Google Trends vs. Community Standards On Obscenity

circletimessquare writes "Google Trends is being used in a novel way in a pornography trial in Florida. Under a 1973 Supreme Court ruling, 'contemporary community standards' may be used as a yardstick for judging material as unprotected obscenity. This is a very subjective judgment, and so Lawrence Walters, a defense lawyer for Clinton Raymond McCowen, is using Google Trends to show that, in the privacy of their own homes, more people in Pensacola (the only city in the court's jurisdiction that is large enough to be singled out in the service's data) are interested in 'orgy' than "apple pie'."

Comments

Petard, meet hoist.

[Jaysyn]

That is awesome.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[FredFredrickson]

In the state that I live (NH), obscene is defined by anything that most likely would cause "affront or alarm." This, of course, leaves a lot for interpretation. My new hair cut could be considered obscene.

The question is simple: why are natural things like nudity, sex, and sexual intercourse considered obscene to begin with? Is it neccessary for society to function? Is it important to have a line drawn somewhere, for fear that if the line gets pushed, even more extreme things may become the norm? (Killing babies, public self mutiliation, goatse)?

I, of course, don't support public obscenities and indecencies- it's just plainly wrong to do some things in public. But then I try to think why it is, and can't seem to find a good answer. Is it because that's how I was brought up, and that's how I learned it should be?

There are a lot of things that I learned as I grew up that don't actually make sense. Is it possible that some things are just the way we've always done it, and that's why it shouldn't change? My parents spoon fed me loads of crap, how am I supposed to seperate the truth (shouldn't run around naked in public) from all the lies (go to church or you'll go to hell)?

As an interesting side note, if he really wants to make a point, he should add a new term to the trends- Google Trends. (Additionally, he shouldn't have public news like this- people will skew the trends when they find out about it.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Potor]

Not really. FTA:

The Google service does, however, show the relative strength of many mainstream queries in Pensacola: "Nascar," "surfing" and "Nintendo" all beat "orgy."

Lawyers can select any word combination that is helpful to them. Nothing here more than a new way to load an argument.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[mo^]

Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond. Citation please. my high-school biology seemed t indicate it was for procreation. I can find nothing to indicate that the point of fucking is to be private.

Do you censure fish who conduct the act of procreation on a mass scale in front of other fish?

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[PakProtector]

Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond. When you put that on public display, the act is reduced to a trite sensuality.

Says who? Last time I checked, there were thre reasons for doing something in private: You believe the world has no right to know your private affairs, or you're ashamed of what you're doing, or you fear the repercussions of your action.

Last time I check, Sexual Intercourse was a natural biological function that had nothing to do with mutual love or regard. It can have those qualities, but those are not inherent in the act itself.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Nursie]

"...intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other..."

That's your interpretation. It's not everyone's by any means.

Ask most men in their early 20s and you'll find that intercourse is an act performed wherever and whenever they can get away with it with whoever is looking good that day.

Ask a lot of young women of today and they'll tell you much the same (though probably a little less extreme).

Ask polyamourists, swingers, exhibitionists etc, you'll get a different answer every time.

What's "meant to be", that depends on who you ask. To me it sounds like a religious proclamation.

this is not to say I want to see fat people screwing in the streets, just that not everyone thinks the way you do.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[bickerdyke]

The question is simple: why are natural things like nudity, sex, and sexual intercourse considered obscene to begin with? Because it is such a private and special act, despite the act having been demeaned over the past 60+ years. And that's the problem. Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond. When you put that on public display, the act is reduced to a trite sensuality. And now go and tell that to the Bonobos! :-) You may be right with the last 60+ years, but if you think back say 1000 years, with at least one peasant family living in a crowded hut. If it were *that* private back then, mankind wouldnt have survived till now. Someone here has any clue when it became a private act in the first place? Had to be some time after our anchestors descended from the trees.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Tom]

The question is simple: why are natural things like nudity, sex, and sexual intercourse considered obscene to begin with? Is it neccessary for society to function? Is it important to have a line drawn somewhere, for fear that if the line gets pushed, even more extreme things may become the norm? No. To control a society through fear (of terrorism, eternal damnation, or whatever the meme of the day is) you need to make sure that said fear is present at all times.

Sexuality is an excellent choice for a religion-dominated control-through-fear approach. It's one of the strongest natural drives, but contrary to hunger, thirst or the opposite bodily functions, you can actually suppress it for a long time. Thus you can have "good" examples to tell all the normal people that they are abnormal, evil, and will certainly go to hell unless... and the unless is what puts you in power.

Worked in Europe for almost two thousand years. In some more primitive parts of the world, including certain regions of Europe and the US, it still works quite well.

It is precisely because nudity and sex are such normal and natural things that they are made taboo.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Mr. Slippery]

Because [sex] is such a private and special act...

Um, no. Sex is not particularly special, the majority of adults have had it. It's considered private in our culture, but in other cultures a couple living in a one room hut with a couple of kids will think nothing of getting it on while the kids are there.

(Sex with someone you love is, hopefully, a special thing. But then, going out to dinner with someone you love is, hopefully, a special thing - it's the "with someone you love" that makes it special, not the act itself.)

Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond.

Sexual intercourse is "meant" to be an act performed to make more members of the screwing couple's species. Anything additional is a social or psychological construct. Which doesn't mean that adding to it is good or bad - but seeking "meaning" in biology is not a useful endeavor.

Certainly, in the Judeo-Christian value system that Europe and the US was brought up in, we were taught that once Adam & Eve ate the fruit and became smart, they put clothes on - to be in public without clothes on is an affront to modesty and morality.

Ancient Hebrew mythology about talking snakes, magical trees, and why all the problems in the world are the fault of a woman, is not a good reason for pointing guns at people and locking them in cages if they step outside with no clothes on.

Any purported system of morality that claims public nudity to be immoral has left any vestige of rationality behind. Hundreds of people have seen me naked (at events like this and this and this) and no one has been harmed.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Robert1]

Meant by society. There are societal norms present in every culture. Its not so much 'meant' as it is 'what is expected or regular.'

Culturally it's 'regular' or 'expected' that two people have sex alone or privately. I don't think society as a whole believes that 'sexual intercourse to be performed in large tubs of grated parmesan cheese by dozens of people at once' is regular.

Granted, I don't think either choice should be regulated, but I think its naive of you to believe that there is no relative consensus about things like this in every society. That is to say, that society does not perceive 'sex as a private act between two people' and 'cheese orgy' as equally palatable (pun unintended) or socially acceptable.

Re:Petard, meet hoist.

[Josuah]

To follow your example...the fish generally don't pretend to procreate for pleasure and no one objects when they DO procreate.

There's evidence suggesting that fish do have sex for reasons other than procreation. Whether this be pleasure (fish can feel pain--I submit that if a creature can feel pain they can feel pleasure), or for other social reasons (see the paragraph about bonobos using sex to relieve tension), or to establish dominance (which I would argue the other animals aren't too happy about) the fact remains that human mores about sex appear to run counter to the rest of nature.

Re:Hyprocrisy in the South--film at eleven!

[D Ninja]

Hypocrisy isn't just the south - it's people. I have yet to meet a person that did not have some sort of hypocrisy going on in their own life - myself included. This is the reason for the entire Biblical passage, "Take the log out of your own eye before you remove the speck from your neighbors." If people spent time fixing themselves and not worrying about other people's problems, the world would be a much more beautiful place.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - people are extremely motivated by their own self-interest and will do whatever it takes to protect that self-interest, even if it means lying to themselves about their actual flaws. Only when people can admit their flaws are they ever going to have a chance of actually fixing things in their lives.

Re:Hyprocrisy in the South--film at eleven!

[stewbacca]

• Most people sitting in church services don't really believe most of that shit in the Bible and are just there for the social and networking aspects of church activities.

Or they are there to feel better about themselves after an online porn all-nighter.

all is fair in love and war

[circletimessquare]

it's not like there once was a time in human history when love was free and sex was easy. there have always been social limits on sex for as long as we have been social apes. sure, we don't have to fight and scrounge for food anymore, but this has only been true for the last century. which, not coincidentally, the last century has seen a relaxation of sexual mores. the other hundreds of thousands of years of human history has been a desperate fight for resources for you and your children against the neighbors and their kids.

prudish social conservatism is not some newfangled judeochristian invention, it is simply human nature. the gut human reaction at seeing someone more successful than you procreatively or materially is anger, and this anger is evolutionarily advantageous: to work hard at limiting your fellow man's success and enjoyment in life, so that you may have some success yourself.

so sex is is fun, sex is pleasurable, sex is good, sex is harmless... unless it is someone else having it. then it is bad. is this selfish? absolutely. and evolutionarily advantageous. and therefore hardwired into how our brains function: there is no way the neighbor's children are going to get more bananas than my children, so there is no way the neighbors are going to freely have sex without my approval

in this perverse way, the urge to prevent other people from enjoying sex is the same urge underlying the desire for social justice, for equality: you can't have more than me, its not fair. community standards on sex is simply the most primitive form of birth control. no, that's not "just say no", that's "you have sex and i'll punish you, because your children are taking resources from my children"

Same old issue again

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem that I see with this issue is that it isn't *really* about protecting the children so much as protecting one's self from having to encounter something that makes one squeamish.

Pictures of naked women painted to look like cows (for example) are pretty darn weird. A lot of people are well within their rights to be freaked out by the existence of such pictures. They are exactly the sort of thing that makes someone squeamish. But does that, in and of itself, mean they should be illegal?

In a country that is founded upon personal freedom, the answer is "no." In a country founded on moral oppression the answer is "yes," but America is not (at least in theory) such a country. Here the acid test is (or at least should be) "is it directly harmful to a human." And, in the case of these pictures, the answer is obviously, "no."

I have friends who are fond of saying, "I will fight to the death to defend your right to free speech" (interestingly enough, none of them have actually joined the military, but that is beside the point). They like to pretend to be patriotic. In my opinion, a REAL patriot would say, "I will fight to the death to defend your right to do things that freak me the fuck out."

Re:Same old issue again

[Anonymous Coward]

Here the acid test is (or at least should be) "is it directly harmful to a human."

I would argue the acid test should be more like, "is it directly harmful to a non-consenting human."

Obscene is defined by religion

[Khashishi]

If we are enforcing our opinions on obscenity on others, we are little different than the Islamists who are enforcing their belief that women showing any skin are being obscene.