Currently the law defines obscenity based
on the US Supreme Court Case, Miller v California '72. That ruling
defines material as legally obscene (and therefore capable of being made
illegal):
if the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
AND
if the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law;
AND
if the work taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific
value (SLAPS),
then the work can be labeled legally obscene and banned.
Some facts about effects of explicit media
sexual representation (mostly based on research done by Malamuth or
Donnerstein)
men and women show equal arousal to erotica.
some men are more aroused if there is violence too, not so for women. The reaction of the women
in the pornography (if she appears to like it) effects the degree to which
such men are aroused (and perhaps effects the degree to which they are
influenced by such pornography).
There does seem to be some support for media feeding myths about women, "she likes it rough." "No doesn't always mean no."
(stabilization effect?)
No catharsis effect for erotica has been found.
In experiments, there is some connection to aggression against women (BUT
only when there is violence in the video),
esp., if the male viewer was angry already or the sex is disgusting
there is a physiological link between arousal and aggression.
Are experiments real enough for meaningful onclusions?
What about ethical and legitimation effects?
Why are there ambiguous findings in (strong) individual effects? (McGuire)
weak methods - crude measures
environmental conditions obscure effects, such as selective viewing (consistency theory -
you watch and remember what you agree with)
circumscribed effects are missed - (when some viewers move left others move right
canceling each other out when summary data is tabulated), effects with very indirect behavioral outcomes are missed
effects may only occur in limited sub-populations: children, violence prone males,
etc
Indirect effects are missed - 2 step flow theory, issue saliency effects may be missed.