Obscene
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 429 U.S. 930 - Taylor v. Tennessee · 1976Most cited · 143 citing opinions
(1) that the average person applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct; and (3) that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Obscene”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Obscene,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Obscene”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “Obscene” — 165 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1975–1976
- ORIGINAL
that to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.
lewd, lascivious, filthy and pornographic and that to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, its dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.