Obscenity in Literature and the Arts

This title involves a large complex of special subjects and activities, each of which must be isolated, and at least looked at separately before much headway can be made in grasping the total picture which the title suggests; and while an article of the present scope can barely do more than touch upon the manifold factors in obscenity and postal censorship, an effort will be made to state what these factors are, and to arrange them into some kind of cogent order.

Postal censorship, itself, refers to the authority of the U. S. Post Office, sanctioned by Federal law, not only to inspect certain classes of printed matter in the mail, but also to intercept and withhold from delivery specific kinds whose nature infringes Postal Regulations concerning what the U. S. Mails may carry. Postal Regulations deny the use of postal services to a number of types of material, of which material classed as "obscene" is only one; also, definitions of "obscenity" rest in a large body of statutes quite independent of Postal Regulations, and the dissemination of "obscene" printed or pictorial material can, quite obviously, take place through agencies other than the postman. Where the subject of Postal Censorship (an enormously ramified subject in itself), and the subject of Obscenity (one having even greater ramifications) converge, is the crux of the present inquiry.

Obscenity might appear to be our major theme, and indeed it is, in the sense that it refers to that quality in literature and the arts (as well as in a number of other specific types of material) which is prohibited by Federal statute to the mails. The term, itself, raises innumerable questions which have been dealt with innumerable times, not only by lawyers and judges who are interested in legal in-

terpretations of the word, but also by psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and others, who are interested in what obscenity means in relation to the manners, the morals, the judgments, and the behavioral patterns to be found in different cultural groups.

First of all, what is "obscenity?" Is it based on subjective reaction, only? If so, how are we to describe it as to quality, and in relation to some genesis? Is it susceptible to any kind of objective determination, or measurement? If so, how is its existence to be objectively determined, or measured? Is it "bad"? If so, why, and to what extent? Is it related to sex, per se, and to related organs or orfices of elimination? This is only a small beginning to the list of questions to be dealt with by those who think they can isolate obscenity to a point where it can be said, At last! Here it is, pure and unalloyed.

But whatever "obscenity" is-and there obviously can be no comprehensive treatment of the subject in this article-it would have no more than philosophical interest, and we would not need to discuss it at all in relation to the U. S. Postal Services, were it not for the fact that "obscenity" is a legal as well as descriptive term, carrying with it the sanctions and punitive measures of law, and that it describes one of a number of kinds of material subject to Postal proscriptions. Thus, with the Postal statutes we must begin, since they form the occasion and the only practical basis for present controversies and discussions as regards obscenity in the mails.

In considering the basic statutes, we are only incidentally interested in how "obscenity" is or should be determined. What we are primarily interested in is the fact that certain postal officials are authorized to, and do make such determinations, and are further authorized to interrupt free

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