Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! I’m happy to share the video here, as it continues to (unfortunately!) be a subject of critical importance for Internet freedoms. But if you want to participate in the Lives, ask questions of the guests I bring on, etc., do us both a favor and subscribe now and make sure Reality Studies isn’t getting filtered in your inbox. That way you can join me for my next live video in the app:
Audio versions of this Rapid Response can be found here on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. If you prefer watching videos on YouTube, you can also find the full episode here:
My guest today is Noelle Perdue.
Noelle Perdue is a writer, producer, and Internet porn historian with nearly ten years of experience working platform-side for multiple mainstream and independent adult companies. Having written everything from Food Network porn parodies to legally binding terms and conditions, much of her current work explores obscenity law and how pornography’s history can influence our digital and political futures. Noelle’s writing work has been published on Wired, Washington Post, Pornhub, Slate, Brazzers, Input, etc., she’s also been featured as an industry expert on multiple programs including the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and on Netflix's 2023 documentary Money Shot.
Perhaps most impressively, Noelle is the first-ever third-timer on the Urgent Futures Podcast! She also runs the excellent Porn World with Noelle Perdue newsletter—so pop over there and subscribe for smart takes on spicy topics! This essay is a great companion piece to the episode, charting what makes age verification laws so fraught:
In this Rapid Response episode, we got into all things age verification laws—a wave of legislation spreading across the U.S., Europe, and beyond. These laws, often framed as protecting children online, require platforms to verify a user’s age before allowing access to adult content. But the implementation varies widely: from Louisiana’s driver’s license–based verification to the UK’s repeated attempts at a national age-check system, to France’s ongoing court battles over platform compliance.
Supporters see them as necessary guardrails in an age of ubiquitous digital media, especially with regard to “protecting minors” from “harmful” content. Critics (like Noelle and myself) argue these measures threaten user privacy, create massive data-collection risks, and risk handing governments or private companies unprecedented power over what people can see online.
While this might seem like an isolated issue in the adult industry, it’s anything but; age verification have become a frontline issue in the larger fight over Internet freedoms, online anonymity, and the future of digital rights.
If you dig this episode, I encourage you to check out my past two conversations with Noelle (and while you’re there, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube! It really helps in boost the show in our algorithmically mediated hellscape digital existence).
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CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, William E. Rees, Renée DiResta, and more. Here is another recent episode with critic, critic, educator and theorist Nora N. Khan:
