The Consequential Pleasures of Pornography

a ‘glorious but problematic age’. The vice of lust is brought to the fore in the pornography produced during the sixteenth century. The conflation of sexuality, classicism and the contemporary in the literary and visual arts can be seen as emblematic of the period, representing the ‘corrupt and irreligious people’ of Renaissance society. Yet, this morally corrupting sexuality was not a new phenomenon. Pornography, which for the purpose of this discussion will refer to sexually explicit images,

E SSAYS ON TWENTIETH-C ENTURY H ISTORY In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig Also in this series: Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life Lisa M. Fine, The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. Van Gosse and Richard Moser, eds., The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture in