All you young whippersnappers think you know what obscenity is, by golly... back in my day, only the harcore-est of the hardcore offensive material could make it into that hall of fame. Figures that in this "anything goes" era that yet another standard has been watered down until it's basically meaningless.
Case in point after the jump, you hooligans!
Nowadays, we get this as an example of obscenity:
Pardon me if I'm unimpressed, but according to the AP, this is a detail from a drawing reproduced on an "obscene electronic device" that sparked a bomb scare in Boston and led to a community service sentence for two men.
On your newfangled "Wikidepia" or whatever, obscenity is described thusly:
Despite its long formal and informal use with a sexual connotation, the word still retains the meanings of "inspiring disgust" and even "inauspicious; ill-omened", as in such uses as "obscene profits", "the obscenity of war", and the like. It can simply be used to mean profanity, or it can mean anything that is taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting.
"It can simply be used to mean profanity"?
How far the mighty obscenity hath fallen, when it's reduced to describing a six-year old saying "shit!" for the first time, to the shock (and amusement) of his parents. And how pathetic is "profanity" when something this unrecognizable qualifies. Heck, visit a local Christian church and you can see the same thing everywhere, more or less. Just add a pixellated alien to the bottom and you're offending people left and right.
I remember back in the late eighties, when obscenity was obscenity... photos of big thick cocks hanging out of polyester business suits, or crosses floating in jars of urine... ah, those were the days. But I guess nothing's as good as it used to be.
Now get the hell off my lawn before I call the freakin' cops!