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Amy Beth Werbel

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Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock Hardcover – Illustrated, April 17, 2018

by Amy Werbel (Author)

3.6 10 ratings

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Anthony Comstock was America’s first professional censor. From 1873 to 1915, as Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Comstock led a crusade against lasciviousness, salaciousness, and obscenity that resulted in the confiscation and incineration of more than three million pictures, postcards, and books he judged to be obscene. But as Amy Werbel shows in this rich cultural and social history, Comstock’s campaign to rid America of vice in fact led to greater acceptance of the materials he deemed objectionable, offering a revealing tale about the unintended consequences of censorship.

In Lust on Trial, Werbel presents a colorful journey through Comstock’s career that doubles as a new history of post–Civil War America’s risqué visual and sexual culture. Born into a puritanical New England community, Anthony Comstock moved to New York in 1868 armed with his Christian faith and a burning desire to rid the city of vice. Werbel describes how Comstock’s raids shaped New York City and American culture through his obsession with the prevention of lust by means of censorship, and how his restrictions provided an impetus for the increased circulation and explicitness of “obscene” materials. By opposing women who preached sexual liberation and empowerment, suppressing contraceptives, and restricting artistic expression, Comstock drew the ire of civil liberties advocates, inspiring more open attitudes toward sexual and creative freedom and more sophisticated legal defenses. Drawing on material culture high and low, including numerous examples of the “obscenities” Comstock seized, Lust on Trial provides fresh insights into Comstock’s actions and motivations, the sexual habits of Americans during his era, and the complicated relationship between law and cultural change.

Print length

408 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Columbia University Press
Publication date

April 17, 2018
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0231175221
ISBN-13

978-0231175227
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"An incisive history of the futility of censorship." - Kirkus Reviews

"Based on an impressive amount of research into both primary and secondary sources, Werbel's writing possesses a scholarly formality, but also accessibility, elegance, and wit . . . fascinating, page-turning." - Publisher's Weekly

"Werbel, a distinguished art historian, is especially qualified to analyse American visual culture. She gives a richly detailed, deeply researched and lavishly illustrated account of Comstock's career and legacy. His story, she concludes, demonstrates that "a fierce and dogged opponent" may actually be a gift to champions of free speech, energizing and uniting progressives from many classes and causes." - Elaine Showalter, Times Literary Supplement

"Lust on Trial has its fun side, documenting the long-forgotten netherworld of post-Civil War erotica, both artistic and literary, and the surprising underground popularity of "rubber goods" such as condoms, sex toys, dildos, S&M devices, and other carnal amusements. . . . Unearthing this history is an amazing feat of pop-cultural scholarship." - Anthony Mostrom, Los Angeles Review of Books

"The seamless link Werbel provides between the nation's early anti-obscenity battles and current debates over the separation of church and state, rights to privacy, and civil liberties makes Lust on Trial a work more relevant now than ever. As Amy Werbel's titillating manuscript reveals, Comstock put lust on trial... and lust prevailed." - Marcela Micucci, The Gotham Center for New York History Blog

About the Author

Amy Werbel is Professor of the History of Art at the Fashion Institute of Technology. In addition to book-length publications, she is the author of numerous essays on the parallels between historic and contemporary efforts to impose Christian nationalism on the United States through curtailment of civil liberties.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Columbia University Press; Illustrated edition (April 17, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 408 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0231175221
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0231175227
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,528,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,143 in Censorship & Politics
- #5,285 in Communication & Media Studies
- #28,197 in U.S. State & Local History

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3.6 10 ratings

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Amy Beth Werbel

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My research for the past twenty years has focused on Christian nationalist efforts to curtail the civil liberties promised to us by the First Amendment, and the vibrant, provocative, witty, and often enormously effective resistance of artists, writers, and lawyers. If past once again is prologue, we will see efforts to police American expression met with backlash much greater in force and effect.

I am a Professor at SUNY-FIT, graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and Yale University, a two-time Fulbright Scholar (to China and the U.K.), a mother, and grandmother. My husband Frederick Lane is a writer on a similar beat.

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3.6 out of 5

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Sharon L.

Fascinating reading!

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2018

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Superb research and brilliant analysis! Fun and important for these times re feminism, censorship, art, and politics.

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2019

This book on Anthony Comstock sounded so interesting, but it just wasn't as good as it should have been. It's hard to make history exciting sometimes, but the liveliness of prose and the art of storytelling can transform even the dullest topics into gripping narratives. The topic (Sex! Nudity! Morals to the wind!) gave enough titillation that in better hands it could have been something better. I hate to give bad ratings to histories when the work is solid, but I'm disappointed.

Helpful

A Wisconsin Reader

Censorship in America

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2018

There is an old saying, “A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, may be having fun.” When it comes to sexual fun there are always humorless, authoritarian types who wish to impose their own version of morality on everyone else. In the late nineteenth century the leading proponent of puritanical morality in the United States was a man called Anthony Comstock who headed up the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice.

Anthony Comstock was born in Connecticut in 1844 and raised in a very strict home and church. This influence would be a foundational pillar of his character; he considered himself to be a soldier for Christ and the Christian religion and dedicated himself to enforcing his views on the entire nation. Sexual behavior was his bugbear; he held that sexual activity, including masturbation, was always wrong except between married people for the purpose of procreation. (He must have been tons of fun as a husband.)

In New York City, after the Civil War, Comstock saw pornography and sexual licentiousness on all sides. (Of course, he was looking hard for it.) He, with the backing of a number of prominent men, eventually started the New York Society for the Prevention of Vice which he headed. Comstock became the country’s leading crusader against “vice,” not just pornography, but anything which he and his friends considered indecent, including contraceptives, sex toys (including dildoes), and abortion. Comstock managed to get himself attached to the United States Post Office, so that he was able to use the power of the federal government and the mail to prosecute offenders.

Inevitably, there was pushback. Not all American adults agreed with Comstock and his coterie, and plenty of them refused to give way to the contemporary Puritanism. Werbel makes the case quite convincingly that in reaction to Comstock, “Comstockery,” and the excessive actions of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, that artists, writers, journalists, lawyers, free speech advocates and the like pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable, boundaries which most probably would have remained fuzzy or unexplored if not for Comstock.

“Lust on Trial” is a very interesting book about a subject which is little known today, but which has influence on twenty-first century life. I highly recommend it for those interested in social history, free speech, censorship, or the modern conflicts between those who would impose their narrow view of what is proper and the rest of us.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and NetGalley for my honest opinion.

4 people found this helpful

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Neisha

Great Book-Interesting tidbits

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2018

**I would like to thank Columbia University Press for a free copy of this book** **This in no way affects my review**

This book is about Anthony Comstock who is known as one of America's first censors. He dedicated his whole life to eradicating obscene materials and trying to bring morals back into society.
The author really did her research on Comstock. This is a pretty deep book with some interesting and gossipy tidbits (which I delight in). There were a few parts where the story felt a bit stagnant, but for the most part I was engaged and intrigued.

One person found this helpful

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Ipsaruinadocet

Cheap reprint with missing illustrations

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2019

A cheap reprint in photocopy quality; all b/w illustrations are blurred or faded, and - even worse - the 17 color plates (with some rare and important images) following p. 274 in the original printed edition - as shown in the "print book preview" for this item on Amazon.com - are missing, and so was omitted also p. XII with the list of the color plates. You don't get the book you want to buy, just a heavily mutilated print-on-demand copy.

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Chris Gottscho

Thought provoking and really terrific read!

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2018

Just a superb book on free speech! Thought provoking and really terrific read!

One person found this helpful

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XY

impressive research

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2019

This book presents an impressive amount of research. The book might have benefited from an additional editing pass to eliminate detail unlikely to be of interest to the casual nonfiction reader.

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