More young men are expressing support for stricter limits on online adult content, according to a new survey by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life.
Six in 10 young men now say they would support policies making it tougher to access adult films on the web.
Back in 2013, young men were split down the middle on whether online porn should be harder to get.
Overall, nearly 70% of Americans say they favor tougher laws, up slightly from 65% in 2013.
Fewer than 1 in three Americans explicitly oppose such restrictions, per AEI.
The new findings come from interviews with more than 6,000 adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia conducted online and by phone between March 10 and March 28.
Back in 2015, 76% of men ages 18 to 30 said they viewed adult content at least once a month, according to the Journal of Sex Research.
Recent views on the adult film issue differ sharply by age, per AEI’s findings. Nearly two-thirds of men under 25 back restrictions, as do an even greater share of men ages 65 and older.
This Gen Z shift in perspective may be a result of fatigue, according to some researchers studying adult film use. A recent piece in The New Yorker notes that “nearly three-quarters of young Americans have watched explicit material by their 18th birthday” and that Gen Zers are encountering it earlier than any other generation.
Older generations of men (between ages 25 and 54) are less supportive of these measures — just under half favor new barriers to access, AEI reports.
But the new survey results are in keeping with another recent finding on Gen Z from the American Enterprise Institute: Young men overall are becoming more conservative and religious as young women drift leftward.
Recent surveys show that men in the youngest cohort (especially those born post‑2000) are increasingly attending church, now rivaling or surpassing women in weekly participation.
And among adults born around 2000, the oldest Gen Z cohort, 25% of men attend religious services weekly compared with 23% of women.
In May, Utah Sen. Mike Lee reintroduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act, which would dramatically broaden the definition of “obscenity” and could criminalize much online sexual content. It hasn’t yet seen a committee hearing or received a vote in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court upheld Texas’ age-verification law in June, clearing the way for states like Kansas and Missouri to enforce similar requirements for adult websites.
One-third of U.S. states now have age-restriction laws in place as more legislatures pursue tighter controls on access to explicit material.
