Obscenity

The definition of obscenity differs from culture to culture, between communities within a single culture, and also between individuals within those communities. Many cultures have produced laws to define what is considered to be obscene, and censorship is often used to try to suppress or control materials that are obscene under these definitions, usually including, but not limited to pornographic material. Because the concept of obscenity is often ill-defined, it can be used as a political tool to try to restrict freedom of expression. Thus, the definition of obscenity can be a civil liberties issue.

The United States has constitutional protection for freedom of speech, which was not designed to protect every utterance, and the Supreme Court has ruled that this protection does not extend to obscenity as currently defined by the Miller test. In U.S. legal texts, the term "obscenity" now always refers to this "Miller-test-obscenity". Previously various other standards have been used:

• Hicklin test: the effect of isolated passages upon the most susceptible persons.

• Wepplo: If material has a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt its readers by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desires.
• Roth Standard: All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion - have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests. Roth v. United States 354 U.S. 476 (1957) - overturned by Miller
• Jacobellis: "community standards" applicable to an obscenity are national, not local standards. Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 US 184 (1964) - famous quote: I know it when I see it (re: hardcore pornography) and this is not it.
• Roth-Memoirs Test: a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value. 383 U.S. 413 (1966)

Under FCC rules and federal law, radio stations and over-the-air television channels cannot air obscene material at any time and cannot air indecent material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.: language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities (indecency is not as bad as obscenity).

The etymology of obscenity and its parent adjective obscene, is not known, but is thought to have come from a primitive Latin word meaning "filth, foulness". Despite its long formal and informal use with a sexual connotation, the word still retains the meanings of "inspiring disgust" and even "inauspicious; ill-omened", as in such uses as "obscene profits", "the obscenity of war", and the like.

Many historically important works have been described as obscene, or prosecuted under obscenity laws. For example, the works of Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and the Marquis de Sade.

See also: Blasphemy, censorship, obscene telephone call, Obscene Publications Act, seven dirty words

Referenced By