I'm not a lawyer but I know enough (B.A. in PoliSci, lawyers in family, etc.) to say "it's complicated." First off, there are separate rules for Federal and State purposes, and States or their localities might ban (or have banned) things that were permitted in other states or in interstate commerce.

Summarizing a lot from Wikipedia again, there was a decision in 1957, Roth v. United States which established the test for obscenity being based on "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest." That was both clarified and muddied in 1964's Jacobellis v. Ohio which had four different majority opinions and two different dissenting ones. The 1960s were such confusing times, weren't they?

Anyhow, that was the case where the idea of an obscene work being "utterly without redeeming social importance" came from, which led some pornographers to include or at least to claim that they were making observations about "free love" or the Vietnam War or whatever. Justice Stewart also famously wrote words to the effect that he couldn't define obscenity but "I know it when I see it." I think this is the decision that opened the floodgates. Starting in the 1960s you started to see more erotic movies and such released as "art films" or low-brow comedy or satire, especially European imports. This was also when Russ Myer was getting into the height of his low-budget "sexploitation" films.

By later in the decade mainstream US films were being a lot more blunt about sex ("Valley of the Dolls," "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "Easy Rider," were just a few) and porn was pushing the edges even more. Myer eventually made the satirical musical "Beyond The Valley of the Dolls," a non-sequel that was disavowed by author Jacqueline Susann - she sued him - which was initially rated "X" and years later changed to "NC-17."

1973's Miller v. California set a three-tiered obscenity test "(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

This appears to be the general standard still followed in the US. However, how it's applied and enforced varies a lot depending on people and circumstances. Reagan's Attorney General Edwin Meese had a famous anti-pornography campaign which he announced, if I remember correctly, standing in front of a bare-bosomed female "Spirit of Justice" statue.

I could go on, I tend to write too much, but I need to move to my "real" work with CFS's content and programming, not just indulging my own curiosity and tendency to research things.

~ Bob

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