(DOWNLOAD) "Obscenity Law and Its Consequences in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America." by Columbia Journal of Gender and Law " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Obscenity Law and Its Consequences in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.
- Author : Columbia Journal of Gender and Law
- Release Date : January 01, 2007
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 387 KB
Description
The conventional history of obscenity and pornography in America begins about one hundred thirty years ago with the passage of the Comstock Act in 1873, which banned obscene literature from the mail. (1) A resulting climate of sexual repression prevailed until the middle of the twentieth century, when the United States Supreme Court's decision in Roth v. United States, (2) and later in Miller v. California, (3) loosened restrictions on the sale of sexually explicit material to adults. The standard narrative picks up again in the late twentieth century with the efforts of feminist theorists and activists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin to suppress pornography as a violation of women's civil rights. (4) It ends with present-day controversies over the flood of sexually explicit images on the Internet and panic over child pornography. (5) However, a significant untold history of both sexual representation and obscenity prosecution precedes the usual starting point of this narrative. (6) This early history helps to explain how pornography emerged as a cultural and economic phenomenon in American life. (7) It also offers valuable perspectives on the meaning and function of obscenity law, fundamental issues that continue to bedevil American law and policy. In particular, the legal history offered here illuminates the ways in which obscenity prohibitions often encouraged, rather than suppressed, the growth of an American pornography trade. (8) It also demonstrates the significant role that obscenity law played in shaping commercial and cultural constructions of sexual desire.