What's p*rn? And what isn't.
An important distinction inspired by current events
Hey horny readers! This week’s newsletter includes information about politics in the United States, but don’t worry, I also watched some terrible p*rn for the sake of research.
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Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
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Last week, a friend sent me a Grease p*rn parody that’s a little over ten years old, but was trending because it found a new social media life. It’s a lot like the original movie and they even kept the plot (it’s so much plot for p*rn!). The title song “Grease” is obviously about lube, as it should be. As Riley Reid (playing the role of Sandy) was singing her heart out, I couldn’t help but wonder…is this even p*rn?
P*rn is subjective, right? It’s notoriously hard to define. As the late Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said in an opinion on a 1964 p*rnography case, “I know it when I see it.” In many photos of him, he looked like he was seeing it, and knowing it.
The lack of definition doesn’t really matter in everyday life, but it could if p*rn were ever banned and criminalized in the United States. That’s exactly what the authors of Project 2025 are calling for. If you haven’t heard or read about it yet, Project 2025 is an initiative organized by the Heritage Foundation, a place where no orgasms have occurred. Some of their most talked-about positions include dismantling the Department of Homeland Security, scrapping the Department of Education, ending free preschool, extreme abortion restrictions, mass deportations, privatizing weather forecasts, and so much more. According to the initiative, p*rn should be banned, p*rn producers and distributors should be sent to prison, and tech companies that circulate it should be shut down.
Right wing anti-p*rn sentiments are nothing new and they’re popular internet fodder, which I wrote about almost a year ago (read a whole breakdown of the anti-🌽 movement here). There are different factions of that movement too—from Conservative tiktok stars who think that watching sex scenes in movies is cheating; “No Nut November” which started in 2010 and is like Seinfeld’s “The Contest,” but aggro; all the way to hate groups that claim that p*rnography is a Jewish conspiracy.
Well, there’s a Project 2025 twist and that’s their description of what p*rn is:
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology … 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. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
In short, this isn’t about the step-sibling scenes trending on p*rnhub. These are books that might be found in a school library. Anything that features non-normative gender expression or recognizes the existence of trans people would be criminalized. Still, it’s broad. Would "transgender ideology" include the idea that people can be transgender, or just books about it? Does this include books, films, newsletters like this one? It’s unclear.
This seems like an extreme plan that could never happen, but Florida’s school book bans have operated under a similar tactic. I know, it’s fucking Florida where gators on bath salts eat entire people, but it’s still a state and people I love live there. Florida law requires schools to pull books if a resident alleges they contain “sexual” content. This tactic has allowed a small group of parents to wield enormous power and ban the books that they deem unfit. Somehow, these books have included The Librarian of Auschwitz, Schindler’s List, and two books about Anne Frank.
So that leaves me with two important questions:
Should we be scared? Recently, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, but the Heritage Project brags that “the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance last time. It’s a plan, there’s no reason to panic, just important information to have when you vote in November.
Is the Grease XXX actually p*rn? Oh yes, it really is.
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