ABSTRACT
And she increased her whoredom when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion. Gilded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea ... And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom. 1
This is, I believe, the first recorded case of corruption by pictorial material; the corruption of Aholibah as related in Ezekiel. It is not, however, the last and the belief that certain material may corrupt, may be a spiritual and moral poison, is still current and, indeed, is embodied in the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, which states that an article is obscene
if its effect or, where the article comprises two or more distinct items, the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
