74: From Hoovers to Hentai: The Dark History of Porn
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. ♪

Dark History

Now this is the chance to tell the story like it is and I don't know, share the history of stuff we would never think about. So all you have to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history goss. I don't know what it is, but when I hold a microphone, I just feel so powerful, like brand new. Like this is the price is right. And I'm like, come on down. The crowd goes wild and I'm like, ah!

Anyway, it's nothing to do with today's story. Today's story is exciting because it's about pornography. Something we can all, you know, come together with.

So I don't know if you know this, but every year Pornhub releases their annual year in review. I look forward to this every year. Think of it. It's kind of like when your Spotify wrapped playlist around the holidays or the end of the year where they show you like, here's what you listen to the most. Your emo, your gothic, your chic. Wow. And she likes a little bit of soul. You know, they give you a little roundup of you as a person.

When it comes to Pornhub, as you can guess, all the info is about pornography. Now, it's not personalized to one person, thank God. But it does say a lot about what gets us off as a society, as a whole, the whole country. And I got to tell you, oh, it's enlightening. It's fun.

I love it. First of all, the top genre that was searched globally on Pornhub last year, 2022. Drumroll, please, Joan. No, it wasn't bird porn, you nasty. It was hentai. Hentai. Round of applause for hentai.

Come on down, hentai. Well, if you don't know what this is, I had to look it up because I didn't know either. And it's defined as overly sexualized Japanese anime characters doing all sorts of things, if I say, that would probably...

offend most, but it's a cartoon at the same time. So you're like, oh, you know. So globally, hentai. We're loving hentai. She's new. She's fierce. She's here. Okay. Hentai. But in America specifically, the number one genre that was searched last year on Pornhub was, you want to guess again? No, you nasty. I can't even say that out loud. Oh my God.

Fights. Anyways, lesbians. Lesbians. Round of applause for lesbians. Yes, the Scissor Sisters. Number one, of course. And number two in America.

Hentai. People love animated characters getting busy, huh? Huh? And then, get this, you got your typical searches like threesomes, Latinas, cream pie has nothing to do with a baked good, and of course, your run-of-the-mill gangbang. Fun!

And I love this because a porn, look, I'm interested in weird things if you haven't caught on, okay? So I get very excited about this. The Pornhub stats, they also break it down state by state. And this is where it gets really interesting. For example, the most searched word on Pornhub from users in Texas, panties, panties, panties. I don't know what kind of panties, but they're looking them up.

You nasties. Okay, what are you looking up panties for? No specific panty, just panties. Very vague, huh? Anyways, cowboys love panties. Okay, and then when it comes to Utah, this may be no surprise to many of you, but Utah's out there searching Mormon. Good for them. Good for them. Then we've got Nebraska. Nebraska was my favorite state because they were searching the word rub. Rub.

R-U-B, rub. That's it, rub. Nebraska, I don't know what you're doing, but you're liking some rub. Washington State's favorite search was fleshlight, which I googled and it's a pocket pussy. One I saw in a Four Loko bottle so you can twist off the top and have sex with your Four Loko. Brilliant. Who wouldn't want to have sex with a Four Loko? Okay.

And then Alaska. Alaska is searching something very particular. Breast expansion. Thoughts? Yeah, I'm not sure what that one was either, Joan. Breast expansion for $10? We need game show music. So enough with my Pornhub searches. But all this got me thinking about porn.

And why are we so secretive about it? I mean, it's very clear that everyone is watching it, but no one wants to talk about it, right? So I got curious and I looked into the history of porn to try to understand why is this so taboo? Well, to say I learned a lot would be an understatement. So Barbara, I need you to buckle up because this is going to be a wild mustache ride. Just kidding. No one was searching. Not I was surprised. I thought Texas for sure.

They have mustaches there, I saw. Much like corn, porn has been around a very long time and no one is really sure where it began. There's evidence of it existing in so many ancient cultures all over the world, in artwork, music, murals, poetry, even hieroglyphics.

all different kinds of mediums. Porn. I mean, there were cave paintings or shall we say cave nudes dating all the way back to the Paleolithic era, which was like 2.6 million years ago. Oh, they were fucking.

Then there are these ancient Egyptian scrolls called the Turin Erotic Papyrus Scrolls from 1200 BCE. I know, I can't even wrap my head around what that means, really. Two-thirds of that scroll was just pictures of sex acts. And when I say sex acts, I'm not talking missionary or like reverse cowgirl or just panties. No.

they got funky with it. Oh, baby girl, Lisa, listen, listen. They got real funky with it. On this scroll, there's an image of a woman who seems to be about to make sweet love to a mushroom, but also doing her makeup at the same time. Very relatable.

And we love a multitasker. And this is very similar to the Kama Sutra, which is a book from ancient India that is basically a sex guide with poetry, advice, and lots of illustrations of two people making sweet love.

And then the Romans, the Romans were the best and freakiest when it came to their erotic art. Okay. While they were conquering lands left and right, they were also bringing the people porn. My experts told me that the Romans are actually the reason porn spread all over the known world. Wow. Thanks, Romans.

Back in the 800s, which I'm sure is really hard to imagine, right? Exactly. Were you flying around in the 800s?

Don't you don't talk. I just talk to myself, don't I? But in the 800s in Japan, they kicked off something called Shunga, which were erotic woodblock prints also featuring people getting nasty. So just go ahead and Google Shunga. It's it's honestly a beautiful art piece.

It's about two people making love, fucking, doing the nasty, sticking it in the holes, bumping ugly, bumping uglies, boinking, slipping the corn in the haystack. And honestly, hentai seems to be the new shunga. They took some liberties when it came to the size of the male anatomy. They had very big, veiny,

wieners and just like the ones every 14 year old boy would draw in math class but these ones were they're different they're from the 800s right worth millions of dollars and also hanging in museums so i guess it's safe to say people have been drawing dicks since the dawn of time maybe it's in our dna or something i don't know we love a dick drawing don't we

Now, were these illustrations intended to get people off? You know, were they for educational purposes? Now, we don't know for sure, but scholars think, yeah, probably. Because for as long as people have been around, they've been in heat.

Horny. I mean the proof isn't really you and I. I mean we're alive now so someone had to be horny for that to happen, correct? Yes. And maybe you were even a little horny when you clicked this link. No judgment here. But sorry, no titty either. So safe to say there's lots of ancient porn in history. And if you're interested, you can go ahead and Google it.

But beware, it will be on your Google history. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

So I'm going to now move on to America and keep the porn history focused on America because boy, do we have a complicated relationship with pleasure, pleasure, P L pleasure. Maybe it's,

because of our Puritan past. Maybe it's the graham cracker, but either way it's quite fascinating. Now porn, which is also sometimes called erotica, especially if it's written down and not just visual, this was pretty popular back in the 1700s. They loved erotica. One novel in particular was called quote, "Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure."

End quote. Fanny, can you hear me?

Anyway, it was of course written by a man in his late 40s who wrote this hot, steamy page turner. And this was before Fifty Shades of Grey became Fifty Shades of Grey. Remember? That was an iconic moment. Now, Fanny's tales were originally published in England, but pirated copies were being smuggled into the United States and selling like hotcakes. And I can guess why. Let's see.

Let me read you one of my favorite sections. Oh, my dark history book's not here. You know, when did we lose that thing? It just took off and flew away. Ain't that funny? Okay. Quote, the sense of pain, however, prevailing from his prodigious size and stiffness, acting upon me in those continued rapid thrusts with which he furiously struggled.

pursued his penetration, made me cry out gently, Oh my dear, you hurt me. Hot.

But for some reason, this book ruffled many feathers. Maybe because the lead character of the story was a sex worker, which as we've learned has been heavily frowned upon throughout history. Or maybe because it was the 1700s. Reasons unknown. Anyway, Fanny's story touches on elements of orgies, bisexuality, and masochism, aka people getting off on pain.

Hot. But that actually scared a lot of people. Yeah. It made a whole bunch of parents go, what about the children? What about the children? They're going to read this and have penetration thoughts.

Sure, they've lived through wars, starvation, and plagues, but how dare they see a thick old dick and some floppy ass titties? That's where I draw the line. A big advancement for porn happens in the 1800s when the steam-powered printing press gets invented.

Now, millions of pages of a book could be produced every day, and writers weren't just printing copies of the Bible. They were also writing stories about blowjobs, butt stuff, and everything in between. Because, I don't know, creative freedom! Let the people have it. And soon, softcore magazines were the name of the game. But not magazines in the way we think of them. They had no pictures, because photography wasn't even invented yet.

So it's just words describing sexy scenarios. This genre became known to the public as, quote, saucy and spicy, end quote. Ha. The cover stories promised juicy stories like the perky pinups and high-heeled cuties. Mm, I love a cutie. The orange thing, so good. But then in 1839, boof. Boof. Boof.

Ka-blam! Photography is invented. Now, for the first time, people didn't have to just describe sexy scenes with words or have to resort to drawing whatever was in their naughty little minds. And as you can imagine, photography changes the world of porn forever. Not long after this, we got the first example of photographic porn. And it was surprisingly high quality.

It shows a straight-faced man, gingerly, inserting his penis into the vagina of an equally straight-faced and middle-aged woman. But a lot of the time, the models in these pics were women in the lower class. And I'm not sure if it was because they simply needed money,

Or maybe they just felt that they could not say no. But that's who was showing their goods when they first started selling naked pictures. But some people use this to their advantage. I mean, you couldn't just sell these pictures out in the open. So some women would hang out in train stations and secretly sell these pictures to people passing by. Mm-hmm.

I picture them wearing like trench coats with all the pockets and then they'd open it up and be like, yeah, you want some pictures, huh? You want to see my butt? You want to see that? You know, honestly, good for her. Get that money, girl. That's side hustle. So... Ooh, this is so fun. I'm living my dream right now. I've always wanted to hold a microphone with a purpose. Okay? I'm living. I can die happy. It's all about me, Joan, not you. Ha ha ha ha ha. So...

Listen, get in real close. Because porn starts evolving. And the technology is getting better and better. But then America hits a little speed bump. Whoopsie. The Comstock Law, which you might remember from many of our episodes. Graham Cracker, Dildo.

This law essentially bans all things lewd or obscene, a.k.a. anything like pornography related in all forms was banned. So let's say you were caught with one of those little floppy books straight to jail. A copy of Fanny Hill? It's going to be rough because you are going straight to jail. But this wouldn't be the end of porn. Oh, nay, nay. This is where porn is forced to go even deeper underground.

Look, in 1889, Thomas Edison allegedly invents two things that would change the game forever. The movie camera and the film projector. As you can maybe imagine, once the whole moving picture thing exists, the whole world changes.

Pictures that move. Whoa! Now, there are opportunities to make artful movies about life and war and love and, of course, taking the train to the penetration station. By 1908, the oldest surviving porn film that we can accurately put a date on shows up. Now, this was a French movie. Of course it was. And it was called...

I'm so sorry. You know, I was taking French on Babbel. Shout out to you, Babbel. But obviously, I didn't get that far, huh? Whoops. Anyways, it's called At the Golden Shield. Now, this film was silent and ran for a whopping four minutes. Sounds pretty accurate to me.

how the situation goes down. We love that. Now this movie has a very simple plot. A newlywed man and his wife walk into their hotel and as soon as they walk inside, they hear a strange noise. What is that? Oh my God, what is that? Thriller. Well, they walk into the bedroom and find a hotel maid getting a little creative with a vacuum hose. Yeah, if you know what I mean, you know?

The newlyweds take this as an invitation to start having a threesome with the maid. And before you know it, you've got a hardcore porno on your hands. Yeah. Side note, why is this always a storyline with pornos? You walk in on someone masturbating in a weird way and then you join in?

Has that ever happened to you? Let me know down below. Would love to hear your story. But it got me thinking that it's kind of funny how this storyline is still around. And I went looking for this movie actually on the internet. I was like, it has to be somewhere. And I found it. And I'm not going to show you a clip because I, you know, daddy YouTube will be mad and everyone else. But it was, it was very realistic.

They were definitely having sexuals for sure. Lots of hair. Lots of... No sounds though. Because it was a silent film. So it's just awkward. You're just watching the maid with the vacuum. And I was like, that's kind of a good idea. I'm not mad at it. So...

Porn. Great. So this movie, the French movie that I cannot get the name of, it makes its way to America and people are getting inspired. Yeah, they're getting their vacuums out. And then at this point, cinematic porn pops off. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. ...or domain. Pornography. Pornography. Porn.

Thank you. And we're back. So technology evolves. So that means porn evolves, right? Because we're humans and we evolve. So by 1910, porn creators start using new camera technology, which allows them to focus more clearly on people and things. So this really gave them the ability to do close-ups for that certain shot. Sorry, but that's what they're doing. They want to be able to zoom and focus on that.

Yeah. And now the directors had the ability zooming in on people's privates. Now.

naturally viewers started to get more demanding about what they want in their porn videos like I want to see that whole dick not just a little nub of it I want to see that whole veiny member you know so if the audience really loved the look of one guy's wiener then you know he had a bright future ahead of him and with all these beautiful people starting to appear on the silver screen

people started wanting to look like them and porn becomes aspirational. I mean, these porn stars, they were trendsetters. I mean, thanks to porn, you could probably get a Groupon for butthole bleaching.

Yeah, I know. I'm not going to try that. I looked in the mirror, though, and I was like, God doesn't want me to see that. That's why it's in the back. Don't look. Okay, it's not pretty. Around the 1900s to the 1940s, something called the stag film takes off and really just dominates the porn space. Now, stag films were silent, black and white, and they were 12-minute long porno videos. Yeah.

I imagine that most of them didn't last that long, but that's okay. These videos featured hardcore intercourse and penetration. Now, if you wanted to watch one of these stag films, step one, you had to be a guy. Unfortunately, women were not allowed into these stag film areas.

Next, you and your bros would have to go to a top secret underground location to watch this porn. So think of the locations like speakeasies from the prohibition era, but instead of booze, you would be going there for butts and boobs.

The stag film got its name from the slang word stag, which means dudes only. Like in England, bachelor parties, I guess they're called stag parties. Let me know, those of you from England. Let me know. Stag parties, is that a thing? Okay. It's essentially just one big sausage fest. So these stag film audiences were completely made up of the guys who watch these things together.

Around this time is when hardcore porn first fists its way into the minds of American porn viewers. The first one came out in 1950 and it was called, quote, a free ride or a grass sandwich. So naturally, what do I do? I go, I start Googling, what the hell is a grass sandwich? And...

Urban Dictionary came up, which did not disappoint. A grass sandwich, according to the Urban Dictionary, is, quote, someone slices the hairs surrounding the anus and puts them between two slices of bread, end quote. Huh? Yeah. I wonder if they're, are they using jam with that? Peanut butter? Butter? Is it just...

I'm curious. Got no answers. Let me know down below if you love a grass sandwich. Anyway, so these stat films were breaking all kinds of barriers. And just a few years later, around 1920, La Ménage Moderne du Madame Butterfly comes out. And this is actually the first known film to show bisexual and homosexual acts. Who?

Woo! Spicy. The porn community? Thriving. Undercover, of course, because this is still Comstock times, baby. Which means going to these stag films was technically illegal. So bookstores are becoming more and more popular in the 1950s. And these stores installed viewing booths for people to privately watch porn.

So while you and the family are just browsing for the latest Curious George book, someone is getting curious with his George. Just a couple feet away. It's like right there and you're like, ooh. You see in the back of these bookstores, behind some loose flappy curtains, you could privately, secretly watch some pornography. Technically, this was not legal at the time, but if you pulled that polyester curtain closed...

Ain't nobody gonna know. This is also the time when short film loops became really popular. These were made from editing films together so they could repeatedly play on a projector without someone having to pause the porn and change the film. Isn't that cool? These were kind of like the first GIFs or JIFs. Hot debate. Again, porn trailblazer.

Let the people have their pornography. Also in the 1950s, this is when porn brings the idea of the pinup to the world. Now the phrase pinup means a person can pin up a giant pic of a sexy lady like Betty Page on their bedroom wall. Very straight to the point. No guessing here. I mean, this is why I had posters of Chad Michael Murray scotch tape to my bedroom walls to look at and pretend to kiss. Maybe.

And then once World War II started, pinup pictures really took off. Back in the day, the government okayed and even encouraged pinup pictures to be created and sent to soldiers, you know, to help raise morale and just honestly give them a break from their grueling days at work. I mean, at war, obviously.

So they're like, yeah, just put up the hot lady. Let me stare at her. So they were giving them something to fantasize about. And this launched the career of tons of models and actresses who were doing pinup work. I'm talking people like Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and of course, Betty Page, who was known as the queen of pinups. The Betty Page community has been coming. They come for me so hard.

There's a whole website dedicated to why I should apologize to the Betty Page fans. It's a complicated history, but I love Betty Page. She just murdered somebody, you guys. Shit. Not the point. Fun fact, in the early 1950s, Betty posed for a BDSM photo shoot for photographer Irving Klaw. Now, if you don't know, BDSM stands for bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism. Masochism.

Many people think BDSM is more of a recent thing, but apparently it's been around since the 1880s. But BDSM is essentially a more niche branch of porn for people with any of those four fetishes I mentioned. Bondage, meaning you're into being tied up or tying people up. Discipline or domination. So rewards and punishments.

Sadism means you get a little thrill by inflicting pain or humiliation onto someone else. That's you, Joan. Yeah. Oh, wait. Yeah.

And then masochism means you like it when the pain or humiliation is inflicted upon you. We have a strange relationship, me and Joan. She makes me do things that maybe I don't want to do. Like I really didn't want to lock you up in that cage and set you on fire and then f*** you. I'm just kidding, lol.

Consensual. All of it needs to be consensual. That's the most important part of BDSM, okay? No burning birds. The BDSM themes in 1950s photo shoot actually made Betty the first ever bondage model. Hot. Iconic.

Love that. She also worked with that same photographer on some risque little short films. Now, these were black and white specialty films that catered to specific requests from Irving's clientele. So this is like OnlyFans before OnlyFans. You know, you could be like, hey, I want you to eat a pizza while being tied up and then take a picture of that for me.

And Irving and Betty, they weren't making the porn that everyone else was making. They were delivering that spicy, niche content. Their films showed Betty in lingerie and high heels acting out fetish-specific scenarios like abduction, domination, slave training, and spanking. All consensual.

Number one part that is most important. Okay. Consensual. Betty alternated between playing a helpless submissive and then also a stern dominatrix. A girl who can do both. Hot.

Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, called Betty, quote, a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste, and fashion, and had a tremendous impact on our society, end quote. Hugh Hefner, maybe you know him, maybe you love him, maybe you watched all that Playboy stuff. Remember that documentary? It was like exposed.

And it was like, well, I could totally see him being a shithead. But Hugh Hefner published the very first Playboy in December of 1953. Now, Playboy attempted to brand itself as an upscale magazine. Hefner himself described it as, quote, a handbook for the urban male, end quote. And to his credit, I mean, he achieved that. Alongside pics of nude women, each issue had articles and interviews about news and culture with famous artists.

politicians, even Nobel Prize winning writers. So he's getting credibility here. And you know that book we all had to read in high school? Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I actually just read it recently. It still holds up. But that originally appeared as a series of short stories in Playboy in 1954. Now all of that sounds great, right?

Yeah, well, little do people know that Playboy's beginning, much like a lot of porn, started as a result of a man taking advantage of a woman's body. So even though Marilyn Monroe was featured on the cover of the iconic first issue of Playboy...

Well, she never actually posed for the magazine. Get this. She didn't even consent to being a part of it. And on top of that, Hefner never paid her a dime. Yeah.

Yeah. How the hell does that happen? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer survey who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

In 1949, Marilyn, she wasn't a big movie star. She was not, not yet. She was struggling to find acting work and she could not pay her bills. So Marilyn agreed to pose nude for a pinup photographer. His name was Tom Kelly. Now for this work, Tom paid her 50 whole dollars, which Marilyn used to make a car payment. Great.

Now here's the thing. The photographer promised that people would not be able to tell it was, in fact, Marilyn posing nude. She even signed her name to the work as Mona Monroe. So why did she want all of these conditions to be met?

Well, in her own words, she said, quote, I may have wanted to protect myself. I was nervous, embarrassed, even ashamed of what I had done. I did not want my name to appear on that model release. End quote. 50-hole doll hairs. Ugh, poor thing.

Well, the photographer ended up selling these pictures of Marilyn for $900 to a company that was based in Chicago. And wouldn't you know it, Marilyn finally had her breakthrough the next year and her career popped off.

From 1950 to 1953, she books major roles in something like 17 movies. And Hugh Hefner, he sees that Maryland is all of a sudden the talk of the town. He's probably seeing dollar signs, let's be real here.

So he ends up buying the rights to those Marilyn photos for $500 and puts them in the first issue of Playboy. And the rest is history. The wild thing is that Marilyn never made more than that initial $50 for this. She even had to go buy a copy of the magazine to even see it herself.

And here's another crazy part. Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe actually never met in person. Yeah, never. She launched his business and he couldn't at least take her to dinner. Say thank you. No. But this set up a heated competition between Playboy and other naked magazines of the time.

Playboy had proved that there was a big demand to be met, but other magazine executives realized that things could be taken a step further. I mean, Playboy was only showing top halves and butt cracks. So there was a real meeting of the minds. And some guy said, hey, what if we showed pubes?

And baby, this was a big game changer. Society has never recovered. Just kidding. Remember, they were drawing big old dicks in temples thousands of years ago, so it was really nothing new to see here. But America was rocked. Rocked to its core. This kicked off a trend with magazines trying to top each other with graphic pictures and pushing the boundaries of the law.

So one magazine called Penthouse debuted in 1965 and they made big waves all over the country because their nude photos of women included... Go ahead, Joan. Pubic hair. That's right, Joan. Wow. Pubic hair.

You knew that one. So the creator of Penthouse said, quote, we were the first to show full frontal nudity, the first to expose the clitoris completely. I think we made a very serious contribution to the liberalization of laws and attitudes, end quote. And a lot of people were like, yeah, this guy has a point. And then in 1979, another magazine drops. This one's called Hustler in all caps, like they're yelling at you.

Hustler! And then they go where no porn has gone before. Their pages are filled with colorful photos that showed female genitals, sex acts, fetishes, and sex toys. Oh!

Oh my god. Nothing was off limits for Hustler magazine. This ends up ushering in the golden age of porn. This is about the 60s and the 70s. This is when porn starts to become a cultural phenomenon. In 1960, stag films had evolved to what is known as an X-rated movie theater. And about 20 of them had popped up all around America.

But over the next 10 years, that number skyrocketed to more than 750 opening all across America. I really hope they were cleaning those seats. Should bring my black light in for that investigation. In 1970, we get the first full-length porn movie with a storyline. And that opened nationwide. It was called Mona the Virgin Nymph.

And some researchers point to this being the moment when porn becomes a little bit more mainstream. It's no longer something you have to do underground or like in bookstore booths with sticky floors. Porno from this era started to see theatrical releases. Like, you know, when theaters have those giant spotlights outside and a red carpet and photos. Yeah, they were getting that type of treatment. And

And these films have much higher production value than the stuff that had come before. And the higher the production value, the less seedy it felt. It doesn't feel gross. You didn't leave feeling like a sinner. But then an iconic high production porno that defined porn videos forever comes to the front lines.

The year is 1972. A movie sent shockwaves all over America. There's the shockwaves. You hear it? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

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Pornography. Okay, so look. The year is 1972 and a movie sent shockwaves all over America. You've probably heard of it. Maybe you haven't, but it was called Deep Throat. Deep Throat.

Throat. Side note, NARS, the makeup company, they make a blush. It's called Deep Throat. Love that blush. But I had a lot of fun recommending it to some more mature ladies when I worked at Sephora. And I'd be like, oh, this color. And they'd be like, what the? I'd put the blush on them and they'd be like, oh, what? What color is that? And I'd be like, oh, it's Deep Throat. Like it was always awkward, but it was such a pretty blush color that like worked on everybody.

Anyways, let's go back to the actual story. Bailey, focus. Thank you. So when it hit theaters, people went absolutely apeshit for it. It looked like a real movie. It felt like a real movie. But the plot was still porn based. The whole story is about an actress named Linda Lovelace, whose character discovers that she actually has a clit in her throat. What?

poor thing and then she learns how to reach it the tagline of the movie is quote how far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle i feel like we could have done better but with that but okay sure and this movie became so big that one of the most family friendly and famous figures on television at the time johnny carson even mentioned the new movie on his show it was a very big deal

Tens of millions of people tuned into his show every night. If Johnny Carson talked about something in particular, everybody was talking about it. And it wasn't long after that it became kind of okay to watch porn in X-rated theaters. But even more than that, this movie delivered on its title. The sex act known as Deep Throating got its name from this movie. So now millions of women have the...

pleasure of at some point in their life being asked to deep throat it. Guilty! So naturally, celebrities, diplomats, business people, and critics all went to the theaters and bought tickets so they could be part of this cultural phenomenon. Because of this movie, a journalist at the New York Times coined the phrase, porno chic.

As in, it's now chic to watch porn in your designer outfit. Your designer dildo. Now, some consider Deep Throat to be the most profitable movie of all time. Okay, look, this math is good math. It only cost $25,000 to make the movie Deep Throat, okay? But then, some believe the film took in over $600 million dollars.

Wow. And that is in 1972 dollars. That translates to the movie making 4.2 billion dollars today. Holy crap. Let's make a deep throat part two. Who's down? I'll be Linda Lovelace. Just kidding. But I will if you need someone. Okay, look, sex really sells. Okay?

It's obvious. Now these estimates are disputed and the filmmakers say the number is actually higher. But not all that glitters is gold because that star I mentioned earlier, Linda Lovelace, oh poor thing, she came out and said that she was sexually assaulted during the production of the movie and...

and she did not have a good time. The death of porn's golden era comes because of another technological revolution. You see, in the 1980s, the home video cassette player, or VCR as we know it, was invented. Now once the VCR splashed onto the scene with those portable cassettes, now you could watch porn in the comfort of your own home.

That was a clap. And then in 1985, the personal camcorder comes out, which means that the power is now in the hands of the people. Oh, you want porn? Here you go. Make it yourself, peasants. I mean, the camcorder really launched the video era of porn and people could record whatever they wanted directly to tape. So most people would, you know, film kids opening Christmas presents

presents, family vacations, a new rug they got, sucking dick, all just the normal things people did with a camcorder. Fun. And then all this paved the way for a little thing called Girls Gone Wild. Do you remember those infomercials? Warning! This video contains adult content not suitable for children.

And you'd be at like a sleepover pretending to be asleep, but then you open one eye and you're like, what is that? What is going on? Why are girls just showing titties? That was, yeah, where we were at at that time. But that was nothing compared to the 1990s when porn was launched on the internet. No more VHS, baby. Now people could just upload their own porn to the world wide web or...

They would steal someone else's and sell it for a pretty penny. It got real nasty. Like what happened to Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Their private homemade sex tape got stolen and leaked to the internet. And for a while there was like nothing they could do.

They eventually sued the guy, which great. But this celebrity scandal, this intimate sex tape just made Americans want more. They wanted more sex tapes, more celebrity sex tapes, a little insight as to like how they make love. It was very intrusive, but it was like what everybody was going for.

If you were living through the early 2000s, it was a rough time. Peeping in the National Enquirers in like the grocery store. I mean, we all know about the Kim sex tape. There was one night in Paris. There was all these gross upskirt shots of female celebrities simply stepping out of their car. And it felt like every other day there was some new celebrity sex scandal. Some of them were coming off desperate. Like, look, I have a sex tape too. Yeah.

It's just me posing in different poses. And then others, like their tapes were being stolen, leaked, and it was violating. I feel like the 2000s were rough and they set a real bad precedent, culturally speaking. Because pornography is rising in popularity at this time in a big way, but porn itself is not the problem. Like anything else in the world, people found a way to weaponize it.

And back in 2014, hackers took a step further and figured out how to break into personal iCloud accounts of celebrities and look through their camera roll for personal pictures. Yikes. And when I say personal pictures, I mean the nudes. They were looking for the nudes. So these hackers would get the nudes. Then they'd leak the pictures on the internet. And this became known as the fappening nudes.

I just learned that. I guess someone called it that. I don't know who. I mean, it was bad. There was like over 400 graphic images of over 100 celebrities and they were leaked onto the internet. No, no, you cannot be doing that. That is inappropriate. You need to go to jail. Thank you.

My time is done. Well, the everyday people at home, they were taking notes. Because by now the internet was wreaking havoc everywhere. So really anyone could have a sex tape. So this little phenomenon of using people's private tapes and photos without their consent and weaponizing them by making them public starts to become a problem for everyone. I mean, not just celebrities.

This is when porn just takes a freaking dark turn to non-consensual porn. In other words, this is when it becomes known as revenge porn. Revenge porn is when essentially you don't consent to naked pictures of yourself to be uploaded onto the internet. Like you sent it to maybe your ex-boyfriend or your ex-lover in general. And then they hate you for some nasty reason. And then they upload...

The photos of you or videos of you onto the internet. So it's like some people would be scrolling and then get a text like, hey, I just saw you on this porn site. Here's your pic. And you'd be like, what the fuck? It's not good. It's messy and it's disgusting. And people do this and I feel bad for them because they're going to rot in hell.

Sorry, I spoke with Satan. We had a meeting this morning and he told me. So, have fun in the underworld. Anyways, so revenge porn. Now, revenge porn actually has a hot debate around the name. Some people want, I forget what they want to call it. I can't imagine the horror of seeing yourself...

on a porn website and realizing that someone had released your sex tape or your images with your ex or alone to this website. I mean, the trauma. Step one, how do you even get the photo and stuff down? You know? And this wasn't like a one-time occurrence. This has been happening over and over and over again to so many people out there.

It had become such a big problem that big porn websites like Pornhub had to change their policies so that only verified creators could upload videos. I guess there's some sort of vetting process for these people who are uploading, but these changes, I guess, happened pretty recently, which is like, it's a little slow response, but hey, at least it's a step in the right direction, I guess.

And really, these platforms are just trying to cover their asses from federal and state laws. Because as of February 2021, 46 states and Washington, D.C. passed laws outlawing distribution or production of non-consensual pornography.

AKA, you cannot release revenge porn. Nay, nay, you little nasties. You're gonna go to fucking prison. And guess when the federal version of the law went into effect? October 1st, 2022.

snaps hella recent okay but hey it's in place we're protected for the most part i don't know what states didn't pass that but don't go there because if someone releases a sex tape you made with a boyfriend they can go to prison and that's what we want

some accountability for being a shithead. So thanks baby Jesus. These laws exist now because as you can probably tell about this story, technology keeps evolving and porn evolves right along with it. And that brings us to a new technological advancement in pornography, the deep fake. Now these are kind of scary because a deep fake is essentially when you can copy, paste,

paste someone's face onto someone else's body and then you can make them do or say whatever you want. Sometimes they're honestly very convincing. There's this one TikTok account and it's a deep fake of Tom Cruise. And I was positive it was him. I was like, wow, this Tom Cruise is wild because he's doing some wild shit.

But it was a deep fake. It was someone else's body and they put his head on the body and it was talking and like, it's just creepy. Anyway, what I'm getting at is this deep fake technology is apparently being used to morph people into porn. Yeah. Yeah.

so you could put the president's face on a porn star's body and then ta-da it's a porno with the commander in chief it's giving people too much creative freedom and it can be quite dangerous because it looks so real now here's something crazy deep fakes and porn

It's been a problem for way longer than you might think. It actually goes all the way back to the 19th century, 1888, in fact. There was this guy named LaGrange Brown. Hey, guy.

And LaGrange, he was a very well-known, established photographer. And he shot photos for the New York Times. So he was hired by elite New York families to take portraits. But he also shot some scandalous pictures of naked women, sometimes in sexy little lingerie or even costumes. Now, LaGrange might be the daddy of the deepfake family.

Because he, when he was in his little dark room developing these photos, what he would do is take a portrait of an upstanding young lady, cut out her head of the negative, and then put it on top of one of the sexy negatives. Essentially creating a Frankenstein picture of what looked like a well-to-do girl from a respectable family posing nude. I love a good craft.

He was a DIY king. But like this was, it looked real.

You know, and it could ruin some people's names. It was not very nice of him. LaGrange must have had some time on his hands. I mean, it was 1888, so you were either churning butter or chopping off heads. So, of course, he had free time. Anyways, he ended up making 500 of these non-consensual graphic fake pictures over the course of two years and put them on display in a Brooklyn saloon. I want to see one. I didn't see one. I forgot to Google it.

I wanted to see what it looks like. I want one. This was 1888. So when people saw it, they assumed the photographs were real. I mean, why would you question it? Nobody even knew like you could, how photographs even worked, you know, like,

So no one knows about cutting a negative. What does that mean? You know, he was like way ahead of his time. And it was more than enough to ruin the reputations of these women. So LaGrange ended up being arrested. And then the truth came out that the photographs were indeed fake. Following his arrest, according to the New York Times, the pictures were put under lock and key and shown to no one. Simpler times, those internet free days, huh?

I mean, today, the internet is making porn very accessible, maybe a little too accessible, some would say. And the reason I bring that up is because while I celebrate porn, support it, whatever, there's also another side to it. It's a problem that's really playing out today, you know,

Many people are kind of curious to see how this is going to end up. Can't be good. So today, around 40 million adults in America visit porn sites on a daily or regular basis. That's because this is a habit more and more people are picking up, especially in their teen years. So research has shown that the average age of someone when they first see porn is...

The age of 14 and as many as 93.2% of boys first see hardcore porn before they are 18 years old. And this is kind of concerning or raises some red flags because these are formative years that these people are viewing hardcore porn.

These are the years where young adults first start seriously dating, and what they see on the internet can and has influenced how they act in sexual relationships. According to UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, they say exposure to porn at the young age can lead to mental health issues,

sexism, objectification of women, sexual violence, and other not-so-great outcomes. So yes, it can leave a lasting impression that influences how these young boys treat their partners in the future. I mean, when you think about it,

When you're viewing porn at a young age, you're kind of learning how to have sex from watching porn. And it's like learning to drive from watching The Fast and the Furious, you know? Not a good combo. Most porn today is hardcore. And women are usually not being treated the best. They're being spit on.

Which some people like it. I got hot. But it's not normal. You know, it's not something you do to Nancy down the street. Maybe if she asked for it, then sure. But it's almost like young boys are taught that degrading women is how they're supposed to have sex. And it's a little concerning.

Almost like porn is raising boys to be aggressive towards women. And worst of all, many are getting addicted to it at a very young age. Now, I know some of you are going to be like, eh, well, whatever, like, just kind of take this and create something bigger. But it's not.

It's like porn's not going to go away. So how do we help with kids being raised and not viewing hardcore shit? You know, I don't know. I don't have answers for you. I'm just giving you numbers to know because at the end of the day, I'm not your parent or anything. I'm just telling you what I learned. It's really that simple. Take this information, do something with it or don't. That's up to you. So.

Porn addiction is a very real problem. As many as 10 million adults admit to having an addiction to porn. And now there's a lot of reasons for that, but some of them are that people need to find more and more graphic content to satisfy their urges. Now this can lead to sexual compulsions in the real world. Research shows that watching porn and taking a drug like

Cocaine both trigger something called the dopamine process in the reward center of the brain. So think of dopamine as the pleasure chemical that is released when we experience something we like.

"Ooh, maybe you're eating some delicious food." Snuggling a puppy or your dog or what? And your brain releases dopamine 'cause you're like, "Oh, I love this, eating french fries." Or for many, watching porn, yay. It just makes them feel good. So when the chemical is let loose,

It makes a person think like, ooh, me like this thing. Me want more, more, more. But where porn and drug addiction are different is that porn addicts have a harder time recovering than let's say cocaine addicts. That's because coke users can get the drug out of their system. The pornographic images are burned into the brain forever. So what do you do? We're doing cocaine. I don't know.

We're doing cocaine, Joan. We're back to that. Yep. Party. So yeah, there are two sides to every story in dark history and porn is no exception. We can celebrate it, support it, be honest about it, talk about it, whatever. But we also have to raise a little flag and let people know about what it's doing to other people when it comes to addiction and teenagers. You know, we just, we...

And researchers just don't know how this is going to end up. So we'll see. Buckle up. I'm going to start wearing a chastity belt. Now look, porn isn't going anywhere. It's always been around for a very long time before Jesus. And it's always going to be around. So why not make it a safe space? And that's exactly what a website like OnlyFans is trying to do. People seem to like this one because the creator...

is totally in charge of what kind of content they put up, how much they show, how much they don't show, and they can really build personal relationships with fans and cater to whatever hot kink they want. And their viewers are sponsoring them directly. So it's more immersive, hands-on, farm-to-table. But again, like, where does it end? I don't know. When we started the episode, I only mentioned a few of the genres on Pornhub's Year in Review.

But there are hundreds, if not thousands more out there. It feels like it's getting to a point where it's just not enough. And it's clear porn addiction is affecting the youth. And then think about technology getting tossed into the mix. Ooh, I want sex with aliens. You know what I'm saying? They have that. That's where you can find me. Sex with the aliens. You know, Facebook even has those goggle things where you can have sex with virtual people, which is like, I'd

I'd rather like have weird not weirdos but like you know I'd rather have guys and girls have sex with virtual people versus going out on the street and like doing something else you know what I'm saying I don't know it's like pick one I don't know but seriously when you think about it it's like how did we get from the vacuum lady all the way to where we are now with technology with everything

Like, what is the answer here? Do we need less porn? Better porn? No porn? Amateur porn? What are we doing? I don't know. But one thing I know for sure is this. If you take the name of your first pet and put it together with the name of the street you grew up on, allegedly this is your porn star name. So, I got a good porn star name.

My porn star name is Sassy Iridanus. That's right. Iridanus is the street name I grew up on. Sassy was my first cat. Sassy Iridanus. Just call me that, Joan. Sassy. Sassy Iridanus. Miss Iridanus. Well, everyone, pornography, huh? Wasn't that a journey?

Thank you for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions to get the whole story because you deserve that, Barbara. Now, I'd love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along and leave a comment down below in the comment section on YouTube so I can say hi. Hi.

You can also join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder mystery in makeup. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Be safe out there. Make good choices. And maybe just limit the screen time, huh? All right. I'll be talking to you guys next week. Goodbye, y'all.

Sorry. That was a different breath. Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Junya McNeely from 3Arts, Kevin Grush, and Claire Turner from Maiden Network. Writers, Katie Burris, Alison Filobos, Joey Scaluzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. Shot and edited by Tafadzwa Namarundwe and Lily Young.

Research provided by Exander Elmore and the Dark History Researcher team. Special thanks to our expert, Bryant Paul. And if you don't know, I'm your host. Because I got a microphone. Bailey Sarian. Not you. Me. Me. Okay, bye. Why are you still here? Leave. Hello.