Clean thoughts and dirty minds: The politics of porn

Various justifications are given for regulating sexually explicit material, including that it causes social harm by eroding behavioral norms or violat ing basic civil rights. Theories of morality politics and policy, however, suggest that regulation of sexually explicit material is driven by attempts to redistribute values, i.e.. by groups who seek to use the coercive power of the stare to impose their moral codes on others. The analysis here test s for relationships predicted by morality policy theory and generally finds patterns consistent with the argument that policing pornography is driven primarily by attempts at value redistribution.