The History of Pornography

Pornography has existed since the early ages. The term “porn” comes from the Greeks who painted frescoes in many of their brothels as a primitive form of advertising. The term originally meant “depiction of whores” or “indecent pictures.” The word is used to describe sexually explicit material whose main goal is to incite sexual excitement in the viewer.

Early depictions of sexual activity were often regarded as “erotica” rather than “pornography.” However, the American activist and writer, Andrea Dworkin, makes a revealing observation about this fact: “Erotica is simply high class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer.”

Pornographic Paintings

Many ancient cave and rock paintings depicted graphic sexual scenes and could be considered a crude form or pornography. The pottery and sculptures of ancient Rome and Greece also contained many sexual images. Paintings such as the Venus of Urbino created by Titian in 1538 paved the way for later works such as the Demoisselles d’Avignon. Picasso depicted numerous prostitutes in a brothel in this painting. Ancient Pompeii contained many erotic paintings and one of the more famous can still be seen. Visitors to this Italian city can view the life size pornographic fresco adorning the doorway of the famous residence, the House of the Vetti.

Pornographic Books

The first documented book containing pornographic pictures is the Kama Sutra, the oriental sex manual created by Vatsyayana. Many writers started to focus on pornography in their books. The Italian writer, Pietro Aretino wrote about this subject matter. John Cleveland wrote a book entitled “Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” in 1749. The popular novel depicted the life of a prostitute living in England. The famous British writer, D.H. Lawrence, was also world renowned for the graphic sexual content of his novels such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The French author, Anaïs Nin, was one of the first women to focus on erotic writing.