From: greg@cs.washington.edu (Greg Barnes)
Subject: Re: second try of the censorship source
Organization: Adolph Eichmann's Evil Cake Factory
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 18:08:50 GMT

In article <3940013@iftccu.boeing.com> leslie@iftccu.boeing.com (Dan Leslie) writes:
[on the erotic music bill]
>For your  reading  enjoyment  here  is  a
>sample of the lyrics in question:
>
>        If you s*ck my d*ck, I'll eat your pu**y.
>        Lick my a*s b*t*h up and down,
>        Lick it till your tongue turns doo doo brown
>        Put your lips on my d**k and suck my as*hole too.
>        Suck my d**k and make it puke.
>        Forget the salads and just eat my meat.
>        When you don't have a d**k
>           just finger-f**k yourself.
>        We can do whatever comes to mind,
>           let me stick my d**k in your behind.

Hmmm.  This doesn't rhyme very well.  And it's kind of short.  Not a very 
good song.  Which leads me to believe that this isn't an entire song, but 
rather just excerpts from one or many songs.

Unfortunately, in order to prove something "obscene", the entire work must
be prurient and have no redeeming social and artistic value.  In the
absence of all the lyrics to a song, one cannot properly judge whether the
lyrics are obscene, since one cannot judge its social or artistic value.  
I'm sure I could find some quite offensive passages in Ulysses, or The 
Crying of Lot 49, or All the King's Men, or most any 20th
century work of literature (and many works from previous centuries) that 
would sound obscene when lifted out of context.  Yet these books are not 
obscene.

Even if this were an entire song, a song is not simply lyrics.  To judge
obscenity of a song, one must take into account the music as well.
Clearly, this cannot be judged easily on Usenet.  Therefore, I cannot agree
that this 'song' is obscene, as you seem to wish I would.

My main objection to this bill is that it does nothing.  2 Live Crew was
judged not guilty of obscenity by a jury in Florida, and if their songs 
(I'm guessing most of your quotes are from their album, "As Nasty as They
Wanna Be") aren't obscene in the eyes of a Florida community, I doubt one
can prove anything obscene in King or Snohomish Counties (caveat:  in 
separate cases, a judge ruled the 2 Live Crew album obscene and a jury 
ruled their music not obscene.  However, given the Supreme Court's 
definition of obscenity, which relies on community values, I postulate 
that the jury's ruling is more reflective of the obscene nature of 
the album).  The governer admitted as much when he signed the bill, 
saying he doubted it would ever be used.  He said he wanted to 'send 
a message' to the music industry.  Frankly, I'm sick of this state's 
government passing laws to 'send a message' to someone (remember the Teen 
Sex bill?  That was supposed to send a message, too.).  I'd rather our 
legislature spent their time debating issues over which they have some 
jurisdiction and where legislation is needed, such as health care, tax 
reform, the environment, etc. than spend their time crafting election-year 
bills that talk loud but say nothing.

			Greg Barnes
			greg@cs.washington.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
	She was a sociologist, and I don't like sociologists.  They try to
reason things out too much.
		--- Pedro Dijols, prosecutor in the 2 Live Crew case, 
		    expressing his disappointment with one of the jurors
Xref: sparky seattle.general:769 pnw.general:555