If I had a definition of "X-rated" from the FCC then I would be glad to provide you with one, but that is precisely my point: the FCC does not say exactly what is and what is not OK. The rules and regulations are written in very murky and ambiguous language, which is why it is so hard to know exactly what it is that they forbid

It is a violation of federal law to broadcast obscene programming at any time. It is also a violation of federal law to broadcast indecent or profane programming during certain hours. Congress has given the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the responsibility for administratively enforcing the law that governs these types of broadcasts. The Commission may revoke a station license, impose a monetary forfeiture, or issue a warning, for the broadcast of obscene or indecent material.

Obscene Broadcasts Are Prohibited at All Times

Obscene speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test:

* An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;

* The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and

* The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.


Indecent Broadcast Restrictions

The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” Indecent programming contains patently offensive sexual or excretory references that do not rise to the level of obscenity. As such, the courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely.

It may, however, be restricted in order to avoid broadcast during times of the day when there a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.

Consistent with a federal statute and federal court decisions interpreting the indecency statute, the Commission adopted a rule pursuant to which broadcasts -- both on television and radio -- that fit within the indecency definition and that are aired between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. are subject to indecency enforcement action.


Profane Broadcast Restrictions

The FCC has defined profanity as including language that “denote[s] certain of those personally reviling epithets naturally tending to provoke violent resentment or denoting language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance.”

Like indecency, profane speech is prohibited on broadcast radio and television between the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Originally posted by plawrence:
"I do have a cause though. It is obscenity. I'm for it. Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of seech and stifling of free expression and so on but we no what's really involved: dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the constitution unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days, I have here a march for mine.

It's called...

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut,
If it's uncut,
And unsubt- le.

I've never quibbled
If it was ribald,
I would devour where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he
Acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"to be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.

(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers,
Lurid, licentious, and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
(let's face it, I love slime.)

All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder,
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
The mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
(I could tell you things about peter pan,
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will,
If it is swill
And really fil
Thy.

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: re-reading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all
Away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
We fight for freedom of the press.
In other words,

Smut! (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut,
I don't know what
Compares with smut.

Hip hip hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!"

-- Tom Lehrer, from the album That Was The Year That Was, circa 1964 or so.