"Pornography" is a layperson's term, with no particular legal significance. Jones may believe that Penthouse is non-pornographic, while Smith believes that it is. Neither is incorrect.

The term of legal significance is "obscenity", which, after struggling for many years and through many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court defined in Miller v. California in 1973. It is a three-part test, as follows:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be:
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

I copied the above from the the U.S. Revised code website... I guess this means the all the "up to Playboy/Maxim styles", and Victoria Secret models and photographers COULD be classified as porn stars and pornographers, just like me.

I shoot adult films, I don't scream it from the treetops, but I don't lurk in the shadows about it either. If I felt my work was OBSCENE, I wouldn't shoot it. But I don't, and I don't feel my work is porn, either.

When I say that, I get resounding disagreement, I guess by the US definitions, they're right and I wrong, and if you read the definition CLOSELY, I'm right and they're wrong. The laws, terminology defining the laws and all the language inside the laws are so incredibly ambiguous and intentionally vague, how can they even be clearly interpreted, much less enforced.

So, what's your take on this? Everything less than fully clothed is porn? But wait, according to the definition, nudity isn't even a factor, if that "come hither" glance out the side of Tyra's eye appeals to my prurient interests, is that porn?

My personal take on 'pornographic' was always OBSCENE material, which could mean that many things I've seen (or heard about) on film, snuff films, rape films, and many others, some that have nothing to do with sex or nudity were VERY obscene in my view, and a lot more pornographic than anything I've ever captured on film.

Seems like so many have an opinion on this topic, people with many nudes in their port calling others' work porn, it just seems a bit snitty, when by the legal definition, almost all of us are playing the game.

With all due respect, I may personally agree with you (or not), but the bottom line is that you've so misinterpreted Miller as to make the rest of your argument moot.

Consult an attorney who specializes in this field of law and pay for an hour of his/her time to get this properly explained. It will be money well-spent. If you're in the LA area, I can recommend my attorney who has spent countless hours giving me a law-school-worthy education on this (and other) matters.

well

i would say if you are explicity filming/photographying individuals having sexual intercourse, whether simulated or not, and that those scenes makeup the majority of the storyline, that is if the film/editorial is basically scene after scene of individuals engaging in sexual intercourse, then 99% of most people (including myself) would consider that work to be pornography

now if you have incredible scripts, that call for a sexual intercourse scene (explicit or not), and that scene only makes up a small part of the entire film, AND it added significantly to the story line, then i would say IMO that is is not pornography

now i happen to like a good satire, and maybe if you were filming a satire called "shaving ryan's privates" or "cock-a-dial dundee", or "when harry nailed salley", then i might not consider that work to be pornographic, i might consider it to be more of a sexual farce, and a comedy even if it included a majority of scenes of explicit sexual intercourse

again its just my opinion

now i happen to have a few scripts, (some are even registered with the WGA) as an example, "Phil and Fred's excellent adventure with Candi"