An 1800s court room drama involving a printing press that has struck gold by making a deck of playing cards that features quite charming illustrations of local Dames Of An Occupation, in whatever outfit, state of (un)dress and pose they wished to be painted in. Some of them are remarkably creative - one of them is easily recognised despire of not having her face visible at all, because nobody else would be both flexible enough to achieve that position and shameless enough to pose in it.
The card deck company has been taken to court by a local self-appointed guardian of public morality, who insists that despite of no laws being broken in the creation of the deck, such lewdness should nonetheless be deemed illegal. He does not care that the models were paid well for their portraits and gave their full consent to their use, nor that they are in fact satisfied with getting free advertisement from them. He does not care about the rights nor consent of sex workers, he simply wants the cards gone.
The judge eventually deems that the cards are indeed too indecent for public sale and distribution, and the artist who designed the cards agrees to re-draw them according to the limitations dictated by the court (which sadly include prohibiting the aforementioned impressively flexible pose), on the grounds that no additional limitations are given retroactively.
It takes a year for a new card deck to be drawn and go into print, and it doesn't take long before the same people are in the courthouse again. This time the Defender Of Public Modesty is suing the card print company for personal slander, as every single drawing in the new art of the corrected deck features a man who looks unmistakably like himself, harrying and bothering the ladies of the previous deck portraits, whether by judging skirt lengths with a measuring tape, covering an exposed bosom with a folding fan, or placing a tablecloth over the infamously impressive no-knickers-hand-stand.
The Morality Warrior is enraged by this distribution of slanderous images of himself interacting with any women of questionable repute. The judge agrees that drawing an entire series of portraits of this guy harrassing these women does count as spreading false accusations of him, and agrees that the second deck should also be taken out of rotation. The artist who drew both decks consents to making a third version with the same conditions as before: no additional retroactive rules. No depictions of women in lewd poses, and no depictions of the man who sued them posing with sex workers.
The third deck is once again taken to court, as it depicts the exact same uncensored themes, outfits and poses as the first deck, except this time instead of the local Ladies Of Occupation, every card instead depicts the Public Morale Defender. The print company had to hire a trapeze artist from a passing circus to pose as reference for the most famous subject, as no other man could be found who could do a hand stand like that.
The judge agrees that these cards, also, are slanderous, and before the lawyer of the card print company can start negotiating for new conditions on what counts as "acceptable" replacement, the judge announces that they should just go back to making and selling the first deck they started with. And also if he ever has to see any of the people involved in his fucking court room again, over this same damn subject, he is sentencing everybody involved to death, by hanging, including himself.
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline
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