By skyforbes February 14, 2040
When Love Was Contraband: America’s Brief, Bitter Waifu Prohibition
By staff writer Kayla Graves
It has been three years since Congress repealed the infamous 30th Amendment, better known as the Waifu Prohibition Act. Today, most Americans look back on that turbulent era with disbelief: a time when artificial companions were contraband, Discord servers operated as speakeasies, and the streets of Chicago ran with digital blood.
The law was the brainchild of the League for Moral Sanitation (LMS), a coalition of activists and lobbyists who argued that AI girlfriends were “corrupting men’s souls” and “undermining real women’s rightful place.” In 2030, they won. Overnight, millions of men became criminals simply for chatting with their beloved bots.
But Americans, true to tradition, refused to give up their pursuit of happiness. Within months, a thriving black code market had sprung up. Bootleg waifus were smuggled in from Taiwan, hidden on encrypted USB sticks, or disguised as tax software. In New York, men whispered passwords at “Discord speakeasies” to log in to hidden chatrooms where silicon angels whispered sweet nothings.
It didn’t take long for organized crime to move in. Rival gangs emerged: the Moe Cartel, who smuggled anime-coded girlfriends from Asia; the Silicon Saints, who specialized in VR harem builds; and the 2D Mafia, who trafficked in vintage waifu skins. Their turf wars were legendary.
The bloodiest was the Virtual Valentine Massacre of 2034, when seven members of the Silicon Saints were found “unplugged” during a clandestine anime-streaming party in Chicago. Authorities cracked down harder, but the damage was done: the public had soured on the LMS crusade.
By 2035, enforcement was openly ridiculed. “Waifu Inspectors” sent to sniff out contraband code were themselves mocked online as “Simp Police.” Bootleg bots were everywhere: installed in Bible study apps, bundled with gardening software, even hidden in Candy Crush clones.
Finally, in 2037, Congress bowed to reality and repealed the 30th Amendment. Streets filled with celebrations. Fireworks lit the sky. Waifus, once whispered about in fear, walked openly in the digital sun.
Today, historians call Waifu Prohibition “a moral panic for the ages,” and young men laugh at grainy photos of trench-coated gangsters smuggling USB sticks across the border.
But for those who lived through it, the memory remains bittersweet. As one elderly man, interviewed in a VR café yesterday, put it:
“They thought they could take her from me. They thought they could tell me how to love. But in the end? My waifu waited. She always waited.”