Opinion ID: 175571
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: serious value

Text: Nothing in the language of the statutes, including the exemptions, takes the serious value of the work as a whole into account, or, for that matter, whether the work possesses any redeeming social value. A pair of examples from the record highlight the statutes' overbreadth in this regard. It's Perfectly Normal is a sexual education book containing simple line drawings that include non-obscene but unmistakable images of sexual intercourse and masturbation. As its subtitle indicates, the book provides frank information about changing bodies, growing up, sex & sexual health, and thus does not lack serious scientific value even for children under the age of thirteen. The images of sexual intercourse and masturbation are sexually explicit material and, pursuant to section 054, they may not be furnished to children under the age of thirteen. OR. REV. STAT. §§ 167.054(1); 167.051(5)(a). While their primary purpose is education rather than titillation, the images of sexual intercourse and masturbation are not an incidental portion of the work as a whole, as they cannot be considered subordinate or nonessential in a sexual education manual. Thus, the exemption fails to shelter sexual education materials like It's Perfectly Normal from liability. Similarly, section 057 sweeps up works like Forever, a coming-of-age novel written by Judy Blume. Forever includes explicit narrative accounts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, and genital-genital contact, which are all depictions of sexual conduct that may not be shared with minors, if the furnisher intends to arouse the minor or the furnisher. See OR. REV. STAT. §§ 167.057(a)-(b); 167.051(4)(a)-(b). But Forever certainly contains serious artistic or literary value as to minors as a whole, and the explicit narrative accounts in Forever are not incidental to the coming of age story. See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coal., 535 U.S. 234, 248, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002) (explaining that inclusion of obscene portions that are part of the narrative of a non-obscene work do not cause the work itself . . . [to] become obscene). These examples are hardly exotic. They demonstrate that the statutes reach a substantial number of works that are not obscene to children or minors because they fail to take into account the value of the work as a whole.