Prurient Interests: Gender, Democracy, and Obscenity in New York City, 1909-1945 (review)

Debates over what constitutes obscenity, as well as to what degree, if any, the "obscene" should be censored, are very much with us. The "here-we-go-again" familiarity of contemporary politics of censorship notwithstanding, Andrea Friedman's scholarly exploration of obscenity and its regulation in New York City between 1909 and 1945 is a welcome addition to a discourse too often anemic for its lack of historical scale. Friedman's culminating argument—that out of struggles to define and regulate obscenity in the early twentieth century evolved a "democratic moral authority" that still influences the articulation and enactment of censorship policy—is thoroughly developed. Her analyses will greatly assist continuing attempts to explore this crucial period in the inception of national policies for censoring the "obscene."

Specifically, Friedman contends that the emergent paradigm of democratic moral authority contained two core precepts, that "whether a representation of sex was obscene ought to be judged according to the standards of the 'average person' and that regulation of that content must occur only in accordance with carefully defined democratic processes" (5). Although Friedman concentrates on obscenity regulation and censure in New York City, she cites the city's importance as a "national center for commercial culture" as well as the fact that the nascent "obscenity regime" there in the decades prior to World War II ultimately became a national one (10, 12). Within this time period, Friedman focuses especially on the regulation of cinema, burlesque, and "legitimate" theatre, explaining that the representation of sexuality was a common core of each.

Also common to these venues was the attention of many of the anti-obscenity activists (e.g., clergy, feminists, etc.) who opposed them. Friedman scrupulously and meticulously renders an account of the opposition's discourse and resists easy caricatures of even the most extreme and vociferous of the combatants in the debates over obscenity regulation. In large part, she achieves her fair and nuanced depictions of various contenders and their contentions—individual, organizational, as well as governmental—through copious use of primary source material directly tied to the shaping of censorship legislation. Correspondence among key players in the censorship debates, notes from meetings of vice organizations, transcripts from court hearings, and many other obscure documents comprise the bulk of Friedman's research. The resulting reconstructions of arguments as diverse as the maternalist rationale of feminist anti-obscenity activists, the democratic appeals of anti-censorship advocates, and the morality-based campaigns waged by the leadership of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (Anthony Comstock hardly operated alone, which Friedman recognizes) yield a compelling, if microscopic, account of the evolution of obscenity regulation in the United States.

Indeed, Friedman neglects to some extent relevant primary sources less immediate to the process of obscenity regulation but still important to our understanding of the climate in which censorship policies were crafted. During this era, for example, essays and editorials published in periodicals that boasted a national readership frequently focused on current censorship issues, including the impact of events in New York City on other parts of the United States. And while Friedman justifiably places New York City at the center of these early obscenity debates, she does so without adequately acknowledging the role that perceptions about the city itself played in the evolution of obscenity regulation. Concerns about the types of entertainments New York City "exported" to the rest of the nation, for example, were commonly expressed in a wide range of publications. A more generous use of these kinds of "outsider" commentaries, as well as discourse aimed at a national audience, would help to contextualize ongoing debates about the regulation of obscenity and cast a wider narrative net with which to offset an account that at times becomes confusing for lack of synthesis.

A lack of coalescence...