Porn as a Human Right

October 18, 2023

Michael McGrady, a journalist and commentator focused on the online porn business, is self-aware; he jokingly writes from the “let-your-freak-flag-fly” department. But he is serious in his argument that, put simply, accessing “consensually created and distributed online pornography is a human right.”

Though framing porn as a human right can appear comical to some and radical to others, to McGrady, it’s a matter of fact. Firstly, porn is a protected form of sexual expression between two or more adults. But secondly and critically, porn is a part of a vast amount of content online that we should have the right to access.

The Woodhull Freedom Foundation’s General Counsel, Lawrence G. Walters, has written extensively on this issue, including for the National Coalition Against Censorship. Walters argues that this right to access porn is a constitutional right. Under the First Amendment and the Right of Privacy, we “indisputably” have the right to view or possess pornography.

The debate about porn, Damon Root comments, “is always a debate about free speech.” We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation fight daily against infringements upon our free speech rights, including censorship of sexual expression. We firmly believe that an internet that censors adult entertainment is not a free internet.