Obscenity

An obscenity is any statement or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. Satirizing the ruler may be obscene, offending the god(s) may ve obscene, making obscene profits is obscene.

The United States, a litigious country (it was born litigious), has led the world in specifying specifically what obscenity is (at least in the United States). According to the famous 1957 Roth Supreme Court decision, the obscene work must also be "utterly without redeeming social value" to lose First Amendment protection. "Socially valuable" meant, and still means today, doing something other than sexually stimulating the reader or viewer.