When I took part - as it seems, many years ago - in a Committee to recommend reforms in the obscenity laws, we received evidence from an American constitutional lawyer who happened to be in England, was an expert on the subject, and agreed to come and talk to us about it. He explained the complex constraints exercised by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which says that no law shall be made to abridge the freedom of speech. He rehearsed various devices that lawyers and legislators had used to try to get round these constraints in order to control pornography, including the argument that pornography was not, constitutionally speaking, 'speech'. When he had gone out, one of the lawyers on our committee, Brian Simpson, said: 'I think I should explain something to the Committee. Americans believe in rights.'

LRB 17 April 1986 | PDF Download