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33 Yale J. Int'l L. 299 (2008)
Obscenity and Community Standards

handle is hein.journals/yjil33 and id is 303 raw text is: Article Obscenity and Community Standards Bret Boycet 1. IN T RO D U CT IO N ....................................................................................................................... 300 II. THE BIRTH OF OBSCENITY ................................................................... 304 A . The A ncient W orld ........................................................................................................ 305 B . Christianity and C ensorship .......................................................................................... 306 C. Obscenity in the English Common Law ....................................................................... 307 D. Victorian England and the Birth of the Modern Conception of Obscenity ..................... 310 Il. O BSCENITY LAW IN THE UNITED STATES ........................... ........................................................ 311 A . The E arly Rep ublic .................................................................................................... 3 12 B. The Comstock Act and the Hicklin Doctrine ................................................................ 313 C. Roth and the Emergence of Community Standards ....................................................... 316 D . M iller and the M odern Test ........................................................................................... 3 18 E. Aspects of the Community Standards Test .................................................................... 320 F. C urrent Im p lem entation ........................................................................................... 324 IV. OBSCENITY LAW IN CANADA ......................... ...................................... 325 A. Undue Exploitation and Community Standards .......................... 326 B. Butler: Community Standards, Harm, and the Charter ....................... 328 C. The Implementation of Butler: Big Brother and Little Sisters ...................................... 333 D. Labaye: The Death of Community Standards? .............................................................. 334 E. Community Standards in U.S. and Canadian Law ................................. 337 V. PROBLEMS WITH COMMUNITY STANDARDS ................................................... . . ................... 338 A. Is Sexual Expression Constitutionally Unprotected? ............................. 339 1. Sexual Expression as Speech .............................................................................. 339 2. Feminist Approaches ............................................. 341 3. The Speech-Conduct Distinction in the Courts ............................ 343 4. Obscenity as Commercial Speech .. ............................................................. 343 5. The Social Value of Sexual Expression ........................................................... 344 B. How Are Community Standards to Be Ascertained? .................................................... 345 1. Community and Geography ......................................... 345 2. Problems with a National Standard ................................................................. 345 3. Problems with Local Standards .......................... ........................................... 346 4. Community Standards in the Internet Age ........................................................ 347 5. Community Standards and Individual Standards ............................................... 347 6. Aggregation of Standards .............................................................................. 349 V I. O BSCEN ITY AN D H ARM ......................................................................................... .................. 35 1 A. M oral Offense and M oral Harm ................................................................................... 352 1. M ill and Step hen ...................................... ....................................................... 352 2. Hart and Devlin ............................................. 353 3. Recent Discussions ............................................. 355 4. Moral Reasoning and Irrational Prejudice .............................. 358 B. Community Standards and Harm to Society .. ............................................................. 360 C Harm as an Independent Test of Obscenity ................................... 362 t Assistant Professor, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Ph.D. Brown University; J.D. Northwestern University; B.A. Yale University. I would like to thank Edward Eberle, Jeffrey Kirchmeier, Nick Kyser, Richard Moon, Ofer Raban, Julie St. John, and Laura Underkuffler for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank my Article Editors, Kate Heinzelman and Jeff Sandberg, and the rest of the staff of The Yale Journal of International Law for all their help with this Article.

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