He calls himself “Reddit’s resident historian of pornography”—and now he’s got the book to prove it.

After debuting his first tome—a well-researched romp through “the bawdy and forgotten corners of Western civilization”—Brian Watson (username vertexoflife) invited redditors to test his knowledge in an informative, if very NSFW, AMA (Ask Me Anything).

Last year, the New Hampshire-based author shared with news.com.au, “It’s my honest belief (and has thus far been supported by my research) that in most cases, we are no more or less weird sexually than all of our ancestors dating back to prehistoric times.”

To prove his thesis, he delved deep into the archives to answer redditors’ questions about the very first porn star, the future of erotica, and sex toys throughout the centuries.

Oh, and balloon porn.

“… we live in an era of free access to pornography for everyone,” Watson writes in the introduction to his AMA, “yet no one is talking about it—and when they do, they are ignorant of its history as a genre that critiqued and challenged the people in power—the church, the state, and society.

“After I finished grad school I decided that I wanted to expand my thesis into a full length book, which I called Annals of Pornographie: How Porn Became Bad.”

On March 5, Watson self-published the book, noting that “a lot of [literary] agents do not want to touch it because of its subject matter.”

Although he launched his AMA partly in hopes of attracting attention from prospective publishers, the author was happy to give users on the fence about checking it out a TL;DR-level summary.

“The short story of ‘How Porn Became Bad,'” he writes in a comment, “is this: the printing press made reproduction of ‘immoral’ texts and images remarkably easy and cheap. When this was joined with increasing middle- and lower-class literacy, it created [a] ‘type’ of work that supposedly had an ‘bad’ effect upon the general population that the Church and various countries attempted to control through moral reform and legal regulation.”

After concisely covering the book’s subject matter in just two sentences, Watson gives his readers the hook: “But the long answer is so much more entertaining and ridiculous.”

Here are a few of the highlights.

First: A Few Puns to Get Out of the Way

How Did Porn “Become Bad”?

The World’s First Porn Star

Any Stories for, Umm, Cocktail Parties?

What Were Pre-20th Century Sex Toys Like?

When one redditor expressed curiosity about adult toys throughout history, Watson was ready with a few surprising (and NSFW) images to show just how far we’ve come:

Most Interesting Kinks/Fetishes?

Wait—”Balloon Porn”?

Ducks vs. Horses

When asked the classic Reddit toss-up between fighting 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck, Watson was prepared for battle:

The Porn Historian’s Predictions for the Future of Porn

To read all of Watson’s answers to redditors’ questions, check out the original AMA thread. The Annals of Pornographie is available now on Amazon, Smashwords, and Nook.