Adult DVDs are back thanks to age-verification laws

When new technology emerges, pornography soon follows. From VHS tapes to VR, the adult industry has long been an early adopter of innovative ways to watch and get off.

But now, viewers are turning to a format once thought obsolete: DVDs. 

“In our retail locations in South Dakota, we went up probably 20, 22 percent this year over the last year on DVD sales,” said David Eliason, owner of three adult stores in the state: Dick & Jane’s Naughty Spot, which has locations in Sturgis and Rapid City, and Bonnie & Clyde’s Adult Supercenter in Rapid City. “There’s really no other explanation other than [that] South Dakota passed an age verification bill.”

Eliason told Mashable that other stores had previously started eliminating DVD sales altogether due to the availability of free and paid streaming content. But this might be changing with the surge of age-verification laws, which typically require personal data, be it credit card information, an ID upload, and/or a face scan, to view explicit content (or simply content deemed harmful to minors or otherwise restricted to adults). 

Age verification laws have taken effect in half of U.S. states and countries like the UK, France, and Italy. Similar technology is used to enforce social media bans for children, such as the one in Australia. (Other markets have announced similar social media bans, like the EU and UK.)

Many people do not comply, such as by using virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their real location. Others are going back to physical media.

Rejecting streaming, embracing DVD

“We’ve seen a bump in DVD orders from the states that are enforcing online AV laws,” Lewis Adams, director of sales at Pulse Distribution, told Mashable over email. Pulse Distribution is a domestic and international distributor for porn films in home video, broadcast, internet, and wireless platforms. It handles 90 percent of adult studios, including the well-known Brazzers and Reality Kings, according to Adams. 

Pulse sells to wholesalers, who in turn sell to retail stores and the general public. Since Pulse doesn’t sell directly to consumers, its operation hasn’t changed due to laws, but Adams said he’s seen how DVD sales are shifting in the industry. The biggest impact of the laws has been an increase in DVD sales where they’re enforced, such as in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. 

“We all know that everything you watch online is tracked,” he told Mashable. While he doesn’t think this will lead to a full-blown revival of DVDs, he believes DVD sales will continue for a long time. 

“I’ve been hearing consumers threaten to return to physical media since the laws first started passing, and it’s interesting to hear retailers clock it in the sales data,” Mike Stabile, director of public policy at adult industry trade organization, the Free Speech Coalition, told Mashable over email. 

“It’s hard to express what a monumental failure these online age-verification laws have been,” Stabile continued. “There has been almost no consumer compliance. People have shifted to foreign sites and pirate sites, they’re trading porn on Discord and Telegram, they’re using VPNs.”

VPN use in the UK increased twofold after the enactment of the Online Safety Act, the UK’s age-verification law. A recent report from the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, stated that many porn sites don’t have age checks a year into enforcement, and minors are able to find them via search.

Initial studies from 2025 showed that age verification doesn’t work to keep minors off these sites. A June 2026 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research also found that viewers visit noncompliant sites or circumvent the laws using VPNs. The paper found that time spent on adult sites fell by around 10 percent. 

“I’m pretty excited about it, actually, because what we watch is none of the government’s business.”

On the resurgence of physical media, sexuality specialist Kim Airs said, “I’m pretty excited about it, actually, because what we watch is none of the government’s business.” Airs is a former adult store owner and has been in the adult industry for 32 years.

Adams also mentioned the importance of privacy and anonymity for a large population. “There is something to be said for the person who wants to walk into a store, pay cash for a DVD, and watch it whenever they want, and it’s no business of anyone else,” he said. “I support that person.”

A better solution?

Airs doesn’t think OnlyFans creators will suddenly start selling DVDs. (The platform requires a credit or debit card, which is a kind of age verification because you must be 18 and over to obtain one.) 

Still, she said, “I’m actually excited because DVDs aren’t dead” — though not for the reason why.

“I’ve lived long enough to know the Meese Commission,” she said, referring to a task force that investigated the porn industry during the Reagan administration, helmed by then-attorney general Edwin Meese. The nearly 2,000-page Meese Report, released by the Meese Commission in 1986, concluded that porn was a net negative for society (despite little empirical evidence) and led to a judicial crackdown on the industry throughout the rest of Reagan’s time as president. 

“I won’t say [it] wrecked our industry, but it impacted our industry significantly,” Airs continued. “I kind of fear a lot of that coming back because of these restrictions, and [these laws are] so haphazard, and it’s not only haphazard in the U.S., it’s hitting globally.”

And those within the adult industry have long-discussed a different solution: Device-level filters. This can look like an operating system (say, iOS or Android) requesting a birthday when onboarding a user onto a device, and that device creating an age-bracket signal. If the user is a minor, the device can block inappropriate apps or web content.

Free speech experts have long advocated for device-level filters as the least intrusive way to ensure someone is of age. And companies have begun advocating for this, as well. Pornhub has sent letters to Google, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as U.S. lawmakers, urging them to either implement these types of filters or require operating systems to do so.

“No one wants to scan their face to masturbate.”

“There’s no reason that those devices you know couldn’t very easily send out a signal that says, ‘Hey, this phone belongs to somebody who’s of proper age,’ and allow that person to continue on to whatever content they so choose,” Eliason said. “And if they’re underage, it would stop them from going to such content.”

But as the current age-verification laws stand, people will try and be able to evade them. The return to DVD is yet another way in which consumers are evading the law, Stabile said. “No one wants to scan their face to masturbate.”