The following definitions apply to § 16-15-385, disseminating or exhibiting to minors harmful material or performances; § 16-15-387, employing a person under the age of eighteen years to appear in a state of sexually explicit nudity in a public place; § 16-15-395, first degree sexual exploitation of a minor; § 16-15-405, second degree sexual exploitation of a minor; § 16-15-410, third degree sexual exploitation of a minor; § 16-15-415, promoting prostitution of a minor; and § 16-15-425, participating in prostitution of a minor.

(1) "Harmful to minors" means that quality of any material or performance that depicts sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity and that, taken as a whole, has the following characteristics:

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Terms Used In South Carolina Code 16-15-375

  • Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
  • patently offensive: means obviously and clearly disagreeable, objectionable, repugnant, displeasing, distasteful, or obnoxious to contemporary standards of decency and propriety within the community. See South Carolina Code 16-15-305
  • person: means any individual, corporation, partnership, association, firm, club, or other legal or commercial entity. See South Carolina Code 16-15-305
  • prurient interest: means a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion and is reflective of an arousal of lewd and lascivious desires and thoughts. See South Carolina Code 16-15-305

(a) the average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the material or performance has a predominant tendency to appeal to a prurient interest of minors in sex; and

(b) the average adult person applying contemporary community standards would find that the depiction of sexually explicit nudity or sexual activity in the material or performance is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community concerning what is suitable for minors; and

(c) to a reasonable person, the material or performance taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

(2) "Material" means pictures, drawings, video recordings, films, digital electronic files, or other visual depictions or representations but not material consisting entirely of written words.

(3) "Minor" means an individual who is less than eighteen years old.

(4) "Prostitution" means engaging or offering to engage in sexual activity with or for another in exchange for anything of value.

(5) "Sexual activity" includes any of the following acts or simulations thereof:

(a) masturbation, whether done alone or with another human or animal;

(b) vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, whether done with another human or an animal;

(c) touching, in an act of apparent sexual stimulation or sexual abuse, of the clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, or buttocks of another person or the clothed or unclothed breasts of a human female;

(d) an act or condition that depicts bestiality, sado-masochistic abuse, meaning flagellation or torture by or upon a person who is nude or clad in undergarments or in a costume which reveals the pubic hair, anus, vulva, genitals, or female breast nipples, or the condition of being fettered, bound, or otherwise physically restrained on the part of the one so clothed;

(e) excretory functions;

(f) the insertion of any part of a person’s body, other than the male sexual organ, or of any object into another person’s anus or vagina, except when done as part of a recognized medical procedure.

(6) "Sexually explicit nudity" means the showing of:

(a) uncovered, or less than opaquely covered human genitals, pubic area, or buttocks, or the nipple or any portion of the areola of the human female breast; or

(b) covered human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.