The Meese Commission on Pornography

THE MEESE COMMISSION ON PORNOGRAPHY

A Conservative Look at Pornography

On 9 July 1986 the report of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography was released. For those who had followed the proceedings of the commission, the report held no surprises: the two-volume, 1,960-page document advocated stricter enforcement of existing obscenity laws and the expansion of definitions of obscenity to make more types of pornography illegal. While conservatives praised the commission's report as a step toward restoring what they perceived as the lost moral tenor of American life, publishers denounced it as an effort to undermine the First Amendment, and social scientists found fault with its use of research. Some stores pulled magazines censured by the commission from their shelves, and local communities increased efforts to crack down on sellers of pornography—even if sales clerks, rather than the owners of the stores, were the ones who were arrested.

Procedures

U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese created the commission in May 1985 with the goal of finding "new ways to control the problem of pornography"—showing a conservative bias from the start, since the very perception that there was a "problem with pornography" contradicted the findings of the 1970 President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Indeed, the constitution of the committee indicated that it would begin with certain assumptions and incline toward certain interpretations: seven of its eleven members had publicly spoken out against pornography before being named to the commission. Nor were its procedures reassuring to those who desired a fair examination of the issue, since most of the people the commission interviewed about the effects of pornography favored control of its production and distribution. In addition, the commission made a show of drawing on social-science findings on pornography, but many social scientists criticized the commission's conclusions as unsupported by existing research. Likewise, the commission drew on the ideas of feminist antipornography advocates while ignoring their calls for increased sex education.

The Report

After examining 2,375 magazines, 725 books, and 2,370 movies, the majority of the commission members decided, over the objections of the more moderate members, that pornography led to violence against women and children and "debased" women. The report, which had the full support of Attorney General Meese, encouraged the abolition of sexually explicit materials.

The Reaction

While hardly anyone objected to such recommendations as the banning of child pornography, many Americans found the report an unwarranted intrusion into the private lives of citizens. Mainstream men's magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse went on the defensive, particularly after the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores pulled the magazines from their shelves in response to threatened boycotts by antipornography activists such as the Reverend Donald Wildmon's National Federation for Decency. Some writers ridiculed the commission as a kangaroo court putting pornography on trial as part of a conservative agenda to reshape the American cultural landscape.

Aftermath

While conservatives did make some progress in limiting pornography during the late 1980s, America had come too far in its notions of sexual expression to revert to the attitudes of the 1950s. Magazine publishers and filmmakers, though concerned about increased scrutiny, for the most part went about their business, and they did not have to search far for customers. A few years after the report was released it was largely seen as much ado about very little.

Sources:

F. M. Christensen, Pornography: The Other Side (New York, Westport, Conn. & London: Praeger, 1990);

John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988);

Susan Gubar and Joan Hoff, eds., For Adult Users Only: The Dilemma of Violent Pornography (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989).