A history of pornography and politics - EXCELLENT READ!
Politics and the Pornography Wars
William E. Brigman
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This is a great "history" of the political porn wars that have happened from 1967 to 1997 and gives great incite regarding what's to come. What's your opinion on this?
Excerpt:
"The Obscenity Unit, having been fairly successful in attacking mail-order businesses and in discouraging general-interest video distributors from offering pornography by selective prosecution of local vendors, was determined to eradicate production. Thus, they launched "Operation Porn Sweep," which went after the major producers of adult video themselves. In a fifteen-month period ending in August 1991, the Operation resulted in thirty-three search and seizure operations against major producers. 20 To ensure that these companies would not be tried in Los Angeles, where more liberal juries might acquit them, the Unit set up phony video stores in conservative communities in Arkansas, Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Florida, and North Carolina, and ordered tapes from the California companies. The Unit was so confident that it also operated a sting out of Las Vegas.
In its first four years, 1987-91, the Obscenity Unit conducted 1,422 ch*ld-porn investigations, almost double the number from 1980-84. Adult pornography investigations jumped from 81 during 1981-85 to 222 in 1987-91. Part of the increase was due to the expansion of the Section to 13 prosecutors, almost double the number in the earlier period. From 1987-91, the Section obtained 135 convictions, 50 involving mail-order companies. The RICO statute was applied in four of the convictions. 21 However, many observers inside and outside the business suggest that the results were mostly symbolic and did little to curtail the business."
Exerpt:
The nature of the Unit's war can be seen in the types of settlement agreements, or plea bargains, the Unit tried, with some success, to force on its opponents who wished to avoid prosecution. After confronting a distributor, or even a local adult theater, with ruinous multiple prosecutions spread across the United States, the prosecutors would offer a plea bargain under which the company would cease all business involving any sexual materials, regardless of whether or not they could be declared obscene. The plea negotiations with the "Adam & Eve" company (a.k.a. PHE, Inc.) show the Unit at work. The owner was told that in order to avoid prosecution, the company would have to stop selling even "soft porn," including many R-rated videos, Playboy, Penthouse, or even marriage manuals like The Joy of Sex. The Obscenity Unit made it clear that any depictions of nudity also would be prohibited. 14 Adam and Eve sued for an injunction against the Department of Justice. According to attorneys for the defendants, the government attorneys conceded that the materials were protected by the First Amendment, but they made it clear that it did not matter "if the entire congregation of the First Baptist Church of Plains, Georgia would stand and vote that they are not obscene. If they are sexually oriented, that is it." 15 In July 1990, Federal Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that PHE had shown a substantial likelihood that the Unit's conduct "constitute[d] bad faith calculated to suppress [Adam & Eve's] constitutional rights.... When taken as a whole, these allegations suggest a concerted effort by the defendants, through harassment and threats of multiple prosecutions, to suppress plaintiffs' constitutionally protected activities."
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What's your view about this? After reading this full essay it seems that through good times, and bad, the courts end up doing the right thing. What's your take on this?
William E. Brigman teaches law and social science at the University of Houston--Downtown. He has written several articles on pornography and the law, and serves as chair of the Eros, Pornography, and Popular Culture section of the Popular Culture Association.
