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The history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilization, ancient and modern. Early cultures often associated the sexual act with supernatural forces and thus their religion is intertwined with such depictions. In Asian countries such as India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan and China, representations of sex and erotic art have specific spiritual meanings within native religions. The Greeks and Romans produced much art and decoration of an erotic nature, much of it integrated with their religious beliefs and cultural practices. In more recent times, as communication technologies evolved, each new technique, such as printing, photography, motion pictures and computers, has been adapted to display and disseminate these depictions. ==Attitudes through history== In early times, erotic depictions were often a subset of the indigenous or religious art of cultures and as such were not set aside or treated differently than any other type. The modern concept of pornography did not exist until the Victorian era. Its current definition was added in the 1860s, replacing the older one meaning writings about prostitutes. It first appeared in an English medical dictionary in 1857 defined as "a description of prostitutes or of prostitution, as a matter of public hygiene."〔Dunglison, Robley (1857). ''Medical lexicon. A dictionary of medical science'', 1857 edition, s.v. ("Pornography" ). From the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989), Oxford University Press, Retrieved on November 30, 2006.〕 By 1864, the first version of the modern definition had appeared in Webster's Dictionary: "licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to bacchanalian orgies, examples of which exist in Pompeii."〔''An American dictionary of the English language'', new and revised edition (1864), s.v. ("Pornography" ). From the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989), Oxford University Press, Retrieved on November 30, 2006.〕 This was the beginning of what today refers to explicit pictures in general. Though some specific sex acts were regulated or prohibited by earlier laws, merely looking at objects or images depicting them was not outlawed in any country until 1857. In some cases, the possession of certain books, engravings or image collections was outlawed, but the trend to compose laws that actually restricted viewing sexually explicit things in general was a Victorian construct.〔 When large-scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light, shocking the Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to do with the frank depictions of sexuality, and endeavored to hide them away from everyone but upper class scholars. The movable objects were locked away in the Secret Museum in Naples, and what could not be removed was covered and cordoned off so as to not corrupt the sensibilities of women, children and the working class. England's (and the world's) first laws criminalising pornography were enacted with the passage of the Obscene Publications Act of 1857.〔 Despite their occasional repression, depictions of erotic themes have been common for millennia. Pornography has existed throughout recorded history and has adapted to each new medium (that would be photography, cinema, video, and computers and the internet). The first instances of modern pornography date back to the sixteenth century when sexually explicit images differentiated itself from traditional sexual representations in European art by combining the traditionally explicit representation of sex and the moral norms of those times.〔Shepard, 2003〕 The first amendment prohibits the U.S. government from restricting speech based on its content. Indecent speech is protected and may be regulated, but not banned. Obscenity is the judicially recognized exception to the first amendment. Historically, this exception was used in an attempt to ban information about sex education, studies on nudism, and sexually explicit literature.〔Reese, D., & Kyle, D. A. (2002). OBSCENITY AND PORNOGRAPHY. ''Georgetown Journal Of Gender & The Law'', ''4''(1), 137-168.〕 In the 1970s in the United States, attempts were made to shut down the pornography industry by prosecuting individuals on prostitution charges. In the case of People v. Freeman, the California Supreme Court ruled to distinguish prostitution as an individual taking part in sexual activities in exchange for money versus an individual who is portraying a sexual act on-screen as part of their acting performance. The case was not appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus it is only binding in the state of California. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「history of erotic depictions」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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