Editing Sexual revolution (section)

===Erotic novels===
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In the United States in the years 1959 through 1966, bans on three books with explicit erotic content were challenged and overturned. This also occurred in the United Kingdom starting with the [[Obscene Publications Act 1959|1959 Obscene Publications Act]] and reaching a peak with the ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]''&nbsp;court case.

Prior to this time, a patchwork of regulations (as well as local customs and vigilante actions) governed what could and could not be published. For example, the [[United States Customs Service]] banned [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' by refusing to allow it to be imported into the United States. The [[Roman Catholic Church]]'s ''[[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]]'' carried great weight among Catholics and amounted to an effective and instant boycott of any book appearing on it. Boston's [[Watch and Ward Society]], a largely Protestant creation inspired by [[Anthony Comstock]], made "[[banned in Boston]]" a national by-word.

In 1959 [[Grove Press]] published an unexpurgated version of the 1928 novel ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]'' by [[D.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;Lawrence]]. The [[United States Postal Service|U.S. Post Office]] confiscated copies sent through the mail. Lawyer [[Charles Rembar]] sued the New York City Postmaster, and won in New York and then on federal appeal.

[[Henry Miller]]'s 1934 novel, ''[[Tropic of Cancer (novel)|Tropic of Cancer]]'', had explicit sexual passages and could not be published in the United States; an edition was printed by the [[Obelisk Press]] in Paris and copies were smuggled into the United States. In 1961 Grove Press issued a copy of the work, and dozens of booksellers were sued for selling it. The issue was ultimately settled by the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S.&nbsp; Supreme Court's]] 1964 decision in ''Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein''.

In 1963 Putnam published [[John Cleland]]'s 1750&nbsp;novel ''[[Fanny Hill]]''. [[Charles Rembar]] appealed a restraining order against it all the way to the U.S.&nbsp; Supreme Court and won. In ''[[Memoirs v. Massachusetts]]'', 383&nbsp; U.S.&nbsp;413, the court ruled that sex was "a great and mysterious motive force in human life", and that its expression in literature was protected by the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]].

By permitting the publication of ''Fanny Hill'', the U.S.&nbsp; Supreme Court set the bar for any ban so high that Rembar himself called the 1966&nbsp; decision "the end of obscenity". Only books primarily appealing to "prurient interest" could be banned. In a famous phrase, the court said that obscenity is "utterly without redeeming social importance"—meaning that a work with any redeeming social importance or [[literary merit]] was arguably not obscene, even if it contained isolated passages that could "deprave and corrupt" some readers.