Scared of skin
Publishers Weekly (via) have picked up on the news that the state of Indiana has passed a new law that will require any businesses that sell “sexually explicit material” to register with the state government.
The new law, H.B. 1042, was signed by Governor Mitch Daniels on March 13, and calls for any bookseller that sells sexually explicit materials to register with the Secretary of State and provide a statement detailing the types of books to be sold. The Secretary of State must then identify those stores to local government officials and zoning boards. “Sexually explicit material” is defined as any product that is “harmful to minors” under existing law. There is a $250 registration fee. Failure to register is a misdemeanor.
The Indiana Library Federation’s Intellectual Freedom Manual provides an explanation of what “harmful to minors” means:
For the purposes of the law, matter is “harmful to minors” if “it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse; considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors; it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for minors; and considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors”
Now here’s the problem: “and considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors,” is an entirely subjective statement. I may think that something has serious literary or artistic value, you might disagree. Is Anaïs Nin an artist or a pornographer? What about Bunny Yeager? Or Irving Klaw?
And nudity? On its own. Is National Geographic really harmful to minors?
Not surprisingly the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression has condemned the law, calling it “un-American to force booksellers to register with the government based on the kinds of books they carry.” The organisation is planning to challenge the law as a violation of the First Amendment rights of Indiana booksellers and their customers.
Tuesday 01 Apr 2008 | Paul | USA
Plenty of sex and nudity in the bible, a high proportion of novels, most European newspapers, school text books, encyclopedias, …. the list is endless.
The idea that nudity is automatically harmful to children would be laughable if the consequences were not so disastrous. Try comparing the teeenage pregnancy figures for prudish countries such as the USA with those for countries like Denmark or the Netherlands. That pattern repeats time and again. Censor the human body and children will find out by experiment, often with disastrous consequences.
Even the law implicitly recognises the flaw. It does not combat what is harmful to children. Instead it targets what offends some adults. When the law is based on prejudice instead of fact then it can be expected to make things worse, not better.