NOVEMBER 2nd - Unnecessary Censorship



On this day in 1960, an obscenity case against Penguin Books over an uncensored version of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly’s Lover ended in an acquittal. While I’ve never read the book, I can imagine a story about a woman cheating on her wealthy, paralyzed husband with the estate gamekeeper might contain a certain amount of smut. But a little smut never hurt anybody. And even if it did, guess what? No one makes you read it. I can almost understand overbearing parents who get all up in arms when a teacher assigns The Catcher in the Rye or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, though I think children are subjected to much worse than this at the daily lunch table. People get crazy about their kids though. I get that. But everyone else? Don’t pick up the book if you are offended. The only part of me that commiserated with the censors is that if they had their way, Fifty Shades of Grey might never been able to suck its way to become a phenomenon. That is the only necessary censorship I can think of. But I was able to follow my own advice--I didn’t read the damn book.

This Day has Been Marked.

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