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Democrats promote porn access in pitch to young men

Privacy and freedom are the party's new favourite talking points. Credit: YouTube/LeBatardShow

October 31, 2024 - 10:00am

In the closing weeks of the presidential election, Democrats and their allies are promoting pornography access in an attempt to court young male voters.

The Freedom to Watch PAC boasted this week of reaching 5 million swing-state viewers through ads on porn websites. “The campaign specifically targets young, non-college-educated white males, a demographic that has shown increasing support for Donald Trump,” the group’s press release read. “We’re targeting guys who don’t find the last 12 years of anti-Trump messaging from Democrats particularly persuasive,” the PAC’s founder added. The 10-second ads tell viewers that Trump and J.D. Vance will ban porn, and warn that their state could be next.

On a Monday podcast appearance, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, expressed support for pornography access and portrayed Republicans as wanting to crack down on various freedoms. “You may think right now that they’re not coming after you,” he said of young, disaffected male voters, citing Republican support for abortion restrictions. “What you view in your content as an adult,” he added, “they think government should make all these decisions.”

The conversation illustrates the Democrats’ broader effort to brand themselves as the party of freedom and privacy. On a similar note, a new ad from Progress Action Fund titled “Republicans rubbing you the wrong way” shows a young man masturbating while watching pornography before he’s interrupted by an unnamed member of Congress, who announces that Republicans are “banning porn nationwide”. And earlier this month, the pornography industry began pouring money into ads on explicit websites. More than a dozen pornographers joined together for a $100,000 ad buy warning that “conservatives are planning to criminalize porn”.

The more ribald components of this presidential race reflect Democrats’ eagerness to win back young male voters, a once reliably blue demographic which is now increasingly moving to the centre and the Right. But pornography itself has only recently come to be a Left-wing issue.

In the late 20th century, the anti-porn push was led by feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, who argued that pornography dehumanises and exploits women. More recent anti-pornography activism skewed Left, using social-justice talking points, including complaints about the fetishisation of gay and transgender people and the promotion of unhealthy female body standards. However, the most influential report on the pornography industry in recent years came from the New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof, a liberal, exposing the industry leader Pornhub as being rife with child sexual abuse content.

But the Left’s embrace of sex positivity, and the Right’s increased concern over children’s exposure to explicit content, has prompted a partisan turn for pornography. Pornhub has become unavailable in seven red states after laws were passed requiring sites to use age verification to prevent children from consuming their content. Further, Project 2025, a comprehensive 900-page policy proposal written by conservative organisations — from which Trump has taken pains to distance himself — urged strong restrictions on porn.

“Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned,” the proposal reads, accusing porn producers of preying on children and exploiting women.

Young men have long been a core component of the Democratic base, but they’re now flocking to Trump, a trend that could threaten Harris’s race for the White House. This fact has prompted a wave of podcast appearances from both candidates: most recently Trump on The Joe Rogan Experience, while Harris continues to negotiate terms for a potential appearance on the show in the final week of the election.


is UnHerd’s US correspondent.

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Catherine Conroy
Catherine Conroy
3 hours ago

Porn for young white men and decriminilised weed for young white men.
How insulting is that?

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
2 hours ago

It will act as a driver for more scholarly, journalistic articles in cerebral magazines such as vox asking “where have all the decent men gone?” I suspect the conclusion will be some way departed from this particular policy.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
1 hour ago

Let’s see: easy access porn for aimless young white guys and easy access weed for aimless young black guys. What an uplifting campaign.

Abiel Tsegai
Abiel Tsegai
3 hours ago

I don’t understand why porn is permitted in the first place. If a person goes out in public naked, he is fined for lewdness/indecent exposure. And certainly, prostitution is considered illegal because many of us in society see the harmful effects of having an intersection of money and sex. And pornography is nothing more than lewdness, indecent public exposure, and prostitution– all broadcast through camera into our American households. And worst, there is no way to prevent children in the school from having direct access to it on their phones. Porn should be banned, or it is fair to say that it will be a major part of the decline of Western Civilization.

Peter Spurrier
Peter Spurrier
25 minutes ago
Reply to  Abiel Tsegai

Some of us support the principle of freedom. I guess you don’t.

Brett H
Brett H
1 hour ago

The 10-second adstell viewers that Trump and J.D. Vance will ban porn, and warn that their state could be next.
The Democrats really do have a low opinion of Americans. They think this is the way to reach the minds of young American males, that all they care about is access to porn.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 hour ago

Anyone voting Democrat needs to have their hard drive checked. These paedople really have lost the plot.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 hour ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

An exercise in flagging hard drives, perhaps?

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
3 hours ago

Darkness.

Carissa Pavlica
Carissa Pavlica
1 hour ago

And they call Trump supporters garbage. Porn is the root of human trafficking. If women think it’s liberating, it’s only because men’s lewd behavior is still praised at their expense. Porn offers nothing of value to society as it strips away the ability for many to find and maintain loving relationships. Those relationships are the foundation of our society, not men hiding in their basements pleasuring themselves.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 hour ago

Banning free speech is not a problem for Dems, but banning porn is a bridge too far.

Stuart Bennett
Stuart Bennett
1 hour ago

They’re so full of sh*t. They think no one can see their barren souls.

Lennon Ó Náraigh
Lennon Ó Náraigh
1 hour ago

Desperation.

Arthur G
Arthur G
45 minutes ago

Trump should run an ad saying “The Dems want you to live in your Mom’s basement, watching porn and smoking weed. I want you to go out, get a job, find a girl and get some. Who’s on your side?”

Martin Layfield
Martin Layfield
38 minutes ago

Who would have guessed Tim Walz is a perv?

Last edited 37 minutes ago by Martin Layfield
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 hour ago

Maybe Kamala is thinking of an alternative career when she losses the Presidential election

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
1 hour ago

I’m sure there’s masochists out there who’d pay good money to be talked at by her.

Chris Whybrow
Chris Whybrow
1 hour ago

A lot of young men, including those who actively consume porn, hate it and resent its influence. I don’t know if this is exactly a winning strategy.