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• Pornography - A generic term that can refer to materials that are either "legal" or "illegal" to disseminate under the circumstances. "Pornography" encompasses all sexually oriented material intended primarily to arouse the reader, viewer, or listener. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (1986), Chapter One, "Defining our Central Terms." Serious works of art, literature, politics, or science; "mere nudity," medical works, even though they deal with sex or include sexual references or depictions, would not be considered "pornography" in the context of their legitimate uses. On the other hand, since obscenity can include both actual and simulated conduct, all "Hard-Core Pornography" that depicts penetration clearly visible ("PCV") is "implicitly" within the application of the constitutional criteria of the Supreme Court's obscenity test.
  
  “Kids Online: Protecting your Children in Cyberspace” Hughes, Donna Rice (Revel, September 1998)
  
  
• Child pornography - Child pornography is material that visually depicts children (real children as well as computer-generated depictions of children) under the age of eighteen engaged in actual or simulated sexual activity, including lewd exhibition of the genitals. Child pornography laws were recently amended to include computerized images or altered (morphed) pictures of children, and counterfeit or synthetic images generated by computer that appear to be of real minors or that were marketed or represented to be real child pornography
  
  Legal Definition: An unprotected visual depiction of a minor child (federal age is under eighteen) that consists of a visual depiction that "is or appears to be" of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, including a lewd or lascivious exhibition of the genitals.
  
  “Kids Online: Protecting your Children in Cyberspace” Hughes, Donna Rice (Revel, September 1998)
  
  
• Material harmful to minors - Material harmful to minors represents nudity or sex that has prurient appeal for minors, is offensive and unsuitable for minors, and lacks serious value for minors. This material is often referred to as soft-core pornography. There are "harmful to minors" laws in every state. Note: Indecent and harmful to minors material is legal for adults but illegal when knowingly sold or exhibited to minor children
  
  Legal Definition: "Harmful to minors" means any written, visual, or audio matter of any kind that :
  
  
  • the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taken as a whole and with respect to minors, appeals to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, and
    
    
  • the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated; sadomasochistic sexual acts or abuse; or lewd exhibitions of the genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or post-pubertal female breast, and
    
    
  • a reasonable person would find, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
    
  
  “Kids Online: Protecting your Children in Cyberspace” Hughes, Donna Rice (Revel, September 1998)
  
  
• Indecency - Indecent material includes messages or pictures on telephone, radio, or broadcast TV that are patently offensive descriptions or depictions of sexual or excretory organs or activities. This is often referred to as "sexual nudity" and "dirty words"
  
  
  • broadcast indecency - language or material that, "in context, depicts or describes in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs.
    
    
  • dial-a-porn - "The description or depiction of sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the telephone medium."
    
    
  • cable indecency - Cable operators may refuse to carry indecent leased access programming that the operator reasonably believes "describes or depicts sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the cable medium."
    
    
  • computer "Internet" indecency - "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs."
    
    
  “Kids Online: Protecting your Children in Cyberspace” Hughes, Donna Rice (Revel, September 1998)
  
  
• Obscenity - obscenity is graphic material that is obsessed with sex and/or sexual violence and is, therefore, prurient, patently offensive, and lacking in serious value. It is often referred to as hard-core pornography and includes close-ups of graphic sex acts and deviant activities, such as penetration, group sex, bestiality, torture, incest, and excretory functions.
  
  Legal Definition: - (adult)-Not protected by the First Amendment. The "Miller Test" applies to actual or simulated sexual materials and lewd genital exhibitions. See Miller v California, 413 U.S. 15, at 24-25 (1973); Smith v United States, 431 U.S. 291, at 300-02, 309 (1977); Pope v Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, at 500-01 (1987)
  
  
  • Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the material, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient interest in sex (i.e., an erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion); and
    
    
  • Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, would find that the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct (i.e., ultimate sex acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated; masturbation; excretory functions; lewd exhibition of the genitals; or sadomasochistic sexual abuse); and
    
    
  • Whether a reasonable person would find that the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
    
    Note: (Production, transmission, and distribution of obscenity are felonies, yet possession of obscenity in one's home is not a crime. However, use of a phone line or online service to transmit obscenity is a federal crime under current law. Therefore, it is a felony to either upload (transmit from your personal computer to the Internet) or download (copy from the Internet onto your personal computer) Internet obscenity.
  
  “Kids Online: Protecting your Children in Cyberspace” Hughes, Donna Rice (Revel, September 1998)
  
  

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