As members of the adult entertainment industry, we deal every day with content that much of the world finds offensive, even downright unacceptable.Within our own ranks, we often debate the finer points of what manner of content should or should not be deemed acceptable, and individually each must decide; what crosses “The Line?”

Ah, the dilemmas!

Is distributing “double anal” videos pretty much the same thing as distributing any other anal sex videos, or does double anal cross The Line?

Should the word “teen” be avoided as too suggestive of something illicit going on, or is it A-OK because 18 and 19 year-olds are (in general) legally able to take part in the production of sexually explicit materials?

In a climate where The Line is necessarily drawn pretty far out, it’s easy for those of us within the industry to lose sight of the fact that much of the world’s population draws The Line well short of anything that we in the adult industry create – and I mean any and all of us in the industry, not just the Rob Zicaris and Max Hardcores among us.

While certainly not demonstrative of the attitudes towards sexually explicit material held by the “average person,” a couple of recent news stories underline just how absurdly strict the “standards” of some “communities” can be – to put it in the terms of the Miller test’s first prong.

Consider a recent controversy in Laurel, MS, for example; a billboard advertisement upset local evangelist David Sheppard because of the “sexual connotations” included in the language of the message, language that Sheppard demanded be removed from the billboard.

What was the offending verbiage, you ask? Some manner of advertisement for a local adult establishment, no doubt, perhaps the term “XXX,” or lewd references to “erotic dancers”?

Not quite.

The billboard, a two-sided advertisement located along Highway 15, on one side reads “Jesus Saves” and other the other side states “Satan Sucks.”

Why would a Christian evangelist have a problem with that message?

“To promote Jesus and the Gospel means ‘good news,’ and this is not what we believe or what I believe portrays good news,” said Sheppard, according to the website for local NBC television affiliate WDAM.

Sheppard contends that the term “sucks” has a clearly sexual connotation and is therefore inappropriate to have on the sign.

“It makes reference to a sexual act and this is a common knowledge in today’s society,” added Sheppard.

Demonstrating that even within a fairly small and homogenous community standards can vary greatly, Tommy Fairley – also an evangelist from the Laurel area – told WDAM that he views the ad as perfectly harmless and not at all sexually explicit.

“Satan is a bad guy,” said Fairley. “I mean, it’s just making a statement saying what some people ought to really do – put Satan to an open shame.”

Fairley also doesn’t buy Sheppard’s argument about the term “sucks,” saying that “there’s a lot of things sucks (sic) and so that wouldn’t even be related to sex.”

Granted, it’s unlikely anyone is going to sued or prosecuted, over the “Satan Sucks” flap in Mississippi, but it does say something about how different the standards of the rural Deep South are from those of the urban West Coast – or much closer metropolitan areas like Atlanta, for that matter.

If the “Satan Sucks” example isn’t sufficiently preposterous for your taste, consider the following gem from our staunch allies in the War on Terror, the Kingdom of Bahrain….

According to the Gulf Daily News, the Muharraq Municipal Council has initiated a “crackdown” on, among other things, “provocatively dressed mannequins.”

That’s right; the mannequins in department stores have crossed the Bahraini government’s version of The Line.

According to the Daily News, Council Chairman Mohammed Jassim Saleh Hamada said that the council has received many complaints about the mannequins, “especially women,” who believe that representations of scantily clad women, albeit inanimate and anatomically non-detailed representations thereof, “fly in the face of their traditional values.”

“The mannequins are wearing see-through clothing that show their breasts,” explained Hamada, his words broadly suggesting that the mannequins have some sort of say in the matter. (May I suggest cutting their plastic hands off? That would learn ‘em!)

Of course, it’s not just molded plastic mannequin tits that are stuck in the craw of the Muharraq Municipal Council; Hamada also notes that “posters that are on display at video stores are very offensive,” as well.

“There are pictures depicting men embracing women, kissing them, with their breasts uncovered,” Hamada said. “Others show singers wearing skimpy clothing.”

It should be noted that by “uncovered,” what Hamada means is “less than completely covered;” there’s nary a wayward nipple on the posters he’s describing, as any such display would be a far more serious violation under Bahraini laws.

Still, Hamada laments “It seems that baring breasts has become a normal thing in our society these days.”

Fortunately for the concerned citizens of Bahrain, baring your breasts is not so “normal” that the Council can’t enact a nice “crackdown” on depictions of partially bared breasts – and the introduction of a parliamentary proposal to prohibit men from working at women’s lingerie shops, to boot.

Thankfully, the punishment for those in Bahrain that fail to properly cover their fashion mannequins is light, by Persian Gulf region standards, anyway. Perpetrators face only having their “license revoked” – a punishment which, so far as I’m aware, does not involve the loss of any appendages.

If you are among those that feel, quite understandably, that the likes of Rob Zicari or any number of other ‘extreme’ producers “go too far,” there is a lesson in these odd little stories from Mississippi and the Muharraq; wherever you feel The Line should be drawn, there will always be others that feel, with equal or greater conviction, that your Line is perpendicular, and transverse, to their own – even if you’re an evangelist simply seeking to shame Satan.