In Pornography and the Law, a book written by two psychologists [Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen], eleven "major criteria" for obscene books are listed. Of the eleven, eight are applicable to the work of Hawkes, especially to his plays and to the novels The Time Twig, Second Skin, and Blood Oranges. Those eight ingredients are: seduction; defloration; incest; the permissive-seduction parent figure; supersexed males; nymphomaniac figures; homosexuality; and flagellation…. But although Hawkes does meet those criteria and frequently another requirement that a book is aphrodisiacal which keeps "before the reader's mind a succession of erotic scenes," he does not attain what are considered all the structural requirements of pornography. For example, the "true" pornographer, if he uses background scenery, treats it erotically. Hawkes' scenic descriptions, though sometimes highly suggestive or filled with sexual symbolism, are often also non-erotic.

The plot of a Hawkes play or novel may be simple...