Harry A. Blackmun Quotes

I honestly don't understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It's silly.

Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important.

Apropos of the agitation for abolishing the Censor in England, it occurred to me that not even the advocates of freedom seek to justify the free treatment of sexual matters in any other than a high moral-pointing vein. The notion that sexual themes might allowably be treated in the mere aim of amusement does not seem to have occurred to anybody at all.

I love my country, but I believe that we are too quick to censor nudity.

I had the X rating on my films. Now they do as much on The Simpsons as I got an X rating for Fritz the Cat.

The censor boards are mere redundant forces conspiring to keep the 'bold' films out of reach of the audience.

Implicit in the history of the 1st Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.

In deciding the ratings of the films, no consideration is given to artistic, technical or dramatic values. Only moral content is weighed.

His conversations were very vivid. He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts. On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess.

When I rapped for 'Manto', I used cuss words and no one objected because it was an adult movie. I feel cuss words are also a way of expression.

Perhaps there is such a thing as obscene sex, but I know that violence is always obscene. So I don't get it, that you can disembowel a woman but you can't see her tits. Who made that up? That's sick!

Any time you bring sexuality into the comics pages, you have to brace for pushback.

I didn't think there was anything more or less obscene about any part of the body. Now, I recognize that there are certain postures and angles that make people see red, which are evidence of original sin or something, and I avoid that.

I don't think an NC-17 rating is the kiss of death. Nor do I think that, in the hands of the right filmmakers, studios have a preconceived notion to pass on NC-17 material.

Well, they had to have me in the G-string because this is PG-13, right?

I don't think there's one thing I've ever said on the radio that would have been found indecent or obscene.

There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.

I'm not sure I agree with the thesis, because I think that even though something grotesque or gross has been part of film since way back, what we accept or what we can get away with on the screen is broader now.

In the United States, viewers don't get to see a lot of things we can show in other countries. We didn't get to show our naked Twister game from Wild On Jamaica, but we definitely filmed it.

I like to protect children. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having adult programming for mature adults that can selectively decide what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest.

The 1st Amendment is about how we govern ourselves—not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.

Sex and obscenity are not synonymous.

Lust is an appetite that needs to be regulated.

I do not want to see censorship, yet I don't believe a dime of taxpayer money should go into art that is clearly and visibly filth.