THE COURT THAT WATCHES PORN SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

Clarence Thomas, a popcorn machine, and the return of state-sanctioned shame

In a recent ruling that reads like an unintentional satire of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court told America: if you want to watch porn, you might need to show your ID—and no, your privacy isn’t their problem. The ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton doesn’t outright ban pornography, but it lowers the constitutional standard used to judge anti-porn laws, giving states like Texas a green light to start micromanaging the masturbatory habits of their residents.

The court didn’t technically overturn Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), but Clarence Thomas's opinion fumbles through an incoherent legal maze trying to claim this ruling is somehow “consistent” with it. It’s not. Where Ashcroft applied strict scrutiny—tough as hell for a law to pass—this case downgrades it to intermediate scrutiny, which is basically constitutional TSA: mildly annoying, vaguely threatening, and mostly just there to slow you down.

The reasoning? Tech has gotten better. Age verification might actually work now. Which sounds reasonable—until you realize the Court is completely fine with your personal porn habits being linked to your real identity, stored in questionable databases, and exposed to breaches, stalkers, or even vengeful employers. Thomas shrugs it off, saying stigma isn’t a good enough reason to protect privacy. Which is rich coming from a man whose best-known extracurricular is accepting luxury gifts from billionaire benefactors with cases before the court.

PRIVACY? WHAT PRIVACY?

The justices essentially decided that if the shame sticks, that’s your problem. If you’re a closeted gay teenager in Mississippi or a teacher who doesn’t want their Pornhub search history subpoenaed during a custody battle? Tough shit. Want to explore your sexuality without the state keeping tabs? Better move to Canada.

Thomas’s logic is: “Porn has always been stigmatized, so regulating it’s fine.” That’s like saying “gay people have always faced discrimination, so anti-gay laws are fine.” Actually, that might be exactly the logic this court is using—see their Don’t Say Gay-style ruling from the same week.

JUDGES WILL NOW BE FORCED TO… REVIEW PORNHUB?

Here’s where the ruling jumps the shark and lands right in the clown tank. Because Texas’s new law mimics old Supreme Court language about what is and isn’t protected sexual expression, judges now have to do what their predecessors did in the ‘70s: watch porn and decide if it’s “serious.”

You can’t make this up. Judges may be required to screen porn and determine whether it has “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value… for minors.” Not adults—minors. Imagine the federal court transcript: “Your Honor, Exhibit D is a gangbang scene featuring two astronauts and a Marxist professor discussing dialectical materialism. We contend it is political.”

This throws the judiciary into absurdist theater. Clarence Thomas and friends just greenlit a process that could force lower-court judges to sit in chambers with their clerks, squinting at Pornhub videos, deciding which ones are constitutionally kosher and which ones are just too naughty. It’s not jurisprudence. It’s cable-access hell.

SO WHAT NOW?

This decision signals an end to the hands-off, internet-era approach to sexual speech. Instead, it invites states to regulate it more aggressively, under looser constitutional scrutiny and with very little concern for privacy. It opens the door to future laws that could require logging names, tracking viewing habits, or even punishing people for what they choose to watch in private.

It also lays bare the hypocrisy of a Court that rails against "big government" one minute, then turns around and tells adults they need government permission to look at a pair of digital tits.

And the irony? The justices who made this mess may now spend the next decade buried under a pile of horny constitutional appeals. We hope the popcorn machine’s already installed.

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