By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A bundle of federal lawsuits in Kansas have been filed on behalf of a 14-year-old Olathe resident alleging owners of online businesses violated a state law mandating steps be taken to prevent minors from accessing pornography lacking scientific, artistic or political value.
The law center of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a conservative anti-pornography organization in Washington, D.C., collaborated with a Hutchinson law firm to file suit on behalf of minor Q.R. and his mother Jane Doe against jerkmate.com, Techpump Solutions’ superporn.com, Titan Websites and chaturbate.com.
In each instance, the lawsuits allege, a company failed to comply with a state law that took effect July 1, 2024, requiring deployment of age verification systems on pornography websites to block consumers under the age of 18.
The court documents asserted Q.R. used one of his mother’s old laptops to access internet pornography from the four companies more than 170 times from August to October 2024.
“Kansas law requires pornography companies to implement reasonable age verification methods, and the companies named in these lawsuits failed to do so,” said Dani Pinter, director of the legal division of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
In January, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a similar lawsuit in Shawnee County District Court against Seattle-based SARJ LLC, which distributed pornography on more than a dozen websites and was purportedly owned by individuals who controlled jerkmate.com.
Kobach asserted in the state court filing that SARJ didn’t make use of age-gating technology that would “protect Kansas children from the negative health consequences that stem from unfettered access to pornography.”
The federal lawsuits filed by Joshua Ruhlmann, a Hutchinson attorney, claimed the website content accessed by Q.R. was harmful because it had a tendency to appeal to a minor’s prurient interest in sex, was offensive to prevailing standards with respect to what was suitable for minors and lacked serious literary, scientific, educational, artistic or political value for a viewer under age 18.
Specifically, one of the federal lawsuits alleged at least one-fourth of jerkmate.com’s webpages viewed during a calendar month included “material containing nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement and/or sadomasochistic abuse.”
That court filing said minors who visited the website were asked to click an “I AGREE” button, which ostensibly verified the user was over the age of 18. That site warned users the company’s content was restricted to consumers reached the age majority in the jurisdiction in which they resided.
“Despite expressly aiming their websites at Kansas citizens, defendants have failed to ensure that jerkmate.com and/or jerkmatelive.com comply with Kansas law which requires pornographic websites to employ age verification measures,” the suit said.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, previously known as Morality in Media, has lobbied against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education and works of art that could be viewed as obscene.
Pinter said the family serving as plaintiffs in the organization’s lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Kansas “deserves every measure of justice.”
“It is unreasonably dangerous for these pornography websites to provide this product which they know is harmful to children, that children are drawn to access, and do access, without employing age verification as required by Kansas law,” she said.
In April 2024, Gov. Laura Kelly allowed the age-verification bill to become law without her signature. It was approved unanimously in the Senate and 92-31 by the House. Kelly said the pornography statute could “end up infringing on constitutional rights” of Kansans and inspire lawsuits against the state.
