They’re Coming for Your Porn - Again
Time to beef up my porn stash
Here’s a fun little fact about me. I didn’t start blogging about sex because I was horny or because I was in the mood to be naughty.
I started because I was fed up with how sex negative the internet had become.
I mean yeah, it’s full of porn.
But it’s also full of Terms of Service that strictly limit what you can do on pretty much any platform.
I tried self-publishing through Amazon for a while, but I had to play very carefully, even though I was putting myself squarely in the smut category.
Content creators had to bend the English language into ridiculous little pretzel shapes just to share very vanilla sex ed on TikTok - oh sorry, I mean schmexual education.
I’ve got a folder with shortcuts to porn sites on my iPhone because the App Store won’t allow any adult content. Except the Reddit app - they’re fine with that den of debauchery for some reason.
Even when you lock yourself behind a paywall, you’ll be policed over what kind of nudity you can show and what you can do to your own body.
Like, you can have your tits out on Patreon - I do it every month. But you can’t be wet and you can’t show hole. Which means I can’t give my Friends With Benefits the full benefits, if you catch my drift.
I typed up that first blog post back in 2019.
And I wish I could say things are better now, but nope. They’ve only gotten worse.
Major payment processors were already very sex negative, but they took it a step further and actively cut service to Pornhub.
After that, American legislators said “hold my beer” to Mastercard and tightened the squeeze even more.
It’s a piecemeal approach, with each state introducing similar age verification laws that probably infringe on a few different rights.
The latest one is Texas. Now if you’re in that state, you can’t access legit porn sites unless you submit a government issued ID. And you can’t access Pornhub at all, because Aylo has blocked access to all their sites in protest.
And because a big chunk of my podcast listeners happen to be based in Texas, that latest restriction feels personal. Leave my sweet, horny pillowcases alone, you ghouls!
But it’s also personal because I know Canada might not be too far behind.
There’s this joke-that’s-not-a-joke about how Canada will see the US make a big terrible decision - and then do the exact same thing ten years later.
See, we’re not much better - we’re just slower.
So when I see laws like this popping up below the border, I brace myself for when they show up in my neck of the woods.
And when they do, I’ll have two options.
I could find legit ways to enjoy porn without letting some random tech company scan my ID on behalf of my provincial government.
Or I could go underground. Get back into torrenting. Find questionable videos in the sketchiest corners of the internet. Or get really desperate and become one of those weird creeps on Reddit who DMs every woman asking for pics of her thighs.
Personally, I’ll be sticking to my legit sources. And I’m building my stash now.
Stocking Up on Smut
I don’t know how strict the laws are going to get. And I don’t know how soon they’re going to get to my neck of the woods.
Hopefully they fizzle out and we can all go back to using the internet for what it’s for - having fun and watching people fuck.
But I’ll be stocking up, just in case.
First, I’ll be downloading and backing up my favorite porn scenes.
That’s not something you can do on every porn site, but I can on the ones that really count.
I’ve got an annual membership to Adult Time, which comes with unlimited downloads at very high resolutions.
I can think of about a dozen Adult Time scenes that I don’t want to live without, so I’ll start with those. But I’ll probably get carried away and have to buy more storage to keep it all.
I’ve also been really into TeamSkeet lately. And because I’ve got TeamSkeet Premium, I can also download as much as I want. Which means I can load up on all sorts of playful and lightly taboo scenes.
Oh, and I have a teeny tiny collection of porn magazines.
Okay, so calling it a collection is a bit much.
It’s four issues of Barely Legal.
But it could be so much more. And getting porn in the mail is a really fun surprise, so I might eventually subscribe to another dirty magazine or two.
Though if I ever have to scan my driver’s license or do one of those facial biometric things just to log into a website where girls show bush, I might make that five or six subscriptions.
And hopefully, I’ll also have options to buy direct.
There’s OnlyFans, JustForFans, Fansly, and all those types of sites right now. And I absolutely love them. Getting DIY porn straight from the hot people who make it is a beautiful thing.
I’d really hate to lose those.
But if they get restricted to all hell, I know there will be other options. Performers are savvy and creative. They’ll figure out a workaround.
If that means having people like me send them money for access to a Google Drive folder with clips and pics, then I’ll be consensually up in their DMs to work out the details.
This Whole Thing Just Sucks
This situation just plain sucks. And it’s wrong on many different levels.
Having a right to privacy is a very good thing. Free expression is pretty cool, too. And every step taken to restrict access to porn messes with both of those principles.
I’m really not interested in letting some third party company collect my identifying data just so I can watch grownups do grownup things. I know porn sites have a reputation for being sketchy, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than I trust some startup that wants to collect images of my passport.
It also sucks because I know that’s not going to be where it stops.
Our legal rights are kind of like a paint job that’s starting to peel. Once they chip away a bit of your privacy, it gets real easy for them to pull the rest off in big chunks.
I’m glad that Aylo isn’t just giving in and has pulled access to Pornhub. I can’t fault them for it at all, and I’m going to support any company that decides to do the same thing.
But I’m also a red blooded Canadian woman. I love porn and I don’t want to lose access to it.
And I don’t want to get my fix from sketchy tube sites that are still doing what Pornhub was doing back when it started - posting stolen content without compensating the people who made it.
So, I’ve got my magazines. I’ll keep backing up my favorite scenes.
And if they ever come for my porn, I’ll hunker down with my little stash until the whole system smartens the fuck up.
This post contains affiliate links to Adult Time and TeamSkeet. If you click on one and treat yourself to a membership, I earn a small commission and you’ll be getting access to the best porn online! And be sure to use the code LOVEEMMA when you sign up to Adult Time to get an awesome deal on your membership!
If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Sex And Depression (When You Can’t Just Beat Off the Blues) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
