BRENNAN, J., dissenting 413 U.S. failure to reach a consensus on any one standard. But after 16 years of experimentation and debate I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that none of the available formulas, including the one announced today, can reduce the vagueness to a tolerable level while at the same time striking an acceptable balance between the protections of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, on the one hand, and on the other the asserted state interest in regulating the dissemination of certain sexually oriented materials. Any effort to draw a constitutionally acceptable boundary on state power must resort to such indefinite concepts as "prurient interest," "patent offensiveness," "serious literary value," and the like. The meaning of these concepts necessarily varies with the experience, outlook, and even idiosyncrasies of the person defining them. Although we have assumed that obscenity does exist and that we "know it when [we] see it," Jacobellis v. Ohio, supra, at 197 (STEWART, J., concurring), we are manifestly unable to describe it in advance except by reference to concepts so elusive that they fail to distinguish clearly between protected and unprotected speech. We have more than once previously acknowledged that "constitutionally protected expression . . . is often separated from obscenity only by a dim and uncertain line." Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S., at 66. See also, e. g., Mishkin v. New York, supra, at 511. Added to the "perhaps inherent residual vagueness" of each of the current multitude of standards, Ginzburg v. United States, supra, at 475 n. 19, is the further complication that the obscenity of any particular item may depend upon nuances of presentation and the context of its dissemination. See ibid. Redrup itself suggested that obtrusive exposure to unwilling individuals, distribution to juveniles, and "pandering" may also bear upon the determination of 49 BRENNAN, J., dissenting obscenity. See Redrup v. New York, supra, at 769. As Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated in a related vein, obscenity is a function of the circumstances of its dissemination: "It is not the book that is on trial; it is a person. The conduct of the defendant is the central issue, not the obscenity of a book or picture. The nature of the materials is, of course, relevant as an attribute of the defendant's conduct, but the materials are thus placed in context from which they draw color and character." Roth, 354 U. S., at 495 (concurring opinion). See also, e. g., Jacobellis v. Ohio, supra, at 201 (dissenting opinion); Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U. S. 436, 445–446 (1957) (dissenting opinion). I need hardly point out that the factors which must be taken into account are judgmental and can only be applied on "a case-by-case, sight-by-sight" basis. Mishkin v. New York, supra, at 516 (Black, J., dissenting). These considerations suggest that no one definition, no matter how precisely or narrowly drawn, can possibly suffice for all situations, or carve out fully suppressible expression from all media without also creating a substantial risk of encroachment upon the guarantees of the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment." 9 Although I did not join the opinion of the Court in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 (1969), I am now inclined to agree that "the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas," and that "[t]his right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth . . . is fundamental to our free society." Id., at 564. See Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 143 (1943); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948); Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U. S. 301, 307-308 (1965) (concurring opinion). This right is closely tied, as Stanley recognized, to "the right to be free, except in very limited circumstances, from unwarranted governmental intrusions into one's privacy." 394 U. S., at 564 See Griswold v. BRENNAN, J., dissenting 413 U.S. The vagueness of the standards in the obscenity area produces a number of separate problems, and any improvement must rest on an understanding that the problems are to some extent distinct. First, a vague statute fails to provide adequate notice to persons who are engaged in the type of conduct that the statute could be thought to proscribe. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that all criminal laws provide fair notice of "what the State commands. or forbids." Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, 453 (1939); Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385 (1926). In the service of this general principle we have repeatedly held that the definition of obscenity must provide adequate notice of exactly what Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). It is similarly related to "the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child" (italics omitted), Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 453 (1972), and the right to exercise "autonomous control over the development and expression of one's intellect, interests, tastes, and personality." (Italics omitted.) Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179, 211 (1973) (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). It seems to me that the recognition of these intertwining rights calls in question the validity of the two-level approach recognized in Roth. After all, if a person has the right to receive information without regard to its social worth-that is, without regard to its obscenitythen it would seem to follow that a State could not constitutionally punish one who undertakes to provide this information to a willing, adult recipient. See Eisenstadt v. Baird, supra, at 443-446. In any event, I need not rely on this line of analysis or explore all of its possible ramifications, for there is available a narrower basis on which to rest this decision. Whether or not a class of "obscene" and thus entirely unprotected speech does exist, I am forced to conIclude that the class is incapable of definition with sufficient clarity to withstand attack on vagueness grounds. Accordingly, it is on principles of the void-for-vagueness doctrine that this opinion exclusively relies. 49 BRENNAN, J., dissenting is prohibited from dissemination. See, e. g., Rabe v. Washington, 405 U. S. 313 (1972); Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 U. S. 676 (1968); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507 (1948). While various tests have been upheld under the Due Process Clause, see Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S., at 643; Mishkin v. New York, 383 U. S., at 506-507; Roth v. United States, 354 U. S., at 491-492, I have grave doubts that any of those tests could be sustained today. For I know of no satisfactory answer to the assertion by Mr. Justice Black, "after the fourteen separate opinions handed down" in the trilogy of cases decided in 1966, that "no person, not even the most learned judge much less a layman, is capable of knowing in advance of an ultimate decision in his particular case by this Court whether certain material comes within the area of 'obscenity'. . . ." Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S., at 480-481 (dissenting opinion). See also the statement of Mr. Justice Harlan in Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, supra, at 707 (separate opinion). As Mr. Chief Justice Warren pointed out, "[t]he constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. The underlying principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed." United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 617 (1954). In this context, even the most painstaking efforts to determine in advance whether certain sexually oriented expression is obscene must inevitably prove unavailing. For the insufficiency of the notice compels persons to guess not only whether their conduct is covered by a criminal statute, but also whether their conduct falls within the constitutionally permissible reach of the statute. The resulting level of uncertainty is utterly intolerable, not alone because it makes BRENNAN, J., dissenting 413 U.S. "[b]ookselling ... a hazardous profession," Ginsberg v. New York, supra, at 674 (Fortas, J., dissenting), but as well because it invites arbitrary and erratic enforcement of the law. See, e. g., Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156 (1972); Gregory v. City of Chicago, 394 U. S. 111, 120 (1969) (Black, J., concurring); Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 (1951); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308 (1940); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940). In addition to problems that arise when any criminal statute fails to afford fair notice of what it forbids, a vague statute in the areas of speech and press creates a second level of difficulty. We have indicated that "stricter standards of permissible statutory vagueness may be applied to a statute having a potentially inhibiting effect on speech; a man may the less be required to act at his peril here, because the free dissemination of ideas may be the loser." 10 Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 151 (1959). That proposition draws its strength from our recognition that "[t]he fundamental freedoms of speech and 11 10 In this regard, the problems of vagueness and overbreadth are, plainly, closely intertwined. See NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 432-433 (1963); Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 844, 845 (1970). Cf. infra, at 93–94. 11 See also Speiser v. Randall, 357 US. 513 (1958); cf. Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 137-138 (1959) (Black, J., dissenting): "This Court . . . has emphasized that the 'vice of vagueness' is |