Defendants argue that, even if the video games regulated under the Act are expressive, they fall into one of the few categories of speech that have been historically unprotected, in this case, obscenity. Defendants correctly point out that the phrase “obscene material” is not inherently limited to sexually-explicit materials. The Latin root “obscaenus” literally means “of filth” and has been defined to include that which is “disgusting to the senses” and “grossly repugnant to the generally accepted notions of what is appropriate.”
See Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 18 n. 2, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). Graphic depictions of depraved acts of violence, such as the murder, decapitation, and robbery of women in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, fall well within the more general definition of obscenity. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has found that, when used in the context of the First Amendment, the word “obscenity” means material that deals with sex.
Id. Only “works which depict or describe sexual conduct” are considered obscene and therefore unprotected. State statutes designed to regulate obscene material must be drafted narrowly to cover only “works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
Miller, 413 U.S. at 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607.