obscenity

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Any action or linguistic utterance that massively violates the applicable norms can be understood as obscenity . As obscene ( Latin obscenus , "dirty, perishable, shamelessly") applies to what is appropriate in other people disgust excite or shame cause by breaking the existing social norms. The term refers fundamentally to the physical area, with the sexual area in the broadest sense playing a central role. Often, however, the term is also related to the areas of oral incorporation and excretion. In a broader sense of the term, it can be applied to any highly morally condemned acts and utterances.

Introduction and overview

If you only want to express your own feelings, you could get by with the vocabulary disgusting or repulsive for the obscene . Anyone who uses the word obscene instead shows that he wants to invoke a binding set of values ​​(meaning: violation of a generally recognized rule of conduct; see also: taboo ).

For the most part, it is a question of whether physical phenomena are allowed to be perceptible, mostly those that humans cannot or cannot freely decide about: lolling, yawning, sneezing, excretions in every direction and every form, sexual characteristics, sexual behaviors, wounds , Diseases, special body shapes (congenital or acquired). Both attractive and repulsive things could and can be considered obscene. In Japan e.g. B. the desire to cover urinating and bowel movements by constantly flushing the toilet as possible, high water consumption. With the Tuareg people, on the other hand, the men cover their mouths with a veil. For them, showing this part of the body is considered obscene.

Which feelings are involved and where the injury begins depends on the feelings and habits of those involved. These conditions in turn are based on education, culture, religion, morality and similar values , which can be different depending on ethnic or social affiliation, even individually . Historically, the same phenomenon may have been rejected in one epoch , accepted in the other, or even cultivated as a fashion.

The well-known saying “Why don't you burp and fart? Didn't you like it? ”(Often but incorrectly ascribed to Martin Luther ) is an example of this.

The sensation "obscene" can be triggered by perceptions of any kind: a person with the characteristics in question (e.g. a visibly disfigured person in a public bathroom), clothing, if certain parts of the body are visible ( main hair , secondary sexual characteristics , navel, knees, Ankle), or invisible (like the covering of the entire body when wearing the burqa ), behavior ( kiss in public, exhibitionistic exposure), spoken or written text ( joke , swear word ), a gesture (" finger finger "), images of any kind, from wall scribbles to advertisements to large posters, including objects that constitute an injury or could be its cause (e.g. bones , weapons, cutting tools, scars as jewelry, metal spikes on clothing).

It is not possible to determine the boundary between “obscene” and “not obscene” based on factual characteristics. The real threshold lies in the subjective feeling of the possibly injured person. The threshold can be exceeded without malicious intent if different values ​​apply to the participants. Some cross the threshold deliberately in order to grab the other's values ​​or to contest the other's values. Obscenity always means breaking boundaries , breaking taboos and (in a broader sense) looking for struggle .

Profanity as a means of advertising

Like other ways of provocation , obscenity is used by advertising in a targeted manner to draw the attention of potential customers to a product or service .

Obscenity as a means of protest

Obscenity can also be observed again and again in history as a phenomenon of rebellion , protest and the demarcation of young people from older people. The young generation uses the obscene approach to the establishment with the aim of breaking taboos and other boundaries that are perceived as out of date - think of the rock generation (the music of the Beatles and the hip movements of Elvis Presley were considered obscene by many older people at the time felt), to the 68ers , the Woodstock Festival , to punks , skinheads and goths as well as to the Love Parade in Berlin.

Profanity in literature

In the fine arts, but above all in literature , the obscene also plays a role - for example with Titus Petronius ( Satyricon ) , Giovanni Boccaccio ( Decamerone ) , Donatien A. Fr. Marquis de Sade ( Die Wonnen des Vice ) , Giacomo Casanova , James Joyce ( Ulysses ), Vladimir Nabokov ( Lolita ) , Elfriede Jelinek , Charles Baudelaire , Charles Bukowski , Anaïs Nin ( The Delta of Venus ) and William S. Burroughs ( Naked Lunch ) . For many of the authors mentioned, profanity was used as an argument for the censorship of their works (see also the history of censorship ).

Secondary literature

  • Melanie Harmuth: On the communication of obscenity: the de Sade case . Driesen, Taunusstein 2004, ISBN 3-936328-28-5 . (= Driesen Edition Wissenschaft , also diploma thesis University of Siegen , 2002).
  • Hans Peter Duerr : The Myth of the Civilization Process - Volume 3 - Obscenity and Violence. (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. Volume 2451). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-38951-3 .
  • Aron Ronald Bodenheimer : Why ?: the profanity of asking . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-008010-X . (Universal Library No. 8010)
  • Ernest Bornemann : Sex in the vernacular. The obscene vocabulary of the Germans. 2 volumes, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1974; New one-volume edition, ibid. 1991.
    • Volume 1: The obscene vocabulary of the Germans. Dictionary from A to Z. ISBN 3-499-16852-9 (= rororo 6852).
    • Volume 2: The Obscene Vocabulary of the Germans. Dictionary according to subject groups. ISBN 3-499-16853-7 (= rororo 6853).

Web links

Individual evidence