Why is there porn?

[shkrobius]

For all debauchery of the ancient world nothing in our past appeared as pathetic as billions of lonely people masturbating before computer screens. Pornography is the uniquely modern Western invention -- and an unusual one. We do not perceive its strangeness perhaps because porn had been around for 500 years. Before privacy emerged in the late

Comments

[cema]

It would be like selling blotchy daguerreotypes of apples to people having plenty of fruit before them.

Well, pictures can be artistic. Sometimes looking at a picture (painting, or even a photograph) gives one an insight that they cannot get from just viewing the scenery.

the services of a gutter girl could've been procured for a fraction of the cost of a pornographic print

Yeah, but what would she agree to do?

Говорят, что этот ангел // с мимолетными глазами // за ночь просит два с полтиной // и умеет делать все.
Ян Сатуновский. Типа стихи.

Porn was invented as a means of political/social satire appealing to common people, for the purpose of democratization of humanistic criticism. The first printed erotica was philosophical and cerebral

Modern man distinguishes between pornography and erotica, even when he has trouble explaining how ("I know it when I see it"). Are you saying that at the time of Renaissance it was easier to tell them apart? Or that such a distinction would not be meaningful then?

[shkrobius]

And what was this new sexual vista that was offered by the first pornography

Porn, XIII century

[ptitza]

И это я ещё не у основного компьютера...

[shkrobius]

http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/361892.html?thread=3349924#t3349924

This isn't porn.

[vdinets]

Just like you can't give Savonarola credit for the later re-discovery of Botticelli's work, you can't blame Aretino for the completely unintended consequences of his pamphlets. Besides, it's hard to imagine that without him, pornography would not have been invented. I wouldn't even go into stuff like Pompeii mosaics...

[shkrobius]

Intaglio existed for 100 years before Aretino. Erotica have always existed. Yet only in Aretino's head all of the elements combined in the right way. I doubt that the genre would've been invented, because it has never been invented elsewhere. As I said, economically it made little sense. Roman erotica was not an aid for solitary pleasures, so "the stuff" is neither here nor there.

I suppose a social critic should be knowing what he's doing before doing it. Aretino was not the first to appeal to the basest in human nature naively believing that it might work in service of a higher goal, making a buck in the process. You can observe the result. Of course I blame him; he was smart enough to know better.

PS: The funny thing is that the conventions of Mannerism are firmly imprinted on porn to this day. Even our folks get suspicious sometimes and asking hard questions:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=88690

[vdinets]

As far as I know, Soviet porn (those ugly b&w photos sold on trains by vendors pretending to be deaf/mute) appeared independently in the 1960-s. Japanese porn also seems to come from a different cultural tradition.

[shkrobius]

Soviet porn did not come independently; neither did the Japanese one. I can only suggest you to read this excellent book which traces its history.
http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Pornography-1500-1800-Obscenity-Modernity/dp/0942299698

[sergeyoho]

Сам рассказ очень интересен и познавателен.

Что касается морали последнего абзаца... Мне вспомнилось, как Константин Крылов живописал вред от песен Высоцкого. С помощью которых тот прививал невинным русским людям блатные манеры.

Короче, сильно идейные люди находят мораль в самых неожиданных местах.

[shkrobius]

Think of the parallel developments with greed and envy. There is no lack of people that fan class envy. I have no idea what do they expect from this activity (they call it "social justice"), but the end result, of course, is People magazine turning the lives of the celebs into porn under the unyielding gaze of paparazzi. Ditto for greed. Its highest form is not capitalism but rather the retirees gambling their pensions away a dime apiece on the slot machines in Las Vegas. And it is always like that. The expectation is that a magic trick would turn vice into something good. Then everyone is very surprised that it does not. Had any of the anticorruption campaign have any effect, we would not have corruption, right? So something in these very campaigns must be undermining their cause. This "something" is exactly what Aretino discovered: that such campaigns less fight the corruption than democratize vice they are supposed to uproot.

I do think there is a valuable lesson here.

[sergeyoho]

Had any of the anticorruption campaign have any effect, we would not have corruption, right?Wrong, of course. "Any effect" does not mean "100% effect". Say, some libertarians are very fond of Saakashvili and his anti-corruption campaigns

[shkrobius]

>> If the elites are greedy, corrupt and lusty, than why not to tell that to the commoners?

First, this message is hardly new. Second, that's preferable to having these commoners greedy, corrupt, and lusty, - and that is the only result of producing such "truths." These elites are none other than yesterday's commoners tempted and seduced by these images. I cannot think of an anti-corruption campaign that did not produce a regime that is more corrupt than the one it had replaced. That people are fond of them is neither here nor there.

If you consider watching porn to be an acceptable substitute for having sex, I am not going to waste my time arguing otherwise.

[e2pii1]

> Pornography is the uniquely modern Western invention -- and an unusual one