Читать книгу The Changing Face of Sex - Wayne P. Anderson PhD - Страница 12

Comstock believed that strong legal controls should be placed on the distribution of any material that was obscene, lewd or lascivious. This included any written material or pictorial about sex including information on birth control. In 1873 he created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice with the goal of controlling the public’s morals.

This would not have been such a powerful influence if he had not later that year somehow influenced the U.S. Congress to pass the Comstock Laws that put into place his broad view of what was indecent and pornography. The statutes defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit, and it was a federal offense to disseminate birth control information through the mail or across state lines.Even medical textbooks that contained anatomy drawings could be censured.In 1890 the tariff act prohibiting importation of anything obscene was passed, and Comstock had the right to open mail for inspection.

The laws he influenced continued to prevent the distribution of information on birth control years after his death. As late as the 1960s, thirty states had statutes on the books that prohibited and restricted the sale and advertisements of contraceptives. Even doctors in some states could not prescribe or discuss contraception. Samuel G. Kling gives a summary of laws as they existed in 1960s in his book Sexual Behavior and the Law.

Not content with getting the laws passed, Comstock then obtained extraordinary powers as a special agent for the U.S. Postal Service to personally take legal action against anyone he considered to have been guilty of breaking those laws. Later Margaret Sanger was to flee the country under threat of imprisonment, and she was to spend time in jail for giving out birth control information.

Comstock comes across as a fanatic, and in today’s culture it is difficult for my students to imagine a society in which a man with such extreme views could become such a powerful influence. He bragged that he had been responsible for 4,000 arrests and 15 suicides. As an aside, it is reported that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, learned much from Comstock’s methods.