6.5/109 votes#1 - The Road to Ruin
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/14/1999
Opens with the science of archaeology. Sexual imagery has been at the heart of culture all over the world, from the Cerne Abbas man to the painted walls of Pompeii, from the carvings of Bourges Cathedral to the obscene pamphlets of the French Revolution.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#2 - The Sacred and Profane
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/21/1999
Shows how printing was seen as something that turned hitherto acceptable sexual explicit expression into something far more dangerous. Indeed pornography was instrumental in fermenting the French Revolution, with shockingly explicit sexual satire directed at the monarchy. Photography was the greatest leap forward ever in the history of pornography. In the nineteenth century, to ask where pornographic photographs were sold is like asking where you can buy drugs today.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#3 - The Mechanical Eye
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/28/1999
Examines the appeal of photographs, their development and their consumers, as well as the evolution of the porn magazine. This film also covers the birth of the mail order porn dealer; heralding arguments which have parallels today with debates on internet pornography.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- NaN/100 votes
#4 - Twentieth Century Foxy
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 11/4/1999
Covers the rise of the porn film industry. But porn on film, and the porn cinema was an interstitial time. At the end of the 70s the new vehicle for porn was video.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.6/108 votes
#5 - Sex Lives and Videotape
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/11/1999
Shows how the advent of video ended pornography's crossover dreams. Video re-made pornography in its own image, replacing the glamour and fantasy of the movies with a real documentary style. The most significant contribution of video was that it turned consumers into producers; the audience picked up cameras and started recording their sex lives on videotape!
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 5.2/107 votes
#6 - Pornotopia
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/18/1999
Looks at the new era of digital manipulation and asks how digital technology has affected the pornography that we produce, and the way we consume it. We talk to people who say that the Internet has dealt the biggest blow yet to the establishment. Pornography in physical forms - books, magazines, and videos - could always be seized and destroyed, but on the Net, pornography has shed its physical form and gone digital.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Pornography: The Secret History Of Civilization Season 1
Every episode of Pornography: The Secret History Of Civilization Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Pornography: The Secret History Of Civilization Season 1!
A serious, non-titillating history of pornography, from the earliest days of erotic art right up to the present day's multimedia.
Genre:Documentary
Network:Channel 4
Season 1 Ratings Summary
"The Road to Ruin" is the best rated episode of "Pornography: The Secret History Of Civilization" season 1. It scored 6.5/10 based on 9 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 10/14/1999. This episode is rated NaN points higher than the second-best, "The Sacred and Profane".