by the American Civil Liberties Union

About the author: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a national organization that works to safeguard Americans’ civil rights.

Sexually explicit material, in literature, art, film, photography and music, has always been controversial in the United States, from James Joyce’s Ulysses— which was banned in the 1930s—to rap music performed by 2 Live Crew, a target of prosecution in the 1990s. Traditionally, political conservatives and religious fundamentalists have been the primary advocates of tight legal restrictions on sexual expression, based on their view that such expression undermines public morality. In the late 1970s, however, those traditional voices were joined by a small but extremely vocal segment of the feminist movement. These women, who do not by any means speak for all feminists, charge that &ldquo...