In legal contexts, books, pictures, or films which are judged obscene are illegal because they deal with sex or violence in a way that is considered offensive to the general public. A city magistrate ruled that the novel was obscene and copies should be destroyed
Offensive to chastity or modesty; expressing or presenting to the mind or view something which delicacy, purity, and decency forbid to be exposed; impure; as, obscene language; obscene pictures
suggestive of or tending to moral looseness; "lewd whisperings of a dirty old man"; "an indecent gesture"; "obscene telephone calls"; "salacious limericks"
If you describe something as obscene, you mean it offends you because it relates to sex or violence in a way that you think is unpleasant and shocking. I'm not prudish but I think these photographs are obscene He continued to use obscene language and also to make threats
disapproval If you describe something as obscene, you disapprove of it very strongly and consider it to be offensive or immoral. It was obscene to spend millions producing unwanted food = offensive
offensive to the mind; "an abhorrent deed"; "the obscene massacre at Wounded Knee"; "morally repugnant customs"; "repulsive behavior"; "the most repulsive character in recent novels"