# Porn in the days before cameras **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595 "2004-04-29T00:52:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/21 "2004-04-30T00:35:16Z")
**BigDaiv** : I don’t have a cite, but I believe that and other laws were enacted during the American occupation of Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/22 "2004-04-30T03:00:11Z")
> [@cornflakes](#): > > The phrase made me think of some of [Masami Teraoka’s work](http://www.lava.net/~artbeat/images/Sarah%20and%20Octopussmall.jpg) (art, erotic-- use discretion at work.) Is the vintage stuff like this? > > Also, how many of the over 640 people who have looked at this page so far just wanted to look at the pictures? 😉 I’m not sure, but I think **Bosda** posted a link to an vintage piece of tentacle porn which looked like that. (It was **Bosda** who posted it, I’m just not sure if it was vintage or contemporary.) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/23 "2004-04-30T06:17:48Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > I’m not sure, but I think **Bosda** posted a link to an vintage piece of tentacle porn which looked like that. (It was **Bosda** who posted it, I’m just not sure if it was vintage or contemporary.) Probably ‘Dream Of The Fisherman’s Wife’ IIRC the classic depiction of a woman having sex with an octopus is based on a folktale. Some examples are centuries old. Besides paintings and prints, it’s been represented in nestuke form. I was fascinated to learn that while many examples look like tentacle rape, certain specific postures and hairstyles indicate the woman is consenting ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/24 "2004-04-30T20:10:29Z")
> [@BigDaiv](#): > > Whats with those laws? I mean I can understand wanting to avoid cultural degredation but as you mentioned some of the more antique japanese porn doesnt have those laws. Weren’t those laws introduced to the Japanese by the United States as part of the surrender/reconstruction effort after WWII? Something about protecting the poor Japanese from social degeneration, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/25 "2004-04-30T20:59:28Z")
Why is the lady in the picture holding what appears to be one of those female condom things? I kept trying to figure out what else it could be, and I keep coming up empty. Is it in the legend somebody mentioned? ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595/26 "2004-05-01T23:12:50Z")
**Zsofia** , Teraoka did a series of prints about AIDS when the disease first emerged in the Eighties (I think they were commissioned by the city of San Diego.) As you might expect, Condoms figured heavily in the series. The paintings showed things like a Geisha in a bath ripping open a pack of condoms as a ghost is crawling through the window, or a couple who is trying to put a giant condom onto an equally giant snake. The idea was that these people already had the disease and were acting too late. I’m sure that the condom is a holdover from the series and is his way of saying “always practice safe sex.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/porn-in-the-days-before-cameras/242595.md?page=1)