[Dryerase] Censored in Cincinnati - XRay Magazine

[XRay Magazine]

>>Censored in Cincinnati

By Stacey Recht

Just about any Cincinnatian can run down a list of
major First Amendment cases to come out of our city in
the last 20 years. Hustler. Mapplethorpe. The Pink
Pyramid. Elyse's Passion. Thomas Condon. 

Cincinnati's legendary puritanism is the subject of
big-budget films. National media swarm to our area to
take a peek at what our county officials want to cover
up, prosecute out of existence, suppress and
repress.Our collective sexuality is at issue. Our
appetites are on trial. 

The very stuff of human experience - sex, violence and
death - is brought before the court.
The resulting fear of prosecution for obscenity has
consequently stifled local artists, retailers and
citizens.

The whole spectrum of pornography - at best,
high-grade, culturally and socially relevant art about
sex, and at worst, low-grade jack-off paraphernalia -
has all been shoved under our collective mattress.
Government censorship perfected by Cincinnati
officials like County Sheriff Simon Leis, Jr. trickles
down to our very souls, as we pull the brown paper
wrappers over our own bodies.

The influence of fear

"Self-censorship is a good thing," Phil Burress,
director of Cincinnati's Citizens for Community
Values, said in a telephone interview. His group is
famous nationwide for its cultural influence on the
local sex industry. 

"Since Mapplethorpe, I think there's been a real
partnership among art organizations to providing
quality arts in Cincinnati," Burress said. "There's
enough cutting edge art out there that we don't need
homoerotic or hard-core pornographic art here in
Cincinnati. 

People can make that kind of art if they want, but not
with public funds. They have a right to produce and
distribute the art, but those who object have the
right to say that's not art." CCV began its culture
purges in the early 80s, and has been shoving the
proverbial soap deeper into the throat of Cincinnati
ever since in its quest to rid us of our more prurient
interests. Influencing the removal of sexually graphic
material in book stores, on television and on
pay-per-view stations in hotels, the group has worked
to prosecute the highest profile porn with existing
laws and silence the rest through intimidation. But
Phil Burress insists CCV is a First-Amendment
organization. Opposed to government control of media,
the group instead, he claims, wishes to enforce the
laws already on the books to remove smut of all kinds
from view in our little hamlet.

Why Cincinnati?

Many upstanding citizens enjoy watching a little
slap-and-tickle in all corners of the country. Decent
people in Cleveland or Atlanta or San Diego partake in
the stickying of glossies and adult books.
Well-behaved Americans watch tawdry strip teases in
bars in many parts of the country without the local
constabulary breathing heavily down their necks.

So how can Cincinnati stand alone in its old-fashioned
objection to art glorifying the pleasures - and pains
- of the flesh?

It all dates back to 1973 and the Supreme Court case
Miller vs. California. When the High Court couldn't
objectively define obscenity, and Justice Potter
Stewart in frustration uttered his famous words "I
know it when I see it," a litmus test for prosecutable
pornography became necessary. Straight-up porn is
generally OK in the eyes of the law. Artsy sex and
nudity are just fine under normal circumstances. The
First Amendment loophole, however deals with
obscenity. In Miller v. California, the court created
its historical - and much belabored by local officials
and conservative groups - three-pronged approach to
defining obscenity. 

Basically, a work is considered obscene if:- An
average person, applying contemporary community
standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole,
appeals to the purient interest;- the work depicts or
describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct, and the applicable state law specifically
defines what depictions and descriptions are
prohibited; and- the work, taken as a whole, lacks
serious literary, artistic, political or scientific
value.

And though most artists and retailers would most
likely cleave to the "literary artistic, political and
scientific value" clause, anti-smut campaigners hold
dearly to "community standards."

Just as dangerous as the government censoring
sexuality are those who would define those standard
for us. "We just keep getting fed this story that the
people don't want it and that our community standards
are different," said Louis Sirkin, "I maintain they
are not that different and our politicians are out of
touch with reality." Sirkin, famed first amendment
attorney, defended Elyse Metcalf, Hustler publisher
Larry Flynt, former Contemporary Arts Center Director
Dennis Barrie and photographer Thomas Condon, among
dozens of others brought to trial for pandering
obscenity.

Thirty years of squeaky cleanliness, thanks to Si Leis

Played by former Clinton consultant James Carville and
former Coach star Craig T. Nelson in Hollywood
depictions of Cincinnati censorship trials,
County Sheriff Simon Leis began a crusade against porn
when he took office as prosecutor in 1971. He has
worked his mojo to shut down X-Rated theaters, massage
parlors, adult bookstores and a pornography warehouse
within 8 years. Those that were not prosecuted out of
existence closed out of fear.Leis won national fame
for his long-standing battle with Larry Flynt, who
described him as a "bully." He tried and failed to
bring a conviction to Dennis Barrie and the
Contemporary Arts Center for their famous Mapplethorpe
exhibit, showcasing 175 photographs in the artist's
career, seven of which Leis found obscene. 

The jury, not art connoisseurs by any means, voted to
acquit Barrie based on the test set forth by Miller v.
California.

In 1995, Leis tried to prosecute the Kenwood Barnes
and Noble for selling the journal "Libido" to an
11-year-old girl. Even after the truth that her father
put her up to purchasing the journal in an effort to
bring a conviction against the store, Sheriff Leis
insisted on proceeding. Then Prosecutor Joseph Deters,
himself a staunch conservative, disagreed, and charges
were dropped.

Most recently, Anderson Township pornographer Jennifer
Dute was arrested on four counts of pandering
obscenity by selling home sex videos to Hamilton
County residents.
She used the domain www.simonleis.com to sell the
tapes. The site has since been shut down.

Last month, Dute was sentenced to one year in prison.
Sirkin and Jennifer Kinsley, her attorneys, have vowed
to appeal. Intimidated into impotence.

"There's good and bad censorship," CCV director
Burress asserted. "The misunderstanding is that all
censorship is wrong."

Anti-smut activists like Burress and Leis lost court
battles against the Contemporary Arts Center, Elyse's
Passion and the Pink Pyramid. But Cincinnati's sexual
expression is the real loser here.

Even when high and low profile obscenity cases are
thrown out of court, even when pornographers, artists
and shop owners win acquittals, the city still suffers
from prosecution fear. 

Not everyone likes the hard stuff. Give me plain old
HBO and a glass of wine and I'm good to go. But damn
it if I don't resent not having a choice in the
matter. We gotta cross county lines for the good
stuff. And I'm not just talking porn, here. I'm
talking art, literature and music.

Our local artists are locked in an invisible cell,
surrounded by the threat of lawsuits and criminal
charges. Power, money and influence set our city's
"community standards." These imposed standards
restrict us and enforce on us a pervasive impotence.
As a result, the truest expressions of the most
profound and rapturous human experience lie dormant
beneath the brown paper wrapping of our own making.

Copyright © 2000-2003, XRay Media




__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com