Explicit content!

An Indiana state law due to take effect July 1 will require any new bookstores selling sexually explicit content to pay a $250 fee and register on a list that will be passed to local officials who can then scrutinize the bookstores for any violations of their obscenity codes. According to IU law professor Henry Karlson, who spoke to the Indianapolis Star for its Mar. 25 story on the new law, the state definition of “sexually explicit” includes anything that “appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors” – that is, anything that could get a youngster hot and bothered.\nNow, granted, the Indiana Daily Student is given away by bookstores rather than sold, but just in case, I figure you local merchants should know: I’m about to quote a rather racy bit of poetry. If you don’t want to rankle the authorities, you might want to toss this issue out. OK, here goes – don’t say I didn’t warn you:\nHow beautiful are thy steps in sandals, O prince’s daughter! The roundings of thy thighs are like the links of a chain, the work of the hands of a skilled workman.\nThy navel is like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.\nThy two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a gazelle.\nThy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes as the pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim; thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.\nThy head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thy head like purple; the king is held captive in the tresses thereof.\nHow fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!\nThis thy stature is like to a palm-tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.\nI said: ‘I will climb up into the palm-tree, I will take hold of the branches thereof; and let thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy countenance like apples;\nAnd the roof of thy mouth like the best wine, that glideth down smoothly for my beloved, moving gently the lips of those that are asleep.’\nI am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.\nCome, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.\nLet us get up early to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine hath budded, whether the vine-blossom be opened, and the pomegranates be in flower; there will I give thee my love.\nOof – did it suddenly get hot in here? \nOf course, if the Biblical Song of Songs doesn’t do it for you, there’s always Shakespeare’s sonnets (and the naughty jokes spread throughout his plays), Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” or ... well, pretty much countless works dating back to the dawn of writing. This is why we leave such questions to the wisdom of parents rather than government apparatchiks – and why this absurd and unconstitutional law must be repealed.