Pornography : ‚soft-core‘ liberalization of indecent material in Europe

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the regulation of pornography has undergone substantial changes in many Western European countries. The countries analysed in this chapter have traditionally prohibited the supply of pornographic material and sanctioned violations of this rule. Yet, in the course of societal value changes following the sexual revolution and the process of secularization as well as in view of technological progress, authoritarian styles of regulating pornography have been destabilized. Specifically, cultural pressures as well as noncompliance induced legal pressures have created an impulse pushing the status quo towards more permissive styles of regulation. This impulse has not resulted in similar policy shifts in all countries, however. By focusing on two deviant cases – Austria and Germany – the chapter finds that theoretically expected compensatory policy shifts are rather exceptional in pornography regulation and can only be identified when taking regulatory changes with respect to child pornography into account, too. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the relevance of the national degree of legal activism in explaining the occurrence of absorption as courts can put legal pressure on or take legal pressure off the regulatory status quo. Sometimes they even function as decision-makers themselves in light of political stalemate as the Austrian case illustrates.