Bodies on Display — Pin-ups, Porn and Pop Stars

Abstract

The public display of images of naked human bodies cannot be seen merely as a manifestation of our allegedly ‘sexualised’ modern culture. On the contrary, it has a very long history. Some of the earliest visual representations yet discovered feature images of the naked human form, clearly designed for the contemplative erotic gaze. The Victorian moral campaigners who covered over — and in some cases, defaced or damaged — such images evidently recognised as much.