On this day in 1960, R v Penguin Books Ltd began: the "Lady Chatterley Trial". This prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act opened with a statement from the prosecutor so out-of-touch it drew laughter in the courtroom.
Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked, "Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?"
Lady Chatterley's Lover was written by DH Lawrence in 1928, but it was not legal to publish. In 1960, Penguin Books decided to print an unexpurgated edition of the novel, which was immediately prosecuted under the new obscenity laws.
The prosecution argued that the book would "tend to deprave and corrupt persons likely to read it” and if it had literary merit for the "public good".
Meanwhile, the defence focused on the artistic merit of the book, and the messages it explored.
"That what we ought to do was to re-establish personal relationships, the greatest of which was the relationship between a man and a woman in love, in which there was no shame and nothing wrong, nothing unclean, nothing which anybody was not entitled to discuss."
The prosecution took umbrage to themes in the book including extramarital and adulterous sex, sex scenes, and use of "Anglo-Saxon four letter words" such as fuck and cunt.
Throughout the trial, the defence called 35 witnesses to testify to the novel's merit, including writers, intellectuals, and even the Bishop of Woolwich who compared the reverent descriptions of sex to language used in the Bible.
The jury, after three hours of deliberation, returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty. Lady Chatterley's Lover was NOT obscene and not a crime.
The book hit the shelves. Some readers probably enjoyed the literary merit. Some probably readers cranked one out. Some readers were probably disappointed it wasn't the fuckfest the prosecution had made out and was mostly about industrialism, nature, class and bodies.
The ruling established that it's all right to address sexual themes in art, which in turn allowed for a more permissive attitude towards creation of art, and less of a mandate for censorship.
So why is it that 60 years after it was ruled that John Thomas and Lady Jane could frolic freely with their campion flowers, do so many artists, creators, educators and organisations find ourselves in a similar position with words and art subject to censorship?
Social media companies seem very eager to censor content which they do not deem "family friendly". Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters - because girls can read as well as boys - looking at this post?
When we post about this trial on Instagram, we'll have to write "s*x" lest we trip an algorithm. And we've given up using TikTok altogether because everything gets taken down. Vienna's tourism board has resorted to using OnlyFans to show nude paintings, for goodness sake!
We cannot believe we're saying this, but in 1960, at least you got to deal with complaints that someone thought your work was too horny in court. These days it's mostly a computer that hates nipples.
Anyway, it's challenging for a Vagina Museum to exist in a digital world. If you, like us (and DH Lawrence!) envisage a world free from shame, please consider supporting our work - a gift of any size makes a huge difference vaginamuseum.co.uk/support/donate

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