Nudity, Is It Sexist In This Forum?

[Angrboda]

The purpose statement of the forum states the following: "We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which means members can discuss their ideas without fear of censorship or limitation, provided they are not breaking the rules & guidelines below." This forum in its pornography rule, imo, is trying to strike a balance between freedom of expression and protecting minors from what in the words of the Children's Online Protection Act are considered "harmful materials." The COPA was struck down by the courts, but it is not wrong of the forum to adopt standards consistent with that legislation's aims, and I feel the restriction on pornography was created with just such a goal in mind. The question then becomes does the current enforcement of the pornography rule amount to sexism? I don't think so. The question is whether in the views of those setting the standards -- the site owners -- the alleged pornographic materials are obscene or not. The Miller test is informative in this regard and provides a three pronged test for materials which may be considered obscene. In particular, obscene materials appeal to the prurient interest, or as prurient is defined, as "Arousing or appealing to sexual desire." In most communities, displays of male breasts are not considered to appeal to the prurient interest, whereas female breasts are. Thus a display of female breasts may be obscene whereas the man's may not. Is that sexist? I don't think so. There is a documented fetish of female breasts; not so with male breasts. Therefore the prurient interest exists with female breasts and not male breasts. Is that unfair to women or prejudicial? No, I don't think so. It's simply a factual difference between the sexes.

The Court, in an attempt to set such limits devised a set of three criteria which must be met for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulation:

• whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
  
• whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law (the syllabus of the case mentions only sexual conduct, but excretory functions are explicitly mentioned on page 25 of the majority opinion); and
  
• whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California

The legality of pornography at the federal level has been traditionally determined by implementing the Miller test. This test dictates that the opinion of the local community on a specific pornographic piece is most important in determining its legality. Thus, if a local community determines a pornographic work to meet its standard for obscenity then it is more likely to be banned. This means that a pornographic magazine that might be legal in California could be illegal in Alabama. This standard on pornographic legality is extremely difficult to uphold for the internet given that the internet contains ubiquitous amounts of pornography. It has been argued that if the Miller test were applied to the Internet then, in effect, the community standards for the most conservative community would become the standard for all U.S.-based Web sites. The courts are currently examining this issue.

The first attempt to regulate pornography on the Internet was the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, which prohibited the "knowing" transmission of "indecent" messages to minors and the publication of materials which depict, in a manner "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs", unless those materials were protected from access by minors, for example by the use of credit card systems. Immediately challenged by a group of organizations spearheaded by the ACLU, both of these provisions were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997).[11] The "indecent transmission" and "patently offensive display" provisions were ruled to limit the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment.

A second attempt was made with the narrower Child Online Protection Act (COPA) of 1998, which forced all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to protect their sites from access by minors. "Material harmful to minors" was defined as materials that by "contemporary community standards" are judged to appeal to the "prurient interest" and that show sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts). Several states have since passed similar laws. An injunction blocking the federal government from enforcing COPA was obtained in 1998. In 1999, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction and struck down the law, ruling that it was too broad in using "community standards" as part of the definition of harmful materials. In May 2002, the Supreme Court reviewed this ruling, found the lower court’s given reason insufficient and returned the case to the circuit court. In March 2003, the 3rd Circuit Court again struck down the law as unconstitutional, this time arguing that it would hinder protected speech among adults. The administration appealed; in June 2004 the Supreme Court upheld the injunction against the law, ruling that it was most likely unconstitutional but that a lower court should determine whether newer technical developments could have an impact on this question. On March 22, 2007, COPA was found to violate the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution and was struck down.

Wikipedia: Legal status of internet pornography