DSW Attends Top Adult Content Industry Conference

DSW Director of Communications Ariela Moscowitz, Executive Assistant Maddy Kammeraad-Campbell, and Development Manager Esmé Bengtson attended. They networked with content creators and industry partners and discussed how the decriminalization of sex work would benefit performers and brand leaders in the adult entertainment industry.

The event offered a number of panels on legal issues for content creators, the difference between consensual adult sex work and trafficking, and payment processing in 2023. The event also offered the opportunity to meet with representatives from leading adult entertainment companies like PornHub, Chaturbate, and Fansly. Keynote speeches were presented by Dani Daniels and Siri Dahl.

This legislative session, the adult entertainment industry is facing extreme discrimination from policymakers across the country. In 2022, Louisiana passed a law requiring the use of age verification software on websites that contain a substantial amount of adult content. The purpose of the law was to protect minors from illicit content, but in practice the law endangers users’ private information, fails to protect minors, and places an unconstitutional burden on Americans seeking to exercise their First Amendment rights. Since Louisiana’s law passed, 14 additional states have introduced copycat age verification legislation.

Many laws that proclaim to have safety as their primary goal are thinly veiled attempts to eradicate the adult industry entirely. Pornography is a legalized form of sex work but performers, creators, platforms, and producers still face stigmatization from society, demonization from policymakers, and discrimination from financial institutions. The decriminalization of consensual adult sex work not only benefits criminalized sex workers but also sex workers whose work is legal but who still face undue burdens implemented by legislation and private companies who discriminate against them.