by Silvia Rodeschini

This article outlines the history of the idea of obscenity in Italian law and media governance provisions. Starting from the formulation of the articles concerning obscenity of the Italian penal code of the thirties, the analysis follows the shift in the meaning of modesty in the subsequent transformations of the rules governing the distribution of obscene material until the 2000s. This reconstruction tries to make explicit the idea of sexual pleasure and its dangers implicit in some juridical texts and to outline how norms try to situate adult content in specific spaces of consumption.