America & Pornography

To preface this blog, I would like to get one important point across. Although I abhor pornography in every way, I believe very strongly that it should be protected by the Constitution. This country was founded on freedom, which includes freedom of speech and expression. It is unfair to say that one person's morals should decide what receives Constitutional protection and what doesn't.

However, this doesn't mean I believe in giving free range to obscene material. It is possible to regulate pornography without banning it. There are ways to keep it from popping up while you are innocently browsing the internet. There are ways to keep children from coming across it when they accidentally type in a URL address incorrectly.

In my Mass Media Law class, I researched a case that dealt with the definition of obscenity as defined by the Supreme Court. In Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), a man named Marvin Miller mass distributed pamphlets advertising 4 erotic books and 1 erotic film. These pamphlets had drawings of people in a variety of sexual positions, with genitals prominently displayed. Some of the pamphlets were sent to a restaruant in Newport Beach, California. The owner of the restaurant and his mother opened the envelope and were offended because they had not requested such material. Miller was charged for violating a California penal code which banned the mailing of obscene material. He appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, which at this point in time had still not agreed on a concrete definition of obscenity. The justices upheld Miller's conviction, and finally agreed upon a test that determined obscenity. The Miller test defines material to be obscene if:

1) An average person, applying contemporary local community standards, finds that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest.
2) The work depicts in a patently offensive way sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law.
3) The work in question lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

While I know some would disagree with me, I find nothing seriously artistic about women being used as objects of sexual pleasure. I feel strongly about this issue and I speak up about it, although I risk being called a prude, feminist, and what have you. I am against pornography not just because I feel it is morally destructive, but I am also against it as a woman. This blog will serve as a way for me to concentrate my efforts and inform people of the destructive nature of pornography.