I suppose the early days of ‘pornography’, when photography was first invented, was the distribution and collection of ‘naughty postcards’. In the two above you can see a theme, that of a lady posed indoors, beside a cloth draped bit of furniture, fully nude.

I’ve used Photoshop to re-create a couple of Second Life images in a postcard setting (above).

Another noticeable thing about these postcards or pornography of that era is the way in which ‘Arab’ women are portrayed as wild, undressed, un-Christian ‘savages’. I’ve read that these weren’t actually ‘Arabs’ at all in many cases, but Parisian prostitutes who were paid to pose and give the impression they were from French colonies like Algeria or Morocco who ran around semi naked a lot of the time.

 

There is a plethora of Gorean and bellydance outfits that could be utilised to present the ‘uncivilised’, semi-nude woman as portrayed in historical postcards.

Another aspect of the pre-digital ‘porn’ age would have been ‘beefcake‘ photos, muscular men, often but not always intended for a gay market. I’ll turn my attention to ‘beefcake’ next as Vintage Season 2 continues.

Trine