Seriously, what's the argument for porn being speech and expression? What is the message it's trying to convey?
Edit: Guys, I'm asking if it's speech/expression and, if so, how. Most of the comments in support of it aren't answering the question, just showing their support for free speech and expression, in general. Only one guy has made a case for it, comparing it to car shows and art. And, even though I have reservations about labeling it as art, I appreciate that he's making a case for it and not just side-stepping the issue.
I guess they could argue that some of the more involved porn movies have story? Cue that old joke about reading Playboy for the articles.
Anyway if you're arguing that we should ban it you should really think twice. That would give a government infiltrated by commies the power to control what people watch, and they would probably end up banning the less degenerate stuff for "misogyny" while continuing to allow the usual victim classes to produce the really degenerate shit. Vanilla stuff with the male on top? Banned for objectifying women. Cuckold and tranny shit? It would be very problematic to prevent oppressed ppl from expressing their sexuality. So that stays. Oh and we're going to show it to your kids as well.
Main reason why I am always against this argument to ban porn. One side wants to ban it because it's degenerate, the other because it's my soggy knees when in fact both want to dictate what you should and should not watch.
I am all for making porn difficult to obtain, especially for minors but outright ban will just give this new weapon the next guy in charge a nice little tool to censor even more they deem "problematic". Doubt anyone here thinks the government is ever gonna give back the tools they have gotten.
We can't play morality police and at the same time cry free speech from the rooftop. Since I know it's gonna come up at some point: I would however never advocate for cheese pizza be legalised, children have been exploited, trafficed, abused and murdered for this disgusting filth. There's no argument for free speech or anything else involving that to justify it in my eyes and the left should be ashamed of themselves that they're now in cahoots with those very same child abusers.
To the main point of OP: I think the issue is harder than a yes or no. It really depends on your personal bias and viewpoint. I could argue for or against it but it isn't really my forte to defend or attack porn as free speech/free expression. We'd first need to try to find out what porn you exactly mean because there's tons of different kinds. I could argue hentai could be porn, it however often times can have an interesting story or be a really depraved shitpool. Does that mean I could judge which of those would be free speech?
What about drawn stuff? Artistic expression could 100% be called free speech but even there you might find the truely degenerate stuff(diaper furry shit or something). While I draw myself I would not call all "art" I see art yet some might disagree. It's really up to you which brings me back to it's no easy yes or no, I'd still call it a way to express yourself aka free speech even if that way is crude and not to my liking.
What about real life porn? Real life porn has set designers, the performance(no, the other one) of the actors, some even have storylines(and even if it's only "there's straw on the ground, let's bang"), camera work etc. All this can be to a degree artistic, thus free expression.
Now, what value all this has is an entirely different topic. I did mention it shortly in the art part but a lot of it has rather low value. Might just be the bias in me but I'd value the drawn versions higher than any real life stuff but that's just me. Value should be a main focuspoint when talking about that stuff...just not wether we should ban stuff or now.
Another possibility would be a sketchy politician might use legalizing it as an excuse for people who want/defend porn to vote for them.
A shitton of gender criticals will aggressively defend abortion and may even blindly vote for politicians who will initiate politicide against them in the name of regressive leftism, rather than sucking it up and accepting the dissident right's arguments against abortion abuse.
As for art, it's arbitrary as fuck and extreme lack of quality is usually the qualifying factor as to what isn't art, though when it comes to pornography drawings and animations are always artwork and photography and video do not count 99.99% of the time. Parody law is similar as shitty parodies legally qualify as parody regardless of how bad it is,
It would also give the government the ability to declare more loosely what is porn. And in this new world where land whales grace Calvin Klein billboards any attractive person in underwear could be labeled as porn. See London banning swimsuit and lingerie models on ads. They didn’t claim porn they claimed body positivity. But it was really just a means to an end. Enforce the mayor of Londons religious beliefs on the people of the capital.
you already lost when you have a Muslim foreigner as the mayor, Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place
What qualifies as porn revolves around intent and reality, "know it when I see it" is not enough and does nothing but cause scandals.
Ironically, the best paying and way to get into the business was playboy. They paid well, and made sure to promote you to others. People like Gaiman and King have praised it for getting them into the business and when they wanted to try new ideas.
I can also say I want porn to be taboo for technology reasons. The more taboo, the more they figure out insane tech. This then filters to us as Google or the cloud.
A University I taught at for a year had printers with small hard drives. Someone hacked in and used those hard drives to make a website for porn. I have never seen anyone else use something that method.
I actually moved over to videogame studies because internet studies had way too much porn using tech in innovative ways. The more taboo and dangerous the greater the technological skill. My soul isn't worth finding out how any of that works.
I also doubt that the really illegal stuff isn't easily found and used by the elite types.
So, is it a free speech thing? It can be and I would argue that since elites can use it, so should everyone else. From the point of view of technological advancements and keeping folks safe, I would argue there need to be extra rules for it and people specifically working to stop it.
The government was a lot less "communist" pre-porn. A lot of modern right libs undersell how authoritarian conservatives used to be and how effective it was at, well, conserving things.
They already have that power. They just call the stuff they want to censor "hate" (which means anything opposed to the commie agenda).
There is no way to stop someone from having that power. The question is would you rather the people setting the rules go after porn, or go after "hate"?
That power not existing isn't an option.