# Who figured on porn? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412 "2004-12-12T05:02:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shaolinrabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Shaolinrabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shaolinrabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/1 "2004-12-12T05:02:38Z")
I was curious the other day, who first came up with the concept of printed nudes, or wood carvings or what have you(It wouldn’t curprise me if it was originally carved in stone…), of naked women as a business concept that was sex related? Obviously painting nudes and erotic art would always be a factor, but artistically I see a difference between that and porn. So who figured out that you could take pictures, or print some sort of representation of a nude woman and sell it? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/2 "2004-12-12T05:06:30Z")
Some of the stuff found at Pompeii was flat out pornographic but not usually displayed to the public. [Here is some information on Pompeii](http://solomonsrefuge.com/secret_room.htm) as well as other porn of antiquity. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/3 "2004-12-12T05:17:25Z")
> [@Shaolinrabbit](#): > > I was curious the other day, who first came up with the concept of printed nudes, or wood carvings or what have you(It wouldn’t curprise me if it was originally carved in stone…), of naked women as a business concept that was sex related? > > Obviously painting nudes and erotic art would always be a factor, but artistically I see a difference between that and porn. > > So who figured out that you could take pictures, or print some sort of representation of a nude woman and sell it? Is this a trick question? Obviously porn was marketed as soon as it became technologically possible. Whoever first did this obviously is forgotten in the mists of time. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/4 "2004-12-12T05:30:32Z")
There’s a book called Reefer madness, written by Eric Schlosser. It’s comprised of three essays, one of them exploring just that and how big that particular economy might be. He attributes a lot of credit to a man named Reuban Sturman. He started out selling leftover comic books in Clevland, Ohio and slowly worked his way into erotica. The book pretty much explains how it all went down and this guys fights with the government. One thing I found interesting was a device called a peep booth he modified to play a loop of naked girls dancing. You’d have to put a coin in to watch a few minutes over and over until the loop began again. The device was originally invented by some other guy who used it to run cartoon for kids. Sturman was also supposed to have been a big hand in globalizing the porn industry. The book’s a pretty good read. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/5 "2004-12-12T05:33:20Z")
[History of Sex - Timeline](http://www.bigeye.com/sexeducation/mesopotamia.html) [Porn in Ancient Rome](http://www.libidomag.com/nakedbrunch/porninrome.html) As others have said, porn is as old as people. We moderns invented exactly nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/6 "2004-12-12T05:39:46Z")
Howabout [this](http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html)? The lack of a face is pretty kinky, if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/7 "2004-12-12T05:42:10Z")
Porn is nothing new, I hear tell the [Venus of Willendorf](http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorfdiscovery.html) was furtively passed around behind the privy pits circa 24,000 B.C. Ooh, baby, gotta get me sum o’ dat. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/8 "2004-12-12T05:43:16Z")
Holy crap. Foiled again! ---
**Author:** ![Shaolinrabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Shaolinrabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shaolinrabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/9 "2004-12-12T16:08:42Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by rfgdxm_ > Is this a trick question? Obviously porn was marketed as soon as it became technologically possible. Whoever first did this obviously is forgotten in the mists of time. I doubt it. It seems more likely they opened a factory that published erotica for many years and supplied a wide range of countries with it. They may be hard to find, but I’m sure there are plenty of records. I’ll agree that the very first person to do it might have sold naked pics of their girlfriend and been forgotten, but there’s an early porn czar somewhere out there. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Rooves_ > He attributes a lot of credit to a man named Reuban Sturman. He started out selling leftover comic books in Clevland, Ohio and slowly worked his way into erotica. The book pretty much explains how it all went down and this guys fights with the government. This is closer to what I’m looking for, thanks! Does anyone know if the printing press was used for erotica, early black and white picture printing and that sort of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Chimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Chimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimpy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/10 "2004-12-12T16:22:20Z")
I remember vaguely watching a documentry on either: cave-paintings or pornography, and they showed pictures of supposed vulvas carved into rock walls in caves, but they were just sort of a |/ shape, with the slashes more curved and all touching at the bottom with a line along the top, so they could have been a lot of things. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/11 "2004-12-12T18:16:00Z")
On a similar note, have any of the primates closely related to humans shown any interests in porn? Has anyone tried giving chimpanzees a chimp porno and seen if they jacked off to it? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-figured-on-porn/279412/12 "2004-12-12T19:03:17Z")
> [@emekthian](#): > > On a similar note, have any of the primates closely related to humans shown any interests in porn? Has anyone tried giving chimpanzees a chimp porno and seen if they jacked off to it? Can’t speak about primates, but there was a news story a few months back about how porn helped convince pandas to mate. I believe Jon Stewart’s headline was “Panda Porn: America’s Secret Shame”.