Credit: Dangerous Minds / Public Domain

Porn really is timeless, isn’t it?

One might assume that it’s a symptom of our own age, one where connection is at an all-time low and immediate gratification can be found with a Google search. However, the truth is that where human society has been, there has also been media created with the express intention of getting our rocks off.

This has especially been the case since the invention of mass media, but even before then, you can see early art made to titillate at pretty much every point in human history. Even in early examples of sculpture and cave paintings. However, despite all that, the idea of the porn movie still feels modern. Like they were created in the 1970s and before then, they were a dream in the sordid minds of seedy movie producers everywhere.

Except, again, no. Pretty much all forms of art, from painting to theatre, all have adult entertainment as some of the earliest examples of it, and film is no different. Perhaps the reason porn films have such a modern reputation is due to the fact that for decades, their very production was illegal, let alone their display. They were a distinctly underground phenomenon that went under a very different name for a very long time.

If you wanted a film that would satisfy those kinds of urges, you’d have to find somewhere showing “stag films“.

Why was early porn called “Stag Films”?

These were pictures that took… *Ahem* inspiration from the Europeans, always a continent with a more laissez-faire approach to sexuality than our colonial cousins.

Fittingly, the French were the first to experiment with depictions of eroticism on film before the phenomenon flitted across the pond and the earliest American productions began taking shape. The issue is that these productions weren’t just independent; they were basically illegal.

Thus, these films didn’t record the names of anyone who worked on them, and were often disposed of as soon as they were over. They weren’t even displayed at movie theatres, heaven forbid. In the 1910s and before, these pictures were shown in brothels if they weren’t shown by a private collector. So, you can imagine how rare these pictures are today. In fact, of the vanishingly few we know the existence of, only one was discovered in any sort of presentable condition. A picture charmingly called A Free Ride.

You talk about porn being timeless; this is a film that could have been made at any point between 1915 and today. A gentleman meets two lovely ladies while out for a drive and proceeds to get acquainted with both of them at the same time. In fact, the best part of the film can be found directly in its anonymity. No one was going to put their own names to this, so they had a little fun with it. The cinematography was apparently done by “Will B Hard” and directed by “A Wise Guy”.

The more things change, I guess.