Facts from history you didn’t know! 🤯 Quote from #KinkyHistory 📕: “It's no exaggeration to say that the emergence of p•rnography as a literary genre in this period changed the course of our s•xual history. We commonly underestimate just how much power pornography has had (and continues to have) in not only reflecting but shaping society, and pornographic writings were one of the primary influences over revolutionary passions in the French general public. Shocking erotic depictions of the French aristocracy in p•rnographic pamphlets, plays and more helped to generate widespread hatred and disdain for them. As perfectly summarised by academic Lynn Hunt, 'Politically motivated p•rnography helps to bring about the revolution by undermining the legitimacy of the ancient regime as a social and political system.'… Marie Antoinette was the most popular subject of these p•rnographic attacks. On a list of erotic pamphlets confiscated by Parisian police in 1790-1791, those featuring Marie Antoinette were the two most popular - Viv privée, libertine, et scandaleuse de Marie-Antoinette, with 88 confiscated copies, and La Messaline française, with 81…. The scandalous depictions succeeded in making these authority figures utterly ridiculous to the public eye. These kinds of publications were not too dissimilar to modern gossip magazines. There were generally published under the guise of truth, as real stories from the courts that had made it out via an anonymous person of impor-tance. (The historical version of, 'you just have to believe me, OK?'). After a time, it didn't matter if these stories were really fact or fiction, as their sustained repetition in publication took on a reality of its own. It's quite important to keep in mind as well that the printing press (and more widespread literacy) was still quite new. There wasn't the same kind of emphasis as there is today on fact-checking publications or verifying claims (though an argument could well be made that we still care too little about this today). It was all clickbait headlines, and they crept into people's subconscious minds.” #frenchrevolution #history #historytok #LearnOnTikTok ##creatorsearchinsights