A good history of pornography, or even of piss porn?

[wjimmy 1,009]

Can anybody recommend a good book about the history of porn? I've read a few, but they've never completely satisfied me, either intellectually or erotically. Since pornography obviously has such huge cultural significance in the modern world (and, I believe, was hugely significant for a long time before, way back into history) I think it deserves serious and sympathetic treatment, but publications are rather scarce. 

A few thoughts of my own:

1. This book is a laudable attempt to describe the history of one particular period and genre:

Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate (1992) by Lynne Segal.

However, it only focusses on American porn films up to - if I remember correctly - about 1990. The author describes, categorizes and analyzes a variety of films but I found most of the book rather dull. Towards the end of her book, Lynne Segal very honestly  admits that she failed to convey the excitement of porn, as a result of adopting a detached, academic style. Even more honestly, she admits to being turned on by some of the films but, again, without conveying her excitement in the book. 

2. Of course, the word 'history' covers a very wide range. There's a lot of prehistoric stuff carved on cave walls, for instance, which we'd now consider pornographic - particularly images of vulvas - but did the original carvers consider them pornographic or even erotic? We'll never know.

3. There are quite a lot of books around about Victorian porn. For instance:

 The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-nineteenth-century England by Steven Marcus

Some are certainly interesting, but of course they're limited to a particular subset of the entire field.

4. This web page offers a pretty good summary, I'd say. If you click forward from the link there are more detailed articles on various aspects of modern porn.

https://jahsonic.com/Pornography.html

5. Of course, an anthropological/historical study of piss porn could be wonderful but I doubt that anything like it exists.

6.  greedyneedygirl's reviews of Sex Bizarre magazine actually come to very close to the kind of thing I'd like to read about piss porn in particular and pornography in general.

Anyway, I throw the topic open for discussion. Maybe somebody knows about a book or forum I haven't come across. I hope so.

Edited August 12, 2022 by wjimmy

[greedyneedygirl 4,156]

I know of a book that charts the rise of Danish and Swedish Porn, but the title eludes me at the moment. About a year ago I subscribed to this forum:

http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/index.php?s=47c170a596fe6a14cf70c511ef9db80e

Someone contacted me from Norway who had carried out a great deal of research on the history of the Color Climax Corporation and the Theander Brothers who started the company (Jens and Peter). You might find the forum useful, or not. Generally there doesn't seem to be that much around, due to the sensitive nature of porn and censorship laws in various countries. Thanks for the heads up on my reviews BTW, I've just come back off vacation so hope to post the next review soon. ❤️

[wjimmy 1,009]

On 8/15/2022 at 12:20 PM, greedyneedygirl said:

I know of a book that charts the rise of Danish and Swedish Porn, but the title eludes me at the moment. About a year ago I subscribed to this forum:

http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/index.php?s=47c170a596fe6a14cf70c511ef9db80e

Someone contacted me from Norway who had carried out a great deal of research on the history of the Color Climax Corporation and the Theander Brothers who started the company (Jens and Peter). You might find the forum useful, or not. Generally there doesn't seem to be that much around, due to the sensitive nature of porn and censorship laws in various countries. Thanks for the heads up on my reviews BTW, I've just come back off vacation so hope to post the next review soon. ❤️

@greedyneedygirl If you ever remember the title of the book about Danish and Swedish porn, I'd love to hear about it. Similarly the screen name of the person from Norway on Vintage Erotica.

As a teenager, in 1966, I was taken on a trip to Denmark. There were vending machines selling hard-core porn magazines in the highstreets of at least two Danish towns we passed through. The railway station we first arrived at - probably Esbjerg - had porn mags openly on sale at the newspaper kiosk. I distinctly remember the shock of seeing full colour photographs of girls openly displaying their luxuriant pubic hair. I wasn't allowed to buy anything at that time and I couldn't afford to anyway, but the fact that those mags were openly and publicly on sale gave me a huge incentive to go back - which I did, when I was old enough to enjoy it properly. The last time I was in Jutland, sometime in the 1990s, the porn vending machines were still there. 

I know Vintage Erotica forum. I agree, it's very good. Among many threads, I enjoy the Wank Club for its range of images, and Classic Magazine Scans contains a lot of pics from early porn that remind me of my excitement when I was young. (See first pic, below.) 

Although I'm not normally a fan of enormous tits - and I suspect this woman's chest has been graphically enhanced anyway - the cover of the index to Color Climax also brings back a familiar throb. It somehow captures the spirit of its age,

 

[greedyneedygirl 4,156]

On 8/17/2022 at 8:07 AM, wjimmy said:

@greedyneedygirl If you ever remember the title of the book about Danish and Swedish porn, I'd love to hear about it. Similarly the screen name of the person from Norway on Vintage Erotica.

As a teenager, in 1966, I was taken on a trip to Denmark. There were vending machines selling hard-core porn magazines in the highstreets of at least two Danish towns we passed through. The railway station we first arrived at - probably Esbjerg - had porn mags openly on sale at the newspaper kiosk. I distinctly remember the shock of seeing full colour photographs of girls openly displaying their luxuriant pubic hair. I wasn't allowed to buy anything at that time and I couldn't afford to anyway, but the fact that those mags were openly and publicly on sale gave me a huge incentive to go back - which I did, when I was old enough to enjoy it properly. The last time I was in Jutland, sometime in the 1990s, the porn vending machines were still there. 

I know Vintage Erotica forum. I agree, it's very good. Among many threads, I enjoy the Wank Club for its range of images, and Classic Magazine Scans contains a lot of pics from early porn that remind me of my excitement when I was young. (See first pic, below.) 

Although I'm not normally a fan of enormous tits - and I suspect this woman's chest has been graphically enhanced anyway - the cover of the index to Color Climax also brings back a familiar throb. It somehow captures the spirit of its age,

 

This site is worth looking at, in fact it is how I first contacted the Norwegian guy:

http://climaxstory.com/

[wjimmy 1,009]

11 hours ago, greedyneedygirl said:

This site is worth looking at, in fact it is how I first contacted the Norwegian guy:

http://climaxstory.com/

@greedyneedygirl : Thanks very much for this link. The site is fascinating - and extensive!

This surprised me a little:

"I’ve already mentioned that porn in Denmark was liberated on July 1st 1969, but the process started way earlier. In Copenhagen there were many shops In the mid-sixties, that could provide customers with porn. Since porn was illegal ... police tried to strike down on it, raiding shops and warehouses. ...!

As I've already said somewhere, I first glimpsed what I took to be hard-core porn in Denmark in 1966 - on-street porn vending machines and a big newspaper kiosk in the Esberg railway concourse, which definitely had magazine covers on open display showing 'full frontal' women complete with pubic hair. However, as the article goes on to say: "The problem was to define what porn actually was. The law did not." So it seems possible that the pictures I took to be pornographic weren't defined that way in Denmark. (Of course, being supervised by adults at the time, I didn't get the chance to look inside any of the magazines, or even get close to them.)

SOURCE: http://climaxstory.com/klimaks-first-magazine-jens-peter/

I haven't been able to look through the whole site yet, of course, but it includes a link - among many others -  to this site: 

https://adultloopdb.nl

which offers covers plus brief descriptions of a variety of early porn films.

But there are many other links. The blogger has been extremely thorough.

Thank you, again, greedyneedygirl.

Edited August 21, 2022 by wjimmy