Last weekend, I decided to do some cleaning and throwing away of unwanted items that I’d collected over the years. In a drawer, I fould a dvd called ‘Naughty Victorians’. A friend gave it to me about 5 years ago, along with some other dvd’s, and I’d forgotten about it. Out of curiosity, I popped it in the dvd player thinking it was an old Charlie Chaplin movie, or something innocent. Well, I was amazed that it was a collection of very explicit “stag” movies from the early 1900’s, up until the 1920’s or so. Most of the movies are very poorly produced (think of a Charlie Chaplin movie, but with very bad lighting), but you can clearly see everything.
I’d always thought that people of this era were somewhat puritan in their attitudes, so I was surprised that there is visual documentation on just how “perverted” they actually were. It got me to thinking. Have people always been “perverted”? If the art of film-making had somehow been invented 100 years earlier than it was, would we have stag movies from the early 1800’s?
From what I’ve googled, the majority of these films were made to be shown in waiting rooms of brothels, to give the customer some visual stimulation while waiting for his turn. And a lot of the guys in the films are wearing very obvious disguises…i.e. over the top moustaches, wigs, etc. But the women in these films don’t have noticeable disguises.
I’ve become somewhat fascinated with stag movies, not the actual movies, but the production, etc. How did they recruit the “actors”? There’s one scene called “hillbilly frolics” and I swear, the person who did this film must’ve knocked on some random doors in Kentucky asking the homeowners if they’d like to make a stag movie, until they found someone willing. I’ve googled a bit to find out more about how these films were made, etc…but it’s nearly impossible to google something like this. Are there any legitimate (non-explicit) websites where I can learn more about these films?
OP here. Another thing that I noticed about these movies is that MOST of the male “actors” are quite handsome, even by todays standards. And most of the women are dog ugly, by any standard. There’s one guy in particular, he looks like a typical guy from the roaring 20’s. If you plopped him into a bar in any city today, he’d have women crawling all over him. I just found it odd that the men were so attractive, yet the women were ugly. It seems to be the opposite in these types of movies today.
Shocking to realize that sex wasn’t invented in the 1960’s, isn’t it?
I think it’s IFC that had a series of “Sex in Cinema” kind of documentaries that covers some of this, with clips from some of those old stag films. They’re pretty amusing.
You didn’t know? As soon as any technology is invented it is used for porn. I’ve seen dirty daguerreotypes. On the first day some scientist creates an image of a bowl of flowers, that very night he’s trying to find a woman to pose naked. And as soon as you have the technology to capture motion, you have to try to capture the most basic of all human activities. OK, maybe Eadweard Muybridge didn’t actually capture sex, but he did have plenty of naked people. The next guy sure did.
Google “pompeii frescoes” sometime. Stag pictures have been around since the invention of something to draw with. As for “Victorian attitudes,” read “The Pearl” or some of the other porn novels of the period. There is nothing new under the sun.
Back up even to the Khujraho, cave paintings of gorgeous dancing nude women from India. Just try and tell me that wasn’t about sex in some way. And we won’t even talk about the Kama Sutra.
What about the links? It would be very cool if you could post the video somehow…
I believe the answer is…Yes.
As you may have found thru your searching, there’s a lot of images (meaning photographs or such era-specific equivalent, as opposed to paintings and other artwork) classed under Vintage or Retro, and while this usually means 1960s-1980s (yeah, that definitely sucks - the 1980s, when I was in high school & college, are vintage times now! ), there’s a lot that supposedly* comes from the 1880s and 1890s (and earlier - some are marked 1860s) which in fact is more hardcore than the images from a few decades later. It is a bit amusing to see various positions and devices that people would think of as ‘modern’ in images over a century-plus old.
*Actually, I believe this is true in the majority of such images, as the images match the look of non-‘stag’ images from the same era, and it seems not worth the time for such websites to take modern images of people in period costumes/hair styles etc and back date the photos look to that period.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to save this movie to my hard drive, but haven’t figured it out yet. I may post it on my blog, I’ll have to see what their rules are about posting explicit images first.
If it’s almost 100 years old, is it still considered porn? or is it considered “art”?
Well I think it’s safe to assume the “actresses” were prostitutes. The actors probally were just random men off the street or members of the production staff. Or the actresses’ [del]pimps[/del] managers.
Did the video have any scenes where they used wires to make the man’s socks fly off his feet when he climaxed? Indian maidens being undressed by trained raccoons?
They had a lot of activities unique to that era in porn. But probably not as much “Mandingo” themed stuff as today.
Not really, but there’s one scene in which a magician seduces a female audience member after his show. He shows her several magic tricks, including one where he pulls a rabbit out of her vagina.
There’s also one scene where the guy has steam coming out of his ears while he’s getting a bj.
I guess seeing these films from almost 100 years ago just proves to me that it’s all been done before. Think of the most bizarre sexual scene, I assure you, it was filmed a long time ago…
The first porno movies I saw, more than 50 years ago, were clearly made in europe during the early silent film era. (The style of clothes, especially in the beach scenes made this obvious.) The women were fat and homely. But the strangest thing about the films was that all the men wore Lone Ranger-type masks.
I’ve read a book about the sexual aspects of the American Civil War. There were chapters about (and examples of) the pornography the soldiers owned - old black and white daguerreotypes that were as explict as anything you’d see in Hustler.
Surely the day after film was invented someone said, “we could take pictures of naked people having sex!” Or maybe they first said, “if we invented film we could …”
It got me to thinking. Have people always been “perverted”? If the art of film-making had somehow been invented 100 years earlier than it was, would we have stag movies from the early 1800’s?
), there’s a lot that supposedly* comes from the 1880s and 1890s (and earlier - some are marked 1860s) which in fact is more hardcore than the images from a few decades later. It is a bit amusing to see various positions and devices that people would think of as ‘modern’ in images over a century-plus old.