An obscene representation or display, particularly of the human body or of a part of it, represents it in abstraction from human commitments and emotions, but not entirely objectively either (as in medical textbooks); rather the body or part of the body is reduced to a vehicle of a single appetite or function (usually sexual, but there may be obscene displays of violence, or eating, or other functioning). By this definition erotic art, in which human passion is central, is never obscene, but pornography may be.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.