"Law No. 196 of 13 May 2003 specifies that 'pornography means acts with an obscene character, as well as materials that reproduce or disseminate such acts.' (Ch. I, Art. 2, Par. 1) If you don't know what 'obscene character' means, there you are: 'sexually explicit gestures or behaviors, performed individually or in a group, images, sounds or words that through their signification may constitute an indecent assault, as well as any other forms of expression that present explicitly, or suggest, a sexual activity." Things stand clear: Musics and Tricks, like other novels presently incriminated, to which others may be added at any time, should they 'suggest a sexual activity' as pale as may be, are by definition pornographic materials… The moral: the excerpt cited in the schoolbook is about a boy who, alone at home, finds his parents' Grundig tape recorder. Nothing obscene at first sight – the boy is reminiscing his childhood, but doesn't that tape recorder arouse your suspicion? '…A device that records and reproduces sounds by moving a magnetic strip covered with a ferromagnetic substance…' Sounds OK, doesn't it? Yet under the magnifying glass of the TV news program, the excerpt no longer hides a pathetic 'vibrator wrapped in tinfoil', but a hefty 'reproduction apparatus'."
Cultura, 24-30 November 2004
by Ovidiu Verdeş
