History of porn: how and when was this phenomenon born?
Porn today is something so everyday that many would think it was something from the end of the 20th century… Not at all. What? Did you think the ancestors weren’t up to that? Of course, in the absence of the Internet in those days, statuettes were drawn or made with enormous paleolithic Venus-style breasts, or guys with XXL phalluses with the story of asking their gods for fertility and good harvests. A little later, about 2,500 years ago, Hindus began to decorate temples with reliefs and sculptures of couples in action. In the Far East, during the Chin dynasty, drawings and engravings circulated with representations of young people in the sexual act. Not to mention the Greeks and Romans, who left evidence of orgies on everything from vases to murals to erotic texts.
The fun stopped with Christianity, which turned graphic manifestations of any alternative sexuality into a sinful taboo . Even so, those who lived through the Renaissance managed to continue “ pornography ” in a more discreet and covert way, something that is even seen in the works of the great masters of painting. This is how everything went until the end of the 19th century, with the Belle Epoque and the appearance of photography. That is more like what we know today as pornography . As soon as Daguerre invented his daguerreotype, the first photos of nudes and couples engaged in sexual acts appeared. The first photograph of oral sex is English, from 1890. In the midst of Victorian puritanism that limited sex to marriage to procreate – with the formula “come in, get out, get her pregnant and go to sleep” – on the one hand, women were condemned to suffer from the husband who touched them and, on the other, men complied with “society” and then they went with prostitutes to have fun. If there was no time or they couldn’t afford the allowance, the photographs and erotic stories were there to entertain them with sleight of hand.
Cinema and the first stages
As you can imagine, the invention of the cinematograph was a tremendous gift. The first films only showed women undressing and were known as “stag films”, which circulated clandestinely, without titles and associated with brothels that were only accessible to aristocrats, high-ranking politicians and, of course, male members. of European royalty. The business grew and it became fashionable for the “actresses” to be the brothel prostitutes who paid for the production for the consumption of their voyeur clients and, at the same time, as advertising for the place. This is considered the beginning of porn as we know it today. There they began to film masturbations, oral sex , vaginal and anal penetrations, ejaculations, lesbian scenes and many penises to also satisfy homosexuals , who then had to live inside a closet with double doors and seven keys.
Among the first Stags is an Argentine film, El Satario, from 1907 , which is distinguished by having a plot, although precarious: a group of naked women are having a lesbian scene, when a demon-possessed satyr appears and begins to chase them. Finally, when he captures one of her, he rapes her and ends up ejaculating profusely on her. Like for the Oscar! Hundreds of stags continued to emerge from that cut in the 1910s. In the 1920s, “The Casting Couch,” produced in the United States, was already considered something more “serious,” with narrative and all: a beginning actress who wants a role has to sleep with the Director to get it… and there everything happens and the repertoire of heterosexual sex is taught with seasoning of misogyny, abuse of power and humiliation of women, just as if it had been produced by Harvey W himself. In the 60s and 70s highlights the work of Russ Meyer.
End of the World War and the cyber age
The other great leap for the porn industry occurred after the Second World War and, much more so in the 60s, with its so-called sexual revolution . Since then , sexuality has been treated in a more open and public way, with the consequent mega exposure, including the star category for actresses and actors, and great commercial successes such as Deep Throat, Taboo and Inside Jennifer Wells. But until then you had to go to the cinema to see these films, unless you were a liberated bachelor and had a projector at home for those events. All that changed with the great democratizer of porn : the video cassette. The video brought porn films into every home, making Cicciolina and Rocco Siffredi almost close friends of the “pornophiles” of the time. There is no need to talk about the cyber-age anymore, because we have lived it and we are living it.
Blog written and edited by Max S
