PITTSBURGH — In a move that signals the start of a crackdown on adult obscenity, the U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania, Mary Beth Buchanan, announced Aug. 6 that a federal grand jury had indicted a California couple and their pornography company for violations of U.S. obscenity law.

In a sting operation, Extreme Associates and its owners, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano (a.k.a. Rob Black and Lizzie Borden), are alleged to have sent three pornographic videotapes from California to a post office box in western Pennsylvania and to have transmitted obscene materials over their Web site as well.

Porn industry lawyers are expected to cite the recent Supreme Court decision allowing acts of sodomy in the privacy of one's home as a defense for filming and viewing pornography in private.

This is the first major indictment of a commercial pornographer in 10 years, Buchanan said, though three others have been handed up recently in West Virginia, Kentucky and Texas against people with much smaller home-type businesses.

During the eight years of the Clinton administration, no cases were prosecuted under the nation's obscenity laws, except with child pornography, said Princeton University professor of politics Robert George.

And former Attorney General Janet Reno wasn't even “aggressive enough” on child porn, he added.

George, a former member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said the attitude at the time was, “this is simply a matter of consent and lifestyle.”

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting these cases is the definition of obscenity that was set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to a press release from Buchanan's office, the 1973 Supreme Court case of Miller v. California put into place a three-part test for obscenity: “1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; 2) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that the material depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner; and 3) A reasonable person, viewing the material as a whole, finds that the material lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

It appears the material in question fits that description. According to a search warrant, the films depict women in various stages of degradation, from rape to murder to their bodies being cut up.

As disgusting as it is, that is not an unusual depiction, according to experts on pornography and sexual addiction.

Oblate of St. Francis de Sales Father John Harvey, director of the group Courage, which helps people struggling with homosexuality according to the Church's teaching, recently gave a talk on pornographic addiction to his group's national meeting.

“It is the most difficult addiction to be rid of,” he told the Register. “The person wants to have the pleasure of sex without being directly involved with the other person. It's really the twin sister of masturbation.”

The person goes through an addictive cycle, the priest said. It starts with curiosity and/or loneliness, proceeds to anticipating “much pleasure without the involvement of another person,” the act itself and guilt feelings afterward.

Once the person engages in this cycle, it is difficult to break out for two reasons, Father Harvey noted: The person is lonely and cannot establish good relationships and, unlike the physical addictions of drug or alcohol abuse, the pornographic images are stuck in his mind.

This addiction, however, can lead to desires for more intensity. According to Dr. Vincent Cline, a psychologist who specializes in sexual addictions, “With the passage of time, the addicted person required rougher, more explicit, more deviant and ‘kinky’ kinds of sexual material to get their ‘highs’ and ‘sexual turn-ons.’”

It is not unlike drug users, who need harder drugs to get the same effect as when they first started, he said in an essay on the subject posted on the Morality in Media Web site.

Eventually, Cline said, it leads to desensitization — that is, the belief that this activity is normal and to sexual acting out in ways reminiscent of what the person has seen.

So the hard-core pornography of the type Extreme Associates produced is not a “victimless crime,” commented the president of Morality in Media, Robert Peters.

“Individuals harmed,” he said in a press release, “include ‘porn performers’ (many in their teens), children and adults who become addicted to hard-core pornography, children and adults who are sexually abused and raped by hard-core pornography addicts, spouses of hard-core pornography addicts, and men and women who acquire (directly or indirectly) STDs, including AIDS, from sexual activities in ‘adult’ businesses.”

And, he said, it sends a lot of money to organized crime.

While what U.S. attorney Buchanan has collected seems pretty clear and convincing to the average person, the pornography industry is expected to fight it diligently, she said. As well as challenging the constitutionality of the law on which the recent indictments have been made, she is expecting that the porn industry lawyers will cite the recent case of Lawrence v. Texas as part of their defense, reasoning that the Supreme Court decision this summer gave anyone the right to do anything sexually, as long as it's done behind closed doors.

“Unfortunately for them,” she said, “the ruling was about private conduct in one's own home. This case is one of obscene material that is being sent across the country.”

A request for comment by Extreme Associates was not answered.

While some have been critical of Attorney General John Ashcroft for not getting to this type of crime earlier, Buchanan characterized that kind of talk as “unfair.”

“It takes a lot of time to build the evidence” against such purveyors of pornography, she said, so that the case is built on a solid footing.

Plus, porn is only one of the many Justice Department concerns, including preventing terrorism. However, Buchanan expects to see more cases of this kind going forward.

“There are pending investigations in numerous jurisdictions around the country,” she said.

This is also worrying for the porn industry, she added. She recently appeared on a talk show on KPCC public radio in Southern California with two pornographers.

“They certainly claim this is causing concern,” she said. “If they're producing obscene material, they should be [concerned].”

Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz is based in Altura, Minnesota.