You’ve probably watched your fair share of naughty videos. But have you ever stopped to think about the history of porn?
Since the definition of porn changes from culture to culture, gathering information about this topic is tricky.
Pornography has been around for centuries and will continue to be around for many more.
Are you ready to dip your toes into a brief history of porn?
Prehistoric Porn
Have you ever heard of the Venus of Willendorf?
No, this is not the first Big Boobs Sex Doll 🙂
This small stone statue, dated from over 25,000 years ago, depicts a woman with spectacular breasts.
Discovered on the bank fo the Danube River, scientists are still unsure if the Venus of Willendorf is a fertility totem or an erotic work of art.
Some of the earliest cave drawings also pictured pornographic images. La Magdelaine, a prehistoric rock shelter in France, features nudes of reclining women as old as 15,000 BC.
When Sumerians developed their system of writing called cuneiform around 3,500 to 3,000 BC, they carved sonnets to vulvas on the clay tablets.
Can you imagine having the dedication it takes to do that?
Porn in Antiquity
The Ancient Greeks and Romans are (in)famous for their sexual vivaciousness.
Both societies produced a plethora of pornographic art and literature, from straight sex to gay sex to orgies.
But they weren’t the only ones.
On the other side of the world, thousands of miles away in Peru, the Moche painted sex scenes on pottery.
And of course, there’s the Kama Sutra in India. That’s way before Mia Malkova started opening her legs for you!
Hot of the Press
Despite the repression of sex and sexuality by the Catholic Church, porn continued.
It wasn’t uncommon for aristocrats to commission artists to create pieces displaying sex acts.
One of the first significant events in the history of porn (and also the world) was the invention of the printing press.
The first “pornographer” to utilize this new invention was a man named Aretino.
He published a book of pornographic sonnets in the 16th century, which was quickly banned by the pope.
One of the most notable pornographic works of this era was I Modi. It was published in 1524 and featured 16 different sex positions in engravings.
Of course, the Church being the Church destroyed the original copy during the Renaissance. Bu that didn’t prevent realistic sex dolls from making their way into our homes…
Porn in the 18th and 19th Centuries
It’s believed that Russia’s notorious 18th-century monarch Catherine the Great dedicated an entire room in one of her palaces just for erotica.
First-person accounts describe phallic-shaped table legs and furniture resembling vulvas. One could easily imagine Tina, our favorite bondage doll on that table b the way.
In the 19th century, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and other Impressionist artists outraged the public with their nude paintings.
Now, we’re not goin to give you 10 reasons to buy a sex doll just yet.
Keep on reading… While am Jilling off.
Before we had Sex Addiction, we had the Victorians…
The history of porn takes a big turn in the Victorian era. Nobody did it quite like the Victorians did.
Don’t let those tall top hats and floor-length dresses fool you. These people were single-handedly responsible for the invention of porn as we know it today.
Just as Japanese Shunga faced suppression through its sale and distribution by the government, Victorian-era porn also saw it’s fair share of laws outlawing anything resembling porn.
In 1857, the English Obscene Publications Act passed as the first in a series of laws banning porn.
Police were allowed to seize and destroy anything considered vulgar. Twenty years later, the American Comstock Act outlawed the sending of pornographic items and images in the mail.
Both of these laws used the term “obscene” in their language, but neither explained what “obscene” meant.
That is until an 1868 court case over anti-Catholic pamphlets forced English courts to define obscenity, establishing the Hicklin test.
While these brochures weren’t sexually explicit, the writing certainly offended many peoples’ delicate sensibilities.
The courts ruled that the offending material could be considered obscene as it had the “tendency…to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.”
And so, obscenity earned its legal definition. By 1896, the United States also used the Hicklin test.
Moving Pictures
Regardless of these laws, porn prospered–especially with the invention of film.
Moving pictures completely changed the way people could experience “obscene material.”
Eugène Pirou and Albert Kirchner were two of the earliest people to get on board with pornographic moving pictures.
They produced Le coucher de la mariée in 1896, which starred a newly married woman stripping in front of her husband.
Despite obscenity laws in Europe and the U.S., these films thrived, although their distribution remained secret.
Porn in the Modern Era
Whether by some hilarious cosmic joke, or a pure coincidence, 1969 marked the start of the Golden Age of Pornography.
This period in the history of porn started when Denmark decriminalized pornography, making it the first country in the world to do so.
During this period, pornographic films became popular among mainstream audiences.
Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie was the first of these films to reach mainstream success. Other well-received films included The Last Tango in Paris, Mona, The Devil and Mrs. Jones, and of course, Deep Throat.
With the Free Love movement, more people started loosening up about sex, and so did the government.
In 1973, the U.S. changed the legal definition of obscenity to something more narrow in the case Miller v. California.
Subsequently, the number of porn convictions quickly dropped.
The Internet
The invention of the internet is one of the most important developments in the history of porn.
The internet is for modern times what moving pictures were for the Victorians.
No longer did people have to watch porn alongside other audience members–you could do it from the privacy and comfort of your own home!
Not only that, but the internet also made porn a lot cheaper and accessible.
Since then, the porn industry has become an exceptionally profitable business.
In 2013, the BBC estimated that pornographic materials make up 4-14% of the internet.
What’s more, new technological advancements like AR, AI, video games, and more will bring even more changes.
These will undoubtedly lead to more conflict in the future, but will hopefully pave the way for more positive attitudes about sexual activity.
The history of pornography is a compelling look at how societies develop (or regress) over time.
It’s a fascinating topic and one that will only become more interesting in time.