A Clearly-Worded Law

Efforts to curb obscenity often go awry because of the difficulty of defining the term "obscene." Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, keep slipping on that semantic banana peel. But New York State has a clearly-worded law that gets around the problem with directness and ease. It explicitly prohibits selling to persons under 18 any book or magazine that "exploits, is devoted to, or is made up of descriptions of illicit sex or sexual immorality."

In Manhattan last week a three-judge Criminal Court was called upon to decide whether the prohibition applies to Fanny Hill, that ancient and now once again bestselling Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. The case involved a 16-year-old girl who had bought a copy of the book last September at the suggestion of Operation Yorkville, a neighborhood organization created to "keep obscene literature out of the hands of children."

In another case last summer, brought under a different statute, the state's supreme court had ruled that Fanny Hill was not "obscene." But the Criminal Court judges were not deterred. "It was due to our judicial duty rather than to idle curiosity that we read this book," said the court's opinion. "It consists of 298 pages, almost entirely devoted to a detailed description of and recital of illicit intercourse, lesbianism, female masturbation, male homosexuality, sex flagellation and sex orgies in and out of a house of prostitution. While it is true that the book is well-written, such fact does not condone its indecency. Filth, even if wrapped in the finest packaging, is still filth."

The proprietors and the clerk who sold the book face a maximum penalty of up to three years' imprisonment.

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