Is sending a sexy picture to your boyfriend a crime? This Oklahoma bills says so (unless youâre married)
Did you send a sexy photo to your beau before going to bed last night? Under a proposed Oklahoma law regulating sexual material, exchanging sexual images would be a crime unless you’re married.
Oklahoma Senate Bill 1976 filed by freshman Oklahoma state legislator Sen. Dusty Deevers (R-Elgin), would prohibit consuming or producing sexual content that “lacks serious literary, artistic, educational, political, or scientific purposes or value” in any medium.
This bill is one of a growing number of bills filed in the last few years that target access to sexually explicit material. While Oklahoma is one of a number of states to file bills related to the regulation of pornography, the Oklahoma bill has been called one of the most extreme porn ban bills filed in the 2024 legislative session and a threat to the First Amendment by net neutrality activists.
Bills like these are often filed with the intention of protecting children from being exposed to pornography, but the reality is that such regulations’ effectiveness in achieving this is dubious, explained Kelsy Burke, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska and author of “The Pornography Wars.”
Creating laws to try to “right” our sexual wrongs or “return to a more innocent time” before sexual images were saved for marriage just isn’t practical, said Lisa Lindquist-Dorr, professor of history who teaches on the history of sexuality at the University of Alabama.
Here’s how the Oklahoma bill could change the legality of pornography consumption:
1. Steeper legal consequences for child pornography
Child pornography is illegal in every state, but the bill would create steeper legal consequences for possessing, distributing or producing child pornography, which is any content that depicts a minor engaged in sexual activity or images of a minor intended for sexual gratification, as Oklahoma defines it.
For possession of a single image of child pornography, a person is subject to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 per image, with each image counting as a separate offense, according to current Oklahoma law.
The new bill would make it a crime to possess any pornography, whether or a child or adult, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.
2. No sexting outside of marriage
This proposed bill comes with a very important caveat: if you’re married to the person you have sexual images of, it’s not a crime. The only exception the bill makes for possession or production of pornography is for sexual content exchanged between married couples. Otherwise, it’s a felony.
The bill would change a lot of things about state’s obscenity laws, but the ban on sexting outside of marriage has been the topic of many internet forum conversations, like this post in the r/politics subreddit, where members discuss political election and legislative news, last week.
Commenters on the post were quick to point out the author of the bill was a pastor, and some even placed bets on if Deevers would be caught breaking the law he wrote. Deevers is Baptist pastor who was elected last year to represent a rural district that includes the tiny cities of Comanche (population under 1,400) and Elgin (about 3,700).
“The dipshit doth protest too much, methinks. Always assume this is projection. I wonder how long until he’s caught sexting and looking at porn,” said commenter u/RubyRhod2263, in the top comment on the post.
Another commenter, u/seizurevictim, bet $100 that Deezer “has a porn addiction.” Other commenters made sure to reference reality TV star turned political operative Josh Duggar, who is serving a 12-year sentence for possession of child pornography. Duggar is the first son of the reality TV family that’s the focus of TLC’s “Counting On,” which the network canceled in 2021 because of the child porn case. The family followed conservative Christian beliefs, including not using birth control and requiring their children to court instead of date.
“It is not uncommon for consensual adults, sometimes younger than adults, to share images of themselves with someone that they’re sexually intimate with, regardless of whether they are in a state sanctioned relationship. It seems out of step plus some to make it a felony,” Lindquist-Dorr said.
3. Criminalizing the production of sexual images – even “normal” porn
While the bill lays out extensive rules about sexual material, even any act of sexual intercourse considered “normal or perverted.” The bill doesn’t define the difference between “normal” and “perverted,” casting a wide net over the types of content that will be further controlled by the bill, if it becomes law.
The Oklahoma bill also allows private citizens to fill a civil lawsuit against any person who participates in the production of pornography. The plaintiff would be able to receive statutory damages at the rate $10,000 per pornographic image, according to the bill.
“I see these laws as part of a broader string of laws and resolutions – like resolutions declaring pornography to b e a public health crisis – that are more about value-signaling than actually making concrete and realistic gains to protect children and/or sex workers from exposure to sexual violence. They signal only a long-held disdain for the sex industry,” Burke said in a statement to Reckon.
But wait! There’s more porn bans on the horizon
Oklahoma isn’t the only state taking on pornography this legislative session. Other lawmakers are pushing for bans on AI-generated child pornography and age verification requirements for access to online sexual material.
Lawmakers that are promoting age-verification laws as the solution to the problem are short-sighted in that they haven’t really outlined how compliance is possible without violating other laws that protect people’s privacy online, Burke explained.
“Some critics of age-verification laws say that they may have the unintended consequence of pushing children and teens to sites that lack other safety mechanisms in place,” she said.
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