Hint on Obscenity

No U.S. problem is more aggravating to the Supreme Court than obscenity. If a publication is obscene, the court has said, the First Amendment does not protect it. But obscenity defies specific legal definition, and attempts at rulings have left things more muddied than ever. Last October, the court took under consideration two cases involving booksellers from New York and Kentucky who had been convicted for selling such obscene publications as Lust Pool and High Heels. A third case concerned the right of Arkansas to suppress and destroy various girlie magazines, including Gent, Bachelor and Swank. Though it had taken the cases to consider other issues, the court finally reversed all three judgments on the ground that none of the publications was obscene.

The unsigned 7-to-2 majority opinion set no new obscenity guidelines. But it did hint at some. The court noted that the cases before it had not raised the question of "pandering" or "titillating" advertising, the basis last year for the court's upholding of the conviction of ring distribution of licentious material to juveniles or at protecting the public from being unwillingly exposed to such material. The virtually gratuitous mention of the three unraised questions seemed to indicate that the court may eventually look favorably on laws which specifically attempt to keep smut from children and out of the public eye.