Posted by panchmaster from pool0564.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.212.54) on Friday, October 18, 2002 at 10:27PM :
In Reply to: Obscenity posted by Jeff from ? (198.111.39.126) on Friday, October 18, 2002 at 12:28PM :
The definition of obscenity was largely confused until the Supreme Court laid out a new standard in the 1973 case Miller v. California.
+++Okay
The test has three parts and all three parts must be satisfied. The parts are laid out by Akdeniz (1996) as follows:
+++That means the person suing you has to prove EACH part to get a conviction...right? Two...or one...wont do.
1: the average person using contemporary moral standards finds the work as a whole appeals to the prurient interest
+++This seems to cover literary efforts...not just calling someone a prick. If I call someone a "cocksucker"...does that appeal to anyone's purient sense of anything...does it excite or titilate? And if the person does suck cocks...do I defame them by telling the truth about them? "Ms Beijing, can you tell the court please if you...you know". Who would want to answer that question? Does titilate titilate?
2: the work depicts or describes an offensive sexual conduct specifically defined by state law.
+++Didn't describe any such thing.
+++Can't see where I did that. Had I written a story about...ahem, someone...that had obscene things in it...maybe that would fit...but what if it didn't titilate? What if was dull and uninteresting? I mean judging by Lincoln's usual behavior...I'd say things were pretty dull in San Hose.
3: the work lacks, on a whole, serious literary artistic political or scientific value.
+++Well there I am as guilty as hell...there wasn't anything literary or scientific...maybe political, but that's all.
+++One out of three ain't bad.
-- panchmaster
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