Hirsch: Hey, GOP, Go Easy on Enforcement Of Pornography Laws

LOS ANGELES—Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of adult movie powerhouse Vivid Entertainment, today cautioned the GOP to lower the rhetoric against adult entertainment intended for adults. At the same time, he saluted Republicans for their stand against child pornography but suggests that they catch up to modern times when it comes to grown ups. The Republican platform adopted in Tampa this week says, "the Internet must be made safe for children" and called on service providers to "ensure that the Internet cannot become a safe haven for predators while respecting First Amendment rights."  The platform also said, "Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced." "Everyone is against child pornography, so Republicans aren't saying anything new when they call for strict laws to ensure safety for children on the internet," Mr. Hirsch said. "As for the platform's other reference to pornography, responsible producers of adult entertainment created for and offered to adults already obey 'current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity.' "Republicans, however, need to catch up with what's happening in America and the world today.  Books like Fifty Shades of Grey, dozens of popular cable TV shows and the web have made the public more comfortable with portrayals of sex than they ever have been before. Sex is everywhere in the adult world and this isn't going to change.  If anything, it will become more pervasive. "The Republicans' call for 'vigorous' enforcement of these laws is a hollow gesture and obvious pandering to ultra-right-wing conservatives. Republican officials shouldn't take this platform idea as a license to start some kind of witch-hunt that would waste taxpayer dollars and accomplish nothing." Hirsch added, "According to Harvard researcher Ben Edelman, eight of the ten top porn consuming states voted Republican in the last presidential election, so conservatives should be careful who they target, since it's likely to be fellow conservatives." Mr. Hirsch also notes that the advent of the internet has so pre-empted the so-called "community standards" framework governing "acceptable" adult entertainment that the standard is now dubious at best. "In any event," he summarized, "we have so many more important issues in front of us today than worrying about whether someone is breaking laws that probably should never have been written in the first place."