84
Scalia, J., dissenting
ante, at 72. We have made it entirely clear, however, that the First Amendment protection accorded to such materials is not as extensive as that accorded to other speech. "[T]here is surely a less vital interest in the uninhibited exhibition of material that is on the borderline between pornography and artistic expression than in the free dissemination of ideas of social and political significance . . . ." Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 61 (1976). See also id., at 70-71 ("[E]ven though we recognize that the First Amendment will not tolerate the total suppression of erotic materials that have some arguably artistic value, it is manifest that society's interest in protecting this type of expression is of a wholly different, and lesser, magnitude than the interest in untrammeled political debate . . .") (opinion of Stevens, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and White and Rehnquist, JJ.). Cf. FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 743 (1978) (While some broadcasts of patently offensive references to excretory and sexual organs and activities may be protected, "they surely lie at the periphery of First Amendment concern"). Let us be clear about what sort of pictures are at issue here. They are not the sort that will likely be found in a catalog of the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. " '[S]exually explicit conduct,' " as defined in the statute, does not include mere nudity, but only conduct that consists of "sexual intercourse . . . between persons of the same or opposite sex," "bestiality," "masturbation," "sadistic or masochistic abuse," and "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area." See 18 U. S. C. § 2256(2). What is involved, in other words, is not the clinical, the artistic, nor even the risqué, but hard-core pornography. Indeed, I think it entirely clear that all of what is involved constitutes not merely pornography but fully proscribable obscenity, except to the extent it is joined with some other material (or perhaps some manner of presentation) that has artistic or other social value. See Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973). (Such a requirement cannot be imposed, of
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