For as long as humans have been able to express themselves through writing or drawing there has been pornography. However, the beginnings of what we call modern porn have been traced by the Danish criminologist Berl Kutchinsky, mostly these are classic French writings from the early 1650's.(1) These texts, which have been translated into almost every language, form the basis for all porn to follow. Themes of lesbianism, sodomy, seduction, multiple copulation, flagellation and sadism appear, as well as the common flimsy plot with stereotypical characters that have over-hyped sexual desires.(1) Along with Porn there has always been the censorship of it. The first recorded incident of punishment for the good of public decency was in 1663, when a man publicly urinated onto a crowded street from a balcony.(1).
Censorship and the porn industry grew together after the renaissance. Before then most governments in western society were only concerned with blasphemy and sedition and not with obscenity. It was not until the eighteenth century that common law was applied to obscene material, as opposed to ecclesiastical law.(1) In essence the power was taken away from the church and given to the people. This allowed the pornographic industry to flourish. Because the church laws regarding the subject were strict and were written to uphold decency, and the common laws were written by men, who like all men have "urges", and this allowed for more liberality in the consuming of porn.
Still photography began in 1827 and motion pictures in 1894. With these inventions, pornography was brought into an entirely different medium.(1) Now people could actually see pictures and films of others doing the things they had previously only read about. The pornographic or "stag" film industry started in France in 1896 and continued to build and to this day is still a major business market.(1) Main stream pornographic movie started in the seventies with "Deep Throat".
