American Booksellers Association said ordinance violated First Amendmentīefore the law took effect, the American Booksellers Association, an organization representing bookstores, sought an injunction in federal court to prevent the anti-pornography law from being enforced.

The ordinance also gave individuals who claimed to have been harmed by such depictions a right to sue the maker or seller of the pornography. Its law stated that any sexually explicit material that depicted women as sexual objects - interpreted as appearing to enjoy pain or humiliation, domination, or rape - and otherwise depicted them in sexually subordinate and humiliating roles would be considered a civil rights violation. Ordinance regulated how women could be shown in pornographyĪlthough Minneapolis decided not to adopt an ordinance, Indianapolis did, in 1984. Proponents contended that such material violated the civil rights of women and adversely affected social attitudes towards them. In the early 1980s at the urging of women’s rights advocates - including Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who argued that pornography sexually demeaned women - Minneapolis and some other cities contemplated ordinances or local laws to make certain forms of sexually explicit material illegal. Women's rights advocates argued pornography demeaned women Circuit Court of Appeals found that the city ordinance violated the First Amendment. 1985), upheld a federal district court opinion declaring unconstitutional an Indianapolis anti-pornography ordinance that made it illegal to depict women in sexually subordinate roles or positions. The decision in American Booksellers Association v. That case struck down an anti-pornography ordinance that made it illegal to depict women in sexually subordinate positions. (AP Photo/Mario Cabrera, used with permission from the Associated Press) Pornography is protected by the First Amendment, as affirmed in American Booksellers Association v.

This picture shows a protest against pornography in Times Square in 1987.

Andrea dworkin men possessing women