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Home > Document Library > Afterword: Liberals and Conservatives Abandon the Principles of the Founding > Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure v. Massachusetts


Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure v. Massachusetts
383 U.S. 413
U.S. Supreme Court

Dissenting opinion by Tom Clark, Concurring opinion (appendix) by William Douglas
1966


[Douglas’s appendix, representative of modern liberalism, is an open rejection of the moral position of the Founders, in favor of what has come to be called the sexual revolution. — TGW]

 

[This Supreme Court decision ruled that "Memoirs" was protected by the First Amendment. This was one in a series of cases in which the modern Court rejected the Founders’ understanding of free speech. Tom Clark’s dissent, printed first, makes clear the actual character of these "Memoirs." Part of Justice William Douglas’s concurring opinion follows. It states with complete frankness the liberal argument, rarely made explicit on the Court, for the legalization of pornography—and for what later came to be called "the sexual revolution." This view of freedom lies behind the Court’s transformation of this aspect of the First Amendment.]

MR. JUSTICE CLARK, dissenting

It is with regret that I write this dissenting opinion. However, the public should know of the continuous flow of pornographic material reaching this Court and the increasing problem States have in controlling it. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the book involved here, is typical. I have "stomached" past cases for almost 10 years without much outcry. Though I am not known to be a purist—or a shrinking violet—this book is too much even for me. It is important that the Court has refused to declare it obscene and thus affords it further circulation. In order to give my remarks the proper setting I have been obliged to portray the book’s contents, which causes me embarrassment….

Memoirs is nothing more than a series of minutely and vividly described sexual episodes. The book starts with Fanny Hill, a young 15-year-old girl, arriving in London to seek household work. She goes to an employment office where through happenstance she meets the mistress of a bawdy house. This takes 10 pages. The remaining 200 pages of the book detail her initiation into various sexual experiences, from a lesbian encounter with a sister prostitute to all sorts and types of sexual debauchery in bawdy houses and as the mistress of a variety of men. This is presented to the reader through an uninterrupted succession of descriptions by Fanny, either as an observer or participant, of sexual adventures so vile that one of the male expert witnesses in the case was hesitant to repeat any one of them in the courtroom. These scenes run the gamut of possible sexual experience such as lesbianism, female masturbation, homosexuality between young boys, the destruction of a maidenhead with consequent gory descriptions, the seduction of a young virgin boy, the flagellation of male by female, and vice versa, followed by fervid sexual engagement, and other abhorrent acts, including over two dozen separate bizarre descriptions of different sexual intercourses between male and female characters….

OPINION OF MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, CONCURRING:

[The main body of the opinion is omitted. As the Appendix to his opinion, Douglas printed "’Dr. Peale and Fanny Hill,’ An Address by Rev. John R. Graham, First Universalist Church of Denver, December 1965." Douglas evidently included this address to show that his reading of the First Amendment was far from a technical, legal matter. In fact, it concerns the nature of freedom, morality, and humanity. The address follows:]

At the present point in the twentieth century, it seems to me that there are two books which symbolize the human quest for what is moral. Sin, Sex and Self-Control by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the well known clergyman of New York City, portrays the struggle of contemporary middle-class society to arrive at a means of stabilizing behavior patterns. At the same time, there is a disturbing book being sold in the same stores with Dr. Peale’s volume. It is a seventeenth century English novel by John Cleland, and it is known as Fanny Hill: The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

Quickly, it must be admitted that it appears that the two books have very little in common. One was written in a day of scientific and technological sophistication, while the other is over two hundred years old. One is acclaimed in the pulpit, while the other is protested before the United States Supreme Court. Sin, Sex and Self-Control is authored by a Christian pastor, while Fanny Hill represents thoughts and experiences of a common prostitute. As far as the general public seems to be concerned, one is moral and the other is hopelessly immoral….

Although one would not expect to find very many similarities between the thoughts of a pastor and those of a prostitute, the subject matter of the two books is, in many ways, strangely similar…. [B]oth books deal with the age-old question of "What is moral?" I readily admit that this concern with the moral is more obvious in Dr. Peale’s book than it is in the one by John Cleland. The search for the moral in Fanny Hill is clothed in erotic passages which seem to equate morality with debauchery as far as the general public is concerned. At the same time, Dr. Peale’s book is punctuated with such noble terms as "truth," "love," and "honesty."

…I firmly believe that Fanny Hill is a moral, rather than an immoral, piece of literature. In fact, I will go as far as to suggest that it represents a more significant view of morality than is represented by Dr. Peale’s book Sin, Sex and Self-Control. As is Dr. Peale, Cleland is concerned with the nature of the society and the relationship of the individual to it. Fanny Hill appears to me to be an allegory. In the story, the immoral becomes the moral and the unethical emerges as the ethical. Nothing is more distressing than to discover that what is commonly considered to be evil may, in reality, demonstrate characteristics of love and concern.

There is real irony in the fact that Fanny Hill, a rather naive young girl who becomes a prostitute, finds warmth, understanding and the meaning of love and faithfulness amid surroundings and situations which the society, as a whole, condemns as debased and depraved. The world outside the brothel affirms its faith in the dignity of man, but people are often treated as worthless and unimportant creatures. However, within the world of prostitution, Fanny Hill finds friendship, understanding, respect, and is treated as a person of value. When her absent lover returns, she is not a lost girl of the gutter. One perceives that she is a whole and healthy person who has discovered the ability to love and be loved in a brothel.

I think Cleland is suggesting that one must be cautious about what is condemned and what is held in honor. From Dr. Peale’s viewpoint, the story of Fanny Hill is a tragedy because she did not demonstrate self-control. She refused to internalize the values inherent in the Judeo-Christian tradition and the catalog of sexual scenes in the book, fifty-two in all, are a symbol of the debased individual and the society in which he lives.

Dr. Peale and others, would be correct in saying that Fanny Hill did not demonstrate self-control. She did, however, come to appreciate the value of self-expression. At no time were her "clients" looked upon as a means to an end. She tried and did understand them, and she was concerned about them as persons. When her lover, Charles, returned, she was not filled with guilt and remorse. She accepted herself as she was, and was able to offer him her love and devotion.

I have a feeling that many people fear the book Fanny Hill not because of its sexual scenes, but because the author raises serious question with the issue of what is moral and what is immoral. He takes exception to the idea that repression and restraint create moral individuals. He develops the thought that self-expression is more human than self-control. And he dares to suggest that, in a situation which society calls immoral and debased, a genuine love and respect for life and for people, as human beings, can develop. Far from glorifying vice, John Cleland points an accusing finger at the individual who is so certain as to what it means to be a moral man.

There are those who will quickly say that this "message" will be missed by the average person who reads Fanny Hill. But this is precisely the point. We become so accustomed to prejudging what is ethical and what is immoral that we are unable to recognize that what we accept as good may be nothing less than evil because it harms people.

I know of no book which more beautifully describes meaningful relationships between a man and a woman than does Fanny Hill. In many marriages, men use a woman for sexual gratification and otherwise, as well as vice versa. But this is not the case in the story of Fanny Hill. The point is simply that there are many, many ways in which we hurt, injure and degrade people that are far worse than either being or visiting a prostitute. We do this all in the name of morality.

At the same time that Dr. Peale is concerned with sick people, John Cleland attempts to describe healthy ones. Fanny Hill is a more modern and certainly more valuable book than Sin, Sex and Self-Control because the author does not tell us how to behave, but attempts to help us understand ourselves and the nature of love and understanding in being related to other persons. Dr. Peale’s writing emphasizes the most useful commodities available to man—self-centeredness and self-control. John Cleland suggests that self-understanding and self-expression may not be as popular, but they are more humane.

The "Peale approach" to life breeds contentment, for it suggests that each one of us can be certain as to what is good and true. Standards for thinking and behavior are available and all we need to do is appropriate them for our use. In a day when life is marked by chaos and confusion, this viewpoint offers much in the way of comfort and satisfaction. There is only one trouble with it, however, and that is that it results in conformity, rigid behavior, and a lack of understanding. It results in personality configurations that are marked with an intense interest in propositions about Truth and Right but, at the same time, build a wall against people. Such an attitude creates certainty, but there is little warmth. The idea develops that there are "my kind of people" and they are "right." It forces us to degrade, dismiss and ultimately attempt to destroy anyone who does not agree with us.

To be alive and sensitive to life means that we have to choose what we want. There is no possible way for a person to be a slave and free at the same time. Self-control and self-expression are at opposite ends of the continuum. As much as some persons would like to have both, it is necessary to make a choice, since restraint and openness are contradictory qualities. To internalize external values denies the possibility of self-expression. We must decide what we want, when it comes to conformity and creativity. If we want people to behave in a structured and predictable manner, then the ideal of creativity cannot have meaning.

…The issue which a Dr. Peale will never understand, because he is a victim of it himself, and which John Cleland describes with brilliant clarity and sensitive persuasion, is that, until we learn to respect ourselves enough that we leave each other alone, we cannot discover the meaning of morality.

Dr. Peale and Fanny Hill offer the two basic choices open to man. Man is free to choose an autocentric existence which is marked by freedom from ambiguity and responsibility. Autocentricity presupposes a "closed world" where life is predetermined and animal-like. In contrast to this view, there is the allocentric outlook, which is marked by an "open encounter of the total person with the world." Growth, spontaneity and expression are the goals of such an existence.

Dr. Peale epitomizes the autocentric approach. He offers "warm blankets" and comfortable "cocoons" for those who want to lose their humanity. On the other hand, Fanny Hill represents the allocentric viewpoint which posits the possibility for man to raise his sights, stretch his imagination, cultivate his sensitiveness as well as deepen and broaden his perspectives. In discussing the autocentric idea, Floyd W. Matson writes, "Human beings conditioned to apathy and affluence may well prefer this regressive path of least resistance, with its promise of escape from freedom and an end to striving. But we know at least that it is open to them to choose otherwise: in a word, to choose themselves" (The Broken Image, p. 193).

[From U.S. Supreme Court Reports]





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