Is Lolita Porn?

[PeterL]

Whether something is pornographic is largely individual, "but the U. S. Supreme Court, in an attempt to set such limits devised a set of three criteria which must be met in order for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulation:

* the average person, applying contemporary community standards (not national standards, as some prior tests required), must find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
* the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions[1] specifically defined by applicable state law; and
* the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California

So what's your opinion?

[bazarov]

You're still and again fighting about Lolita and poor Humbert?!
Fact that we are here from all over the world and not under jurisdiction of US Supreme Court and many of us don't care about it should exclude any law terms from this discussion.

[kelby_lake]

I read a Mills and Boon. Does that count as pornographic?

Pornography is something whose primary intent is to arouse someone, without having any claim to artistry or deeper meaning.

[blazeofglory]

If there is no such thing as pornography I can say Lolita is clean of it.

But pornography is something we can not escape at all. From this standpipe it is porn.

[blp]

You're still and again fighting about Lolita and poor Humbert?!
Fact that we are here from all over the world and not under jurisdiction of US Supreme Court and many of us don't care about it should exclude any law terms from this discussion.

Yeah. The criteria are more of a disgrace than anything in Lolita. What's all this stuff about the 'average person'? Who might that be and how is anyone going to make it stick? 'Your honor, we have a number of certifiably average people in the courtroom today, which is to say that not one of them has an IQ higher than 101 or lower than 99. All of them have given sworn testimony that Lolita appeals to their prurient interest. That is to say, uh, those of them who understood the term "prurient interest".'

Sounds like an appeal to mob rule by the prudish to me.

[JBI]

Read a porno, and then judge Lolita. Really, if you think Lolita is porn, than you clearly haven't been reading enough porn.

[blp]

Read a porno, and then judge Lolita. Really, if you think Lolita is porn, than you clearly haven't been reading enough porn.

And, after all, one can never really read enough porn.

[PeterL]

I put this up, because I think that it is absurd to consider a book of substantial artistic merit to be pornographic, even if there are bits of it that are not appropriate for Victiorian sensibilities. It appears that the majority agree with that position to some degree.

Whether people are citizans of the U.S.A. is of no consequence, because the definiton is one that can be applied anywhere; although the case by case applications would be somewhat different in some places.

[Nightshade]

humm until just now I had the wrong definition of pornography in my mind, I merely thought it reffered to items of a sexually taboo or extreme nature, in which case it would be society specific as the mores and the norms within different societys and community alter thus changing the defition of what is taboo and under that defition porn- but I was wrong appeantly the correct defintion of porn from the OED is as follows:

1. a. The explicit description or exhibition of sexual subjects or activity in literature, painting, films, etc., in a manner intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic feelings; printed or visual material containing this.
A distinction is often made between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ pornography, on the basis of how explicit or taboo the material in question is held to be. See HARD adj. and n. Special uses 5b; SOFT adj. Special uses 4.

b. In extended use: the pornography of violence the explicit description or depiction of violence in a manner intended to stimulate or excite.

2. A study of prostitution. Obs.

So the answer is simply no it isn't, I haven't read it but even the blurb hints at deeper meaning.

[Joreads]

Who was it that said - I am not sure how to define pornography but I know it when I see it?

I can not remember now but I agree with that statement. I know porn when I see it or in this case read it and Lolita is to my mind clearly not porn.

[Virgil]

Who was it that said - I am not sure how to define pornography but I know it when I see it?

I can not remember now but I agree with that statement. I know porn when I see it or in this case read it and Lolita is to my mind clearly not porn.

Here you go Jo:

The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which the user attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly-defined parameters. This phrase is best known as a description of a threshold of obscenity, no longer used, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Exhibition of obscene material may be a criminal offense. The phrase notably appeared in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), decided by the United States Supreme Court.

Evaluating possible obscenity in the Louis Malle-directed film The Lovers, Justice Potter Stewart used the phrase in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964). He wrote:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." (Emphasis added.)

This expression became "one of the most famous phrases in the entire history" of the Supreme Court.[1]

Stewart's "I know it when I see it" standard was praised as an example of "candor"[2] or "realistic and gallant",[3] though it has been criticized for its lack of concreteness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

I agree, 99% of pornography we know it when we see it.

[Dori]

Read a porno, and then judge Lolita. Really, if you think Lolita is porn, than you clearly haven't been reading enough porn.

And, after all, one can never really read enough porn.

I am of the opinion that Lolita is clearly not porn.

[Joreads]

Thanks Virgil I had heard "I know it when I see it" used in the context of porn before. I must have been reading something for law.