Introduction
Pornography (colloquially known as porn or porno) has been defined as sexual subject material "such as a picture, video, or text" that is intended for sexual arousal. Made for the consumption by adults, pornography depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adult content is made classifying it as pornography or erotica.
The oldest artifacts considered pornographic were discovered in Germany in 2008 CE and are dated to be at least 35,000 years old. Throughout the history of erotic depictions, various people made attempts to suppress them under obscenity laws, censor, or make them illegal. Such grounds and even the definition of pornography have differed in various historical, cultural, and national contexts. The Indian Sanskrit text Kama Sutra (3rd century CE) contained prose, poetry, and illustrations regarding sexual behavior, and the book was celebrated; while the British English text Fanny Hill (1748), considered "the first original English prose pornography," has been one of the most prosecuted and banned books. In the late 19th century, a film by Thomas Edison that depicted a kiss was denounced as obscene in the United States, whereas Eugène Pirou's 1896 film Bedtime for the Bride was received very favorably in France. Starting from the mid-twentieth century on, societal attitudes towards sexuality became more lenient in the Western world where legal definitions of obscenity were made limited. In 1969, Blue Movie became the first film to depict unsimulated sex that received a wide theatrical release in the United States. This was followed by the "Golden Age of Porn" (1969–1984). The introduction of home video and the World Wide Web in the late 20th century led to global growth in the pornography business. Beginning in the 21st century, greater access to the Internet and affordable smartphones made pornography more mainstream. (Full article...)
Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use any artistic form to depict erotic content, including painting, sculpture, drama, film or music. Erotic literature and erotic photography have become genres in their own right. Erotica also exists in a number of subgenres including gay, lesbian, women's, bondage, monster and tentacle erotica.
The term erotica is derived from the feminine form of the ancient Greek adjective: ἐρωτικός (erōtikós), from ἔρως (érōs)—words used to indicate lust, and sexual love. (Full article...)
Selected article
Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo works: nine books of non-fiction, two novels, and a collection of short stories. Another three volumes were co-written or co-edited with US constitutional law professor and feminist activist, Catharine A. MacKinnon.
The central objective of Dworkin's work is analyzing Western society, culture, and politics through the prism of men's sexual violence against women in a patriarchal context. She wrote on a wide range of topics including the lives of Joan of Arc, Margaret Papandreou, and Nicole Brown Simpson; she analyzed the literature of Charlotte Brontë, Jean Rhys, Leo Tolstoy, Marquis de Sade, Kōbō Abe, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, and Isaac Bashevis Singer; she brought her own radical feminist perspective to her examination of subjects historically written or described from men's point of view, including fairy tales, homosexuality, lesbianism, virginity, antisemitism, the State of Israel, the Holocaust, biological superiority, and racism. She interrogated premises underlying concepts such as freedom of the press and civil liberties. She theorized the sexual politics of intelligence, fear, courage, and integrity. She described a male supremacist political ideology manifesting in and constituted by rape, battery, prostitution, and pornography. (Full article...)Selected work of erotic literature
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov that addresses the controversial subject of hebephilia. The protagonist is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He describes his obsession with a 12-year-old "nymphet", Dolores Haze, whom he kidnaps and sexually abuses after becoming her stepfather. Privately, he calls her "Lolita", the Spanish nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English, but fear of censorship in the U.S. (where Nabokov lived) and Britain led to it being first published in Paris, France, in 1955 by Olympia Press.
The book has received critical acclaim regardless of the controversy it caused with the public. It has been included in many lists of best books, such as Time's List of the 100 Best Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, Bokklubben World Library, Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, and The Big Read. The novel has been twice adapted into film: first in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, and later in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for the stage. (Full article...)List of selected works
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Slideshow of selected contemporary images
Slideshow of selected historical images
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that later pressings of the soundtrack of the soft porn film The Stud replaced Manfred Mann's Earth Band's "Davy's on the Road Again" after a journalist blabbed its presence to the band's keyboardist?
- ... that a pornographic video service once offered NFL quarterback Gardner Minshew a one-million-dollar endorsement deal based on his habit of exercising in nothing but a jockstrap?
- ... that some viewers of an Arizona TV station saw hardcore pornography instead of the Super Bowl?
- ... that Lewes Road in Brighton has a gyratory named after a pornographic cinema?
- ... that John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut was the bestselling pornographic film of 1994 and had the most rentals that year in the United States?
- ... that the Japanese male–male romance magazine June was originally pitched to its publisher as a "mildly pornographic magazine for women"?
- ... that Money Shot: The Pornhub Story was described by multiple reviewers as unsalacious?
- ... that Claudia Riner was falsely accused of distributing lesbian erotica in the Kentucky House of Representatives?
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