he final victory of pornography in the United States lies not in the ubiquity of hardcore porn on every phone but rather the extent to which society tolerates it. We have laws against obscenity on the books in every state and at the federal level. But prosecutors everywhere find excuses not to bring obscenity charges.
They cite First Amendment concerns. They worry about shifting community standards. They plead limited resources. It’s always someone else’s job to enforce the laws — feds wait for the states, states wait for the counties, counties for the cops.
These excuses show that there is no longer honor in fighting porn, nor is there societal shame for producing pornography. This reallocation of honor and shame marks the sexual revolution’s deepest success.
Our new Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, “Is General Obscenity Still Illegal? A Postmortem on the Bush Obscenity Prosecution Task Force,” reveals this cultural shift by investigating the last serious federal effort to prosecute pornographers. Launched in 2005, the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (OPTF) under Director Brent Ward achieved convictions in every case it tried.
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