials. The birth of the internet exponentially increased global access to porn. Now, it’s being consumed by the coworker who brings you coffee every day, the accountant who does your taxes every year, and even by your 15-year-old nephew. Ninety percent of porn is consumed on a phone, with the highest amount of consumption during work hours.
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Prevailing case law regarding pornography has allowed for this media empire to grossly expand. Miller v. California dictates that obscene material is permissible if it contains some “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” This loose regulation has allowed for 4.5 million porn sites to continue to exist today.
As the lead in a $97 billion industry, Pornhub alone is able to generate more monthly traffic than Netflix, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest combined.
Backed by immense financial incentives, the pop culture industry has normalized seeing sex on a screen. Many modern movies made for “mature” audiences include a sex scene of some kind. Our society has become desensitized and has subconsciously accepted viewing different forms of porn without fully realizing the intense effects it has on us mentally, relationally, and physically.
The divorce rate for women more than doubles after porn consumption, and one in four married individuals cite porn as a source of conflict. Adolescents who are exposed to sexual content before the age of 13 are three times more likely to engage in sexual activity early. Finally, a majority of revenge porn victims consequently suffer from suicidal thoughts.
Despite these insane statistics, the legislative and executive branches have sat on their hands. Politicians are instead debating endlessly about the legality of AI-generated porn and consenting adults in the porn industry. They are missing the forest for the trees: All porn must be made illegal.
“The damages from pornography, which has become far more ubiquitous, are harder to deny. It may be time for the Court to revisit its holding in Miller,” wrote Conn Carroll, the commentary editor at the Washington Examiner, in his book Sex and the Citizen.
Politicians should push policies enforcing a ban on all forms of pornographic content, not just the most egregious ones. It’s not enough to free women and minors from participating in the porn production industry — we must free people from partaking in it at all.
Pornography is obscene, disgusting, and degrading. It’s an engagement of the worst forms of human appetites and gives a stage to the most horrific forms of human brutality. Many politicians will claim to care about Americans, yet only a few will take the initiative to stop this material from being three clicks away on their kids’ phones.
Don’t be someone who just watches it happen.
