Obscenity prosecution for written word
Rants, Raves and Reviews, Scenology — By Adele on 7 October, 2008 8:10 pmNo sooner than we drew our breath after one trial, there’s another court case to watch: one Darryn Walker of South Shields is being done for obscenity, in a case involving written word – not photos of nekkid people, not any kind of images, but your old-fashioned fiction writing. He wrote a sex fantasy, loaded it up onto the Internet, and now he’s in court. If he’s found guilty, UK sex bloggers and writers have a cause to be worried.
Now, granted, his was a particularly icky story: a piece of real-person fanfic involving the band Girls Aloud, who ended up – in his story – kidnapped, raped, taken apart and sold on eBay piece by piece. I suspect that quite a few readers are shuddering with disgust right now. So am I; frankly, I struggle to see how it’s a sex fantasy at all: it feels like it belongs on a horror shelf. But hey, the author placed it onto a porn story archive ASSTR, therefore we must conclude that to him it was porn. Whatever. What matters is that somewhere there was a prosecutor who read this and thought: “Hurray, Obscene Publications Act 1959 lives! Quick, let’s establish a precedent here!”
Here’s some history. The first time a wholly written work was prosecuted for obscenity (that is, the quality of being able to “deprave and corrupt” readers), it was “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” in 1960, and it was deemed not to be obscene after all. The last time (according to The Register), it was a book called “Inside Linda Lovelace” in 1976; that was also acquitted. Since then, the Obscene Squad hasn’t bothered with novels and newspapers and such, because if the notorious porn-star Linda wasn’t doing enough to “deprave and corrupt” anyone, according to the jury, then nothing was going to. The police and prosecutors effectively gave up on policing the written word: the Obscene Publications Act was good for material containing nekkid pictures, but writers have been, until now, scribbling away unmolested.
Along comes the Internet, carrying the evidence that really there’s no edge to the edgy fantasies of the human being. We know Rule 34: if you can think of it, there’s porn of it. Even if it’s disturbing. Even if it’s really disturbing. Yes, even if it’s even more disturbing than that. I’m sure the Met would dearly love to police this pit, into which our subconscious is spilled hour upon hour, but written word had long ago proven ever so difficult to prosecute.
Darryn Walker and his piece of scribbled snuff must have seemed like a real gift. He’s in the UK, he’s identifiable, and his story is so singularly shocking that it would take some nerve to defend it. “You like free speech? So you like the idea of a story in which the Girls Aloud are kidnapped, raped and dismembered?” To the prosecution, this must have looked like an easy kill.
Now let’s imagine that he either pleads guilty (for fuck’s sake, dude, don’t!) or is found guilty by the jury of his squicked peers. Now, the police will have a fresh, juicy precedent with which to slap any piece of Internet porn they don’t like the look of.
I can hear you over there thinking “Don’t be such a drama queen, Adele – we’re only talking spanking here, who’s that going to deprave?” I’m glad you’re so optimistic. How often do you read online that, say, Lindsey Lohan deserves a good caning? (Substitute for a celebrity of your choice: you know you like the thought of at least one of them naked over your knee, spanked and squealing.) Would you bet your freedom and property on this not being seen as running along the lines of the poor sod Walker’s Girls Aloud story?
It’s not prosecution as such that would be a threat, but can you imagine the self-censorship that can follow a guilty verdict here? It’s already difficult enough to place a non-consensual spanking story with any print publisher in the UK: somewhere, somehow, the naughty girl always “wants it”. Print publishers are already wary of prosecution; I challenge you to find a spanking novel that wasn’t sanitised to some degree (with apologies to our friend Fiona Locke: you’ve done wonders to slide between the consensuality requirement and the hard place, and yet… ) If individual writers on the Internet are similarly worried, I don’t fancy anybody’s chances of finding some porn that isn’t pale, safe and declawed.
I’m sure the police would be happy with that. Would you?
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12 Comments
My biggest problem with this is movies like “Saw” (now on number five),”Halloween”, “Friday the 13th” etc. For the people into movies like this it is erotic for them. One of the women I dated just loved slasher movies. When a trailer came on for one of those she would be just as fixated as I was in Junior High when the girls got paddled. If it were a mainstream publication with lots of studio money behind it wouldn’t be an issue.
It is a little like the “Crimes against women act” that was passed years ago. One of the sponsors wanted to outlaw rape scenes. I think most of that bill has been overturned otherwise “the Duchess” wouldn’t have been shown in the U.S. and “Young Franenstien” and ” The Hospital” couldn’t be shown any more.
“Likely to deprave or corrupt those reading or viewing it.” You simply have to love these wonderful legal “definitions” of what should be considered “obscene”. So clear and precise…
It’s amazing, really. No matter how often and how thoroughly it is debunked by science and by various empirical studies, the myth that “violent” media cause violence keeps returning like a bad penny. The persistent idiocy of it all would be laugh out loud funny, actually, if it wasn’t such a threat to the values of free speech and freedom of expression.
I mean, think about it. What a cynical, simplistic view of human nature is required to actually believe that stories like these could be a threat to anyone? Yeah, sure! Everyone who reads this snuff porn will be inspired by it to go out and kill some girls, dismember them and sell the parts on ebay. It’s inevitable! Just like everyone who plays “violent” computer games goes out and starts shooting pedestrians in the street, right?
I wish Mr. Walker courage and the best of luck. I’m hoping against hope that, for once, common sense will prevail and that the nanny state proponents will fall flat on their dumb clueless faces.
This is the first that I have heard of this matter and I like to read from multiple sources before forming an opinion on such important issues but I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention. Issues of censorship are always important.
Prefectdt
And how much easier it will be to prosecute “dangerous pictures” once the written word is deemed to be enough to deprave and corrupt.
**shakes head in despair**
For a person not living in UK it is difficult to really understand what’s going on. But it is a fact that allthough people today can get all the porn they want they are more narrow-minded than ever at least when you talk to them or read their letters. You can’t look at a lady’s bicycle without a coat protective (dont know the exact word in english)
Erik
Someone should point out to whomever tipped off the law about this written fantasy that there is a difference between fiction and a declared plan, or threat. As for the content, as described, how could anyone take seriously a story that includes selling dismembered women on eBay? And it’s not as if the story was presented to a Girls Aloud fan site.
If the law or the government wants to get their hands on documented evidence of writing that has led to corruption and depravity they might begin by looking at religious texts which demand death or dismemberment for transgressors.
Follow Adele’s logic. “You liked Casino Royale? So, you like watching men having their balls smashed with a door knob on a length of rope?” Presumably, millions of people did, and some must have gone out and had a go.
The difference is that the film-makers didn’t say that you were supposed to enjoy it. Call it porn, and you’re suppose to and it’s intended to corrupt. How it makes any difference is beyond me.
“If a specific book, play, paper, or motion picture has in a civil proceeding been condemned as obscene and review of that finding has been completed, and thereafter a person publishers, shows, or displays that particular book or film, then a vague law has been made specific. There would remain the underlying question whether the First Amendment allows an implied exception in the case of obscenity. I do not think it does and my views on the issue have been stated over and over again.
The idea that the First Amendment permits government to ban publications that are ‘offensive’ to some people puts an ominous gloss on freedom of the press. That test would make it possible to ban any paper or any journal or magazine in some benighted place. The First Amendment was designed ‘to invite dispute,’ to induce ‘a condition of unrest,’ to ‘create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are,’ and even to stir ‘people’ to anger.’ Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 896, 93 L.Ed. 1131. The idea that the First Amendment permits punishment for ideas that are ‘offensive’ to the particular judge or jury sitting in judgment is astounding. No greater leveler of speech or literature has ever been designed. To give the power to the censor, as we do today, is to make a sharp and radical break with the traditions of a free society. The First Amendment was not fashioned as a vehicle for dispensing tranquilizers to the people. Its prime function was to keep debate open to ‘offensive’ as well as to ‘staid’ people. The tendency throughout history has been to subdue the individual and to exalt the power of government. The use of the standard ‘offensive’ gives authority to government that cuts the very vitals out of the First Amendment. As is intimated by the Court’s opinion, the materials before us may be garbage. But so is much of what is said in political campaigns, in the daily press, on TV, or over the radio. By reason of the First Amendment—and solely because of it—speakers and publishers have not been threatened or subdued because their thoughts and ideas may be ‘offensive’ to some.”- Mr. Justice Douglas, dissenting, Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (S. Ct., 1973)
William O. Douglas did not carry the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of so-called obscenity. His words are, however, as relevant today as they were in 1973. He did, not much later, establish a constitutional right to privacy in his landmark majority opinion “Griswold v. Conneticut” (a statute which outlawed the use of condoms was invalidated because it implied the right of government to spy in our bedrooms in violation of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Amendments and “a penubra of rights under the 9th Amendment.” This last was pure Douglas. The 9th Amendment, considered useless until then, states that rights not specifically allowed are “reserved to the people.”
Griswold was later expanded by the Court to embrace pro-choice (based on the privacy right crafted by Douglas in “Griswold”) in “Roe v. Wade.” Chief Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion in “Miller,” and fought “Griswold” tooth and nail, managed to deprive Douglas of his right to write the opinion in “Roe.” (Obtaining a consensus that the less volatile Brennam should do so). In an odd way, a constitutional right to privacy established, and expanded to pro-choice, the localized “right” of “staid” majorities in “some benighted place” to legislate obscenity was putatively permitted to fall within the cracks.
(Miller defines pronography as material offensive to localized community standards).
(And, yes, the localized standard in “Miller” could permit a staid liberal majority in some benighted place, perhaps some county in Wisconsin or the Peoples’ Republic of California, to categorize female spanking models obscene as degrading to Women while permitting F/m as redressive of previous injuries under Equal Opportunity legislation).
I hadn’t thought much of this before but Miller, supra, is still the law in the United States, and permits pornography to be defined, as William O. Douglas stated, by localized community standards promulgated by staid majoritys in benighted places. (His words not mine). Do these localized, benighted areas still exist in the area of the internet?
Whatever the legal definition of “deprave and corrupt” may be in English law it is clear that English courts don’t prosecute under the Obscene Publications Acts if the offence was merely the describing or depicting or encouraging of sexual activity between consenting adults. The fact that Adele, Niki and a host of other spanking bloggers haven’t been charged under these Acts suggests that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) believes that English juries are likely to extend a similar tolerance to flagellation and other sexual doings. .
The Darryn Walker case, however, is something quite different. Apparently the piece of writing complained of is only minimally concerned with sexual gratification but describes a particularly revolting murder and mode of disposing of the bodies. How and whom would it tend to deprave and corrupt? Would other people want to try cannibalism? Or would they just be more tolerant of the practice? When a guest at a party is introduced as a famous anthopophagist, would people crowd around and say “How fascinating!” ?
As ever, the “deprave and corrupt” argument is unlikely to work. On the other hand, if this case goes to trial the jurors might feel so angry about the sheer cruelty of the author’s imagination, and his disregard of the feelings of the real people he has put into his story, that they might be prepared to find him guilty without bothering about the law under which he has been charged. It will be interesting to see what the CPS makes of this case.
By the way, does anybody know of a case where a book about killing has been successfully prosecuted under the English Obscene Publications Acts? When the early James Bond books came out some critics argued that their cruelty and callousness, served up with such brilliance and style, made them particularly likely to deprave and corrupt the public. I don’t remember any of them being prosecuted.
Rule 34. You just mentioned rule 34.
There are actually porn stars who like mudkips? Wow!