BISMARCK — A partisan bill introduced by North Dakota Republican state senators would redefine “obscene material and performance” and “explicit sexual material” in extremely broad terms that would result in creating criminal liability for almost all instances of nudity and references to sex outside of adult venues.
Senate Bill 2360, aiming to amend “Obscenity Control” provisions, was introduced last week by State Sen. Keith Boehm (Dist. 33) — who describes himself as “a lifelong farmer and rancher and small businessman” — and four fellow Republicans. State Rep. Jim Kasper (R-Dist. 46) sponsored the House version of the bill.
Although the purported aim of the bill is to address a questionable “pornography crisis” in North Dakota’s school libraries, Boehm’s bill would in fact redefine obscenity as “material or a performance which: a. Taken as a whole, the average person, applying contemporary North Dakota standards, would find predominantly appeals to a prurient interest; depicts or describes in a patently offensive manner sexual conduct, whether normal or perverted; and taken as a whole, the reasonable person would find lacking in serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
Whether material or a performance is obscene, the bill continues, “must be judged with reference to reasonable adults, unless it appears from the character of the material or the circumstances of its dissemination that the material or performance is designed for minors or other specially susceptible audience, in which case the material or performance must be judged with reference to that type of audience.”
Boehm’s original draft of SB 2360 appealed to “ordinary adults” as the standard of judgment, but this was amended later to “reasonable adults.”
The War on 'Nude or Partially Denuded Human Figures'
Another section of the Republican bill defines “objectionable materials or performance” and criminalizes anyone who may “willfully display at newsstands or any other business establishment frequented by minors, or where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public, any photograph, book, paperback book, pamphlet, or magazine, the exposed cover or available content of which either contains explicit sexual material that is harmful to minors or exploits, is devoted to, or contains depictions or written descriptions of nude or partially denuded human figures posed or presented in a manner to exploit sex, lust or perversion.”
Boehm’s original version specified that the offending material had to be presented “for commercial gain,” but this was later struck to make any expression that may be interpreted as falling under the bill’s definition, regardless of profit motive.
Then SB 2360 proceeds to specify a sweeping redefinition of “explicit sexual material,” which would now mean “any written, pictorial, three-dimensional, or visual depiction that is patently offensive, including any photography, picture, or computer-generated image, showing or describing:
“(1) Human masturbation;
(2) Deviant sexual intercourse;
(3) Sexual intercourse;
(4) Direct physical stimulation of genitals;
(5) Sadomasochistic abuse;
(6) Postpubertal human genitals;
(7) Sexual activity;
(8) Sexual perversion; or
(9) Sex-based classifications.”
Leaving nothing to chance, the Republican senators also defined “nude or partially denuded human figures" to means “less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic regions, female breasts or a female breast, if the breast or breasts are exposed below a point immediately above the top of the areola, or human buttocks; and includes human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state even if completely and opaquely covered.”
Finally, ensuring that any public space not zoned as adult-only would be covered by the censorship bill, the phrase “where minors are or may be invited as a part of the general public" was specifically clarified to mean “any public roadway or public walkway,” with the exception of “a bona fide school, college, university, museum, public library or art gallery.”
'Amorphous' Censorship Bills
In an op-ed on Tuesday, North Dakota columnist Rob Port asked whether “If Senate Bill 2360 were to become law, would Christians and Muslims and other citizens of faith have to buy their holy books in a porn shop?”
Port clarified he was “being facetious when I lump the Christian Bible in with porn. Obviously, the Bible is not porn, but SB 2360, along with House Bill 1205, which seeks to implement similar content restrictions, doesn't make those distinctions."
These bills' definitions of what constitutes objectionable materials, Port concluded "are so amorphous that most literature sold today would be censored.”
Main Image: North Dakota State Sen. Keith Boehm
