Hmmn. I spent a fun morning early this morning reading a whole bunch of Supreme Court opinions on FindLaw - they very kindly reference with a pointer previous decisions referred to. I read most of the CPPA decision, which kindly referenced the 1982 SC decision on child porn, which referenced the 1972 decision that attempted to define 'obscenity.' I also discovered, much to my 'delight' that the 1972 case originated here in good ol' Orange County, CA, the John Birch capital of the US. The cusp of the 1982 decision was that (at least to that point) the creation of those pictures required the abuse of a minor, frequently a child. Since the creation of those photos at that time required a crime, and a particularly henious one by most standards, leading to the kinds of lifelong problems in the victim cited in earlier parts of this thread, the SC (which was still pretty 'liberal' at that point) upheld existing laws forbidding the possession and sale of those images. They were also careful to exclude things like, say, a med school anatomy textbook that showed pictures of a child's genitals. The whole opinion is much more detailed, of course, but that was the gist of it as my spinning brain remembers it. I've never read a whole supreme court decision before, much less three. Interesting the subtle jabs the justices take at one another in them.