Portal:Erotica and pornography
Introduction
Pornography (colloquially known as porn or porno) is sexual subject material such as a picture, video, text, or audio that is intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to modern virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adults-only sexual content is made-classifying it as pornography or erotica.
The oldest artifacts considered pornographic were discovered in Germany in 2008 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 by Andy Warhol 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 art, literature or photography 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, monster, tentacle erotica and bondage 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
Jenna Marie Massoli (born April 9, 1974), known professionally as Jenna Jameson (/ˈdʒeɪmɪsən/), is an American businesswoman, writer, television personality, and former pornographic film actress. She has been named the world's most famous adult entertainment performer and "The Queen of Porn".
Jameson started acting in erotic videos in 1993 after having worked as a stripper and glamour model. By 1996, she had won the "Top Newcomer" award from each of the three major adult movie organizations. She has since won more than 35 adult-video awards, and has been inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) and Adult Video News (AVN) Halls of Fame.
Jameson founded the adult-entertainment company ClubJenna in 2000 with Jay Grdina, whom she later married and divorced. Initially, a single website, this business expanded into managing similar websites of other stars and began producing sexually explicit videos in 2001. The first such movie, Briana Loves Jenna (with Briana Banks), was named at the 2003 AVN Awards as the best-selling and best-renting pornographic title for 2002. By 2005, ClubJenna had revenues of US$30 million with profits estimated at half that. (Full article...)
Selected work of erotic literature
The Autobiography of a Flea is an anonymous erotic novel first published in 1887 in London by Edward Avery. Later research has revealed that the author was a London lawyer of the time named Stanislas de Rhodes.
The story is narrated by a flea who tells the tale of a beautiful young girl named Bella, whose burgeoning sexuality is taken advantage of by her young lover Charlie, the local priest Father Ambrose and two of his colleagues in holy orders. Bella is then employed to procure her best friend, Julia, for the sexual enjoyment of both the priests and of Julia's own father.
The book was adapted into a 1976 pornographic film (see § Film adaptation). (Full article...)
Slideshow of selected contemporary images
Slideshow of selected historical images
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Nickelodeon storyboard artists created a book with hundreds of pornographic drawings of SpongeBob SquarePants characters?
- ... that the Japanese male–male romance magazine June was originally pitched to its publisher as a "mildly pornographic magazine for women"?
- ... that the pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence?
- ... that the 1983 pink film Beautiful Mystery was one of the earliest commercially produced gay pornographic films in Japan?
- ... that in 2001, around 64 percent of all films produced in Malayalam were of the soft-porn variety?
- ... 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 Aroha Bridge changed its name from Hook Ups because fans searching for the show often found pornography instead?
- ... that zombie pornography emerged in the 1980s during a rise in the Italian sexploitation film industry?
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