First Page
147
Abstract
This article gives Cambria the legal spotlight, at a time when conservatives control the White House and Congress, to discuss the never-ending tension between the First Amendment freedom of speech, which sometimes, although certainly not always, protects the $10 billion adult entertainment industry in the United States and the voices of censorship who would squelch such content. It is a tension that clearly affects many people, given the sheer popularity of sexually explicit speech and the mainstreaming today of adult content; sales and rentals of adult videos in 2002 totaled more than $4 billion, according to the Adult Video News. Pornography on the Internet generates another $2 billion. As a February 2003 article in the Washington Post observed,"[t]he popularization of pornography is everywhere." The Video Software Dealers Association predicted in its most recent annual report that by 2006, adult entertainment will be among the three most significant online content providers...
In this article, Cambria discusses, from his perch as one of the nation's leading obscenity lawyers, a myriad of First Amendment-based issues including:(I) the continued viability of the obscenity test set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Millerv. California;32 (2) the regulation of so-called virtual child pornography;33 (3) his tactics in both selecting and arguing before juries in obscenity cases; (4) the zoning of adult entertainment establishments and the constitutionality of such efforts; (5) the so-called Cambria List of sexually explicit acts that often attract prosecutors' attention; (6) his beliefs about the intent and purpose of the First Amendment in a democratic society; and (7) his representation of, as well as relationship with, Larry Flynt during the last quarter of a century. Along the way, Cambria comments on the state of the adult entertainment industry and the way it has now become a part of mainstream society
Recommended Citation
Clay Calvert and Robert D. Richards,
Adult Entertainment and the First Amendment: A Dialogue and Analysis with the Industry's Leading Litigator,
6 Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
147
(2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/jetlaw/vol6/iss2/1