The stunning acquittal of Sean “Diddy” Combs on the most serious counts of sex trafficking and racketeering surprised many, but not experienced federal prosecutors. Instead, he was merely convicted on two counts of violating the archaic 1910 Mann Act for transporting persons across state lines for purposes of sex work. The jury’s refusal to buy […]
Supreme court upholds mandatory ID for porn websites
In a 6-3 ruling written by Justice Clarence Thomas (Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring cumbersome age verification mechanisms to enter sexually explicit websites, effectively jettisoning the 2004 precedent of Ashcroft v. ACLU. Critics have expressed concern that the real purpose of the Texas law is to […]
Death penalty for sex crimes
Florida prosecutors announce that they are seeking the death penalty against an African-American child sex offender who had been punished for an earlier sex offense and was then found to have molested his girlfriend’s two daughters over a long period. A 2023 law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis makes this possible. A number of state […]
Federal prosecution of a female sexual empowerment business and commune
We’ve been following the OneTaste saga here at HARD COPY, and it’s been quite a trip, with the most recent chapter culminating in convictions of one of the company’s co-founders and a former head of sales on forced labor charges. OneTaste was founded in 2004 and is in the business of sexual mindfulness, with a […]
Child porn without children?
Can child porn be a crime when it involves no actual children? A Danish appellate court has so ruled in sentencing AI artist Barry Coty to 18 months’ in prison. Denmark used to be famous as a place where even real child pornography was legal, during which time sex offense rates actually went down. Outlawing […]
Will society turn on same-sex marriage equality?
Despite having lost 3.6 million members over the past two decades, the Southern Baptist Convention is both the world’s largest Baptist and Protestant organization, as well as the second-largest Christian body in the United States. Thus it matters that within their list of resolutions that they recently passed at their 2025 annual meeting is one […]
A slippery slope for sex and censorship
In this rather astonishing story an Australian female author was charged with child pornography for having written a fictional novel about an 18-year old woman’s relationship with a man who has fantasized about her since she was a toddler. The defendant has pleaded not guilty to possessing, disseminating, and producing child abuse material. The case […]
The courts are showing no love for My Inner Baby
Can role playing and infantile regression be sexual without involving sex? The Indiana Court of Appeals so ruled in upholding a lower court’s preliminary injunction closing My Inner Baby in Noblesville, IN, on the grounds that it constituted a “sex shop” in an industrial area not zoned for sex shops. The store, which does most […]
Lawmakers in conservative states continue to target same-sex marriage
In his article for Mississippi Free Press, Paul M. Collins Jr., Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, summarizes recent efforts in multiple states to pass legislation aiming to upend same-sex marriage rights. Although 70% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage, Republican lawmakers are taking advantage of the political […]
Queer characters in children’s books causing alarm for some parents
The Supreme Court is hearing a case that centers around elementary school curriculum, who gets to curate it, and queer visibility. The case is about how the Montgomery County school board in Maryland greenlit the use of five storybooks that contain LGBTQ+ characters, to which some parents objected, citing conflicts with their religious beliefs. Oh […]