Syemour Butts fisting obscenity trial
 

Anyone know much about this, I was watching a tv show with a blurb about it last night, not only were they going after Seymour Butts for fisting, but they were talking about bukkake and everything else under the sun they considered extreme, as being obscene and subject to community obscenity laws... as far as even saying anal sex, peeing, bondage, simulated rape, women dressing up in school uniforms... the list goes on

If they have taken this test case to trial, then they must be serious, but I am worried that they will win :(

anyone have anything else on this?

All i have seen is this here

thx

I may be wrong but the legal standard being used is based on the Miller case. This case stands for the proposition that local community standards determines whether a) material appeals to "prurient interest" in sex [whatever the fuck that means...the US Supreme Court recently came up with more "specific" language--"morbid fascination" with sex... yeah, real clear!] b) the material has no serious literary, artistic, political, or social value.

Bottom line: depending on where you live, you may get fucked. The local community standard in a suburbian Arizona or Colorado neighborhood is different from that in Alabama which is different from San Francisco. However, since the Internet is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, jurisdiction issues are still up in the air.

What's troubling is a recent spate of international cases saying that local law applies to the Internet. Let's just hope this does not continue or our industry will become toast.
:mad:

Uh oh! I gues Gary's fucked then :Graucho

CC

I guess what surprized me was some of the commentary on Hustler Magazine, which used to be considered cutting edge, now chooses to pass images/content by it's legal staff to make sure it does not invite litigation.

Not that I blame them, but they are pretty mild compared to what is available on the internet

It has got me bothered enough to consider carefully what I am purchasing on my next content order... and to be honest the occasional extreme fetish package is off the list for now


This of course may be treated differently if you are a paysite, or just post thumbnail galleries

Miller is a subjective ruling based on the community in which prosecution occurs. The basic problem in applying Miller to the internet is deciding just where, how and who the community is going to be. A website that's produced in one state, hosted in another and processed in yet a third is typical of the business. However, the site can be viewed in any state. So where does the case go to trial? Who tries it?

The so-called community standards in the middle of backwoods, Mississippi are bound to be very different from suburban NY or LA, and things that people don't bat an eye out in a more sophisticated suburban area might cause a rural jury to convict.

So it's very important as you can see, that the first case to actually go to trial, is one that is defensible and possibly winnable on several levels.

First, you have the precedent being set of where the case may actually be tried. This is a key as I see it. If anyone can try a site for obscenity anywhere in the country, what's to stop those that hate porn from going to areas where they KNOW they will get a conviction and trying ALL the cases there? Ideally the ruling will be that the site has to either be produced or hosted in a location in order to qualify it for prosecution in that location.

Next, you have the contents of that first site. I don't think that a group of 12 non pornographers anywhere wouldn't call a beastie site, a pissing site, any kind of extreme site, obscene under the definition of appealing to the "prurient" interest. I'm not sure that any of those could be saved on artistic merits either ;)

However if the first site to go to trial somewhere is a plain vanilla hardcore site, then you've got the issue that every site that's as graphic or further out than that should get an automatic conviction based on those community standards. Yeah, they'll be a jury but you've got precedent for an appeal if the jury doesn't convict.

Anyway, not to run any longer with this post, just to point out some of the highlights of what's at stake here.

In the Seymour Butts case, Adam Glasser's 72 year old mother is a co-defendant, it should be interesting to see how that plays out, her on the stand talking about how a fisting vid isn't obscene to the jurors. Could be the make or break of the case.

Thanks for the info Kimmy

I know a couple years ago when I worked for a woman who did specialty custom videos, we often had to run things past our counsel since we handled some of the extreme stuff like death fantasy, kidnap vids, playing doctor, bloodletting, etc.

At the time our attorney mainly advised against showing penetration within these extreme scenarios. Then if something were challenged, we could defend it on the grounds of it being like a Friday The 13th Movie that was never submitted to the MPAA for a rating.

I believe the guys from NecroBabes could probaably shed a little more light on that was well. I've seen one of the guys post here before.

Censorship is a hate crime.


Censors are bigots.

is it illegal for me to fist men in the privacy of my own home?

I'm not an attorney, but from what I've read, that's more a local issue than a Federal one. When you make a video like that, you may be violating Federal law. In some states (most notably in the Southeast) it can be illegal to perform certain "perverted" acts even in the privacy of your home. And the Supreme Court has supported the states' rights to do this.

what amazes me is that they still call a jury " a jury of your peers" so for me if I ever had to have a trial by jury a jury of my peers would all be 30 year old white guys that peddle smut and drive jeeps.

Jurys typically are made up of people too stupid to get out of jury duty

But you know if areas like these incest sites just might win their cases...LOL

eros

well then for the record, i fist men in my house in SoCal, come and get me =-)

Federal law covers child pornography only, and that is the only thing that can be directly prosecuted by the federal government at this time.

Individual states have laws regarding all manner of sexual contact between adults, especially unmarried adults and even more so, adults of the same sex. Men having sex with animals is usually covered under this same set of laws... ;)

http://sodomy.org I think is where you need to go for advice, kman... ;)

Thanks for the insight kk ;)

This does seem to revolve around a video tape purchased on a website, so it will be very interesting to see how and what law ends up being applied here

I forgot to mention that materials mailed through the USPS can become a whole other barrel of monkeys. :(

Kimmy Kim for President dammit......

Sorry snow, no way... Chairman of the Federal Reserve on the other hand, now we're talking ;)

is it illegal to sell porn tapes on the internet and ship them USPS?


Not that i do this :1orglaugh

Frontline did a show on this - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/


VERY interesting

So when is the trial? All references to it just say February 2002...

This was THE LIST which I was referring to

Cause I am lazy like everyone else.

Cambria List

No shots with appearance of pain or degradation

No facials (bodyshots are OK if shot is not nasty)

No bukakke

No spitting or saliva mouth to mouth

No food used as sex object

No peeing unless in a natural setting, e.g., field, roadside

No coffins

No blindfolds

No wax dripping

No two dicks in/near one mouth

No shot of stretching pussy

No fisting

No squirting

No bondage-type toys or gear unless very light

No girls sharing same dildo (in mouth or pussy)

Toys are OK if shot is not nasty

No hands from 2 different people fingering same girl

No male/male penetration

No transsexuals

No bi-sex

No degrading dialogue, e.g., "Suck this cock, bitch" while slapping her face with a penis

No menstruation topics

No incest topics

No forced sex, rape themes, etc.

No black men-white women themes

and what is truly sad is the only things i am into are all on this fucking list...


fuck that shit!! im gonna fist black 18yo men, while licking a womans bloody vagine involved in a 4 way while fisting herself inside a coffin while getting pissed on by a bisexual transexual...

and ya know what, im gonna tape it and keep an archive so i have something to jerkoff to....


now then, off to a dr.s appt, later

That Fronline documentary was really informative. Flints take
on the current administration made alot of sense on why Hustler
has become much more tame lately. Ashxxxxx scares the shit out
of me too. They were saying his first meeting after taking his spot
after attourney general was with Anti-Porn prosecuters, the only
thing that stoped his hard crackdown on porn was Sept. 11th
and his focus now on terrorism. Considering how uptight this
guy really is with wanting to cover some of the naked statues in
the Whitehouse, when these guys get tired of war, we all may be fucked...

Its not 1980, its not as easy as it used to be.

It costs ALOT of money to bring an obscenity prosecution, in excess of a million dollars. And the targets of obscenity charges are typically ones that they can recoup their court costs from (large guys). When the big boys start falling, then you can worry.

The fact of the matter is, Joe Shithead running a lame tgp with piss pics on it has about as much to worry about as your neighbor in the trailer park.

From what I was told , Seymour had two versions of that video slated for release ( Euro and US ). Somehow, some of the orders were switched and the local community officials took the chance to sue him.

The thing about governments is that if they want to put you out of business they can. Even if there is no law pertaining to your breed of "criminal activity" they will find some freaky ass statute to get you with.

I think the obscenity laws should only apply to public obscenity. The TV has two knobs, one switches the channel and one turns it off. If you dont like what your seeing just turn the knob. Of course the Attorney General probably isnt to familiar with anything that has two knobs. :winkwink:

One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the scene in question wasn't just a fisting, it was an anal fisting and a vaginal double-fist [I know, I have the original uncut version].

There are two real problems here;

1 The possiblility that they are able to define obscenity and are successful in their suit

2 They look at that list as a definition of future obscenity trials


There are a lot of up front webmasters/industry people who don't care if they are in the public eye, and there are others who work quietly in the background, not wishing to be in the public eye

What worries me that under pressure of a successful suit, the moral right can use the adverse media attention to push people out of business for fear of the public attention.

Damn ! I flinched just reading that !

wow, I bet that model's parents are real proud of her...