4 ms·

I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. If I

I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. If I order alcohol, the reason I'm showing ID is to prove that yes, it was me that ordered it instead of someone else (and I'm showing my ID at the liquor store). I've only bought porn twice - once a video and once a magazine full of naked men. I didn't get carded either time and this was back in the 90s. One of those times, I was 17. And if I needed to verify ID online (for payments, etc), I have a secure way of doing that, which folks in these states simply do not have. The websites don't need to keep any information on file either. And this is the very thing that pornhub is objecting to. If they were rolling out age verification that already has some of this in place, it'd be a different story. And a sidenote: I don't think it is all that wrong for a 17 year old to see what naked people look like. The rest of us need to be mature enough to make sure that young folks have a reasonable view of porn, including things like 'this isn't realistic and physically difficult for these reasons." A lot of so-called 'harm' is simply that we - the adults in the room - haven't held up our end of teaching.

skhunted 2y ago
I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. Your appearance is the age verification. One can obviously tell you are of age to buy the products in question by looking at you. That’s the age verification. Communities are permitted to determine what constitutes age appropriate materials and at what age those materials can be consumed. Such standards ought to apply to web content too. There is nothing special about online that indicates it should be exempt.
- hluska 2y ago
  I may be in the minority, but the community does not raise my child. I do. As such, I will talk to them, set our family’s standards after consultation and monitor appropriately. If it turns into a discipline situation, I have no qualms about going there. Or if it turns into a praise situation, I have just as few qualms about going there. Government regulation cannot and will not replace parenting. If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist. Moral is - talk to your kids. If porn is too hard to talk about, you weren’t ready to have children. It’s time to start building relationships with trustworthy adults who can talk about porn, sex, consent and all those other wonderful things with them. Because guess what dude? If parents don’t, someone will and their intentions may not be good.
  - skhunted 2y ago
    Communities set some standards of behavior. This has been always been true. While the government doesn’t replace parenting it does enforce standards of conduct. Like requiring parents to feed their kids or preventing businesses from selling porn to your child. If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist. MADD is precisely the kind of community action that is successful. They made people aware of a problem and government stepped in to help provide a solution. Drunk driving fatalities were reduced as a result. …you weren’t ready to have children. Lots of people are ready to have kids and have them. A healthy society tries its best to prevent such kids from suffering too greatly from the misfortune of being raised by a moron. A healthy society tries its best to prevent morons from enticing kids of good parents such as yourself to do things that are harmful. Hence we try to keep people from selling drugs to kids. We don’t have 100% success at this but this isn’t a valid reason to not try.
    - hluska 2y ago
      I might be too cynical, but when I see governments roll out initiatives like this, all I see are campaign slogans. Meanwhile, we’ve got kids living in poverty or in foster houses of horror and those topics don’t get the same attention. In our family, porn is a gateway topic for us to start talking about issues like revenge porn, sexting and all that other stuff that is right around the corner for us. So this is a tricky one for me and I guess I don’t understand why porn is so important. Its existence is helpful for me because of the topics it can help bring up, but we talk about everything from periods to child birth so I know that’s likely rare. I’m maybe trying to impose my attitudes too much on others so I just can’t understand. I apologize if I’ve been obtuse - I am so I don’t really have an excuse. :)
subpixel 2y ago
Anectdotes are not data, but I am carded once in a while and I’m older than you.
Turing_Machine 2y ago
> I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. I'm older than you and I'm carded every single time I buy tobacco or alcohol. The policy on showing identification varies widely depending on region, both due to the actual law and store policy.

skhunted 2y ago

I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. Your appearance is the age verification. One can obviously tell you are of age to buy the products in question by looking at you. That’s the age verification. Communities are permitted to determine what constitutes age appropriate materials and at what age those materials can be consumed. Such standards ought to apply to web content too. There is nothing special about online that indicates it should be exempt.

hluska 2y ago
I may be in the minority, but the community does not raise my child. I do. As such, I will talk to them, set our family’s standards after consultation and monitor appropriately. If it turns into a discipline situation, I have no qualms about going there. Or if it turns into a praise situation, I have just as few qualms about going there. Government regulation cannot and will not replace parenting. If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist. Moral is - talk to your kids. If porn is too hard to talk about, you weren’t ready to have children. It’s time to start building relationships with trustworthy adults who can talk about porn, sex, consent and all those other wonderful things with them. Because guess what dude? If parents don’t, someone will and their intentions may not be good.
- skhunted 2y ago
  Communities set some standards of behavior. This has been always been true. While the government doesn’t replace parenting it does enforce standards of conduct. Like requiring parents to feed their kids or preventing businesses from selling porn to your child. If government regulation worked, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving would not have to exist. MADD is precisely the kind of community action that is successful. They made people aware of a problem and government stepped in to help provide a solution. Drunk driving fatalities were reduced as a result. …you weren’t ready to have children. Lots of people are ready to have kids and have them. A healthy society tries its best to prevent such kids from suffering too greatly from the misfortune of being raised by a moron. A healthy society tries its best to prevent morons from enticing kids of good parents such as yourself to do things that are harmful. Hence we try to keep people from selling drugs to kids. We don’t have 100% success at this but this isn’t a valid reason to not try.
  - hluska 2y ago
    I might be too cynical, but when I see governments roll out initiatives like this, all I see are campaign slogans. Meanwhile, we’ve got kids living in poverty or in foster houses of horror and those topics don’t get the same attention. In our family, porn is a gateway topic for us to start talking about issues like revenge porn, sexting and all that other stuff that is right around the corner for us. So this is a tricky one for me and I guess I don’t understand why porn is so important. Its existence is helpful for me because of the topics it can help bring up, but we talk about everything from periods to child birth so I know that’s likely rare. I’m maybe trying to impose my attitudes too much on others so I just can’t understand. I apologize if I’ve been obtuse - I am so I don’t really have an excuse. :)

subpixel 2y ago

Anectdotes are not data, but I am carded once in a while and I’m older than you.

Turing_Machine 2y ago

> I literally cannot remember the last time I had to show proof of age to buy tobacco or alcohol. I'm middle aged - mid 40s, in fact - and places don't ask. I'm older than you and I'm carded every single time I buy tobacco or alcohol. The policy on showing identification varies widely depending on region, both due to the actual law and store policy.