Obscenity

Obscenity is material that a jurisdiction classifies as legally prohibited under standards governing sexual expression. Its legal definition and treatment vary across jurisdictions and change over time.

Miller test: A United States Supreme Court test for deciding whether sexually explicit material is legally obscene. It sets the current federal constitutional standard for obscenity prosecutions in the United States.
Regina v. Hicklin: A 1868 English court decision that defined obscenity through the effect on susceptible readers. Its influential test shaped early obscenity law in Britain and the United States.
Indecency: Expression considered offensive or inappropriate but not necessarily legally obscene. Indecency can be regulated in limited contexts without meeting the obscenity threshold.
United States Postal Inspection Service: A federal law-enforcement agency that investigates crimes involving the U.S. mail. Postal inspectors historically enforced federal prohibitions on mailing obscene material.
Community standards: Local norms used in law to assess whether material is offensive or acceptable. The Miller test measures whether material appeals to prurient interest by contemporary community standards.
Comstock laws: United States statutes that criminalized mailing contraceptive information and materials deemed obscene. They made postal censorship a major instrument for enforcing nineteenth-century obscenity rules.
Pornography: Material depicting sexual activity or sexualized subjects, whether legally protected or prohibited. Pornography is a content category; only some material qualifies as legal obscenity.
Book censorship: The suppression or restriction of books by governments or other authorities. Obscenity prosecutions have targeted novels, poetry, and other literary works.
Prurient interest: A shameful or morbid interest in sex, as distinguished in law from ordinary sexual interest. It is the first element of the Miller test for obscenity.
Roth v. United States: A 1957 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. It replaced the Hicklin approach with a focus on contemporary community standards.

Linked from 36 pages