I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining to you what pornography is, and I’m assuming you already have a pretty good idea. However, despite how prevalent it is, you seldom hear people mention it in a professional manner, and any real conversations about it are reserved for private and intimate talks between close friends. For all of our technological advancements, as developed societies we still can’t manage to shake off the stigma that comes with taboo subjects, such as pornography. People find these subjects awkward and uncomfortable to talk about, but the only reason that these taboos and stigmas exist is because we don’t talk about them. To remove these stigmas and unconscious associations that we carry, I think it’s important that we be more honest and open towards potentially taboo topics, even if it does make us initially uncomfortable.



Due to this topic usually being reserved for private conversations rather than serious academic study, this had led to many misconceptions about pornography, such as how it affects our mental and social health specifically, but for the time being that’s not what I’ll be talking about. Whether you believe pornography is good, bad, or something in between is your personal opinion, but for the purposes of this, I’ll be taking an unbiased and neutral stance, this is purely educational and isn’t meant to influence anyone’s personal beliefs.

For a bit of background information, the word “pornography” originates from two Greek words meaning “prostitute” and “to record”, and first appeared in the French language in the 19th century, and was later borrowed into English around the 1940’s and re-borrowed into Greek. Unsurprisingly, this won’t be the last time we’ll be hearing from France. Some words with similar roots that have now fallen out of use were also borrowed later on, such as “pornotopia” around the 1960’s, which was a word coined to refer to the ideal erotic-world portrayed in pornographic movies.

The word was initially used to refer specifically to “obscene paintings”, especially those produced by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it eventually evolved in Victorian England to mean all objectionable to obscene content in art and literature.

Pornography wasn’t considered an art form in its own right at this time, and was instead used as a descriptive term to refer to other pieces of art and literature that just so happened to portray the human body in a sexually explicit manner. This is important as what one person defined as “sexually explicit” was very much down to personal opinion, meaning that it was originally used as a subjective term, which varied widely across time and cultures.

As would be expected, the earliest pornographic depictions are shrouded in mystery, especially since many of them date to before writing was commonplace. It’s important to note that not all of the things I’ll be talking about will necessarily be pornographic in nature, as historians may be unsure about their true purpose. As you go further back the lines between pornographic, and artistic or ritualistic depictions become very blurred, so all we can do is make our best guesses based on the little evidence that we’ve unearthed. Sexual and erotic depictions of the human body are thousands of years old, so what we see historically is obviously going to vary wildly from what would nowadays be considered pornography. They had no printing press, no mass production, no cameras, and certainly no internet, so people mainly had to make do with what they could to please their sexual urges.

One of the earliest pornographic depictions we have on record are Venus figurines, most of which ate back to between 26 and 21000 years ago. They’re typically small, carved statuettes of naked women, which in themselves wouldn’t necessarily be pornographic, but what leads historians and archaeologists to this conclusion is how the statues are proportioned. While naked people in works of art are common such as many classic paintings, it’s clear to the observer that the nakedness isn’t the centrepiece, but for Venus dolls, they tend to be proportioned in a very specific way. The shape draws the observer’s attention to the torso, they typically have no face, hands, or feet, the legs taper to a point, and the breasts and abdomen are designed to be particularly prominent.

A common theme that we’ll see in our journey today is women. As in, most of the earliest pornographic depictions we have on record are of the female body, and rarely do we see the male body put on show for erotic purposes. It’s clear that pre-20th century porn was made by men for men, as we don’t really see a wide variety that you might find today. This will change after the advent of photography in the 19th century where both males and females are prominently displayed, but for the time being, it’s clear to see who the main target of pornography was.

The culture surrounding pornography, what was considered acceptable and unacceptable to depict, has also obviously changed across history. Most of the historical depictions we see are heterosexual and monogamous, meaning they show sexual acts between one man and one woman, and most of the time in the missionary position, as the name implies, the only sex position approved by the Catholic Church. We touch briefly on early depictions of different sex positions later on, but for now just keep that in mind.

Not all depictions of sex were necessarily with humans either. In an early painting produced by Michelangelo in 1530, we see a depiction of the Greek God Zeus taking the form of a swan, as he seduces (or by some accounts rapes) the Spartan Queen Leda. While the depiction of an animal engaging in sexual acts with a human would be considered very inappropriate today, and would also lead to the creator being very arrested, this work of art was actually considered much less controversial than similar works directly because it depicts Zeus as an animal and not a humanoid. Clearly there’s been a massive shift in culture since then.