Literature has most often been suppressed or banned because of sexual content. As national obscenity laws have evolved so has the public's response to so-called "smut" books. Once considered so lewd that it was only publishable in Italy in order to avoid English censors, D.H. Lawrence's titillating classic Lady Chatterley's Lover is now firmly ensconced in the canon of great works of the English language. Despite some of it's earthy language, Lady Chatterley's Lover is as much an indictment against industrialization and the dulling effect social hierarchies have on the human condition as it is a torrid love story.
Books like The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, first written in 14th century Italy, found themselves banned in the United State simply for referencing sexual activity. Having survived seven centuries of criticism and attack, The Decameron is now widely read as an early example of allegorical social criticism and has even been credited with inspiring Geoffrey Chaucer to write The Canterbury Tales. Even notorious novels like John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure have stood the test of time and are now studied as early examples of erotic literature. Academics demonstrate new and insightful readings of these works all the time, demonstrating how historical texts can shed new light on current social issues.
Want to read more about pornography's checkered relationship with literature? Check out some of these titles: Porn 101, Sex Literature and Censorship, and Perspectives on pornography : sexuality in film and literature. For a thorough grounding in pornography's evolution from obscenity to art, check out all three volumes of Pornography and sexual representation in the reference section.
