ENFORCEMENT QUIBBLE. As I have already argued in exhaustive detail, on the merits I am generally inclined to agree with Matt in his disagreement with Garance. For those of you who skip the long, boring posts, I think that Garance has identified a real problem -- people, especially women, selling nude images of themselves under varying degrees of coercion -- but her remedy of raising the age where it's legal to participate in porn from 18 to 21 is both overbroad (prohibiting more conduct than is necessary to achieve the objective and resting on problematic generalizations about the decision-making capacity of young women) and underinclusive (the problem of models not giving informed consent or being taken advantage of while impaired by alcohol doesn't vanish when they turn 21.) As Matt says, requiring producers to take active steps to secure consent a second time, or at the very least a "cooling off" period (familiar from other forms of high-pressure sales) that allow one party to opt out within a given time frame, seems like a better solution. On another issue, however, I actually think Garance is conceding too much. Matt jumps on Garance's argument that the law would be observed in the breach, and if true I would agree that this would be reason enough not to do it even if one agrees with Garance's objectives. But is it really true that the regulation is unenforceable? Matt compares it to the 18-year-old drinking age, but that's not really a good analogy. First, teenage drinking is more widespread, but second (and more important) you don't have to purchase alcohol to consume it. The state can make it harder for those under 21 to buy alcohol, but it's easy to get around that if you know anybody over 21 and have access to a private residence. Since appearing on film (unlike a 6-pack of Schlitz) is non-transferable, the relevant conduct is all public and commercial, and hence much easier to regulate. After all, there are already age limits in porn, and while I may be wrong, my guess is that they're pretty strictly observed, especially by mainstream producers. I would be very surprised if "Girls Gone Wild" used any significant number of under-18 models, and see no reason they wouldn't generally adhere to a higher limit. (You can't really fetishize age if you can't advertise it.) So my guess is that the state could largely could eliminate the participation of under-21s in porn if it wanted to. Whether this is a good idea, of course, is a different issue. UPDATE: As has been already noted in comments, my choice of GGW as an operation that wouldn't use under-18 women was foolish. And I'm certainly open to evidence that age limits are, in general, highly ineffective. I don't think the Francis case proves this, however -- he was, after all, sent to jail and is facing a fusillade of lawsuits. I should also emphasize, in case it isn't clear, that if these laws are substantially effective I think it strengthens Garance's argument. --Scott Lemieux
