Age Verification Laws: More Hurt Than Help
July 31st, 2025
In recent years, age verification laws aimed at regulating access to adult content have gained traction across the United States and abroad. Lawmakers argue that these policies protect minors from exposure to pornography, but many of us working in the industry argue that these policies ultimately infringe on adults' privacy and rights while disproportionately targeting members of the lgbtqia community, minorities, and women.
At HUMP!, we’re proudly pro-porn. We believe in consent, ethical production, and sexual expression. Age verification laws often do more harm than good. They threaten adult privacy, silence marginalized creators, and push ethical porn further into the margins.
What Are Age Verification Laws?
In 2022, Louisiana became the first state to pass a statewide age verification law. Age verification laws require websites that host adult content to confirm users are over 18. In most cases, this means providing personal identification documents, submitting to AI-based scanning, or through 3rd party verification services. And while the new age verification laws prohibit storing your identification, they do not prohibit the transfer of that information or provide additional protection or safeguarding from online data leaks.
These policies are marketed as simple protective measures, but their implications go far deeper. In a hidden camera video released in 2024, Russel Vought, who holds a position under Trump’s new term and was a key author on Project 2025, was caught on video discussing the use of age-verification laws and the rallying call of keeping children safe to circumvent what would be a potentially unconstitutional and unpopular outright nationwide ban on porn.
Vought predicted that many porn companies would choose not to do business in states enforcing these laws. In most cases, these laws place the burden of compliance on content platforms, with severe penalties for failure. As a result, many adult sites now block entire regions rather than risk legal fallout.
The History of Age Verification Laws
These laws are often pushed by conservative lawmakers, religious advocacy groups, and organizations with a history of promoting online censorship under the guise of “protecting families.”
Since the 1990s, legislation such as the Communications Decency Act and Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union has shaped the internet that we now use The CDA was originally introduced in 1996 to make the internet more family friendly, following a spike in panic amongst the public as the internet became more generally available and knowledge of where to find porn online became more common.
But in 1997, Reno v. ACLU successfully challenged key provisions of the CDA, with the Supreme Court ruling that the law violated First Amendment rights. The Court reaffirmed that adults should not be restricted to content suitable only for minors, setting a major precedent for internet free speech.
Despite this, age verification laws have continued to re-emerge in new forms—often wrapped in language about child safety, but with consequences that reach far beyond.
Where Have Age Verification Laws Been Passed?
Since Louisiana became the first state to enact age verification laws in 2022, a large number of states have followed.
The Problems with Age Verification Laws
At HUMP!, we love porn—and we love porn creators. We believe that adults deserve access to safe, consensual content without compromising their privacy. But these laws introduce a host of issues that put freedom of expression and personal safety at risk, as well as infringing on constitutional rights that have, up until recently, been upheld by cases such as Reno vs American Civil Liberties Union.
The Free Speech Coalition, a “nonprofit non-partisan trade association for the adult industry,” has been at the forefront of the fight against age verification laws. They recently took the fight all the way to the Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. Unfortunately, within our current political structure, it's almost no surprise that the Supreme Court has deemed age verification constitutional.
Alison Boden, the Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, shared that “This shocking decision goes far beyond adult content or adult websites. The Court has ignored the traditional protections of the First Amendment online and given states free rein to censor controversial content and ideas, so long as the goal is to protect children.”
Privacy Concerns for Adults
Requiring users to upload ID or provide sensitive data to access porn creates enormous privacy and surveillance risks. Your sexual preferences and personal info shouldn’t be stored in a database that could be hacked, misused, or subpoenaed. This means that even when users are legally allowed to view adult content, they may avoid doing so out of fear of being tracked or publicly outed.
Censorship in Disguise
Facing complicated and expensive compliance processes, many adult websites, including both mainstream and ethical studios, are opting to block users from entire states. This is especially damaging for small, independent, and queer-run porn platforms, which often lack the resources to navigate rapidly shifting legal requirements.
In addition, the language surrounding these bills is vague enough to allow conservative lawmakers to apply these laws to anything they deem “sexual material harmful to minors,” which can put a target on sex-ed material and the lgbtqia community.
Age Verification Laws Don’t Actually Work
Despite the sweeping promises of these laws, they don’t actually work. Anyone can bypass restrictions with ease using VPNs, file-sharing, and encrypted apps. These laws also do not target social media sites, one of the main places where people encounter exposure to sexually explicit material.
Worse, these workarounds may direct people to less ethical or more dangerous content, outside the reach of responsible creators.
Who Gets Hurt the Most?
Independent & Ethical Porn Creators
Small-scale creators and studios—like the ones we often showcase at HUMP!—don’t always have the budgets or infrastructure to comply with complex verification mandates, or may choose not to be available in states out of either protest or privacy concerns for users. The result is lost income, stifled creativity, and reduced access to the kind of porn that should be more visible.
Marginalized Communities
Queer, trans, BIPOC, and sex worker content is already underrepresented in mainstream porn and frequently flagged by algorithms. These laws only worsen the erasure, shutting out creators who are already working uphill against systemic bias and economic inequality.
Online Users Seeking Sex Education
Because the language in these bills is intentionally vague, one key concern is the threat of censorship to sex education and information or sites related to the queer community online. These laws are written in ways that allow conservative groups to censor or restrict access to sites with age-appropriate material regarding sex, sexuality, and the lgbtqia community.
What Actually Helps?
If we want to reduce harm, age verification laws aren’t the answer. Here’s what works:
Comprehensive sex education that teaches consent, anatomy, media literacy, and pleasure.
Parental tools and digital literacy, so caregivers can make informed decisions without blanket censorship.
Supporting ethical porn by paying for content, promoting indie creators, and using privacy-respecting platforms.
At HUMP!, we support sex-positive policy, informed choice, and adult access to porn that respects everyone involved. Instead of chasing flawed tech solutions that ultimately serve the interests of conservative lawmakers, we will continue to champion education, consent, and digital freedom.
You can read more on the Supreme Court case, as well as the implications of age verification laws and further steps to take to fight them, on the Free Speech Coalition’s site.
Author: Allie Huska