Pornography

I've always wondered this as well because like when you read the erotic literature at the time there's lots of questions that come up. I think on the one hand it strikes our ear as overly formal and that simply is because of how language changes over time but at the same time John Cleland wrote in 1749 the author of Fanny Hill he wrote in defense of himself legally that he avoided all vulgarity. There's no swear words. There's none. The metaphors are so stark as to be funny and extremely sexual and straightforwardbut the intention of the authors was often to be using sort of somewhat euphemistic language. Do you think people were reading it to each other because they must have