Adult movie theater

An adult movie theater is a cinema that primarily screens sexually explicit films for adult audiences. Some venues also provide private viewing booths or live entertainment.

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Pornographic film: A film made primarily to depict sexual activity and arouse its audience. These theaters are defined by screening this kind of film.
Nickelodeon: An early small theater that showed short films, often for a low admission price. It represents the broader history of purpose-built commercial film exhibition.
United States v. Reidel: A 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding a federal ban on mailing obscene material. Its ruling shaped legal limits on distributing explicit films beyond theater premises.
Home video: Recorded video distributed for viewing on household equipment rather than in a cinema. Its spread made explicit films accessible at home instead of in public theaters.
Adult video arcade: A venue with private booths where patrons watch sexually explicit videos, often through coin-operated equipment. It offers private viewing rather than the theater’s shared-screen format.
Pornography in film: The production and exhibition of sexually explicit moving images. Adult theaters grew as a public venue for explicit films.
Miller v. California: A 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the modern test for obscenity. The test informs whether explicit material shown by a theater receives constitutional protection.
Video on demand: A system that lets viewers select and watch video content when they choose. On-demand access replaced scheduled public screenings for many adult-film viewers.
Peep show: A live or recorded performance viewed privately through a small window or screen. It is another adult-entertainment format found near or within some theaters.
Blue movie: A colloquial term for a sexually explicit film, especially in historical usage. The phrase was associated with films screened in adult cinemas.