Summary
Title: Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve
Author: Philip D. Harvey
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 157392881X
Pro:
• Passionate account of heavy-handed government tactics
• Story of what it takes to fight government censorship
• Tells story from perspective of those affected and those fighting
Con:
• None
Description:
• Story of one man's fight against government censorship
• Defense of free speech rights, even where erotica is concerned
• Exploration of history of censorship of sexual material
Book Review
Unfortunately, the purpose and consequences are not entirely hypothetical, because most governments do get involved with regulating private sexual conduct and expression. The book Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve, written by Philip D. Harvey, helps us understand how to deal with such questions, but not from the traditionally academic or journalistic standpoint. Harvey’s book is very much a memoir of his own personal experience with governmental power and the abuse of that power.
In 1970, Harvey founded Adam & Eve, a mail-order business selling condoms around the country — this was part of a thesis project while he was working on his master’s degree in family planning administration. It worked so well that he continued with the business full-time, adding books about contraception, and then about sex, and then erotic magazines, and later video tapes. Over time he has provided a lot of money from this business to a variety of charities dealing with sexual, health, and population issues (including a couple which he founded himself). He explains in the book that he liked to think of his efforts as being like
- “...a Robin Hood business selling contraceptives and sexual accoutrements to the relatively wealthy citizens of the United States in order to generate funds to subsidize the sale of contraceptives in poor countries.”
Then came the Reagan administration and Attorney General Edwin Meese. Under his direction, the federal government moved actively against anyone selling erotic material, based upon the premise that all such material is harmful (regardless of what actual scientific studies have shown). Harvey was caught up in this sweep of “pornographers,” and his business was raided in 1986. Several similar business rolled over because they lacked the resources to fight, but not Harvey.
We all would be a bit poorer if he had voluntarily surrendered his civil liberties, and we are all better off because of the struggle which he endured for many years. The only jury trial he ever faced resulted in an acquittal, because even that conservative jury found that he was not dealing in obscene material. Undaunted, the government pursued an unethical strategy of having people like Harvey indicted in multiple jurisdictions by multiple federal prosecutors, all in the hopes of intimidating them into a guilty plea. Remember, none of the businesses pursued in these efforts were ever found by a jury to have been selling anything obscene.
Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam and Eve, by Philip D. Harvey
But once again, Harvey refused to back down. In doing so, he demonstrated the importance of an independent judiciary. The justice department didn’t care about people’s civil rights — the only thing which was important was stamping out sex. Only the intervention of sane judges stopped them, and even then it was only because of Harvey’s activism. Rights and liberties do not exist or thrive on their own. Instead, they require active participation and effort.
One important issue which is revealed in Harvey’s story is one which is sometimes lost in other discussions on this topic. When a single right, like free speech, is ignored or restricted by the government, there will almost invariably follow infringements upon other liberties. This is because none of our rights stands completely alone: they are all interconnected aspects of what being a free citizen means. In Harvey’s case, his Fourth Amendment rights to be free from “unreasonable search and seizure” and his Sixth Amendment rights to have assistance of counsel were both infringed upon when he was raided.
