Fanny and the Commission

Once again the issue of censorship has arisen in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Obscene Literature Control Commission has recommended that Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) be banned, as it was in 1821, on the grounds that it is "obscene, impure, and indecent."

The Commission and other agencies of the Common-wealth have concentrated their efforts, time, and public funds on books like Fanny Hill and Tropic of Cancer. For example, it was only recently that the Boston Public Library was permitted to place even such a book as Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy on its shelves. As the New York Supreme Court said in that state's Fanny Hill case, a book ought not to be banned as long as it has "literary and historic merit." The Massachusetts Supreme Court, finally settling the Tropic of Cancer case, said that "anything with literary attributes" could not be banned, and that it is "not the function of judges to serve as arbiters of taste." The courts, then, have adequate legal precedent to decide not to ban Fanny Hill.

While there is obviously harm in allowing young children to read some of the books that the Commission has discussed, protection of "community standards" should not take the form of orders whch prevent all sale and distribution of a book, especially since "distribution" has been interpreted to include libraries. There is no effective way to keep "questionable" books only from children, however, and any enforcement of standards must rest with individual parents.

If there is any justification for the work of the Commission, it lies in the existence on the stands of innumerable trash magazines which make up the true "hardcore pornography." These magazines, whether aimed at homosexuals, flagellants, or exhibitionists, have no claim to literary value.

By the Commission's own admission, it is powerless against this "hard-core pornography." Action must be taken against each particular issue of such a magazine, and under current statutes this involves an impossible tangle of legal maneuvers. Once a magazine of this sort is banned, the Commission contends, it invariably reappears with a slightly altered name and corporate structure.

Since effective action against truly detrimental publications is impossible, and the majority of the Commission's actions to date have been misdirected; there is no reason for its continued existence or for the tradition of "Banned in Boston."