hurrengoa
skinflicks: the type of cinema you watch with one hand on the fast forward button and the other... koldo holmes almandoz & idoia chambers artxanko   "As pornography was against the law, men gathered in brothels and private clubs to watch them. There was no other option." the first time
The word pornography comes from the Greek words “porni” (prostitute) and “graphein” (to write). It was used to describe any work of art concerned with or anything that was written about prostitutes.
Photography was invented around the year 1830. Well, about five minutes after it was invented there were naked women in front of the camera. We can more or less say the same thing about cinema. Porn films made their first appearance in gentlemen’s clubs quite soon after the Lumiére brothers had invented cinema in 1895. The nobility and rich men of Europe were the first to buy cameras to make their own little flicks. Amongst others, the Spanish King Alfredo XIII’s private porn film collection is one of the most highly rated.

It’s quite difficult to say what was actually the first porno movie, but Le Bon Auberge is definitely worth a mention as it is considered to be the first example of hardcore porn. It was made in 1908. We are even treated to dwarves going mental at an orgy in the film. The film El Sartorio was made in Argentina in the same year. Three woman get down and dirty with the two tails of a little devil dressed up as our man Satan. The company Pathe distributed porn films in Europe. In the United States, however, the films were shown in men’s clubs called Stag. These two or three minute films became known as Stag-movies.
The spread of porn films went hand in hand with the spread of cinema. Men everywhere of course were more than interested in the possibilities offered by this type of cinema.
As pornography was against the law, men gathered in brothels and private clubs to watch them. There was no other option. The “swinging” 20s witnessed stag-movies like Chichilos Weeding, Merry-go-round, and the cartoon Everyready, where the main star needs the help of a small wheel to trundle his lad about...

Flute in hand, but play it in secret
Porno films hit a slump as WWII broke out. The Hays Code became a major force in American film-making and studios censored their own films heavily. Any references to sex where craftily hidden away or put across subliminally. The thirties saw hardcore porn stepping down to be replaced by pin-up girls like Betty Page. Around that time, directors started making films with pedagogical objectives. John Ford made Sex Hygiene in 1941. Dark times for pornography indeed. That was until nudie-films began to flourish in the sixties. Theses films contained some of the then popular nudists’ philosophy on nudism. Blonde youths frolicked and played on the beach and in forests. Buck naked. Russ Meyer and Playboy used these films as an excuse to start making soft porn movies once again.
It was a different ball game altogether in Japan in those days. The post-war Japan was in upheaval and Japanese directors made porn movies as their form of protest against old traditions and morals. The only thing that the Japanese Film Board wouldn’t permit were close up shots of the groin area. Everything else was allowed. From the 50s to the present day, in Japan, you can come across absolutely anything from poetic porn (pinku-eiga) to porn movies that feature rape and mutilation. The spectrum is huge. Mad Japs on sex rampage or what!

everybody just keeps on coming
The first feature length porn movies in colour were filmed at the end of the sixties in Denmark. Local laws there didn’t put as many obstacles in film-makers’ ways as elsewhere. Alberto Ferro made good use of the lax laws and set up the first porn industry under the name of Lasse Braun. It didn’t take very long for this new industry to find its way across the Atlantic. The New York Colombo mafia gang family member Anthony Peirano set up the first American porn production company. The films were shot in 8mm and sold in bars, butchers and sweetshops in Brooklyn. Gerald Damiano made Sex USA starring actress Linda Lovelace in 1970. That film and Alez de Renz’s collection of stag-movies called History of the Blue Movie the very same year were enormously successful. They were soon followed by the classics Deep Throat, School Girl and the mythical Behind the Green Door.
The use of home video recorders became widespread in 1975 and once again the porn movie industry was quick to cop on to the potential it offered. Ever since then the porn industry has grown in size and profit every year. As you can find any of today’s productions at your local or any video club, there’s no point in us going into it here. Get down to your club, hire any movie you want, make sure the remote control is in working order and enjoy yourself. We could write libraries on skin flicks. Is it a genre? Where does erotica stop and porno start?... but we just don’t have the space because this quick fast forward through the history of porn has finished. Grab hold of a Kleenex and if you have splattered on anything, clean it up. We wouldn’t like these two pages to stay stuck together for too long!