WASHINGTON, D.C. – As an adult entertainment industry stakeholder (someone who works in the adult entertainment industry but is also deeply paranoid about vampires, so always has a wooden stake handy, just in case) I’ve been paying close attention to Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the latest runaway hit sci-fi series from Netflix.
Wait… Sorry, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is not a sci-fi series, it’s a lawsuit in which the Supreme Court recently heard argument. The italicized text really should have been a giveaway.
At any rate, whatever it is, I’ve been paying close attention to it. And one of the things I’ve noticed is the Texas law at issue in the case, the “Don’t Forget to Fill in This Part Later Act,” only applies to “Internet websites” and social media platforms on which “more than one third” is “is sexual material harmful to minors.”
This limiting provision of the law got me thinking: Maybe I want a breakfast burrito?
But that’s not all it got me thinking. It also made me think of a brilliant new idea for a website: My 67.4% Not Free Porn Site. (The TLD is still TBD.)
To be clear, I’m not saying 32.6% of my forthcoming site WILL be depictions of “a person’s pubic hair, anus, or genitals or the nipple of the female breast” or “touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses, or genitals” or “sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act.” I’m just not saying 32.6% of it WON’T be that sort of thing.
You might be wondering how I came up with the 67.4% threshold, given that the law seems to only require my site to be 66.6% not free porn. There are three reasons for my decision:
- Margin for error: The last thing I want is to end up in accidental noncompliance with the law after uploading my latest depiction of a person’s anus and/or their touching of it.
- Intellectual property concerns: There are too many existing mark holders making use of some form of three sixes and I don’t want to create any confusion in the market. (See #3 below)
- Numerological and spiritual security: I don’t want The Beast or any of its/his/her followers thinking my site’s domain name is the modern equivalent of a mark on my right hand or forehead.
I’m a little uncertain whether this percentage threshold thing relates to the number of depictions, the file size of the depictions, the popularity and upvotes of the depictions, or the display size in pixels of the anuses vs. non-anuses, in aggregate. (Side Note: “The Aggregate Anus” would be a terrific name for a punk band.)
I don’t plan for My 67.4% Not Free Porn Site to have a user generated or user uploaded content component, because it would simply be too difficult to assure the platform stays beneath the “CAP,” which in this context stands for the “Critical Anus Percentage.”
Clearly, there are still some fuzzy details and wrinkles I’ll need to iron out before launch. One of the trickiest involves a question of interpretation on the word “anus” – and it’s one I think might be novel and therefore without a clear answer in existing case law.
Where the law references depictions of anuses, are we being literal here? If a reasonable person would think a public official is an asshole, does posting his photo count against my CAP as material harmful to minors, or does it go on the other side of the ledger? Does the depiction cancel itself out, because it’s also a depiction of someone newsworthy and a matter of public concern?
No worries, future users of My 67.4% Not Free Porn Site; I’ll get it this all sorted out, soon enough –even if it means rebranding to My 73.25% Not Free Porn Site, just to be on the safe side.
Coming Soon photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels
