In honour of the publication of Carnal Machines: steampunk erotica this month, which includes my lighthearted Victorian tale of lewd behaviour and class transgressions, The Servant Question, I thought I'd post some Victorian and Edwardian smutty pictures.
Photographic porn was, of course, invented approximately 30 seconds after photography itself, when someone thought "Goodness, I can take pictures of boobies! And goodness me - I can sell them!!"
Of course, there was no porn aesthetic in the early days. No blondes. No plastic tits. No razors (I went "Aaargh!"). And no particular requirement for models to be facially attractive.
But there was already kink:
And there was guy-on-guy:
And girl-on-girl ...
There are more pictures here and here - be aware, very NSFW.
And a wonderful comedy site with silly captions here.
5 comments:
Wow, the shoes and socks! I am mildly surprised by the guy on guy, I don't know why. And piling people up on top of each other endures as the best porn idea ever. I'm off to giggle at the caption site, I need a new funny thing :)
I didn't know my personal socks-on look had such a long pedigree!
I love the bicycle photo—and it sort of goes with a steampunk piece I recently wrote.
Hmmm. Does it still count as art because it's black and white when they ONLY had black and white...?
Socks-on is very British, Jeremy. You should be proud!
Chris - this answers your question, I believe!
Lol - I just noticed: in the last picture, not only are they wearing shoes and socks, but sock suspenders! Oh joy!
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