Elder Porn?

Eugene Volokh has a post over at VC about an interesting development in Massachusetts, where a law has been proposed that would make it a crime to, among other things, produce pornography using folks over 60 years of age:

The law is not limited to people who are mentally handicapped and thus unable to consent, or who are photographed against their will by their caretakers (the justification discussed in this story). The operative provisions cover people over 60 and the disabled whether or not they are incompetent. One provision, relating to people's being "deemed incapable of consenting," would cover only "an elder or a person with a disability adjudicated as incompetent by a court of the commonwealth," but I don't see how this would stop liability under the other provisions, since consent is no defense under the other provisions in any event.

As Eugene points out, the law would essentially treat this stuff like child porn, i.e., very severely.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of protecting folks who can't consent or are otherwise disabled from being exploited. But what's the deal with the blanket age restrictions? I've got no desire to check out a bunch of nekkid grandparents, but surely somebody does.

Assuming a bunch of 60+ fully consenting geezers want to provide them with material, why should the state step in to "protect" them? Isn't it incredibly ageist to assume that just because someone was born before 1949 they can't protect themselves from being exploited? Not to mention, it seems to reinforce the notion so central to our culture that "youth=sexy," which exacerbate the kiddy porn issue.

Really, is there a need here?