Oklahoma Senate Bill Aims to Outlaw All “Porn”

No Sexy Selfies, No Porn, No Strippers, No Saucy Anything.

Oklahoma Republican freshman Senator Dusty Deevers, who is also a fundamentalist preacher and Christian nationalist, is described by Rolling Stone as someone who believes that the power of the government should be used to “terrorize evildoers” whose behavior is not “in accordance with the will of God.” That includes Oklahomans who do so much as look at an image that shows a butt crack or a woman’s nipple.

Oklahoma Senate Bill 1976 intends to create a new category of prohibited speech to be called “unlawful pornography.” While some might think such a category would cover things related to the ability of those involved to give consent, it doesn’t. Instead, it criminalizes “any visual depiction or individual image stored or contained in any format on any medium including, but not limited to, film, motion picture, videotape, photograph, negative, undeveloped film, slide, photographic product, reproduction of a photographic product, play, or performance” that shows any nudity, partial nudity, sex act, or kink activity. Reason Magazine reports that although the bill specifies that heterosexual married couples will still be allowed to send “images of a sexual nature to each other,” it does not provide the same protections to non-married people.

Like the Texas “abortion bounty law,” enforcement of the bill if it becomes law will depend upon citizens reporting one another to authorities. If found guilty, it would be a felony with up to a $25,000 fine and the risk of up to 20 years in prison, plus paying the accuser’s court costs and attorney fees. The victorious reporter receives a cash reward. If found innocent, there is no recovery of court or attorney fees.

Since SB 1976 would define the purchase, possession, procurement, or viewing of “unlawful pornography” to be a felony, the ability of Oklahoma citizens to subscribe to adult websites or magazines, as well as admire dancers at local strip clubs, visit a dominatrix, or even view art or attend a burlesque show or play that includes anything that might arouse a viewer would likely become illegal. Deevers did not forget the performers, models, photographers, publishers, bookstores, or theaters. If SB 1976 becomes law, anyone who chooses to “act in, pose for, model for, sell, offer for sale, give away, exhibit, publish, offer to publish, or otherwise distribute, display, or exhibit” forbidden content could be found guilty of a misdemeanor, spend up to a year in county jail or pay a fine of at least $2,000.

The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” concluded that porn “has no claim to First Amendment protection,” it should both be outlawed, and “the people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.”

With porn declared a “public health crisis” in 16 states, including South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Utah, and Kentucky, anti-porn bills have been introduced in the past to force carriers to block internet porn unless users pay extra for it, to require age verification to view explicit online content, and to define LGBTQ+ and general sexuality books as pornographic by nature.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about obscenity, “I shall not today attempt to define… But I know it when I see it.” Justices since then have determined that suppressive speech solutions like the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 are “overbroad” and include many valid works of art. Bundled with a ban on child sex abuse materials, which are already illegal, the bill seems more likely to be an attempt at a political statement than an actual change in policy. Introduced in February 2023, passed in the House in March 2023, and passed in the Senate in April 2023, the bill has not yet been signed into law.

Deevers has also introduced bills that would ban all abortion without exception, charge women who have abortions with murder, and repeal no-fault divorce.