Body Politics & The American Citizenry

Pornography is not foreign to Western civilization. After all, even the Greeks embellished their drinking cups with group sex scenes and the Romans adorned the villas of Pompeii with bas­reliefs of bestiality. Still, it is a long way from the theater of Dionysus to the peep shows of New York's 42nd Street. Today, Americans spend upwards of ten billion dollars annually to peruse ribald magazines, ogle at hard­core films, ring sex­talk phone numbers, and cozy up with steamy cable TV and seamy videocassettes. ³⁹ "[F]rom 1965 to 1985, all the major forms of pornographic communication became available in the United States through mainstream channels of commerce." ⁴⁰ A 1986 survey in Adult Video News revealed that over 1,500 new X­rated videos were marketed annually. ⁴¹ The Adult Video Association reported that some 410 million pornographic videos were rented in 1991 alone. ⁴² Notably, it is claimed that women now rent forty percent of all hard­core videos; and according to a Redbook magazine survey, almost half of the women polled view pornographic films regularly. ⁴³

On the entertainment front, Americans revel in TV talk­show tales of bizarre sex escapades, delight in network TV's libidinal titillation, and take pleasure in a wide variety of risque magazine advertisements. ⁴⁴ In one wild week in 1992, Americans splurged on more than a half­million copies of Madonna's Sex, a pricey collection of photo erotica running the gamut from anal sex to naked men bound in dog collars. ⁴⁵ Sex clubs, sex boutiques, sex classifieds, sex electronic billboards, sex computer technology, sex garb, sex toys, sex aids, sex aphrodisiacs, sex greeting cards ... Sex, SEx, SEX!

While America passionately celebrates the carnal life, it occasionally strives to patrol the gates of pornotopia. Modern culture's strong tendency toward the pornographic is tempered by a weaker, though significant, opposition to it. Conservative religious groups, radical feminist organizations, and moderate civic leagues protest most vociferously the excesses of the sex movie and magazine industries. Obscenity commissions, task forces, law centers, and enforcement units study and crack down on erotic trafficking. All fifty states and the federal government have penal codes restricting materials of prurient interest. Anti­racketeering laws, FCC laws, prostitution laws, kiddie porn laws, dial­a­porn laws, civil rights laws, nuisance laws, zoning laws, anti­ display laws ... Laws, LAws, LAWS!