Pornography, some would argue, has been embedded in our culture for millennia. Some of the earliest carved figures -dated back to 35-27 000 years ago, are female figures with grossly dispropottionate breasts, bellies and vulvas. What use they were put to, of course, remains unknown. Carved rings on some seem to indicate that they were worn as jewellery, but by whom and why is anyones' guess!

Most cultures have a goddess of love and/or fertility, as well as motherhood. Gaia herself, Aphrodite, Demeter, Ishtar, Hathor and even Ashera, the consort of Yahweh who was rigorously excised from later Judaism. Their rites and symbols were often erotic in nature.

Artists have also explored the erotic in various ways. The constant presence of both the male and female nude in art, the everlasting stream of erotic literature. even the 'dirty joke' are all as old as humanity.

But the constant stream of commercial pornography is a different matter. It stems from the imposition of rigid patriarchal morality which not only created 'sex work' but also the depiction of sex for vicarious 'enjoyment'. It's all about money, profiting from social and cutlural forces which denigrated rather than celebrated the body and sexuality. A patriarchal society is always troubled by the Geat Uncertainty - "Mummys' baby, Daddys' maybe." There is ever any doubt about who gave birth to a child, but until the advent of DNA testing, nobody could be 100% sure who fathered it. When that question became socially and economically vital, it give rise to restrictive codes and laws n sexual behaviour, aimed mostly at women, but also at men. People being what they are, the allure of prostitution and pronography comes more from the fact that they are 'forbidden' than anything else.