I'm firmly in the "porn and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race" camp.
We require actual age verification for tobacco and alcohol. I don't see a reason not to require the same for porn.
That said, I am interested in the most effective ways to keep tobacco, alcohol, and porn out of the hands of minors.
Images of consenting adults is a far cry less offensive and damaging than parables and stories explicitly stating girls should be fed to rape crazed mobs in order to protect "special guests", amoung many other horrors....
Get out of here with that faux feminism bs
LOL.
Kids will do stupid things and test their boundaries - they will drink , smoke weed and have pre marital sex - best to do is that you as a parent have instilled some values and advice how to do it responsibly.
You just walk up and the cashier eyeballs you and if you an obvious minor but then you get a friend that plays sports to buy it - just seem like a silly liability waiver for not getting sued when Timmy DUI's and wipes out somebody.
What country do you have in mind specifically? I live in a non-puritan country (Poland) and we absolutely need to produce the ID.
Anyways, I never had to produce ID when I bought alcohol and cigarettes while I visited Poland.
(short version - puritanism was a movement that orignated on the British Isles, and spread to the US from there. It never ever made it to Poland).
As for the original issue - once it's visibly obvious that you're over 18, nobody asks you to produce your ID. The only exceptions are automated (self-service) tills.
From your link: "Puritanism was never a formally defined religious division within Protestantism, and the term Puritan itself was rarely used after the turn of the 18th century." - that makes it extremely unlikely I meant it literally, don't you think?
As for the original issue - I wasn't over 18 back then and it was very visible.
(Am I following your argument correctly?)
And 2023 has been historically bad.
Mass murderers are mentally unwell and feel isolated from society.
Both of which are correlated to porn abuse.
1. I'm not convinced that it is markedly worse than other harmful content which is now widely available on the internet.
2. I don't think efficacy should be the primary consideration. For instance, mass censorship is rather effective, but clearly unconscionable. I'm not sure if you can make a cure which isn't worse than the disease.