CHAPTER XXX
PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE AND ART
“Wer will das Höchste aus Wollust machen, der krönt ein Schwein in wüster Lache.” [“He who devotes his talents to the glorification of lust is like one who crowns a pig in the midst of a dismal swamp.”]—Hans Burgkmair.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXX
Distinction between pornography and eroticism — An old medical thesis concerning obscene books, dating from the year 1688 — Definition of obscenity in this thesis — Modern definition of an obscene book — Treatment of purely sexual relationships from the artistic and scientific standpoints respectively — Summary of the general tendency — Morality-fanaticism and medical authorship — The artistic treatment of sexual matters — Humorous mode of treatment — The erotic in caricature — The mystic-satanic conception of the sexual — The importance of the individuality and the age of the reader or onlooker — Danger of Bible-reading for children — A remark of John Milton upon this subject — Importance of the standard of the time, and of contemporary moral ideas, in our judgment of an erotic work — Example of the works of Nicolas Chorier and of the Marquis de Sade — Observation regarding the recent German translations of pornographic works — Comparison of obscene books with natural poisons — Recent obscene literature — Remarkable fondness of great artists and poets for the pornographic-erotic element — French celebrities as pornographists (Voltaire, Mirabeau, de Musset, Gautier, Droz, etc.) — Goethe and Schopenhauer as erotic writers — Schiller’s and Goethe’s fondness for French erotic writings — Occupation of women with pornographic literature — Obscene pictures by great painters, from Lucas Cranach to the present time — Pornographic garbage literature and garbage art — Origin of these — Dangers of hawkers’ literature — Futility of the efforts of Purity Societies — Historical examples of this — The true means to render pornography harmless.
CHAPTER XXX
What is an obscene, pornographic book or picture? In order to obtain an accurate and objective definition of this idea, we must always keep clearly before our minds the distinction between “pornography” and “eroticism.” The confusion between these two ideas explains the great conflict of opinion on the part of expert witnesses in connexion with the question whether any specified book or picture is to be regarded as “immoral” or “indecent.”
The obscene differs toto cœlo from the erotic. In my own possession is a rare work which is probably the first monograph regarding obscene books. It dates from the year 1688, and is the thesis of a Leipzig doctor.[776] At that time it was still possible to compose academic essays upon such topics. To-day this would only be possible in the legal faculty and from the criminal standpoint. In respect of the unprejudiced scientific and historical consideration of pornography, we have experienced a notable retrogression, and at the present day a certain degree of courage is needed to make these things an object of scientific study, to consider in an unprejudiced and objective manner these peculiar outgrowths of the human soul.