Behold a piece of art that is 37,000 years old if science is to be trusted. This slightly pre-dates the oldest cave paintings that archeologists have been able to find. It is an important symbol of what separates humans from the rest of the beasts. The need to express, to connect, to share one’s thoughts and motivations. Of course, this work is believed to be a depiction of the female sexual organ. I personally don’t see it unless I’ve been doing something wrong but that’s what the experts say.
Sex is important. Just ask any teenage boy or middle-aged woman. Sex is perhaps the most important activity on the planet (so romantic; describing sex as an activity). The importance of sex goes far beyond the simple need to have babies. Sex and pornography have been the key driving forces behind the advancement of art and technology as now a days you can use technology to get all sort of sex devices so you can be ordering dildos online pretty easily. Simply put: progress would not have progressed had it not been for the interest in the orgasm, and that’s why toys like exceptional hands-free vibrators exist so people can enjoy sex more. Let’s run through the ages and see how history is saturated in titillation.
Around 400 BC: The Karma Sutra is published under the guise of a work of human sexual behavior. It really is just a bunch of pictures of couples popping it off in a plethora of positions. Shortly after the release of the book, there was a huge uptick in reports of pulled neck, back and pelvic muscles. A short list of the best position names: Seated Ball, The Dolphin and the Backward Slide. An important book in the history of mankind that equates to the first porno mag.
The centuries went on and the written word provided much tinglings below the belt. The Ancient Greeks and Romans loved their erotic poems while later Latin authors threw down plenty of erotica. During the Renaissance sex poems were handed out in the streets. Hell, even Shakespeare got in on the game with the erotic poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. The Renaissance also saw a new realism in paintings, almost photo realistic portraits and landscapes. It could not be a stretch to say that one of the reasons to fine tune paintings to convey a better depiction of the human form had something to do with seeing better pictures of boobs and hunky man ass.
Let’s skip to a more modern age where the lust for perversion and steamy hotness really started pushing technology, amplifying invention and crafting the brave new world.
It was May 24, 1837 when the first telegraph communication was sent. The message was a semi-horrific one stating “What Hath God Wrought?” On May 28, 1837 the first “sexting” happened when a Mr. Horace Van Witwhistle sent his betrothed, a Miss Louise Stephens, a telegraph message stating “Please, Miss Louise, would you be ever so kind as to describe to me your attire?”
Three days later Miss Louise responded “Why Mr. Van Witwhistle, I’m adorned in nothing but my scarce undergarments… and my ankles are as exposed as the vast plains of our great country.” To which Mr. Van Witwhistle responded in Mid-June: “Oh Miss Louise, I shudder to think of you ivory ankles glowing in the moonlight. What might you like me to do in regards to those exquisite ankles?”
This went on for 3 and half months before Mr. Van Witwhistle was able to achieve an erection. Things needed to get along at a quicker clip. Pronto.
It was in 1840 that a Mr. Joseph Draper took the first photographic portrait of his sister Dorothy Catherine Draper. One week later the first “dick pic” was taken. Now we could see each other’s nasty bits but it wasn’t enough. So to coincide with the new visual medium of capturing nudity, Alex Graham Bell invented the Bi-directional transmission telephone in 1876 so that we could talk nasty to each other and achieve arousal in less than one week’s time.
It was only a short window of content before the masses got sick of hearing their own lovers talking nasty. How about strangers talking nasty to each other? That would shine a light on an entire new horizon. Audio porn.
To meet the demand, Tom Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. Early sex records include Zelda Takes her Clothes off while Describing what is Happening and Man and Woman make Moaning Noise.
In 1888 the first single shutter speed camera went for sale to the public which was a good thing because you no longer had to stand still for 30 seconds trying to maintain an erection to take a proper pornographic image. But just as the public took to quick snapping their genitalia, the biggest invention yet was released to really push the depravity to the next level: The Motion Picture Camera.
Both Edison and the Lumière brothers released their version of the movie camera in 1888. Finally we could see strangers having sex, playing with boobs, touching wieners and engaging in other general sex acts. Pornography was truly born in 1888 and mankind’s true colors really began to shine through.
In fact color film became available in 1902 to better illustrate these random sex acts; these sticky fumblings on make-shift sets crafted in haste in the Los Angeles Valley. Early popular sex films of the time where So Much Pubic Hair and Annie Spanks Tommy.
Once sound was introduced to the moving pictures the public’s lust was satiated for some time. It wasn’t until the mid-60s that game changed a touch with the invention of the Polaroid camera. Sure they presented this product’s purpose as getting instant photos but in fact the actual reason for the camera was so you could take nudie pics and not have to get them developed at your local K-Mart. Or Photo-Mart. Or Photomat. Whatever.
For years, one had to fully embrace their inner-heathen and go to a skin flick theater to sit in the dark and watch all matters of coitus with other depraved (and lonely) people. In 1975 that all changed when Sony introduced the Betamax home entertainment system. A way to watch movies from home? Sure. The real selling point? Porn from the comfort of your own love seat. VHS followed in 1977 and while it is rumored that Beta’s unwillingness to provide pornographic films was the downfall of the format the truth is really that VHS had BETTER porno. (Actually Beta was too expensive so they priced themselves out of the market.)
How could it get any better? We have privacy. We have visual and audio. We have good looking strangers doing things you only heard about in line at the grocery store when you were standing behind some old lady who swore she slept with Sinatra and did EVERYTHING in a penthouse suite in Vegas one hot summer night in 1957.
How could it get any better?
One word: Camcorder. 1985 saw the world experience a paradigm shift when all of the sudden you could make your own sex tapes. In real shitty quality! Amateur porn was invented and anyone with a private part could document. Glory days.
But where to share this abundance of sloppy sex footage? The tape could only make around the neighborhood a couple times before your mom found out that you gave it to Jimmy Winslow who showed all the kids in second period P.E. class. It was not even five years later when the public gained access to an invisible information super highway that the military had been using to transport porno for years; The Internet.
“What Hath God Wrought?” Truly.
Now there were no limits. All fetishes found a home. Sexual intercourse was replaced with high impact aerobics that amazingly included penetration without leaving scares. Double this and triple that. Two girls and a cup. Virtual girlfriends. Snapchat. Tinder. Grinder. Hinder. Christian Mingle!!!
Sex has pushed technology to the point that there are no rules, no desire that cannot be experienced (at least in the voyeuristic sense). What is left? What boundaries remain?
All I can come up with is a plug like the one that goes in the back of the head in The Matrix that gets inserted directly into your rectum to make you part of a virtual world where human contact is no longer needed. Then sex for procreation reasons may indeed become in jeopardy. Why have contact with an actual person with all the imperfection when everything is available with a simple Google search?
Thank you, sex. Thanks pornography and thank you, especially, Scarecrow. We have gone over the rainbow and the sky is the limit.
NOTE: WHILE THE TIMELINE AND CERTAIN INVENTORS NAMES ARE TRUE, THIS IS A WORK OF SATIRE.