November 18, 2005 | Sex & Society

A portable porn pledge

While in Europe and Asia cell-phone porn has been common for some time, it's been held up in the U.S. due to technological and political constraints. But there are now signs of hope.

The hunt for portable porn might soon get easier thanks to wireless carriers in the United States, who are cautiously and cooperatively opening the door to adult content. Early this month, they, along with the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), unveiled a series of voluntary "Wireless Content Guidelines" designed to help consumers manage and control the content that they download to their wireless gadgets.

Included in the guidelines is a Content Classification Standard that will apply familiar consumer ratings to wireless content. Generally Accessible Carrier Content will be accessible to all consumers while Restricted Carrier Content will require parental permission for subscribers under 18. Carriers that adopt the new guidelines have pledged not to provide restricted content until and unless they have created a system that parents can use to prevent their children from accessing it.

Not surprisingly, the religious right is throwing a fit over the commercial potential for portable porn. On Nov. 9, the same day that the CTIA announced its wireless standards, the National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families co-sponsored an anti-porn summit in Washington, D.C. The subject of the summit? Why, the distribution of pornographic content through handheld wireless devices, of course. Wireless adult content can, the coalition argues, "pose a great threat to our marriages, families, and especially children."

"I guess the telephone and telegraph were threats to marriages in their day, too," First Amendment attorney J.D. Obenberger jokingly told AVN Online, "in that they allowed people to form assignations out of earshot of the home."

• Wireless carriers announce wireless content guidelines [AVN]
• Mini-porn could be mega business [Washington Post]
• Religious right readies war on mobile porn [AVN]