By late August, Kamala Harris faced significant challenges with male voters, particularly young men, jeopardizing the election. The Washington Post noted Trump’s targeted outreach to this group through podcasts, sports appearances, and digital ads, further widening the gender gap. Simultaneously, Trump allies circulated Project 2025, a plan advocating the criminalization of pornography, including imprisonment for performers and distributors.
Artists United for Change launched a campaign to expose their plan and reframe the narrative around civil liberties and personal privacy with male audiences. According to the Survey Center on American Life, young men are the largest consumers of online porn—44% of men aged 18–29 and 57% of those aged 30–49 viewed porn in the past month. Pornstars were enlisted to debunk Project 2025’s claims, such as allegations that pornography causes gender identity changes or exploits women.
Modern adult entertainers manage massive followings across social media, podcasts, vlogs, and subscription platforms. Their authenticity was crucial—none were paid, ensuring the campaign’s credibility. Each took significant financial and professional risks, as participation could alienate paying subscribers or lead to shadow bans and account removals.
Nonetheless, the stigma around sex work required rigorous fact-checking to build trust with funders, industry leaders, and fans. Restricted by platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, and even Pornhub, the campaign relied on earned media, influencer marketing, and word-of-mouth.
The campaign’s hub, HandsOffMyPorn.com, featured bold design, educational facts, personal testimonials, voter registration tools, and social media assets. Endorsed by over 50 award-winning pornstars, it redefined issue advocacy and sparked critical conversations.
Artists United for Change faced a significant challenge in gaining market saturation or media coverage, trying to expose an unknown issue in the shortened 2024 election timeline. The team knew something bold needed to be done to change the conversation with male voters. So, Artists United for Change partnered with adult entertainment industry leaders to build a uniquely shocking campaign that provided credible fact-based issue education and truly credible messengers. This new partnership included creating a memorable branded website, astonishing facts, credible voices, and perfect launch timing to avoid getting buried in the overly cluttered political media landscape.
Seventeen of the nation’s most critically acclaimed adult entertainers led the charge and launched the effort. These adult industry leaders would become true ambassadors of the campaign. Siri Dahl, Brittney Andrews (Performer of the Year), Holly Randall (AVN Hall of Fame), Siouxsie Q, Michael Vega, Allie Awesome, and Derek Kage (Performer of the Year) all created personalized direct-to-camera videos on how Project 2025 threatened their industry.
The team chose to launch the first week of October when lower-turnout voters began paying attention. Within 48 hours of launching HandsOffMyPorn.com, the campaign garnered widespread attention, with mentions in The New York Times, Business Insider, MSNBC, and The Daily Beast. Rachel Maddow praised the effort, and The Daily Show featured it.
This momentum spurred participation from additional industry leaders, including Casey Calvert, Freya Parker, Abigail Mac, and Hazel Grace. Within a month, the campaign organized over 50 award-winning voices to join the effort and speak to their fans. Together, they reached 17 million Instagram followers and millions more across other platforms.
Even though the campaign’s content was often wrongfully blocked and shadow-banned, our message was getting through in the press and through word-of-mouth. We engaged on online forums like Reddit to drive traffic to the campaign’s website, where users could learn more, register to vote, and share the initiative.
As momentum grew and funding was raised, the campaign expanded paid pre-roll placements to saturate unconventional spaces like adult content, gaming, and sports websites in the seven battleground states. We even raised additional funds for premium placements on high-traffic platforms like Barstool Sports, Sports Illustrated, FS1, and several popular gaming sites. Many of these sites had never run political ads, helping the campaign achieve higher-than-expected video completion rates of 68–75%
We took advantage of local and national press opportunities as well as successfully placed an op-ed from one of the industry leaders in Playboy. Our well-designed banner ads and animated GIFs were quickly spread via OnlyFans and other adult platforms.
These influential leaders truly embodied the spirit of this campaign. Several took on the additional time and effort to distribute the campaign’s stickers at impromptu issue education and voter registration events at strip clubs and erotica stores in key states. While political campaigns often overlooked these venues, they were perfect for get-out-the-vote efforts because they required everyone to be over the legal voting age to enter.
The campaign exposed and redefined a little-known issue by combining savvy public relations, smart micro-targeting, bold branding, and credible influencers.
Overcoming significant social media challenges and being blocked from buying ads on META, Google, Twitter, TikTok, and even Pornhub, Adult industry leaders became the true campaign ambassadors, engaging fans through comments, direct messages, and even courageously campaigns at offline events in key states.
These industry leaders told their stories and reclaimed their agency as successful business owners to combat the myths that they were forced into the industry. Reporters even confronted Trump’s team specifically about HandsOffMyPorn.com. Conservative groups scrambled to respond; even progressive groups who once dismissed the campaign rallied around the issue.
By The Numbers:
Press Highlights: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Show, The Rachel Maddow Show, Daily Beast, Business Insider, Mashable, The Nation, Crooked Media, Adult Video News (AVN), TMZ, Mediaite, and swing-state local news like FOX 2 Detroit, and more.
