Explosion Of Porn Since U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Invoked In Balenciaga Ad Campaign

The Court in 2002 sided 6-3 with the adult entertainment industry and rejected parts of The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 as overbroad and vague.

Ed. Note: This story was written on Nov. 28 and reflects other reporting and a visible reference to the defendant in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition in the opinion. However, The New York Times reported Dec. 1 that the document in the Balenciaga ad campaign was U.S. v. Williams and it was displayed in a separate 2022 Balenciaga ad. The Ashcroft decision was central to the Williams case. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a 7-2 majority in Williams that a statute prohibiting the pandering of child pornography did not violate the U.S. Constitution (like the banned sections of the Child Pornography Prevention Act) because offers to engage in illegal transactions are excluded from First Amendment protection.

The U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition was recently featured as a prop in one of the most perverted ad campaigns in modern history.

Balenciaga’s Toy Stories Holiday campaign saw little girls - toddlers - lying or standing atop beds, posing with plush bear bags that were outfitted with bondage / dominance / sadomasochism harnesses.

The Ashcroft decision struck down a ban on virtual child pornography contained in the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996 after ruling it was vague and overbroad. The CPPA prohibited child pornography that “appears to be” or “conveys the impression of” a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. It targeted porn created through computer imaging and porn by adults who appeared to be minors.

The teddy bear purses were constructed with the BDSM paraphernalia and the little girls were hired to hold them, which shows intent.

Silence

In 2002, it would have been unimaginable for a business to feature little girls in the type of ads that Balenciaga, a fashion house based in Spain, ran worldwide without hesitation. Plus, anyone associated with Balenciaga would have felt compelled to immediately distance themselves from the company or face potential ruin.

Times have changed.

Balenciaga “brand ambassador” Kim Kardashian, a lawyer and the billionaire mother of three daughters, tweeted Sunday - a week after the campaign became controversial - that she has not distanced herself from Balenciaga because of its “willingness to accept accountability for something that should have never happened to begin with.” She said she expects the company to take steps to “protect children.” (Presumably Balenciaga can donate money to a charity and everything will be fine.)

Another Balenciaga model, Nicole Kidman, a world famous Australian actress and mother of three daughters, has been silent.

Balenciaga has, improbably, sued the creators of the ad campaign for damages.

Does the failure of Kim Kardashian and Nicole Kidman to drop Balenciaga indicate growing societal acceptance for kiddie porn?

Porn And Harm

Meanwhile, since the Ashcroft decision, porn in the U.S. has more than doubled into a $13+ billion a year industry. It is now pervasive on the internet. Soft porn is a staple on daytime soap operas and prime time streaming media productions.

Enough-Is-Enough, a group that seeks to make the internet safer for children, says children begin consuming hardcore porn at an average age of 11 and four out of five 16-year-olds regularly access porn online. About 80% of porn use occurs in the home.

Unsurprisingly, research shows that porn is harmful. It is associated with psychiatric comorbidities such as anxiety and depression and can lead to addiction and sexual dysfunction.

Overbroad

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 majority concluded the CPPA banned a “significant universe of speech that is neither obscene… not child pornography” and thus violated prior Court precedents.

Three justices disagreed.

Then Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia - all dead now - dissented, stating that it does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech to ban virtual child pornography. They argued child porn is distinguishable from “youthful-adult pornography.”

The majority, which approved the ban, included Justices Thomas, who is still on the court, and retired Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Anthony Kennedy plus the late Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.