Pornography in the United States

Advanced by technological development, it has gone from a hard-to-find "back alley" item, beginning in 1969 with Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and home video, to being more available in the country and later, starting in the 1990s, readily accessible to nearly anyone with a computer or other device connected to the Internet.

[7][8] In the United States, one of the Thomas Edison's first efforts using his methods and equipment for making moving pictures was of a nude woman getting up from her bath tub and running away.

[10] Beginning in 1969 with Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, the subsequent Golden Age of Porn and more permissive legislation, a rise of adult theaters in the United States, and many other countries, developed.

Early American stag films included Wonders of the Unseen World (1927), An Author's True Story (1933), Goodyear (1950s), Smart Alec (1951), and Playmates (1956–58).

The production is concentrated in San Fernando Valley (mainly in Chatsworth, Reseda and Van Nuys) and Las Vegas, where more than 200 adult entertainment companies gather to network and show off their latest wares.

[18] The world's largest adult movies studio, Vivid Entertainment, generates an estimated $100 million a year in revenue, distributing 60 films annually[19] and selling them in video stores, hotel rooms, on cable systems, and on the Internet.

The viewers paid close to $400 million a year to tune into Vivid's hardcore content and the company soon overtook Playboy as operator of the world's largest adult-TV network.

[42] The use of expired domains is also common, along with typosquatting, which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser.

According to the 1986 Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, American adult entertainment industry has grown considerably over the past thirty years by continually changing and expanding to appeal to new markets, though the production is considered to be low-profile and clandestine.

[47] Other sources, quoted by Forbes (Adams Media Research, Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Report, and IVD), even taking into consideration all possible means (video networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, web sites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys, and magazines) mention the $2.6–3.9 billion figure (without the cellphone component).

USA Today claimed in 2003 that websites such as Danni's Hard Drive and Cybererotica.com generated $2 billion in revenue in that year, which was allegedly about 10% of the overall domestic porn market at the time.

[50] A CBS News investigation in November 2003 claimed that 50% of guests at the Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Sheraton, and Holiday Inn hotel chains purchased adult movies, contributing to 70% of in-room profits.

[52][e] In Miller v. California the Supreme Court used the definition of pornography made by Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1969 ("a depiction (as in a writing or painting) of licentiousness or lewdness: a portrayal of erotic behavior designed to cause sexual excitement").

[53] Black's Law Dictionary followed the Miller test and defined pornography as material that taken as a whole the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find appealing to the prurient interest.

Heinle's Newbury House Dictionary of American English (2003) defined pornography as "obscene writings, pictures, or films intended to arouse sexual desire".

Solicitor General James Lee Rankin (in office 1956–1961),[69] but in Jacobellis v. Ohio Stewart concluded that criminal obscenity laws are constitutionally limited under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to hardcore pornography.

The first can be defined as dealing with sexual representations that are offensive to public morality or taste, which concerned the Court notably in the 1966 Ginzburg v. United States case.

"[73] The 1976 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defined that pornography consists of "written, graphic, or other forms of communication intended to excite lascivious feelings".

The ordinance did not use any of the accepted terms that the Supreme Court had developed over time for determining when material is obscene, including "prurient interest", "offensiveness", or "local community standards".

[77] The Court also indicated that if women were referred to in a disapproving way depicting them as subversive or as enjoying humiliation, the activity would be unlawful regardless of the "literary, artistic or political qualities of the work taken as a whole".

The subordinate status of women in turn leads to affront and lower pay at work, insult and injury at home, battery and rape on the streets....

"[78] Conceptions of Democracy in American Constitutional Argument: The Case of Pornography Regulation by Frank Michelman, issued by Tennessee Law Review (vol.

[79] The task force, according to a Department of Justice news release on May 5, was "dedicated to the investigation and prosecution of the distributors of hard-core pornography that meets the test for obscenity, as defined by the United States Supreme Court."

[84] These efforts have been unsuccessfully challenged in the 1982 New York v. Ferber case ("The States are entitled to greater leeway in the regulation of pornographic depictions of children...").

[87] It is a federal crime to possess, distribute, or produce non-fictional child pornography and carries large fines and prison sentences of up to 30 years upon conviction and requirement to register as a sex offender.

[95] While not criminally unlawful at the federal law, in 2022, as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, a private right of action was established to enable the victims of revenge pornography to seek redress for the damage sustained as a result.

Technically why people have a constitutional right to watch hardcore pornography privately has never been explained,[106] but in the 1973 Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton Chief Justice Burger wrote: "We categorically disapprove the theory, apparently adopted by the trial judge, that obscene, pornographic films acquire constitutional immunity from state regulation simply because they are exhibited for consenting adults only.

[110] Another term usage includes the 1996 Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium v. Federal Communications Commission certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Though the Court has also upheld zoning that prohibits pornographic entertainment within a certain distance of a school, the legitimate primary purpose excludes the preventing of access by minors which can be achieved much more directly by simple restrictions.

[112] On May 13, 2002, writing for the majority in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that using community standards to identify material that could be harmful to minors does not make the law overly broad and therefore unconstitutional under the First Amendment.