A tale of two obscenity trial outcomes

Image “Forensic Mistress” by Randem.

I’m endlessly fascinated with obscenity law, the definitions and interpretations of what’s deemed obscene from one community, individual — or country — to the next, and how it all rests in the eye of the beholder. How it varies in detail and context between the UK and the US is really interesting: two obscenity trials came to a close this week in both countries with outcomes that reverberate in various ways (such as what’s “obscene” in fictitious depictions of sex and violence in writing and filmmaking). In American headlines today, the California-based husband and wife business team who ran Extreme Associates were sentenced to a year and a half in prison in Pittsburgh, PA for obscenity. The item in question was a video they made depicting graphic rape and murder, with porn performers in the roles. In the UK, blogger Darryn Walker was set to be prosecuted for obscenity for his blog Girls (Scream) Aloud, and the case was dropped at the 11th hour — he was not prosecuted. On his blog, Walker wrote in detail about the rape, murder and subsequent sale on eBay of body parts of each member of the band Girls Aloud. Here are the stories, with details:

‘Horror Porn’ Couple Gets Prison For Pittsburgh Obscenity: Federal Case Against Zicari, Romano, Extreme Associates Spanned Several Years, snip:

The married owners of a California company that distributed pornographic videos depicting simulated rape and murder were each ordered by a federal judge in Pittsburgh to spend one year and one day in prison.

Robert Zicari, 35, and Janet Romano, 32, both of Northridge, Calif., pleaded guilty on behalf of Extreme Associates Inc. to conspiracy to distribute obscene materials. Prosecutors originally charged them in 2003 with distributing videos through the mail and images over the Internet to western Pennsylvania.

“This material is the most violent and disgusting portrayal of women that has been produced. That is what they wanted to do,” said U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, whose office spent several years pursuing the case. For sentencing purposes, the couple’s attorneys asked for probation and challenged the government’s claim that the material was “sadistic or masochistic,” but U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster denied that argument.

Zicari did not speak during the sentencing hearing at the federal courthouse downtown. Romano sobbed and said, “I didn’t know making a horror porn was going to destroy my life.”(…read more, thepittsburghchannel.com)

Our outdated obscenity law: The prosecution of Darryn Walker over an obscene blog could have damaged British publishing for years to come, snip:

Authors across the UK breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as a landmark prosecution for obscenity was dropped at the 11th hour. The importance of this case cannot be underestimated: for the alternative situation in which this prosecution had succeeded would have changed the nature of the internet (and publishing) in the UK for years to come.

Newcastle civil servant Darryn Walker was charged with publishing obscene material in respect of a story, Girls (Scream) Aloud, posted nearly two years ago on an internet archive based in the US, dedicated to hosting stories of an erotic nature. Walker’s blog was seriously questionable both on grounds of literary merit and taste: a work of violent sexual fantasy involving the mutilation and murder of each member of the Girls Aloud pop group, whose body parts are then sold on e-Bay.

(…) The significance of this case lay in the fact that the matter in question was wholly written. When it comes to obscenity, the law that has to be taken into account (in England and Wales) is the Obscene Publications Act 1959. When prosecuted under this Act in 1960, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was found not guilty, and subsequent guilty verdicts on Last Exit to Brooklyn and Inside Linda Lovelace were overturned on appeal in 1966 and 1976 respectively (…)

What then might have been the consequence of a successful prosecution in this case? If Girls (Scream) Aloud were to be judged obscene, then so could works by JG Ballard, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs and the Marquis de Sade. Of course, it could be argued that the works cited possess certain literary qualities and would thus escape prosecution (much as, no doubt, there are those who would like to see them banned). But this assumes that there exist literary standards upon which everyone is agreed and that there is an absolute and watertight distinction between works of high and low culture. (…read more, guardian.co.uk)