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Between the extreme partisans—those who hail the phenomenon as liberation and those who condemn it as decadence—there is room for some serious con cern about what it means in American life. In a sense, the creative arts and even their sleazy offshoots—blue movies, smut books, peepshows, prurient tabloids —hold a public mirror to a society's private fantasies. A nation gets the kind of art and entertainment it wants and will pay for. Thus to many serious critics, and they are by no means all bluenoses or comstockians, the explosion of salacity in cinema, theater and book rack is disturbing. Esthetically, pop sex may well reflect a stunting of the imagination, a dilution of artistic values, and a cultish attempt to substitute sensation for thought. Morally and psychologically, it may signal a deeper unease connected with a crisis of values. It also has its political aspects. Sex and politics have always been linked, but the connection can be carried too far —as was demonstrated for all time by the Marquis de Sade, who was more of a revolutionary than a sensualist, and pushed both roles to madness. Today, many of the young (or would-be young) use sexual display or obscene language quite deliberately as shock weapons of protest against "the Establishment." At the same time, those who are affronted by the new license may produce a backlash that could lead to a general mood of repression, social as well as political.
Part of the widespread resentment against the liberal Warren Court is based on its decision striking down various forms of censorship. The Citizens for Decent Literature, biggest of a number of antismut organizations that have sprung up around the country, has pledged itself to appear on the prosecution side in every pornography case that comes before the Supreme Court. At present, no fewer than 135 anti-pornography bills are under study by the House Judiciary Committee. Last year Lyndon Johnson appointed leading educators, sociologists, psychologists and lawyers to a presidential commission on obscenity and pornography. Its interim report, to be released this month, will recommend, among other measures, that all erotic wares in the marketplace be stamped Adult Material.
No Longer Underground