Though some specific sex acts were regulated or prohibited by earlier laws, merely looking at objects or images depicting them was not outlawed in any country until 1857. It first appeared in an English medical dictionary in 1857 defined as 'a description of prostitutes or of prostitution, as a matter of public hygiene.' By 1864, the first version of the modern definition had appeared in Webster's Dictionary: 'licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to bacchanalian orgies, examples of which exist in Pompeii.' This was the beginning of what today refers to explicit pictures in general.
Its current definition was added in the 1860s, replacing the older one meaning writings about prostitutes.
The modern concept of pornography did not exist until the Victorian era. In early times, erotic depictions were often a subset of the indigenous or religious art of cultures and as such were not set aside or treated differently than any other type. A pederastic courtship scene on an Athenian black-figure amphora (c.
