Where Do We Draw Lines?

First, you have to read this piece at Slate.com.

Obscenity is a moving target in law and in my mind. If I had to make a stand, I guess I’d take a libertarian view of it. If someone harms someone else, then there’s a problem. The definition of harm is then the problem.

In the Slate.com article, Google tracks searches for “orgy.” In previous posts, I’ve talked about weird searches that have arrived here. Indeed, by typing the word orgy, Google is going to put this post in the results of a search for orgy. (To increase the odds: nude, nuder, nudist.)

Before we get back to harm, let’s talk about the current legal standard for obscenity. Is the conduct within or without the accepted community standard (very simplistically put)? In, OK. Out, criminal. You then get back to having to decide what is the community, the subject of the Slate article. The Slate author says government should stay out of the business of regulating guys or girls surfing the internet for porn, unless it veers into pictures of real live children. I’m not sure that distinction captures the difference. How about this? It isn’t a crime to publish or view or engage in porn on the internet, or elsewhere, with the exception of a publisher that uses real live kids.

The problem is that there is real live harm still existing. Let’s take the issue off the web and talk about dirty books, prostitution and strip joints. Willing adults engaging in consensual activity. The problem is that there is still harm to the girls or guys selling pictures of their bodies, selling their bodies or getting money for letting people watch their bodies, not always, but it’s there. There’s harm to their families. There’s harm to the guys, girls, their families and their communities caused by disease, drugs and other effects of the conduct.

The problem with that definition of harm is that similar harm results from other conduct. Selling and using drugs and alcohol. Buying and selling guns. Gambling excessively. Driving recklessly. The list is endless; and, we aren’t going to bar most of this other harmful conduct, unless it results in the commission of another crime.

So where do we draw the obscenity line, or do we draw an obscenity line, considering or not considering the new community: the entire world that has access to the internet?