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Books banned for obscenity

Name: Books banned or restricted for obscenity
Creator: AI Analytics
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

590 titles have been banned or restricted for obscenity across 30 countries — one of eleven stated grounds tracked across the censorship record.

Titles

590

Countries

Reason

Obscenity

Most-banned for obscenity

Ranked by the number of distinct countries that banned or restricted the title citing this reason.

Title	Author	Year	Countries
Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	1955	6
Lady Chatterley's Lover	D.H. Lawrence	1928	6
Fanny Hill	John Cleland	1748	5
Tropic of Cancer	Henry Miller	1934	3
The Story of O	Pauline Réage	1954	3
Sons and Lovers	D.H. Lawrence	1913	3
Naked Lunch	William S. Burroughs	1959	3
Hubert Selby Jr.: Last Exit to Brooklyn	Hubert Selby Jr.	1964	3
Candy	Mason Hoffenberg, Terry Southern	1958	3
Ulysses	James Joyce	1922	2
Tropic of Capricorn	Henry Miller	1939	2
The Pearl	John Steinbeck	1947	2
The Decameron	Giovanni Boccaccio	1353	2
Sex	Madonna	1992	2
Sadopaideia	Ashantee of Edinburgh	1984	2
Portnoy's Complaint	Philip Roth	1969	2
My Secret Life	Walter	1976	2
Madonna Erotica	Madonna	1992	2
Les 120 Journées de Sodome	Marquis de Sade	1904	2
Justine	Marquis de Sade	1791	2
Forever Amber	Kathleen Winsor	1944	2
Fifty Shades of Grey	E L James	2011	2
Family Limitation	Margaret Sanger	1914	2
Droll Stories	Honoré de Balzac	1832	2
Blue Movie	Terry Southern	1970	2
Your Sex Drive	Robert Chartham	—	1
You Too?: 25 Voices Share Their #MeToo Stories	Janet Gurtler	2019	1
You Can't See 'Round Corners	Jon Cleary	1947	1
XYZ Comics	Rand Holmes	—	1
Xaviera's Supersex	Xaviera Hollander	—	1
Xaviera's Magic Mushrooms	Xaviera Hollander	—	1
Xaviera	Xaviera Hollander	—	1
Women on Top	Nancy Friday	—	1
Women in Love	D.H. Lawrence	1920	1
With Open Mouth	Marcus van Heller	—	1
William Eggleston: Portraits	Phillip Prodger	2025	1
Why Was He Born So Beautiful And Other Rugby Songs	Harry Morgan	—	1
Who Pushed Paula?	Akbar Del Piombo	—	1
White Zombie La Sexorcisto Devil Music Vol.1	White Zombie	—	1
White Thighs	Alexander Trocchi	1955	1
White Lunch Comix No. 1	Robert Crumb	—	1
Where's Poppa?	Robert Klane	1970	1
When the Lion Feeds	Wilbur A. Smith	1964	1
Washday at the Pā	Ans Westra	1964	1
Walter—My Secret Life	Eberhard, Phyllis Kronhausen	—	1
Wacky Wednesday	Dr. Seuss	1974	1
Voyeur	Jeff Dunas	—	1
Vincent's Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children's History of Art	Michael Bird	2016	1
Venus School Mistress	George Cannon	—	1
Venus in the Cloister or The Nun in her Smock	Edmund Curll	1724	1

Where obscenity is most cited

Country	Titles
Malaysia	228
United States	161
New Zealand	112
France	50
United Kingdom	15
Australia	15
Ireland	8
South Africa	5
Canada	4
Portugal	3
Norway	3
Japan	3
Italy	3
Turkey	2
Singapore	2
Malta	2
India	2
China	2
Zimbabwe	1
Taiwan	1

← All reasons & the full index

Source: Verboten, built on the banned-books.org Open Censorship Core (CC BY 4.0). Verboten compilation CC BY 4.0.