United States obscenity law  

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US courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects "indecent" pornography from regulation, but not "obscene" pornography. People convicted of distributing obscene pornography face long prison terms and asset forfeiture.

The differentiation between indecent and obscene material, however, is a particularly difficult one, and a contentious First Amendment issue that has not fully been settled. Similarly, the level of offense (if any) generated by a profane word or phrase depends on region, context, and audience.

The first American moral crusader was Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector and iconic figure in the history of American censorship. He was dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.

There have been two recent cases of obscenity trials in the American arts world: The Perfect Moment exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe and the lesser known Mike Diana case.

Contents

Late 18th century

1960s

1990s

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "United States obscenity law" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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