Talk:History of erotic depictions

Bad source for the 18th century.
This article's treatment of 18th century erotic work is quite shoddy. Its sole source is a sort of highbrow 'zine called Libido magazine. Despite Libido ' s subtitle (The Journal of Sex and Sensibility), this publication is not an academic journal and is unaffiliated with any institution of higher learning. Seemingly defunct and with many dead links, this publication does not seek to present itself as scholarly (see here). The short article "The Roots of Western Pornography" from this publication cited in "History of erotic depictions" contains no citations whatsoever, even though it is obviously a low-quality vulgarisation of pre-existing scholarship (one thinks of Lynn Hunt and Robert Darnton). Unsurprisingly, the article in Libido has several serious failings. First of all, it takes some of these erotic publications at their word and asserts that they were published in Amsterdam. Darnton, as well as Chartier have produced studies showing this to be false -- in France, books destined to arouse the censor's ire were often printed in that country but claimed to have been printed in Amsterdam -- in order to confuse the censor. This is common knowledge among historians of 18th century publishing. Consequently, I have removed any refrences to Amsterdam.

The Libido article also leads to some other conceptually warped statements. "The market for the mass-produced, inexpensive pamphlets soon became the bourgeoisie, making the upper class worry." Does the author mean "nobility" by "upper class"? In France, nobles and grands bourgeois intermarried, (See Chaussinand-Nogaret) and the latter also bought royal offices that confered nobility. Worries about "philosophical" books were not confined to "upper classes". I could go on, but we essentially have an unrelilable, completely unscholarly source (Libido) being taken (1) at face value and (2) used as the sole source for the history of the beginnings of printed erotic matter. This section needs to be re-written. There are plenty of sources -- there's a growing body litterature on the history of pornography, the history of the book and publishing, the history of sex and gender. But these essential sources are generally books or (scholarly!) journal articles -- and necessitate going to a good library, rather than just googling. Until reliable sources are cited, the cleanup tag should remain in place. -- Zantastik  talk  00:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Further discussion is at Featured article review/History of erotic depictions. Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:07, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

disambiguation
tryst needs disambig Randomblue (talk) 14:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed "see also" link
I've removed the link to List of films portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors from the "See also" section, since neither sexual abuse nor paedophilia should be classified as erotic. Mind matrix  14:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Current work from Commons
There is currently an edit war over the inclusion of File:Staff_Of_Life_Or_Horn_Of_Man.JPG, File:Cinta ligas 009.jpg and File:Male nudity in digital photography.jpg in the section Video and digital depictions.

I propose that new work declared to be erotic art by their creators should not be included in this article unless they are recognized in independent, reliable sources. Otherwise this section can swell with vanity images of little value in an article providing an overview of art history. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. Community Tech bot (talk) 13:36, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Turin Erotic Papyrus Scene.jpg

conflicted article
Though overtly an article on a sex-positive (or at least sex-neutral) topic, it's shot through with nonsense that's essentially anti-sex. For instance, the recurring thread that somehow nudity = sex — something that has long irked nudists/Naturists and indigenous cultures and the art world alike. (An image of a nursing mother is "obscene" because some random wanker somewhere might get a stiffy seeing it.) The title clearly says EROTIC so therefore ought to be about depictions intended to be erotic rather than what bluenoses believe.

Speaking of the title, WTF "depictions"? Define the damned term, then hew closely to it throughout. Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:22, 2 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Here's a starting point, then:


 * The term "pornography" appears at least fifty times in this article. Therefore, it's a fair assumption that those sections deal largely with pornography, rather than eroticism. Seeing as Pornography is flourishing, the great majority of references here deserve to be removed. Any cogent countercases?


 * Interestingly, as we also have Eroticism and Eroticism in film and Erotica, I'm beginning to make the case that there's a whole lot of forking going on and it's perhaps time to get all the erudite wankers on the (rather literally) same page. Weeb Dingle (talk) 19:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the history of this article may explain some of its problems. I believe it started out as History of pornography and may have been split off from the Pornography article to keep that article's length down. The Pornography article discusses prehistoric art, but somewhere along the line the concept has been added to this article that "The modern concept of pornography did not exist until the Victorian era". It was presumably this which resulted in the change of this article's title to the clumsy History of erotic depictions.


 * If this article's problem is its conflation of nudity, eroticism and pornography we could split them apart. Any content on non-sexual nudity could go to History of nudity or Depictions of nudity, though there's every chance it's already there. Content on the pre-Victorian History of erotica could enlarge the small Erotica article. And content on the modern History of pornography could remain here.


 * Alternatively, we could ignore the retroactive "The modern concept of pornography did not exist until the Victorian era". The concept of being LGBT didn't exist in some earlier time periods, but that does not stop LGBT studies discussing early LGBT history. If we take this approach, we could avoid distinguishing between erotica and pornography, calling the article either History of pornography or History of erotica.


 * Or we could regard erotica and pornography as being qualitatively different (as many sources seem to do). In this case we could call the article History of pornography and erotica or split it into two on that basis, with the option of moving the History of erotica content to the Erotica article.


 * Any thoughts? - Polly Tunnel (talk) 19:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * We should stick to what the reliable sources state. If they call these depictions erotic rather than pornographic, then we go with that. If they call the depictions pornographic, then we also go with that. If they call the depictions erotic and pornographic, then we go with that. As is noted in the Erotica article, not everyone agrees with differentiating erotica and pornography. WP:Verifiability states, "If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight." Also, sometimes, for context, pornography needs to be discussed alongside erotica. Depending on what the sources state and if it seems that a split is not best (which I agree it's not), it might be best to rename the article "History of erotica and pornography." I put "erotica" first because this article clearly begins with sources focused on erotica. And, yes, the article was originally titled "History of pornography". It was moved by Pschemp. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Having waited a couple of months to see if anyone else replied, I think it's time to add my own response. I absolutely agree with the points made in the paragraph above. I think the idea of re-naming the article History of erotica and pornography is splendid. It's closer to WP:COMMONNAME than the current title, and it's consistent with the present name of the portal:erotica and pornography. Does anybody have any objections to such a re-naming? Polly Tunnel (talk) 13:01, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think that works - erotica covers literature as well, which this article doesn't. I agree the present title seems rather odd. History of erotic art might work. In any case, any move should have a proper WP:RM process. Johnbod (talk) 13:08, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually I see this article does attempt to cover Erotic literature as well, but does it really badly - much worse than the dedicated article. We should strip out the literature, merging to the other as necessary, then rename to History of erotic art. Or possibly merge it with the not-very-good Erotic art (much history there too) & just call irt that. Johnbod (talk) 19:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Asia and Japan: there is no mention of Hokusai
I have no sufficient knowledge about the topic anyway there is lack of a great artist as Hokusai, with his famous amongst the others The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife Code001 (talk) 09:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:22, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Johann Schwarzer movies about 1906.jpg