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Despite its long formal and informal use with a sexual connotation, the word still retains the meanings of "inspiring disgust" and even "inauspicious; ill-omened", as in such uses as "obscene profits", "the obscenity of war", and the like. It can simply be used to mean profanity, or it can mean anything that is taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting.
The definition of obscenity differs from culture to culture, between communities within a single culture, and also between individuals within those communities. Many cultures have produced laws to define what is considered to be obscene, and censorship is often used to try to suppress or control materials that are obscene under these definitions, usually including, but not limited to pornographic material. Because the concept of obscenity is often ill-defined, it can be used as a
political tool to try to restrict freedom of expression.Thus, the definition of obscenity can be a civil liberties issue.
Obscenity law in England and Wales is currently governed by the Obscene Publications Act, but obscenity law goes back much further into the English common law.
The conviction in 1727 of Edmund Curll for the publication of Venus in the Cloister or the Nun in her Smock under the common law offence of disturbing the King's peace appears to be the first conviction for obscenity in the United Kingdom, and set a legal precedent for other convictions.
These common law ideas of obscenity formed the original basis of obscenity law in other common law countries, such as the United States.
The United States has constitutional protection for freedom of speechFreedom of speech is the right to freely say what you please, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. It is self-explanatory. Recently, it has been commonly understood as encompassing full freedom of expression including the freedom, which was not designed to protect every utterance, and the Supreme Court has ruled that this protection does not extend to obscenity as currently defined by the Miller testThe Miller test is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labelled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited. The Miller te. The Supreme Court has found that, when used in the context of the First Amendment, the word "obscenity" means material that deals with sex. In U.S. legal texts, the term "obscenity" now always refers to this "Miller-test-obscenity".
Previously various other standards have been used:
Under FCCThe Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, created, directed, and empowered by Congressional statute. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 as the successor to the Federal Radio Commi rules and federal law, radio stations and over-the-air television channels cannot air obscene material at any time and cannot air indecent material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.: language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities (indecency is not as bad as obscenity).
Many historically important works have been described as obscene, or prosecuted under obscenity law s. For example, the works of Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and the Marquis de Sade.
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