Ancient Pervy Japanese Porn (Shunga)

Please "like" our facebook pages: Main Page
Yoga / Love / Food / Wellness / Spirituality / Family / Culture / Green / Society / Work
Enjoy the top 10 blogs of the week free in our e-newsletter.

Via elephantjournal.com

on Aug 28, 2009

Ancient Pervy Japanese Porn. I mean, Art. (Shunga)

The Japanese are elegant. Simple. Always have been.

They’re also enthusiastically pervy, as anyone who’s had the (mis)fortune to see their modern cartoons or hear about their dirty schoolgirl underwear vending machines knows all too well.

Shunga, or traditional woodblock art, combines the two—it’s the often stunning, sometimes grotesque, always intimate, occasionally homosexual, somehow-exciting-though-it’s-ancient-and-wildly-foreign art of love.

[galleria thumb_w=120 thumb_h=90 thumbnail="bottom" navigation='none' ]

[slide]

Waylon Lewis is the founder of elephantjournal.com

Follow elephantjournal on Twitter. Become a Fan on Facebook.

Subscribe to elephant’s free, weekly top 10 blog enewsletter.

Follow Waylon Lewis on Twitter (for Boulder-related elephanty news)

Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?

elephant journal is dedicated to "bringing together those working (and playing) to create enlightened society." We're about anything that helps us to live a good life that's also good for others, and our planet. >>> Founded as a print magazine in 2002, we went national in 2005 and then (because mainstream magazine distribution is wildly inefficient from an eco-responsible point of view) transitioned online in 2009. >>> elephant's been named to 30 top new media lists, and was voted #1 in the US on twitter's Shorty Awards for #green content...two years running. >>> Get involved: > Subscribe to our free Best of the Week e-newsletter. > Follow us on Twitter Fan us on Facebook. > Write: send article or query. > Advertise. > Pay for what you read, help indie journalism survive and thrive. Questions? info elephantjournal com

mary fitzsimons says:

November 2, 2010 at 20:50

no problem with pubic hair in japan i see.

Jason Gan says:

November 2, 2010 at 22:43

This is much of the inspiration for Art Nouveau (a.k.a. Jugendstil in German). The Japanese form and use of gigantic phallus in art is especially copied by Aubrey Beardsley to create a fashion statement in the 1890s. I can see now that his original inspiration was porn.

Chrystos says:

March 12, 2011 at 07:36

6899 views, wow. Maybe I'm writing the wrong kinds of articles. I'd be interested to know what percentage of the views are male vs female. Impossible to ascertain, of course. Also, I notice that in one, the man is still wearing his sword. I wonder why they did that.

elephant removes its controversial Paygate, thanks to @ryderhappy. | elephant journal says:

April 2, 2011 at 01:47

[...] These presumably on-a-whim submissions will be published in a special section, exclusively set aside under the heading, “The Elephant In The Room.” It has been indicated to us that these will likely be constituted primarily by the lude poll questions and soft-core nudity from the Asian sub-continent which are in accordance with Waylon’s standard contributions. [...]