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porting criticisms and reviews of the book, but these were later disallowed
when the case was heard at the Old Bailey. Sir Gerald Dodson, the presid-
ing judge in the case and also the recorder of London, determined that the
novel did not meet his standard that all books must be suitable reading for
 a callow youth, or a girl just budding into womanhood. Hutchinson Pub-
lishing and its director, Katherine Webb, were each fined 500 pounds. In
his summing up, Sir Dodson stated:
I should have thought any reader, however inexperienced, would have been
repelled by a book of this sort, which is repugnant to every decent emotion
which ever concerned man or woman. It is a very comforting thought that
juries from time to time take a very solid stand against this sort of thing,
and realise how important it is for the youth of this country to be protected
and that the fountain of our national blood should not be polluted at its
source.
FURTHER READING
Adams, Michael. Censorship: The Irish Experience. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 1968.
Craig, Alec. Suppressed Books: A History of the Conception of Literary Obscenity. New
York: World Publishing, 1963.
Rolph, Cecil Hewitt. Books in the Dock. London: Deutsch, 1961.
SERENADE
Author: James M. Cain
Original date and place of publication: 1937, United States
Original publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Literary form: Novel
SUMMARY
Serenade is the story of John Howard Sharp, a concert singer who has landed
fundless in Mexico City because his voice has failed him. He meets Juana
Montes, a  three-peso whore, who appears to be receptive to his advances
until she hears him sing. She changes her mind because she hears a wooden
quality in his voice that she associates with homosexuals. The two decide to
join forces, nonetheless, and open a house of prostitution in Acapulco. On the
way, they are caught in a rainstorm and take refuge in a church, where John
rapes Juana. He justifies his action by saying,  Yes, it was rape, but only tech-
nically, brother, only technically. Above the waist, maybe she worried about
the sacrilegio, but from the waist down she wanted me bad.
209
SEX
They live together, indulging frequently in such sex play as  smearing her
nipples with soup. After a run-in with a Mexican official, the two move to
California, where John regains his voice. When conductor Winston Hawes
reenters John s life, their strong physical attraction to each other is evident.
Desperate to  save John from his homosexual feelings, Juana kills Winston
and must escape from the United States into Mexico. John follows her, but
Juana runs away only to be reunited with him as she is about to die at the
hands of the official who originally forced them to flee Mexico.
CENSORSHIP HISTORY
Serenade was not the object of attempted censorship until a decade after
publication. In 1949, after receiving complaints from patrons of the Free
Public Library in Worcester, Massachusetts, the state attorney general
ordered that copies of Serenade and god s little acre be removed from
the library shelves. The case appeared before the Superior Court of Suf-
folk County, Massachusetts, which judged the book  not obscene. The
attorney general filed an appeal with the Supreme Judicial Court where, in
September 1950, Serenade was again cleared in a 4-3 decision in Attorney
General v. Book Named  Serenade, 326 Mass. 324, 94 N.E. 2d 259 (1950).
In presenting the majority decision, Judge Spalding wrote that the sexual
episodes in Serenade were  not portrayed in a manner that would have a
 substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt readers by inciting lascivious
thoughts or arousing lustful desires. 
FURTHER READING
DeVoto, Bernard.  The Easy Chair: Liberal Decisions in Massachusetts. Harper s
Magazine, July 1949, pp. 62 65.
Frohock, W. M. The Novel of Violence in America. Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist
University, 1950.
 Worcester Library Directors Support Their Librarian. Library Journal, 1949, p. 649.
SEX
Author: Madonna
Original date and place of publication: 1992, New York
Original publisher: Warner Books
Literary form: Pictorial
SUMMARY
Sex is a 128-page book of erotica and sexual fantasies written by Madonna.
It was produced in a spiral-bound format with sheets of aluminum as cov-
ers, wrapped in silver, and accompanied by a copy of  Erotica on a single
210
SEX
CD. As Madonna writes in the introduction,  This is about sex. Sex is not
love. Love is not sex. But the best of both worlds is created when they
come together. She defends the sexual activity portrayed in the book as
not meant to encourage others to engage in unsafe sex and explains that
all of the photographs are based on her fantasies. She explains,  when I let
my mind wander, when I let myself go, I rarely think of condoms. My fan-
tasies take place in a perfect world, a place without AIDS. She cautions
readers that everything they see in the book is  a dream, pretend. But if
I were to make my dreams real, I would certainly use condoms. Safe sex
saves lives. Pass it on. The brief essays in the book that are interspersed
with the pictures are all written by Dita Parlow, a persona created by
Madonna. On her CD Erotica, Madonna also shares performance credits
with this imagined self.
The photographs in the book explore diverse forms of sexual behavior,
including homosexuality and fetishism. Madonna appears in photographs
with various celebrities, including model Naomi Campbell, actress Isabella
Rossellini, rappers Big Daddy Kane and Vanilla Ice, and gay porn star Joey
Stefano. She is fully naked in some pictures and partially clothed in others;
the photographs cover a range of locales.
CENSORSHIP HISTORY
Sex sold 1.5 million copies worldwide and appeared in the number-one posi-
tion on both the Washington Post and the New York Times best-seller lists.
Japan banned the book because its controversial photographs violated
the country s censorship law. In New Delhi, India, police announced they
would confiscate copies of Sex that entered the country. On November 26,
1992, in Paris, the Catholic group The Future of Culture filed two lawsuits
against Madonna and her publisher for corrupting French youths with por-
nography and petitioned the court to have all copies of the book in France
destroyed. On December 7, 1992, the group lost its court battle to have the
book destroyed.
In December 1992, Judith Sees, chairperson of the Monroe County
Library System board of trustees in Michigan, was warned by 20 families that
they would remove their children from the 4-H program run by Sees because
she had supported the inclusion of Madonna s book in the library collection.
In 1992, the Mesa, Arizona, Public Library System cancelled its orders
for copies of the book after local residents called and protested the proposed
purchase.
In October 1993, Library Journal reported that Kay Clark, vice presi- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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