Cartoon pornography is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional cartoon characters in erotic or sexual situations. Animated cartoon pornography, or erotic animation, is a subset of the larger field of adult animation, not all of which is sexually explicit.

Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, a pornographic short cartoon, circa 1928

Because historically most cartoons have been produced for child and all-ages audiences, cartoon pornography has sometimes been subject to criticism and extra scrutiny compared to live-action erotic films or photographs. It is somewhat common in Japan, where it is part of a genre of entertainment commonly referred to outside of Japan as hentai.

Cartoon pornography has significantly increased in production since the introduction of the internet, with the creation of websites dedicated to adult animation.[1] The internet has also led to animated pornography being distributed on social media.[2]

History

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One of the earliest examples of erotic animation is The Virgin with the Hot Pants, a stag film that opens with an animated sequence featuring an independent penis and testicles pursuing a naked woman and having sex with her, then another sequence of a mouse sexually penetrating a cat.[3] Another early example is Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, a 6.5-minute silent black-and-white animated film produced in 1928 by three US animation studios, allegedly for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay. It features a man with a large, perpetually erect penis who has various misadventures with other characters and farm animals, plus his penis detaching and doing things on its own.[4] In 1932, Hakusan Kimura completed Japan's first erotic animation Suzumi bune [ja] using touches of Ukiyo-e style.[5]

The Golden Age of Porn, which saw mainstream filmmakers and cinemas tentatively experiment with sexually explicit material with fully developed plots and storytelling themes, also saw some renewed interest in similar erotic animation.[6] Examples include Out of an Old Man's Head (1968) by Per Åhlin and Tage Danielsson,[6] Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) by Picha and Boris Szulzinger,[6] and Historias de amor y masacre (1979) by Jorge Amorós.[6] Animator Ralph Bakshi produced Fritz the Cat (1972) (based loosely on the comic of Robert Crumb), which was the first animated film to receive an "X" rating in the US.[7] The Italian film Il nano e la strega (released in English as King Dick, 1973) was a Medieval fantasy story told entirely by hand-drawn animation. Once Upon a Girl (1976) featured live-action framing sequences around pornographic versions of well-known fairy tales.[6] Animerama was a series of animated erotic films begun by Osamu Tezuka: A Thousand and One Nights (1969), Cleopatra (1970), and Belladonna of Sadness (1973).[8][9] In addition, known as mockbusters, Maruhi Gekiga, Ukiyoe Senichiya (1969), and Do It! Yasuji's Pornorama (1971) released.

Since the 1980s, erotica has been a popular genre of animation in Japan. Erotic Japanese anime – some based on erotic manga, often released as original video animation – called hentai feature sexually suggestive and explicit sex scenes.

In the early 21st century, producers began applying digital animation technology to erotic material. In 2000, Playboy TV began running the erotic dystopian sci-fi series Dark Justice, which used 3D animation, and ran for 20 episodes.[10][11][12] In 2001, illustrator Joe Phillips released The House of Morecock, a comedic erotic feature film for gay and bisexual male audiences, made using 2D digital animation.[13]

The 2006 short Sex Life of Robots turned to the traditional technique of stop-motion animation to depict the imagined sexual activities of living robots.[14] In 2013 Savita Bhabhi, an Indian Hindi-language animated film directed by Deshmukh (Puneet Agarwal) was released as a web film. It was based on Agarwal's Kirtu webcomic character Savita Bhabhi (published online since 2008) and was the first adult animated film from India.[15]

Animated content has become popular on pornographic video services, which sometimes report terms such as "anime", "hentai", and "cartoon" – all of which are commonly associated with animation – among the top search terms.[16][17][18][19][20] In November 2020, Ana Valens of The Daily Dot highlighted the popularity of "Source Filmmaker porn", referring to SFM porn which is created using Source Filmmaker by "adult creators."[21]

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The legal status of cartoon pornography varies from country to country. In addition to the normal legal status of pornography, some cartoon pornography depicts potentially minor (that is, underage) characters engaging in sexual acts. One of the primary reasons for this may be due to the many cartoons featuring major characters who are not adults.[22] Cartoon pornography does not always have depictions of minors in sexual acts or situations, but that which does may fall under the jurisdiction laws concerning child pornography. Drawings of pre-existing characters can in theory be in violation of copyright law, no matter what the situation the characters are shown in.[23]

See also

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  • Adult animation – Animation aimed at adults
  • Clop – Erotic fan art related to the My Little Pony media franchise
  • Erotic comics – Adult comics which focus substantially on nudity and sexual activity
  • Ecchi – Slang for playful sexual actions in Japanese
  • Elsagate – Controversy concerning a genre of YouTube videos
  • Fan service – Parts of a fictional work intended to please the audience
  • Hentai – Anime and manga pornography
  • Pokémon and pornography – Pornography of the role-playing series Pokémon
  • Rule 34 – Internet slang regarding pornography
  • Rule 63 – Meme about genderflipped characters
  • Yiff – Slang term used in the furry fandom

References

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  1. ^ Short, Mary B.; Black, Lora; Smith, Angela H.; Wetterneck, Chad T.; Wells, Daryl E. (2012-01-16). "A review of Internet pornography use research: methodology and content from the past 10 years". Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. 15 (1): 13–23. doi:10.1089/cyber.2010.0477. ISSN 2152-2723. PMID 22032795. Archived from the original on 2023-01-16. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
  2. ^ Forrester, Katrina (2016-09-19). "Making Sense of Modern Pornography". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 2023-01-16. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
  3. ^ Williams, Linda (2007), Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-06652-6
  4. ^ Cohen, Karl F. (1997). Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-0395-0.
  5. ^ Takuya Hasegawa『いとしのブルーフィルム』Seikyūsha, 1998, 94-96p
  6. ^ a b c d e Amidi, Amid (2014-01-20). "10 Animated Sexploitation Features from the Sixties and Seventies (NSFW)". Cartoon Brew. Archived from the original on 2017-06-26. Retrieved 2017-05-29.
  7. ^ Sokol, Tony (April 12, 2018). "Fritz The Cat: A Look at R. Crumb's X-Rated Animation Masterpiece". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on 2017-06-06. Retrieved 2017-05-27.
  8. ^ White, Mike. "Issue 18 - The Animerama Trilogy : Psychedelic Smut and a Belladonna of Sadness". Cashiers du Cinemart. Archived from the original on 2016-07-31. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  9. ^ "Inside the Greatest X-Rated Anime You've Never Heard Of". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  10. ^ DeMott, Rick (August 24, 2000). "Playboy TV Disrobes New CGI Series". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  11. ^ Rogério (2016-08-20). "Playboy's Dark Justice". Eu escrevo para robôs. Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  12. ^ "Playboy Enterprises Inc. 2000 Annual Report" (PDF). media.corporate-ir.net. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2003-10-11. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
  13. ^ "Disegni Per Un Anno". Gay.it (in Italian). 2004-12-23. Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2017-05-27.
  14. ^ Savage, Annaliza (Dec 16, 2008). "Video: Robots Have a Sex Life? (NSFW)". WIRED. Archived from the original on March 18, 2018. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  15. ^ "Savita Bhabhi animation film is a fight for freedom of speech: Puneet". The Times of India. Apr 6, 2013. Archived from the original on November 26, 2018.
  16. ^ Seibold, Witney (2016-03-02). "What We Search For When We Search For Porn". CraveOnline. Archived from the original on 2017-11-15. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
  17. ^ Schlosser, Kurt (2016-03-02). "Pornhub reveals, state by state, its most popular search terms among U.S. users". GeekWire. Archived from the original on 2017-05-20. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
  18. ^ Bergado, Gabe (2016-07-12). "Pokémon Go has inspired people to get really into anime porn". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 2016-07-18. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
  19. ^ Ortega-Brena, Mariana (2009-03-01). "Peek-a-boo, I See You: Watching Japanese Hard-core Animation". Sexuality & Culture. 13 (1): 17–31. doi:10.1007/s12119-008-9039-5. ISSN 1095-5143. S2CID 143481005.
  20. ^ Grayson, Nathan (May 24, 2016). "Inside The Surprisingly Big Overwatch Porn Scene". Kotaku Australia. Archived from the original on 2017-02-22. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
  21. ^ Valens, Ana (November 13, 2020). "SFM porn: The best Source Filmmaker porn videos and creators". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  22. ^ "Impact of Pornography Films on Nigerian Youth" (PDF). Pornography and Harm. 1 (1): 44. 2014-05-09. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-02-04. Retrieved 2023-01-16 – via Afe Babalola University.
  23. ^ Levy, Neil (2002). "Virtual child pornography: The eroticization of inequality" (PDF). Ethics and Information Technology. 4 (1): 1–2. doi:10.1023/A:1021372601566. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2023-01-16. Retrieved 2023-01-16 – via Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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