Voting Station

Ralph Ginzburg

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Publisher

The Resume

    (October 28, 1929-July 6, 2006)
    Born in Brooklyn, New York
    Published the magazines 'Eros' (1962), 'fact' (1964-67), and 'Avant-Garde' (1968-71)
    Found guilty of violating federal obscenity laws (1963)
    After unsuccessful appeals, served eight months in prison (1972)
    Wrote 'An Unhurried View of Erotica' (1959) and 'Castrated: My Eight Months in Prison' (1973)
    Freelance photojournalist for the New York Post

Why he might be annoying:

    He gave in to pressure from his parents and majored in accounting in college.
    He tried to mail Eros from either Blue Ball or Intercourse, Pennsylvania, but the post offices in both towns complained that the volume of mail he anticipated was too large for them to handle. (He settled for Middlesex, New Jersey.)
    His attempt to drum up subscribers for Eros via a mass mailing led to a flood of complaints from recipients to post offices and prosecutors.
    Even a sympathetic reporter at his obscenity trial noted that he looked 'like central casting's idea of a smut peddler.'
    Barry Goldwater sued for libel after a 'special issue' of 'fact' declared the Senator to be psychologically unfit for the presidency. Goldwater won $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages.
    As a freelance photographer, he would don disguises to gain access to events he lacked credentials for. (He noted that a clergyman's outfit was the most effective.)
    He said, 'I have always felt that I might have become a major force in American publishing had it not been for my conviction. Instead, I'm just a curious footnote.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was president of his senior class in high school.
    He had calculated that 'Eros' -- a high-production value quarterly featuring literary contributions by Allen Ginsberg and Ray Bradbury alongside the erotic photos -- would be legal under the Supreme Court's ruling in Roth v. United States that material was pornographic only if it was 'utterly without redeeming social value.'
    Indeed, in order to uphold his conviction, the Supreme Court had to come up with a convoluted ruling that, since the advertising for 'Eros' had focused on 'the sexually provocative parts' of the magazine, Ginzburg could be guilty of obscenity even if the magazine itself was not obscene (1966).
    He managed to have a non-controversial financial success with the consumer advice newsletter 'Moneyworth,' which reached a circulation of 2.5 million in the 1970s.
    Shortly before Ginzburg was imprisoned, Arthur Miller said, 'A man is going to prison for publishing and advertising stuff a few years ago that today would hardly raise an eyebrow in your dentist's office. This is the folly, the menace of all censorship—it lays down rules for all time which are ludicrous a short time later. If it is right that Ralph Ginzburg goes to jail, then in all justice the same court that sentenced him should proceed at once to close down ninety percent of the movies now playing and the newspapers that carry their advertising.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying