2013-10-11
Explanation
This comic tackles the logic behind age-based restrictions on pornography. In the first panel, a character asks "Why do we restrict pornography consumption based on age?" Another character explains the standard reasoning: the idea is that a person with enough life experience (i.e., someone old enough) is presumed to be able to handle the things that are exaggerated in those films. The first character responds enthusiastically, "That's genius!" and proposes: "We need a law based on personal experience!"
In the final panel, we see the logical consequence of this proposal in action. A young person is at what appears to be a movie theater or video store, and a clerk says "Kid, you can't watch this. You're 12." The kid responds with something like "My mother and her friends used to watch these in the backyard in front of my eyes," essentially arguing that they already have real-world experience with the content and therefore should be allowed to view it. The clerk's response, "Enjoy Assblasters 12, sir," shows that the kid's argument has been accepted under this new "personal experience" standard -- a hilariously absurd outcome.
The votey shows a kid thinking "So worth it," pleased with having successfully argued their way into watching adult content. The comic satirizes the somewhat arbitrary nature of age-based content restrictions by taking the underlying logic (maturity and experience determine readiness) to its absurd extreme. If the law were truly based on personal experience rather than age, it would create a system where children could argue their way around any restriction -- showing why simple age cutoffs, while imperfect, exist as practical bright-line rules.