Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL) Limited Edition Perfume Oil (Limited)
In 1974, a court ruling established a litmus test for obscenity in the United States. Does the First Amendment protect dirty birds? Yes, and no; it depends on where you are and what your neighbors perceive as naughty. The Court’s majority opinion stated that material could only be defined as obscene if
“(a) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; [and] (b) the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”
If all three conditions are satisfied, voilà! — your work is obscene.
But is it art?
Although a work considered to have literary, artistic, political, or scientific value cannot, in theory, constitutionally be found to be obscene regardless of whether it appeals to prurient interest or is patently offensive, the question lies in how we can possibly determine with certainty whether or not a film, photograph, tale, or limerick has social value when philosophical and moral compasses vary so wildly from person to person and community to community.
Is a perfume inspired by an 18th Century painting of a dildo obscene?
What would your friends and neighbors say?
Leather, cognac, fig, ripe berry, and cream, stuffed into a plain brown paper bag.
Proceeds from the sale of this scent benefits the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
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