The first evidence of use of the word prurient in English goes back to 1592. Prurient derives from the Latin verb prurire, meaning "to itch" or "to crave," and accordingly the adjective prurient meant "marked by restless craving" or "itching with curiosity." That original sense of immoderate or unwholesome interest preceded the use of the word in contexts expressing a specifically sexual interest, more common in current print use. Governor Paterson used the older sense of the word.

The Collegiate Encyclopedia offers some background on satire, an artistic form in which individual vices, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule or irony, sometimes with the intent to bring about improvement. Literature and drama are its chief vehicles, but satire is also found in such mediums as film, the visual arts (including caricatures), and, of course, political cartoons.

Though present in Greek literature, notably in the works of Aristophanes, satire generally follows the example of either of two Romans, Horace or Juvenal. To Horace, the satirist is an urbane man of the world who sees folly everywhere but is moved to gentle laughter rather than to rage. Juvenal's satirist is an upright man who is horrified and angered by corruption. Their different perspectives produced the subgenres of satire identified by J. Dryden as comic satire and tragic satire.