A Schlong Time Ago; The History of P*rnography

I’m gonna take this opportunity to say that this article is Not Safe For Work. If you follow any of the links in this (and I hope you do because they’re cool and I haven’t figured out how to just include the videos on this page) you will see porn. Normally I don’t give this disclaimer just because any photos I include tend to be not *that* explicit, but it seems prudent to mention that this one might be difficult to explain to your boss (not mine, y’all stay safe though)

One of the things I find so entertaining about people is essentially as soon as a new technology is invented it's almost immediately used in a sexual context. Got a VR headset? Go watch some VR porn. AI chat bots? How long does it take to break the censorship filters so you can roleplay whatever lewd things your heart desires? I imagine the creation of the first camera was really wholesome and pure on day one, and by day two someone came up with the idea of the dick pic which has likely been tragically lost to the annals of history. 

The first moving picture was screened in December 1895, the first erotic films are recognised as being created in 1896. By 1897 travelling cinemas were going around Europe screening these movies at “Gentlemen Evenings”. Now when I say erotic films, you or I in 2025 have a much more extreme idea of what that might mean. When I first started researching this blog, I shared the clips with my friends excitedly yapping about historical pornos (being friends with me unfortunately does mean I may send you 19th century porn at 10 am without so much as a hello). Much to my friends disappointment, the 1896 examples barely show collar bone let alone what you might find on a certain Hub today. But you’ve got to remember this is 130 years ago, the Victorian era, things were a lot more conservative (at least in public). 

Bedtime for the Bride (1896)

The Le Coucher de la Mariée (Bedtime for the Bride) began its life as a popular stage production in Paris. The film features the original stage cast, starring Louise Willy as the Bride, who performs a risque (not by our standards but imagine you’re a Victorian gentleman who gets a stiffy at the sight of an ankle) striptease for the audience and her new husband who watches off to the side. The film was originally around 7 minutes long, but tragically the reels were irreparably damaged at some point as it sat forgotten in the depths of the French film archives; it wasn’t discovered again for a full century until 1996. Today just under 2 minutes of the footage survives. A testament to how popular this show was and an excellent way to confuse modern sexperts researching the history of porn, it seems like 2 versions of this film exist with the same name, one from 1896 and one from 1907 (will we ever be free of the film industry and their love of remakes?)

Bedtime for the Bride (1907)

1896 version:

1907 version: 

With the turn of the century, we start seeing  more and more so called ‘stag films’ cropping up as producers  begin production companies. One such company is the Austrian Saturn Film Production Company founded by Johann Schwarzer in 1906. This short lived company specialised in erotic films, that weren’t necessarily PORN (By our standards) but not NOT porn if that makes sense. These short films were usually rather artistic, and featured fully nude young women usually; as one of my friends put it “...galavanting around in a field" I think this is to be evocative of a classy classical Greek nymph in the woods vibe, but I’m not sure. As with so many good things, this company was shut down by puritanical conservatives. One politician wrote that the films were "filth the like of which I had never seen in half a century travelling every corner of the globe". The one specifically he was complaining about apparently showed two men dressed as monks doing *horrified gasp*gay stuff. By the end of 1909, police would raid the production company and an annoyingly under-documented court case resulted in all their films and photographic material being destroyed. Thankfully, some copies were saved by private collectors and can be watched today.I haven’t found the monk one, but here are some of my favourite shorter ones. 

Jugendspiele AKA Games of Youth (1906) by  Johann Schwarzer

In an effort to avoid European censorship laws, raunchy filmmakers moved to Argentina where they could make SIGNIFICANTLY more explicit material than what was being made by the Saturn film company. Around 1907 we get El Satario (The Satyr/The Devil) and now this is definitely PORN. Once again we see some girlies in a field with a nefarious satyr stalking them, he then abducts one of them and it is ON. We see full on close ups of genitals, 69ing, penetration and it ends with a big internal *ahem* finale. You can watch the full thing here. German film Am Abend (1910) American film A Fee Ride (1915-1917) and, also fight for top spot as earliest hardcore movies. So everything we’ve seen has been hetero. The first hardcore queer film we have comes from France in 1920: Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly. In this we see some very bisexual behaviour. Tragically it is also fairly racist and most of the actors are in yellowface, which yk… isn’t great, but not unexpected from the era. But you can watch it here! 

Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly (1920) Fun Fact! This guy on the right Bernard Natan is believed to be the director 

The era of the Stag Film ended roughly in the 1960s with the sexual revolution and readily available home movie technology. From 1969 - 1984 we get the ‘Golden Age of Porn’. This era pretty much specifically refers to porn made in California saw Pornos with full cinematic releases as they really hit the mainstream. Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie (1969) does show explicit intercourse but it does also have actual plot and scenes that aren’t just about people having sex; its a whole thing about the Vietnam War. 

I really hate the name the Golden Age of Porn. It really implies that the industry was in some way ethical when at this stage it really REALLY wasn’t. Major popular releases of the time like Deep Throat (1972) abused and coerced their performers since there were no regulations surrounding the industry. I could really get on my soapbox here and go into heavy detail, but I won’t. But just know I’ve got thoughts. Thankfully nowadays the production of porn is more regulated, but it's still worthwhile to be mindful of where you’re viewing it. Speaking very broadly; if you’re paying for it it is more likely that the performers are being treated ethically. 

Which leads me into how this article actually relates to my job. We sell DVDs in store! Go kinda retro with actual physical media: here are some pros to consider: 

• no digital footprint! (although you clicked on the history of porn article so that might not be your biggest concern

• Lots of content on one disk 

• Accessible if you’re not comfortable with navigating websites 

• Honestly its just more fun to shop in person - maybe with a partner- than it is endlessly scrolling through websites
• More ethical and supports small and local business

So yea - in conclusion go off and buy some porn and marvel at how long we've been making it.

Funtasia Sexpert and Antique Film Connoisseur 

Verin Sampson 

(I have a whole list of sources if you're interested in further reading, but it occurred to me that this isn't an academic paper and people probably don't care about my rigorous research methodology)