L'Ecole des Filles

From xyclopedia - the history of pornography and sexual expression

Danish criminologist Berl Kutchinsky traces the beginnings of of modern pornography to the 1650s, when three pornographic classics appeared: La Puttana Errante (The Wayward Prostitute), Satya, and L'Ecole des Filles (The Girls School). Translated into all major languages, these novels were the models for all later pornographic books and movies. An examination of these works shows, little has changed in porn over the past 350 years. Themes of lesbianism, sodomy, seduction, multiple copulation, flagellation and sadism dominate. Writes Kutchinsky, "as well as total amorality, a disregard for artistic merit, an absence of affection or other emotions, flimsy plots, stereotyped characterizations, monotonous repetitiousness, and a constant exaggeration of sexual interest, energy and potency."

In 1655, Samuel Pepy's got his hands on a copy of L'Ecole des Filles. Wrote Pepys in his diary: "Thence homeward by coach and stopped at Martins my bookseller, where I saw the French book which did think to have had for my wife to translate, called L'Escholle des Filles; but when I came to look into it, it is the most bawdy, lewd book that ever I saw, rather worse than Puttana Errante - so that I was ashamed of reading it." A few weeks later, Pepys bought the book. He couches his encounter with it in coy Spanish and French synonyms. "We sang till almost night, and drank my good store of wine; and then they parted and I to my chamber, where I did read through L'Escholle des Filles; a lewd book, but what doth me no wrong to read for imagination's sake (but it did hazer my prick para stand all the while, and una vez to decharger); and after I had done it, I burned it, that it might not be among my books to my shame."