Pornography

Pornography or obstencenity (which is the legal term), is any material, pictures, films, printed matter, or devices dealing with sexual posses or acts considered indecent by the public. Traditionally, the distribution and sale of pornography has been illegal in most countries. Only in Denmark have all restrictions on pornography been withdrawn (since 1969).

Although Massachusetts had antiobscenty laws in colonial times, federal antipornography legislation in the United States was not passed until1842. Sending such matter through the mails became illegal in 1865. Late in the century enforcement of the laws was vigorous, due largely to the efforts of Anthony Comstock and the Committee for the Suppression of vice. In Great Britain the first antipornography legislation, the Obscene Publication Act, was passed in 1857.

Defining pornography has from the beginning proved to be a complex legal problem because public attitudes change; materials considered pornographic in Victorian society may not be considered remarkable today. Thus the enforcement of the antipornography laws has involved suppression of several works of literature currently regarded as masterpieces, including the novels Ulysses, by James Joyce, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D. H. Lawrence. Several obscenity cases have been brought before the U.S Supreme Court. In Roth v. United States (1957), the Court affirmed for the first time the traditional position that pornography was “not within the area of constitutionally protected speech” and evolved a three part definition of obscenity: matter that appeals to prurient interests, offends current standards, and has no redeeming social value. In 1973 (Miller v. California and four companion cases) the court reversed earlier decisions, ruling that the matter could be left to the discretion of individual states, where “contemporary community standards” were to be applied in judging whether or not material is pornographic. In 1892 the Court upheld a New York statue prohibiting the production and sale of materials depicting children in sexuality explicit situations. Child pornography was thus added to the category of “speech” that is not protected by the 1st Amendment.

The huge increase in the quantity and types of pornography that have become available since the 1960s, however, has left many people uneasy. Although the national Commission on obscenely and Pornography in 1970 could find no link between the consumption of the pornography in 1970 could find no link between the consumption of pornography and antisocial behavior, the depiction of violence directed against women in pornographic material was then comparatively rare.