CENSORSHIP AND FEMINISM
FEMINIST REDEFINITION OF PORNOGRAPHY
Indianapolis Ordinance: pornography is "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words."
REJECTION OF THE NEW DEFINITION IN THE U.S.
Case: American Booksellers Ass'n v. Hudnut (7th Cir. 1985)
ACCEPTANCE OF THE DEFINITION IN CANADA
Section 163(8) of the Criminal Code--"any publication the dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed obscene.
There are three tests for the application of the statute.
^community standard of tolerance test
"What matters is what Canadians would not abide other Canadians seeing because it would be beyond the contemporary Canadian standard of tolerance to allow them to see it. "
"These standard of tolerance are not set by those of the lowest taste. . . nor are they set exclusively by those of rigid, austere, conservative, or puritan taste. . ."
^degredation or dehumanization test
"Depictions of degradation or dehumanization of women, is the kind of expolitation of sex least tolerable to the Canadian community at large."
^internal necessities or artistic defense test
"Even material which by itself offends community standards will not be considered "undue," if it is required for the serious treatment of a theme. . . . [This test] has been interpreted to assess whether the exploitation of sex has a justifiable role in advancing the plot or the theme, and in considering the work as a whole, does not merely represent 'dirt for dirt's sake' but has a legitimate role when measured by the internal necessities of the work itself."
Butler v. Regina (1992)
Regina v. Emery (Ontario Ct. 1991)
COMMUNITY STANDARDS AND THE INTERNET
U.S. v. Thomas (6th Cir. 1996)
Thomas and his wife operate the Amateur Action Computer bulletin Board System, self-described as "The Nastiest Place on Earth," from California. They have scanned explicit images from magazines purchased in CA (copyright problem?) into their computer files. They offer these (and videos) for sale to persons who pay a membership fee and give verification of age, address and telephone number.
A post office agent in Tennessee applied, downloaded images and turned them over to the prosecutor.
The Thomas couple was tried in TN and found guilty on criminal obscenity charges.
They appealed the conviction on the grounds--
1. They have a right to have obscenity in their home (Stanley v. Georgia).
2. The community standards used to try them should be those of CA and not TN.
3. With the arrival of cyberspace, a new definition of community is required (global community).
4. Expert testimony should be required regarding "lacks serious. . . ."
The 6th Cir. rejected all of these grounds and upheld the conviction.