3 thoughts on “Romance Novels Are Not P*rn”

  1. Didn’t SCOTUS define porn as “Lacks artistic merit, causes sexual thought”. By that measure a significant portion of romance novels could be defined as porn, along with a lot of advertising.

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    1. The SCOTUS case Miller v. California is the current standard definition of obscenity, which is distinctly different from pornography. It upholds the opinion in Roth v. United states that “Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.” To be obscenity, “The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 408 U. S. 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 354 U. S. 489; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.’ ” All three of these must be true to be obscenity. If any one of them is not, the work is not obscene. And because obscenity impacts the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, the Incorporation Doctrine, established in Gitlow v. New York and the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment allows the Supreme Court to strike down any laws that threaten these essential rights. SCOTUS likewise applies strict scrutiny to First Amendment cases, meaning the government must show a compelling interest for curtailing the freedom of speech, and that it can only do so in the most minimal fashion. A blanket declaration that a thing is obscene would not fly. It’s also the case that many works that were previously banned and deemed pornographic do have artistic, social, and political value, such as the book Fanny Hill, which was quite explicit in its depictions of the life of a prostitute, but also put forward social and political commentary on the systems that lead to women in such lifestyles, thus assuring that it would not be relegated to obscenity. Other works on the banned book list for supposedly sexual content include Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl for about 50 words of content. Florida has already banned a graphic novel version of her book, and are looking to do the same to the actual book, despite its amazing literary, social, and political value.

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