Obscenity - Pornography And Obscenity, Pornography, Obscenity, And The Law, The Meese Commission And The Pornography Debate

Obscenity - Pornography And Obscenity

Often used interchangeably, the terms pornography and obscenity in fact have different meanings. Pornography, derived from the Greek for "writing about prostitutes," refers to literature, photographs, or depictions of scenes of sexual behavior that are erotic or lewd and designed to arouse sexual interest. Obscenity, derived from the Greek for "filth," is a more narrowly defined legal term to desc…

Obscenity - Pornography, Obscenity, And The Law

Pornographic and obscene materials have a long history, from the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian sex manual, to depictions on Greek vases, to the celebrated profligacy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill in eighteenth-century England, and the Marquis de Sade's writings in France of the same period. Society's stance regarding pornography is a relativistic one, differing from one culture to the next and fro…

Obscenity - The Meese Commission And The Pornography Debate

The Reagan administration continued its war on pornography by convening in 1985 the Meese Commission to study the effects of pornography on society in general and women in specific. With a budget of $500,000 and over 200 witnesses, the Meese Commission set out to prove the deleterious effects that obscenity has on the body politic. The results of the Final Report concluded that pornography harms t…

Obscenity - Electronic Pornography

Increasingly, with advanced technologies, the delivery of pornography and thus its control has reached new levels of sophistication. In addition to cable television, dial-a-porn companies, and home videos, the growth of the Internet has created an entirely new medium for the dissemination of any message, including pornographic ones. Parent groups and religious groups have banned together to lobby …

Obscenity - The Ongoing Pornography Debate

Obscenity - Further Readings