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In Praise Of Indecency: The Leading Investigative Satirist Sounds Off on Hypocrisy, Censorship and Free Expression

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Paul Krassner's essay collection In Praise of Indecency covers all manner of indecency, focusing largely on sex and porn, from product placement in adult movies to the demise of pubic hair, necrophilia, and Charles Manson, with a bit about The Aristocrats (the film and the joke) thrown in. Mostly, these are very short dispatches, but they cover a range of topics, many of which are seen as somehow taboo.

One of the best pieces here is the title one, which covers all manner of obscenity and supposed indecency, from the ongoing saga of Janet Jackson and Nipplegate to Bono dropping the F word to even more lunacy: NPR deleted part of a story on Portland, Oregon's famed Voodoo Doughnuts Cockfest (yes, it's a contest to "see who can put the most doughnuts on their unit"). It's sad and shocking that we need to be "protected" from dessert-draped dicks. Another example is 3 16-year-old girls suspected for saying the word "vagina" during a reading of The Vagina Monologues. Krassner makes it clear what he thinks of this and other instances in which the government, or individuals, turn sex, and sexual gratification, into something dirty.

He doesn't shy away from topics that many of us (I'll admit, myself included) would find disturbing, and where most would stop reading, he digs into his subject, looking at those who are profiting from, say, bestiality, providing details that even the most well-read sex nerd wouldn't have come across. There are a few off notes, such as the overly long and rather ubiquitous topic of spam subject lines. I also would have liked to see some sort of introduction and a date with the pieces; for instance, there's a piece that surely would've referenced 2 Girls, 1 Cup had it been written in its wake (I'll leave it to you to decide whether you want to read it - that certainly was one of the ones I found interesting yet a little nauseating as a topic).

This collection pushes boundaries, as it presumably was intended to, and certainly points to the fact that there is much to abhor about the quest for a thoroughly "decent" society.