STATE OF MIND : The Limits of the Law

Exactly where do undulating female hips rank on the scale of threats to public safety?

In determining the obscenity of a strip routine, how many pelvic thrusts would break the law? And does the forcefulness of the thrust matter? But most importantly, are agencies that police such activities out of touch with modern mores?

Such are the issues underlying a groundbreaking obscenity study sponsored by the San Diego Police Department. The department hired a marketing research firm to recruit 40 people from all walks of life and take them to the city’s gamier enterprise zones to get an eyeful of exotic dancers and other forms of soft-core flesh peddling. After visiting four adult-entertainment hot spots (the department picked up the tab), the group engaged in a two-hour discussion of licentiousness and the law. The results, now being finalized, will be reviewed by the San Diego City Council and could lead to a change in obscenity laws.

“We’re trying to find out if the things we’re enforcing are what the public thinks we really ought to be doing,” says Capt. Ken Moller, who supervises the department’s vice unit. The survey was part of a broader department review of its policies regarding adult entertainment that began in January after business owners and patrons complained that the city’s obscenity laws were vague and outdated and led to selective enforcement and harassment.

“These laws may be obsolete,” says Moller. “Some of what the strippers are doing might have been inconceivable in the ‘60s, but times change.”