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[“Herm, on pelike by Perseus painter’]. Even more impressive are the phallic mon-
uments that decorate the temple of Dionysos on the tiny island of Delos.

In the rites of Dionysos, a woman under the influence of the sacred wine could
turn wild, vent her rage, whack unwanted satyrs in the testicles with her thyrsus and
perhaps bed more appealing satyrs to her heart's content. A great many of the ithy-
phallic images that have survived involve satyrs of Dionysos who are more often
than not depicted as unsuccessful in their wooing.

In India, the symbol of the lingam-yoni, the penis of Shiva and the womb of the
goddess, symbolize the union of the cosmic powers of Shiva and his lover Uma,
and is widely worshipped. One can find lingam-yoni everywhere. The earliest
“Linga”, found in Mohenjadero, dates to 3000 B.C.

India’s erotic temple statues were created in the North between the ninth and
thirteen centuries A.D., and in the South between the 6th and 17th centuries A.D.
Some scholars say that since Hinduism believes in the efficacy of all four paths to
Moksha, these sculptures were provided to assist in the last of these four paths, or
Kama. Temple builders regarded creation (or reproduction) as the greatest miracle,
and glorified it. Shakti, the feminine force of creation, and Hinduism, has close
associations, and many cults in India today practice the worship of genitalia. Some
scholars believe that the temples were decorated with erotica to increase interest
in family life, after ascetic religions gathered momentum in India.

Sometime in the 3rd century, the North Indian sage Vatsyayana Mallanaga wrote
the Kamasutra. This treatise covers one of the three main goals in life: Kama, which
is “pleasure”. It is part art, part poetry, and part advice for sexual novices. Its seven
books are divided into chapters with subjects such as Winning a Virgin’s Trust,
Rekindling Exhausted Passion, and Reasons for Taking Another Man’s Wife. Good
words of advice: how to woo, how to romance, how to... melt in the arms of a lover.
Lists of various sexual positions (“rice-and-sesame”, “climbing the tree”, “twining
vine”). The 64 arts of sex are subdivided into eight parts of eight. Each of those
eight parts (embracing, kissing, scratching, biting, sexual positions, moaning, the
woman playing the man’s part, oral sex) are themselves divided into sections such
as the four embraces, the three sorts of kisses for a virgin, the eight shapes that
can be made with the nails and so on.

There are many other examples of sensual writing and art from the past. There
are erotic Shogu paintings of 19th century Japan, and one can still find the refined
Geisha entertaining in that country. In Britain, the carvings of vulva-spreading
Sheila-na-gig can still be found in Norman churches. The art of the Master’s nudes
still hang in museums. Preserved and recorded are the venerated Venus of
Willendorf statuette, and the prehistoric cave paintings in France. And once upon a
time the fertility rites of temple harlots ran Babylon. The politically correct seek to
censor ‘licentious’ works, but the past proves how enshrined sexuality is.

The word Pornographer is first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary from
about 1850. Pornography appears by 1857. In English, porno-graphy referred
primarily to the ancient Greek and Roman texts of that subject. It was not until the
late 19th century that it came to be used to refer to newly written works, such as
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a Fireside Conversation, Memoirs of Fanny Hill, and Le
Con d'lrene. Only recently has the word pornography been applied to art of a “licen-
tious nature”, centrefold nudes, and eventually the digital images of today. The
ancient Greeks and Romans did not create a specific word to define sexually
explicit art, because the depiction of nude bodies and sexual acts was neither
forbidden nor scandalous.

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Ancient Statues at a Hindu Temple

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Paul Cézanne: A Modern Olympia