Check Out Some Vintage 1900s Erotica From Spain

Vintage Porn Is A Look Back At Our Sex Filled Past

If you enjoy rummaging through antique stores, thrift stores, or any place that sells second-hand goods, you know there is always a chance you might stumble upon a great find. While visiting Spain, UCLA professor Maite Zubiaurre found something we can all treasure, a photo album full of erotic and pornographic photos from the early 1900s.  

Now, you might not be thinking this is such a big find because there are plenty of early pornographic photos in the world. Well, this is not the case for Spain because of the fascist regime that was in control during this time.  

“After many years of teaching the history and culture of early 20th century Spain, and the somber philosophers and thinkers of the so-called ‘Generation of 98’ who, in their writings, lament the decadence of Spain and the decline of Spanish imperialist ‘glory’ after the loss of its last colonies in 1898, I asked myself the following questions: Surely not all could have been so dire and somber during that early 20th century period in my country. After all, these were the roaring 20s all over Europe and the United States, and beyond—what happened to all the vibrant social and cultural innovations that were taking the Western world by assault, particularly in the realm of sexuality and Eros? Did sexology and psychoanalysis, for example, cross the barrier of the Pyrenees?” 

Zubiaurre then went on a quest to find as much early Spanish erotica she could find.  

"It took at least ten years of painstaking archival work and visits to private archives, dusty provincial libraries, inconspicuous antique shops and second hand bookstores,”  

“Materials were hard to find because censorship was brutal and often quite efficient during the Francoist dictatorship, and materials were not only heavily censored, but also banned from libraries and archives and destroyed—not only by authorities, but by the private owners [...] who feared incarceration.”

“Spanish popular erotica is not only extremely rich and multifarious, but also refreshingly disinhibited in its textual and visual representations, often openly and crassly anticlerical, and extremely well-versed in all forms of ‘non-reproductive’ love, from masturbatory practices to all forms of homosexual and queer love.”  

After years of collecting photos, illustrations, postcards, magazines, novelettes, and even some short films, Zubiaurre compiled everything into a book entitled Cultures of the Erotic in Spain, 1898-1939. You can also check out some of her collection on her website A Virtual Wunderkammer: Early Twentieth Century Erotica in Spain.

Take a few moments and check out some of the interesting works of erotic art Zubiaurre found. It’s pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

Via the creators project