Word: prurient
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...years ago, legislators in 20 states enacted tough statutes banning the sale not only of obscene films and magazines portraying youthful sexual conduct, but of nonobscene ones as well. Bluntly put, the legislators wanted to crack down on dirty pictures of children even if the material involved was not "prurient" and "offensive" when judged by community standards. So when Manhattan Bookstore Owner Paul Ferber was sentenced in 1978 to 45 days in jail for selling two nonobscene films, he complained that his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated. Last week, with a unanimity that is rare...
...with his second potboiler. Everyone knows that a second novel is by definition worse than a first novel. Since The Cardinal Sins was a cheap, tawdry, trashy, sleazy book, you can imagine how bad Andrew Greeley's new novel, Thy Brother's Wife, is. A putrid, puerile, prurient, pulpy potboiler...
From his black-trimmed London studio, Aubrey Beardsley transformed book illustration into high art. His use of curves and filigrees had the delicacy and tensile strength of Victorian wrought iron, but his subjects-fauns, satyrs, naked slaves-earned him a reputation of fearful decadence. Even in the prurient "yellow nineties," when young men dragged live lobsters down Pall Mall on silken leashes, Beardsley was singled out. "A monstrous orchid," Oscar Wilde proclaimed him, a judgment unchallenged until...
...violence, a woman stripped of her privacy, the sadistic pornography of totalitarianism. But such subjects should not be denied to serious writers simply because they are so often displayed cheaply. Thomas' treatment of his heroine and her fate easily transcends titillation. Those who come to his novel with prurient interests alone will quickly grow baffled and bored...
...fondle a mop-end than an actor in drag? When the audience guffaws as the kick-line picks up its skirts to reveal red garters and yellow panties, what is it laughing at--the drag? More often, the semi-sloshed, thigh-slapping enjoyment at the Pudding Show seems almost prurient--as though the audience would like to see the real thing, but will settle for licensed imitation. It's just one of those little incongruities that can creep into your mind if you haven't been popping champagne corks as quickly as your neighbor...