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I'd expect that it's not the pornographic bit, but the labelled as obscene bit that's the sticking point. I visited a lot of libraries in my youth, youth librar
by femiagbabiaka 4y ago
I'd expect that it's not the pornographic bit, but the labelled as obscene bit that's the sticking point. I visited a lot of libraries in my youth, youth librarians actually don't make it a practice to give kids porn usually, kids seek that out on their own, it's part of their capacious nature. Also many books in libraries typically get donated (directly or via financial donations), especially in poorer areas, and porn is not really on the shortlist of things librarians tend to want to prioritize money for. Wouldn't it be better to prosecute specific misconduct than to create committees of politicians for book censorship?
- dragonwriter 4y ago> I’d expect that it’s not the pornographic bit, but the labelled as obscene bit that’s the sticking point. Obsecenity is a legal category, and not all pornography is obscenity. OTOH, “labelled as obscene” may not actually be obscenity, and the list of the actual books banned under the law that this defunding is a retaliation for a lawsuit against seems to largely be books that are neither obscene nor pornographic.
- femiagbabiaka 4y agoYep, agreed! I'm not even so sure the Miller test makes much sense: ``` (1) whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. ``` I feel like all of this is downstream of the same trans panic that's going on right now. And all of it is exactly the same as the 70s and 80s gay/satanic panics.