Rehnquist slipped into the conference room one day and took his seat.

He pulled a magazine from his stack of papers. The National Lampoon, a humor magazine, had just released its February issue. The centerfold was entitled “Amicae Curiae”—Friends of the Court—and it depicted, in a color cartoon, all nine of the Justices engaged in a variety of sexual activity.

The Chief, naked except for holster and pistol, was on the floor licking the boot of an otherwise naked young woman.

Brennan was standing in front of two very young girls holding his robe open.

Stewart was measuring the throat of a young woman with a ruler, apparently in preparation for oral sex.

Rehnquist, clad in a woman’s bra and red garter belt, was parading before the others cracking a black whip.

White, a blindfold partially covering his glasses, was apparently engaged in some taxing sexual activity, though the cartoon did not make it clear what that activity was.

Powell was kneeling naked, his hands bound together, while a black woman in underwear marked “Exhibit A” flogged him.

Marshall stood by the side of the bench doing nothing but looking up at Douglas, who sat alone on the bench with a naked young boy at his side.

Blackmun was sodomizing a kangaroo.

Chuckling, Rehnquist passed the issue around the table. Most of them laughed. The Chief was angered both by the cartoon and the fact that it had been brought into conference.

Afterward, Marshall sent a clerk to buy extra copies for his college-age children.

Brennan proudly told his clerks that while every other Justice was portrayed engaging in some sexual activity, he was pictured protecting several young children by blocking their view with his robe.

His clerks decided that they owed it to him to explain “flashing.”

Blackmun told his clerks how funny the centerfold was, especially the portion depicting Rehnquist “in drag.” The only problem, Blackmun said, was that he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be doing with the kangaroo.

The clerks drew straws to see who would tell him.

At Trader Vic’s, Marshall had just launched into another story when he suddenly stopped. He stared at his watch a moment. It was about 1:50.

“My God, I almost forgot,” he said in a stricken tone. “It’s movie day, we have to get back.”

Movie day was the humorous highpoint of most terms. Year after year, several of the Justices and most of the clerks went either into a basement storeroom or to one of the larger conference rooms to watch feature films that were exhibits in obscenity cases that had been appealed to the Court.

. . .

But the others sat on folding chairs with their clerks, watching such films as I Am Curious (Yellow) projected onto a white wall. During his later years, Harlan watched the films from the first row, a few feet from the screen, able only to make out the general outlines. His clerk or another Justice would describe the action. “By Jove,” Harlan would exclaim. “Extraordinary.”

Clerks frequently mocked Stewart’s approach to obscenity, calling out in the darkened room: “That’s it, that’s it, I know it when I see it.”

Marshall’s quips were the best. The previous term, a pornographic movie had used the familiar ruse of posing as an educational film. The actor playing a psychologist had concluded by stating, “And so our nymphomaniac subject was never cured.” Marshall retorted, “Yeah, but I am.”

Now the lights were about to go off as Marshall and White’s clerks plunged through the door to see Vixen, a “soft-core” feature with nudity but no explicit intercourse.

The last thirteen minutes consisted of an attempted hijacking of the plane carrying the female protagonist by an Irish Communist bound for Cuba. He gave a talk on the comparative merits of Communist and Western societies. “Ah, the redeeming social value,” Marshall said.

The clerks were disappointed that the movie was such soft-core.

Powell left after the first film.

The second movie was Sexual Freedom in Denmark, a feature documentary that had been released two years before. A very serious commentator explained the harmful effects of liberal Danish sexual attitudes, and showed a photograph of a penis in the last stages of syphilis. The dull narrative was punctuated by drawings of sexual and reproductive functions in color.

Blackmun sat stone-faced, ignoring the banter from Marshall and the clerks. Marshall turned to him when the lights came on as the projectionist changed reels. “Well, Harry, I didn’t learn anything, how about you?”

Blushing, Blackmun joined the rest of the room in a hearty laugh.

The second reel had the first hard-breathing segment as two women made love. Then the film returned to its clinical, documentary style. Blackmun found it distasteful. The film’s tone, if not its content, degraded women. That alone was enough to predispose him against all pornography.

Back in chambers, Powell’s clerks remarked to him that Vixen had been disappointing. Two clerks confessed that they had seen all the movies of the director Russ Meyer—the master of sexexploitation films. Yale Law School had even presented a Russ Meyer festival.

Powell’s gaunt face was expressionless. He had never before seen such a film, he explained slowly. He had had no idea such movies were even made. He was shocked and disgusted. He did not wish to discuss it further.

Powell’s clerks were amazed. There could not have been a milder movie for him to have seen. There had been nothing more than nudity, and facial and bodily expressions that suggested orgasm.