From Eroticism to Pornography: The Culture of the Obscene

AbstractThe purpose of this study is – following philosophical, psychoanalytical and literary research of the obscene – to demonstrate the fact that the transition from eroticism to pornography was achieved with the transition from the instinctual (animal) stage to the cultural (civilisation) stage, through transgression of the sexual taboo. This transgressive approach led not only to the undermining of the traditional values imposed by taboos (like the sexual one, Eros, or the death taboo, Thanatos), but also to the creation of new ones, under the sign of the obscene. Within these parameters, pornography is the central element, generated under the mark of pornotopia. Such a metamorphosis of the individual - from the position of the reality principle, characteristic of the profane world of labour, into that of the pleasure principle, characteristic of the sacred world of celebration – was achieved by passing pornography through the initial filter of Renaissance creations, followed by using it as a political weapon during the Age of Enlightenment and Modernity and finishing with current political discourse, and the exhibition of an obscene reality in what we call advertising and show business