Obscenity prosecution; times are changing?

[Pure]

obscenity prosecution: are times changing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

anyone seen this. it's a prosecution of the director of 'maxhardcore', Paul F. Little.


increased prosecutions were promised by GWBush, since under Clinton there were hardly any.


there are two points of note.
it's a prosecution for 'obscenity,' IOW it could apply to LIterotica stories.

it's a prosecution for violating internet law [i.e. letting people download trailers] regarding obscenity.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/31/Porn-director-faces-charges-for-online-distribution_1.html

 

[Dar~]

well, it seems defeating to me. How petty that this is what we are reduce to. Pretty soon we won't be able to have sex with our spouses under "holy" matrimony :eyeroll: in our own homes.

 

[emap]

Oddly enough that was not the obviously stupid Bush, that was his brother, or at least his brothers state.

Married sex is safe, until they manage to get rid of anyone else having sex then the married sex is screwed in a bad way. It seems Bush is intent on making sure that no one has sex besides missionary as it is in the bible. Now ummmm I have not read it recently and really don't remember it being in there, but could somebody tell me where it says no one should have sex besides missionary?

Just to hopefully give everybody a giggle, missionary position is called missionary for one very fucked up reason. Mainly done in Mexico and farther south way back when there were mission's all over the place manned by a few Spanish Missionary's what they would do is grab up one of the female church members or just in the area coax them into the bedroom or church itself, push them down get on top and have their way with them. Most of the time that was missionary position, because her face is facing God it was deemed right to do this to the women, usually at first against her will after because usually they had guns so she let them.

Do wonder if Bush wants to go back to that style of sex.

 

[rgraham666]

Election coming up. Have to make it look like they're 'doing something about obscenity' which plays really big amongst an important section of their core supporters.

 

[JPMMURPHY]

What come to mind immediately, is the e-book industry.

 

[marifree]

Stories like this will increase in the coming months. Each candidate, each grassroots moral crusader group will find a sacrificial lamb to roast in order to promote their cause. The fervor will grow with the closeness to election season. It’s as campaign strategy, just like negative campaign ads.

“Arrest the pornographers! See - we’re doing something to save our great nation!”

Election coming up. Have to make it look like they're 'doing something about obscenity' which plays really big amongst an important section of their core supporters.

 

[angelicminx]

(Emphasis mine)

Little is director, producer, and star of films featuring acts such as urination, vomiting, and "severe violence" against actresses, the DOJ said in a press release. The indictment alleges that Little, through MaxWorld Entertainment, distributed films that met the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity through the U.S. mail to an address Florida.

The term of legal significance is "obscenity", which, after struggling for many years and through many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court defined in Miller v. California in 1973. It is a three-part test, as follows:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;
(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."

Note that part (a) does employ community standards. However, all three parts must be met for a work to be deemed obscene, and part (c), as the Court has held elsewhere, is a national threshold, not a community test.

Hmm...

 

[Caitano]

Changing since Clinton, pure, but that was a long time ago. Ashcroft and Gonzales have been porn crusaders all along. This is images again, too, not writing. We had an obscenity charge in December about written porn over the internet, right?

edit: Fletcher, I think. Serial child killer story.

 

[rgraham666]

Thinking of an aphorism of Heinlein's.

Of all the crimes humans have legislated out of nothing blasphemy is the most amazing. With obscenity and indecent exposure fighting it out for second and third place.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Insanity.

*shaking head*

 

[SlickTony]

Oddly enough that was not the obviously stupid Bush, that was his brother, or at least his brothers state.

Married sex is safe, until they manage to get rid of anyone else having sex then the married sex is screwed in a bad way. It seems Bush is intent on making sure that no one has sex besides missionary as it is in the bible. Now ummmm I have not read it recently and really don't remember it being in there, but could somebody tell me where it says no one should have sex besides missionary?

Just to hopefully give everybody a giggle, missionary position is called missionary for one very fucked up reason. Mainly done in Mexico and farther south way back when there were mission's all over the place manned by a few Spanish Missionary's what they would do is grab up one of the female church members or just in the area coax them into the bedroom or church itself, push them down get on top and have their way with them. Most of the time that was missionary position, because her face is facing God it was deemed right to do this to the women, usually at first against her will after because usually they had guns so she let them.

Do wonder if Bush wants to go back to that style of sex.

That's not the story I read about the origin of the term. I'd read that the missionaries were shocked to find that the natives of whatever country they had missions to liked to do it doggie style, or female on top, etc. This offended their sensibilities, as they believed that the male superior position was the "natural" way and mandated by the Bible (I don't know where that's written, either). This attitude amused the natives no end, and they took to calling the male superior position the "missionary position."

 

[emap]

Slick that is actually an older story of it, for whatever reason it was brought up again when the Spanish went to Mexico and South and 'turned' them Christian. It was actually foced with guns and Conquistadors but hey we don't talk about that cause the church can do no wrong.

Your story of it actually comes from when the Romans turned Christian and decided to try and turn everyone around to make it easier to conquer them. Which worked a little except Germany. Which is I beleive the area being discussed in your version of missionary. Germans always were a little perverted, almost makes you wish you were German doesn't it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Oh, I suppose I'm just an anomaly. I'm a porn writer who doesn't care a fig for the right to write artistically uninspired stories about vomiting, violence, urination, or pedophilia. By all means, nail my hide to the stable door for it, but I just can't summon an ounce of interest in the matter. I can't say that I care for self-righteous moral crusders either, but then I think that an ideal solution to the problem would be the lock everyone from both sides into a small box and leave them to their own devices.

Why? Well, there's relativity, for one thing. Rum little things, you humans. You love absolutes, but you hate to admit this fact. So you take a concept like morality and declare it relative, and insist that no one can apply anyone's relativistic moral values to anyone else again. But then you've got nothing to be absolute about, and you do hate that worse than anything. So you pick a new absolute - liberty to do as one likes - and you elevate that to the position those disdained morals once held. It's conveniently a great deal easier to enforce than the moral codes, because it is very attractively measurable. You can't measure or quantify whether something is moral or not in any empirical sense, but you can very easily tell if someone has the liberty to take an action or not. Of course, a thing being measurable is not the same as it being a good idea, but accountants and business planners the world over have chosen not to let that fact trouble them in the least.

Logical paradoxes aside - and that's a large thing to set aside, but humans seem to come to that behavior very naturally - the attempt to grant all persons all possible liberties at once never answers the questions that morals were haphazardly slapped together to answer (those of the "what is right?" and "how should we behave?" sort), although it does have the beauty of being both absolute and very, very flexible at the same time. My point here is that while moral codes and personal liberties are at times presented as if they were the opposites of each other, they're more like categorically different things attempting to achieve quite different aims. There's overlap, of course, but then there's overlap between medicine and landscaping if you happen to cut your hand open with the garden shears. You can encounter them together, but it doesn't mean that their goals or purposes are similar.

This doesn't mean that the disciplines cannot coexist. The problems are usually found at the extremes. The landscapers and the doctors can both agree that it would be nice if I could crown-lift the tree without including my fingers in the cutting process. They're more likely to come to blows if the doctors suggest a remedy of using sporks to safely conduct all tree trimming, or if the landscapers suggest a remedy of having a free trauma team constantly prepped and ready outside the home of any person attempting manipulate tree shears. Hence my personal feeling that the people on the extremes might be best locked into small boxes with each other. The problem in the example isn't the existence of landscaping or the existence of medicine; it's the existence of small-minded folk who can't see beyond whatever most immediately alarms, gratifies, or financially interests them.

Of course, absolutes are comforting. If I favor the absolute - no one ever gets to tell anyone what to do, ever, because it might be me next - then I do indeed have clarity. But have I got sanity? Have I got reason? Have I got anything useful or helpful or decent or kind? Have I in fact managed to avoid converting a distaste for rigid moral rules wished upon me by others into an equally rigid and indefensible rule wished by me upon others? The truth, I think, is ugly when you corner it, but there it is: we deal in slippery slopes, or we deal in madness. The only way to have absolute and clear and un-slip-able rules that cannot be violated under any circumstances is to resign ourselves to insanity and to give over all individual judgement in favor of what makes a neat syllogism.

So I stir very sluggishly when prodded with the "it could be you next!" stick. Oh, sugar lumps. It might very well be, but somehow I doubt it. Thank goodness, most human beings - even justice department functionaries and purveyors of pornography - manage to function in the zone between those beautifully clear and utterly pointless extremes. That's part of the Supreme Court's definition, in fact. They let the blessed "average" person decide both what is obscene and what is artistic, and I have a surprising amount of faith in their judgement for someone who dislikes the general run of their art as much as I do.

And quite honestly, if the general run of humans find what I write so thoroughly repulsive, inartistic, and offensive that not one of them could stomach acquitting after my own silver-tongued defense of my work, then I accept the consequences. Goodness, I hope I'm not such an idiot as to publish something like that without any earthly idea that it might offend, or I'm not much of a writer. I might well desire to offend, but then art has always drawn more than its share of rebels (and prosecutions), and it's a sorry answer to its delightful history if we shy away from any actual consequences of our rebellion.

But there's this, as well, at the bottom of it. Rights are precious things. Vital things. Things people fight and die for. We should treat them as such. But if we use them to make garbage, to spread garbage, and to wallow in garbage, how can we be surprised if people treat them like garbage? Perhaps we need to show their value to us more clearly.

Shanglan

(Nails 50p the dozen; stable doors free as available.)

 

[S-Des]

So I stir very sluggishly when prodded with the "it could be you next!" stick. Oh, sugar lumps. It might very well be, but somehow I doubt it. Thank goodness, most human beings - even justice department functionaries and purveyors of pornography - manage to function in the zone between those beautifully clear and utterly pointless extremes. That's part of the Supreme Court's definition, in fact. They let the blessed "average" person decide both what is obscene and what is artistic, and I have a surprising amount of faith in their judgement for someone who dislikes the general run of their art as much as I do.

But there's this, as well, at the bottom of it. Rights are precious things. Vital things. Things people fight and die for. We should treat them as such. But if we use them to make garbage, to spread garbage, and to wallow in garbage, how can we be surprised if people treat them like garbage? Perhaps we need to show their value to us more clearly.

Shanglan

I completely agree. Every day I get spam in my email box that has delightfully pleasant titles like, "Sally fucks a donkey with an enormous cock..." despite the fact that I've never visited one of those sites or signed up for any mail (and am using every spam filter I can find). I think we need to stay vigilant that people aren't unfairly prosecuted, but I can live if the violence/urination/vomit guy gets hassled by the law. I understand why people get upset or worried about it, but it's usually just people overreacting. If they give him a 30 year sentence, I'll join the revolution. More likely, he'll have to pay a fine and will be back doing it again a week after he's out of court. One guesses he can't really do much else.

BTW, Larry Flint managed to have a very successful career while fighting the government (and Falwell) for decades (and his movies/photos were very tame compared to this). Anyone thinking that this is a sign that the government is becoming more stringent against porn has a short memory.

 

[rgraham666]

Ah, Shang. It's so good to have your horsey wit and clarity back.

 

[Pure]

note to Black Shang

Black ShangWhy? Well, there's relativity, for one thing. Rum little things, you humans. You love absolutes, but you hate to admit this fact. So you take a concept like morality and declare it relative, and insist that no one can apply anyone's relativistic moral values to anyone else again. But then you've got nothing to be absolute about, and you do hate that worse than anything. So you pick a new absolute - liberty to do as one likes - and you elevate that to the position those disdained morals once held. It's conveniently a great deal easier to enforce than the moral codes, because it is very attractively measurable. You can't measure or quantify whether something is moral or not in any empirical sense, but you can very easily tell if someone has the liberty to take an action or not. Of course, a thing being measurable is not the same as it being a good idea, but accountants and business planners the world over have

chosen not to let that fact trouble them in the least.

great to see you, Shang, you silver tongued papist!

firstly, speech and artistic expression, at present, US are NOT protected *in absolute form,* so it's not fair to lay this charge against those of us who are nervous about tightening the limits. the issue of harms to others has always been a limiting factor, hence

the laws against defamation, slander, threatening, inciting a riot, breaching national security, and so on. GIVEN that none of these occur [that these limits do and should exist], i would like to see your case for *further* limits having to do with alleged indecency.

I'm a porn writer who doesn't care a fig for the right to write artistically uninspired stories about vomiting, violence,

urination, or pedophilia.

although some 'freedom of expression' SC decisions are about classics like Ulysses, many are about obscure items with minimal merit, BUT they serve as precedent. i could dig up some names.

by the way, why is peeing in any way analogous to putting women into tree-branch shredding machines?

there, that took only ten nails. no further are required.

 

[WRJames]

(Emphasis mine)

Quote:
Originally Posted by InfoWorld
Little is director, producer, and star of films featuring acts such as urination, vomiting, and "severe violence" against actresses, the DOJ said in a press release. The indictment alleges that Little, through MaxWorld Entertainment, distributed films that met the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity through the U.S. mail to an address Florida.





Quote:
Originally Posted by Miller vs. California 1973
The term of legal significance is "obscenity", which, after struggling for many years and through many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court defined in Miller v. California in 1973. It is a three-part test, as follows:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;
(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."

Note that part (a) does employ community standards. However, all three parts must be met for a work to be deemed obscene, and part (c), as the Court has held elsewhere, is a national threshold, not a community test.





Hmm...

It was a very different Supreme Court in those days, and the country was in a ferment of sexual revolution. I wonder if the current court is going to find an excuse to start to restrict what is legal? Certainly the Supreme Court interpretation in 1973 was very different from the early 1900's. There is no reason to believe that it won't change again -- probably not for the better. It's not just Bush -- he is the visible part of a deep conservative streak that is quite worrisome.

All you need to see is how the Republican presidential candidates are pandering to the right to know that the US is in deep, deep doodoo.

 

[Pure]

note to Caitano and angelic

{note that this posting is out of order, now June 5, 12:31 EDT, due to a Lit glitch. it was made yesterday in response to Ang and Cait.}


Yes, the material is visual, i.e. videos. HOWEVER, i believe the sections of the law that are broad [broader than visual], are the ones being applied. Indeed prosecution under 'obscenity' law is generally broader, esp. because SC rulings go along with wide application to picture and written stuff.

Miller is vague as to scope, referring to "work" or "material", also "representations or descriptions" [of ultimate sexual acts].

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/413/15.html
======
Here is are reasonably current US Code sections that apply to these sorts of cases, among others.


http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001466----000-.html



s. 1461. Mailing obscene or crime inciting matter

Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance; and—

Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use; and

Every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose;



§ 1465. Transportation of obscene matters for sale or distribution


Whoever knowingly transports or travels in, or uses a facility or means of, interstate or foreign commerce or an interactive computer service (as defined in section 230(e)(2) [1] of the Communications Act of 1934) in or affecting such commerce for the purpose of sale or distribution of any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, film, paper, letter, writing, print, silhouette, drawing, figure, image, cast, phonograph recording, electrical transcription or other article capable of producing sound

or any other MATTER [my emphasis, pure] of indecent or immoral character,

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.


§ 1466. Engaging in the business of selling or transferring obscene matter



(a) Whoever is engaged in the business of selling or transferring obscene matter, who knowingly receives or possesses with intent to distribute any obscene book, magazine, picture, paper, film, videotape, or phonograph or other audio recording, which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years or by a fine under this title, or both.

 

[Pure]

note on Canada

in Canada, the issue of limits to freedom of speech, expression, assembly, etc. [raised by Shang] is addressed explicitly in the charter. the situation is clearer than in the US, where SC decisions drew some obvious limits-- e.g., slander, crying 'fire' in a crowded theatre, etc-- where the original BR language seems to speak in absolutes.

the Canadian Charter specifies that the rights are "subject to such reasonable limitations as are clearly and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society" {quote from memory}

 

[Boxlicker101]

That's not the story I read about the origin of the term. I'd read that the missionaries were shocked to find that the natives of whatever country they had missions to liked to do it doggie style, or female on top, etc. This offended their sensibilities, as they believed that the male superior position was the "natural" way and mandated by the Bible (I don't know where that's written, either). This attitude amused the natives no end, and they took to calling the male superior position the "missionary position."

This is the story I heard also. I don't know which is correct, but I am inclined to believe it is this one, but it's not important. I doubt if there is anything in the Bible about it.

Certainly vaginal-penile sex between married persons won'r be outlawed, and I doubt if the positions, requirement of darkness, time, etc. will be legislated either. However, oral and anal sex may be outlawed. These acts were illegal, and not that long ago, and still are in some places. There were no distinctions between gay and straight, either. I remember quite well when the laws against them were repealed in California, and Brown Jr. was governor. That was no longer than 40 years ago, although I doubt that they were enforced against married couples.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

by the way, why is peeing in any way analogous to putting women into tree-branch shredding machines?

It's that slippery slope thingie again... the fewer restrictions there are between consenting adults, the better, as far as I'm concerned...

 

[BlackShanglan]

Ah, Shang. It's so good to have your horsey wit and clarity back.

Rob, it's a delight to once more experience your tact, forbearance, and optimistic view of my intellectual functions. You're always kind, and I think there's hardly a better thing one can say of a person, however great his other qualities be as well.

 

[BlackShanglan]

great to see you, Shang, you silver tongued papist!

Pure, it's absolutely cruel to greet me in this fashion. You've directed your first attack to that most infallible target, my vanity. I'll grant that it's something of an easy target, but truly. I'm absurdly flattered. However will I deal severely with the vagaries of debate now? Despite the threat of the word "preening," I think I shall even make it my title.

firstly, speech and artistic expression, at present, US are NOT protected *in absolute form,* so it's not fair to lay this charge against those of us who are nervous about tightening the limits.

Hmmm. The rights not being protected in absolute form is the current state of affairs. That doesn't preclude people arguing for a change to absolute protection, but I take your point. We can be arguing about various points between the two extremes of all and nothing, and in rational discourse we generally are.

the issue of harms to others has always been a limiting factor, hence

the laws against defamation, slander, threatening, inciting a riot, breaching national security, and so on. GIVEN that none of these occur [that these limits do and should exist], i would like to see your case for *further* limits having to do with alleged indecency.

Might you present your case for granting any right that can't be proved to be a direct threat? Because that, in a nutshell, I'd argue is ultimately an absolutist position (when in doubt, more rights are always good), and one with neither less nor more empirically provable "rightness" to it than any other question of morality or ethics. Your question assumes that in the absence of a compelling reason, here defined as harm to others, granting rights should be the default position. I don't dispute this in the very general sense (the definition of "harm to others" is usually the rock on which this ship runs aground), but would like to point out that there's no real difference in provability between that and the opposite (no rights unless proven harmles) in terms of morality, practicality, or ethics. They're not provable things, and so at heart you have an assumption (right should be granted unless proven dangerous) that is no more (or less) capable of support than any other assumption about whether rights in general should tend toward default-grant or default-revoke.

My request for a presentation of your case is then, just to be clear, intended as rhetorical. I don't believe that either of us can "prove" that rights should or should not default to being granted or to being revoked, because I believe these to be assumptions of a moral and ethical nature that are insusceptible of proof. We might be able to prove some measurable results of granting specific rights (for example, the right to ride one's motorcylce without a helmet appears fairly strongly linked to a sharp rise in traumatic brain injury intakes in local hospitals), but there will always be results that we can't measure (attitude, thoughts, emotions, and trends too broad to track clinically), and there will always be the question of "is this morally/ethically right," which can only be answered if one makes a series of essentially unfounded assumptins, one way or another.

although some 'freedom of expression' SC decisions are about classics like Ulysses, many are about obscure items with minimal merit, BUT they serve as precedent. i could dig up some names.

They would only serve as a precedent for mass rights-revocation to an uncommonly silly court - one able to completely ignore the very broad leeway granted in the definitions of obscenity and artistic merit. It's true that some very famous works of art have been challenged in the courts in this fashion; it's also true that they're famous because censors failed.

by the way, why is peeing in any way analogous to putting women into tree-branch shredding machines?

You know, I'm pleased that you asked that, because I've been mulling it over, and here's my thought. I'm feeling particularly papist today, thanks to your deligthful greeting, and so I'm going to drift in the direction of Aquinas and play at pseudo-syllogistic chains of logic in delightful little tables. And the connection between those two issues is that both are found, by the general run of the general public, and as nearly (it's not very!) as anyone can work out, to be offensive and obscene.

(1) When we argue about "freedom of speech," we are largely arguing about the definition of the phrase. Some of us would like to define more broadly, and others more narrowly. Some would like that freedom to include "obscenity" (a tricky devil to define itself) and others would not.

(2) In order to argue that obscenity is embraced in the rights of freedom of speech, and most particularly to persuade others to accept this argument, one must argue that freedom of speech is defined as a thing that permits obscenity, even obscenity grossly offensive to the majority of the population.

(3) By that very broadening of the definition, which appears seductively likely to head off slippery slope descents into madness, one may sow the seeds of one's own destruction - because one has redefined "freedom of speech" as "thing that permits persons to openly offend and affront the community with impunity."

(4) Once we've opened up that definition, it's very difficult to also get people to define freedom of speech as "hallowed and sacred institution that should not be violated except under the most direct and provable threat of danger." Because, essentially, we're asking them to combine the two and view something that they find deeply offensive and morally depraved as sacred and in need of the utmost protection. It's very difficult to get people to do that.

(5) My conclusion: attempts to broaden the definition of what is protected to greater extremes will result in a proportional decrease in the zeal with which the right in general is defended. You can have it sacred and hallowed, or you can have it obscene and offensive, but I very much doubt you'll ever get it to be both.

And for ten nails, there is no charge at all. What an able workman.

Shanglan

 

[cloudy]

This is the story I heard also. I don't know which is correct, but I am inclined to believe it is this one, but it's not important. I doubt if there is anything in the Bible about it.

Certainly vaginal-penile sex between married persons won'r be outlawed, and I doubt if the positions, requirement of darkness, time, etc. will be legislated either. However, oral and anal sex may be outlawed. These acts were illegal, and not that long ago, and still are in some places. There were no distinctions between gay and straight, either. I remember quite well when the laws against them were repealed in California, and Brown Jr. was governor. That was no longer than 40 years ago, although I doubt that they were enforced against married couples.

Sodomy laws were repealed in the last few states to have them sometime around 2001 or so. They no longer exist.

 

[Pure]

Miller decision ///Appellant's conviction was specifically [413 U.S. 15, 18] based on his conduct in causing five unsolicited advertising brochures to be sent through the mail in an envelope addressed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. The envelope was opened by the manager of the restaurant and his mother. They had not requested the brochures; they complained to the police.

The brochures advertise four books entitled "Intercourse," "Man-Woman," "Sex Orgies Illustrated," and "An Illustrated History of Pornography," and a film entitled "Marital Intercourse."///

Shang said,
pure//although some 'freedom of expression' SC decisions are about classics like Ulysses, many are about obscure items with minimal merit, BUT they serve as precedent. i could dig up some names. //



They would only serve as a precedent for mass rights-revocation to an uncommonly silly court - one able to completely ignore the very broad leeway granted in the definitions of obscenity and artistic merit.

Miller, a famous decision [see url, above] defining obscenity arose in connection with the materials described above.

So the low quality of material is not a good reason not to join the fight over it. the government chooses, and it's often not Ulysses.