MOKGORO J [10] This 1967 Act definition derived from that in the 1963 Act, which defined matter “harmful to public morals” as material dealing improperly with, inter alia: “[S]exual intercourse, prostitution, promiscuity, white-slavery, licentiousness, lust, passionate love scenes, homosexuality, sexual assault, rape, sodomy, masochism, sadism, sexual bestiality, abortion, change of sex, night life, physical poses, nudity, scant or inadequate dress, divorce, marital infidelity, adultery, illegitimacy, human or social deviation or degeneracy, or any other similar related phenomenon.”15 That definition in turn was based upon the recommendation of the Cronje Commission Report. 16 [11] Aside from its overt moralism, a legacy of the common law, the statutory regulation of obscenity in South Africa has acquired a distinctive political dimension. As one authority puts it: [South Africans] have been subjected to a system of censorship which was intended to impose the Calvinist morality of a small ruling establishment on the entire population. 17 15 Act 26 of 1963, § 6(1)(c). 16 The Report recommended the proscription of material that Describe[s], depict[s], represent[s] or portray[s] one or more of the following in an indecent, offensive, or harmful manner: . . . sexual intercourse, prostitution, promiscuity, white-slavery, licentiousness, lust, passionate love scenes, homosexuality, sexual assault, rape, sodomy, masochism, sexual bestiality, abortion, change of sex, night life, physical poses, nudity, scantily or inadequately dressed persons, divorce, marital infidelity, adultery, illegitimacy, human or social deviation or degeneracy, or any other similar related phenomenon. Cronje Commission Report, para 5:93(2)(d). 17 Van Wyk Rights and Constitutionalism, The New South African Legal Order (1994) 282. Some indication of the Cronje Commission’s animating premises may be gleaned from the following extracts from its Report: As a silent and unobtrusive force, women have had a strong saving influence and significance in all cultures and civilizations. The question now arises whether the honour of women is still regarded as sacred and inviolate or whether it is not perhaps being injured . . . through . . . the various forms of undesirability as expressed in publications. Cronje Commission Report, para 3:194. European women are portrayed . . . alluringly in calendars which have been distributed on a considerable scale among the Bantu in recent years . . . consideration must apparently be given at least to the possibility that illustrations of European women are more attractive to the Bantu than those of Bantu women. Id. para 3:298. In Undesirable illustrations the female figure is presented . . . pre-eminently in scanty or inadequate attire . . . The position has, in fact, become so serious that any right-minded person will ask what the consequences for Western civilisation and culture in this country are likely to 6