Garance Franke-Ruta thinks we should raise the age of consent to appear in a pornographic film from 18 to 21.
An 18-year-old can sign the enlistment papers that will send her to Iraq–If she’s mature enough to sign up to kill and killed, she can bloody well decide who gets to see her breasts. The fact she can’t also buy beer is just another stupid Reagan legacy.
Garance seems to be arguing that the current age of consent for porn is no longer appropriate because the stakes are so much higher today. I’m not sure I agree with her cost/benefit analysis. Sure, a compromising video clip can hang around the internet forever. On the other hand, everyone else’s pictures are going to end up there, too. At a certain point enlightenment or mutually assured destruction will kick in and our social mores will adjust to our technological milieu.
Frankly, I doubt that some old untagged GGW clip floating around online is all that much of a liability. Sure, the footage will be out there, but unless Joe Francis identifies his subjects by name, it will be difficult to match today’s 18-year-olds to their future selves.
Garance thinks that raising the age of consent for commercial porn will give 18-to-21-year-olds more freedom for erotic experimentation with their peers. She hopes her proposal will let young adults flash each other and take pictures on their camera phones, safe from greedy letches like Joe Francis.
I don’t understand how 18-year-olds could lack the maturity to choose whether to be in a commercial flick and yet be able to give meaningful consent to being photographed by their peers. If I were advising an 18-year-old on how to protect themselves from future embarrassment, I’d worry less about GGW and more about friends with camera phones. Compromising pictures taken by friends and lovers are much more likely to end up on the internet with enough context to identify the subjects later.
