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The word ‘pornography’ arrived in English in the 1840s so upper class male archaeologists could talk about the sexual art they found in Pompeii without anyone who wasn’t an upper class male archaeologist knowing about it. Even though, at the same time, Victorian England was awash with what we’d now term pornography.
Dr Kate Lister of Whores of Yore and pornography historian Brian Watson of histsex.com explain the history of the word, and how the Victorian Brits dealt with material that gave them stirrings in their trousers. Sorry, ‘sit-down-upons’. ‘Inexpressibles’! If they couldn’t even express trousers, it’s little wonder they struggled to cope with pornography.
Content note: though the episode is educational and thoroughly untitillating - I know, I know, what a disappointment - the nature of the topic is such that the episode may not be suitable for all audiences or circumstances.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
About winged penises.
Very interesting history of Holywell Street, the hotbed of Victorian porn bookshops that has since been demolished.
“Obscenity was now becoming something to be explicitly traded upon and it was now using something that should theoretically be as innocent and beneficial as reading to permeate respectable society.” An interesting and thorough account of the Obscene Publications Act and the years after that led to the Hicklin Test.
About the problem of ‘porneia’ in the Bible.
About the Secret Museum in Naples, where the excavated Pompeiian sexual art was bricked up for 100 years.
Read the first appearance of ‘pornographer’ in Athenaeus’s Deipnosophistae, if you so wish…
…and the first appearance of ‘pornography’ in English on page 712 of the 1842 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
ichor
CREDITS:
Dr Kate Lister is a university lecturer at Leeds Trinity University and the author of the book A Curious History of Sex, available now in digital and paper forms at Unbound. She also runs the online research project on Twitter account Whores of Yore at thewhoresofyore.com and on Twitter @WhoresofYore.
Brian Watson is a historian of pornography and obscenity, and the author of the book Annals of Pornographie: How Porn Became ‘Bad’. Find their new project History of Sexuality at histsex.com and on Twitter @histsex.
The Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his new podcast Year of the Bird about the songs he writes.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Ian Steadman, Nick Harris, Ishbel McFarlane, Eleanor McDowall and Lily Sloane for their help.
Find the show at twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
I donated all sponsorship revenue from this episode to organisations fighting systemic inequality and police brutality towards Black people*.
*If you’re looking for some places to put your money, these are the organisations that I sent this episode’s revenue to:
stephenlawrence.org.uk
ukblackpride.org.uk
obv.org.uk
knowyourrightscamp.com
accessuk.org
bteg.co.uk
generatinggenius.org.uk
theblackcurriculum.com
centerforblackequity.org
stophateuk.org
howardleague.org
