Tentacle erotica

Sensual art genre involving tentacles or pseudopods

This article is about the pornographic genre. For the geometric phenomenon, see Tendril perversion.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (1814) by Hokusai depicts a woman having sex with two octopuses

Tentacle erotica (Japanese: 触手責め, Hepburn: shokushu zeme; lit. 'tentacle attack') is a type of pornography most commonly found in Japan that integrates traditional pornography with elements of bestiality, fantasy, horror, and science fiction. It is found in some horror or hentai titles, with tentacled creatures (usually fictional monsters) having sexual intercourse, predominantly with females or, to a lesser extent, males. Tentacle erotica can be consensual but mostly contains elements of rape.

The genre is well known enough in Japan that it is the subject of parody. In the 21st century, Japanese films of this genre have become recognized in the United States and Europe, although it remains a small, fetish-oriented part of the adult film industry. While most tentacle erotica is animated, there are also a few live-action films that depict it.

## History

[edit]

The earliest examples of tentacle erotica were woodblock prints depicting women being violated by octopuses, such as Kitao Shigemasa's Programme of Erotic Noh Plays (1781) and Shunshō Katsukawa's Lust of Many Women on One Thousand Nights (1786).[1]

Another early instance is an illustration from the 1814 Hokusai book Kinoe no Komatsu, known as The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. It is an example of shunga (Japanese erotic woodblock art) and has been reworked by a number of artists,[2] such as Masami Teraoka, who brought the image up to date with his 2001 work "Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven", which was part of his Waves and Plagues collection.

Tamatori steals the Dragon King's jewel, woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

While Western audiences in many cases interpret Hokusai's famous design as rape, Japanese audiences of the Edo period would have viewed it as consensual, recognizing the print as depicting the legend of the female abalone diver Tamatori.[3] In the story, Tamatori steals a jewel from the Dragon King. During her escape, the Dragon King and his sea-life minions (including octopuses) pursue her. The dialogue in the illustration shows the diver and two octopuses expressing mutual enjoyment.

Contemporary censorship in Japan dates to the Meiji period. The influence of European Victorian culture was a catalyst for legislative interest in public sexual practices. After World War II, the Allies imposed a number of reforms on the Japanese government, including censorship laws. The legal proscriptions against pornography, therefore, derive from the nation's penal code. Presently, "obscenity" is still prohibited. How this term is interpreted, however, has not remained constant. While exposed genitalia (and, until recently, pubic hair) is illegal, the diversity of permissible sexual acts is now fairly wide, relative to other liberal democracies.

Leaders within the tentacle porn industry have stated that much of their work was initially directed at circumventing this policy. According to the mangaka Toshio Maeda:

> At that time pre-Urotsukidōji, it was illegal to create a sensual scene in bed. I thought I should do something to avoid drawing such a normal sensual scene. So I just created a creature. His tentacle is not a penis as a pretext. I could say, as an excuse, this is not a penis; this is just a part of the creature. You know, the creatures, they don't have a gender. A creature is a creature. So it is not obscene – not illegal.[4]

## Culture

[edit]

### Animation

[edit]

The earliest animated form of tentacle erotica was in the 1985 original video animation (OVA) Dream Hunter Rem, though the scene in question was excised when the OVA was re-released in a form with sexual scenes removed. The first purely non-erotic anime portraying a tentacle assault would be the 1986 anime OVA Guyver: Out of Control, where a female Chronos soldier named Valcuria is enshrouded by the second (damaged) Guyver unit that surrounds her in tentacle form and assaults her.

Numerous animated tentacle erotica films followed in the next couple decades. Popular titles like 1986's Urotsukidoji, 1992's La Blue Girl, and 1995's Demon Beast Resurrection became common sights in large video store chains in the United States and elsewhere. The volume of films in this genre has slowed since the peak years in the 1990s, but they continue to be produced through the present day.[citation needed]

### Manga

[edit]

Tentacle hentai being sold at the Fancy Frontier 30.5 exhibition in Taiwan

While manga has featured stories of heroes being attacked by monsters with tentacles since its early days, the earliest examples of tentacle erotica in manga belong to "real life" erotic comedy manga magazines, which predate ero-gekiga. Multiple scenes were found in the March 12, 1968 issue of Weekly Manga Q, where several creatures with tentacles attacked women. Another early example belonged to Osamu Tezuka's sci-fi story The Returnees (1973), where a scene depicts a woman being assaulted and impregnated by a space creature.[5] Legend of Lyon: Flair (1986), directed by Yorihisa Uchida, featured scenes of tentacle rape, and is arguably the first known animated hentai title to include it.

Toshio Maeda's Urotsukidōji was a pioneer in the tentacle rape genre with its mix of sex, bishōjo and tentacles. Maeda's depiction of tentacles was more creature-like and possessed at will, imitating male genitalia. However, six years prior to Urotsukidōji in 1976, Maeda created his first tentacle work in an experimental short story called SEX Tearing, which is considered the origin for Urotsukidōji as well as the earliest work depicting sex between women and tentacles.[6][7] In 1989, Maeda's manga Demon Beast Invasion created what could be considered the modern Japanese paradigm of tentacle porn, in which the elements of sexual assault are emphasized. Maeda explained that he invented the practice to get around strict Japanese censorship regulations, which prohibit the depiction of the penis but do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar appendages.

Go Nagai has also been known for including scenes of tentacle rape in his stories, the most notable examples being Barabanba and MazinSaga.

### Live action

[edit]

The use of sexualized tentacles in live-action films, while much rarer, started in American B-movie horror films and has since migrated to Japan. B-movie producer Roger Corman used the concept of tentacle rape in a brief scene in his 1970 film The Dunwich Horror, a film adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name. Vice magazine identifies this as "perhaps cinema history's first tentacle-rape scene".[8]

A decade later, Corman would again use tentacle rape while producing Galaxy of Terror, released in 1980. Corman also directed a scene in which actress Taaffe O'Connell, playing an astronaut on a future space mission, is captured, raped, and killed by a giant, tentacled worm. The film borrows the concept of the "Id Monster" from the 1950s film Forbidden Planet, with the worm being a manifestation of O'Connell's character's fears. The scene was graphic enough that the film's director, B. D. Clark, refused to helm it, and O'Connell refused to do the full nudity required by Corman, so Corman directed the scene himself and used a body double for some of the more graphic shots. Initially given an X-rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, small cuts were made to the scene, which changed the film's rating to "R.".

Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead includes a scene where actress Ellen Sandweiss' character is attacked by the possessed woods she walks through. The evil spirit inhabiting the woods uses tree limbs and branches to ensnare, strip, and rape her, possessing her through the sexual acts in a way reminiscent of that in which tentacles are depicted in other pieces of media.[9] The scene was repeated in a shorter version in the sequel, Evil Dead II, released in 1987.

The 1981 Japanese film Edo Porn, about the life of artist Katsushika Hokusai, featured the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife painting in a live-action depiction. In the 1981 film Possession, a woman copulates with a tentacled creature, although the tentacles themselves are never explicitly shown to penetrate her.

The popularity of these films has led to the subsequent production of numerous live-action tentacle films in Japan from the 1990s to the present day. The theme rarely appears in adult American cinema and art; one example is American artist Zak Smith, who painted several works featuring octopuses and porn stars in various stages of intercourse.[10][11] In 2016, Amat Escalante directed the art-house film The Untamed, which depicts a live-action scene between the female protagonist and a tentacled space alien.[12]

## See also

[edit]

* Censorship in Japan
* Monster erotica
* Pornography in Japan

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Kimi, Rito (2021). The History of Hentai Manga: An Expressionist Examination of Eromanga. FAKKU. pp. 137, 138. ISBN 978-1-63442-253-6.
2. ^ Courage, Katherine Harmon (2013). "Tentacle Erotica". Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780698137677.
3. ^ Talerico, Danielle. "Interpreting Sexual Imagery in Japanese Prints: A Fresh Approach to Hokusai's Diver and Two Octopi", in Impressions, The Journal of the Ukiyo-e Society of America, Vol. 23 (2001).
4. ^ Manga Artist Interview Series (Part 1), 2002
5. ^ Kimi, Rito (2021). The History of Hentai Manga: An Expressionist Examination of Eromanga. FAKKU. pp. 141, 142. ISBN 978-1-63442-253-6.
6. ^ Kimi, Rito (2021). The History of Hentai Manga: An Expressionist Examination of Eromanga. FAKKU. p. 144\. ISBN 978-1-63442-253-6.
7. ^ Kimi, Rito (2021). The History of Hentai Manga: An Expressionist Examination of Eromanga. FAKKU. p. 156\. ISBN 978-1-63442-253-6.
8. ^ Eil, Philip (August 20, 2015). "The Posthumous Pornification of H. P. Lovecraft". Vice. Retrieved March 10, 2017.
9. ^ Scherer, Agnes (2016). Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film. Springer Publishing. p. 41\. ISBN 9781137570635.
10. ^ "Zak Smith - Artist - Saatchi Gallery". www.saatchigallery.com. 3 February 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
11. ^ "Porn thai". Thai Porns. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
12. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (2017-08-17). "The Untamed review – a film about love, pleasure and a tentacular sex monster". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-07-07.

## External links

[edit]

* Manga Artist Interview Series Part I, Sake-Drenched Postcards--interview with Toshio Maeda.

* v
* t
* e

Pornography

Pornography|

| Types|

* Amateur
* Cartoon
* Hentai
* Tijuana bible
* Child
* Erotica
* Simulated
* Deepfake
* Feminist
* Hardcore
* Internet
* Mobile
* Revenge
* Sexting
* Softcore

|

Genres|

* Alt
* Bondage
* Clopping
* Convent
* Ethnic
* Gang bang
* Gonzo
* Incest
* MILF
* Mormon
* Panda
* Rape
* Reality
* Sissy hypno
* Tentacle
* LGBTQ:
* Lesbian
* erotica
* pornography
* Gay
* Bisexual
* Transgender
* Queer
* Women's
* Yiffing
* Zoophilic

Related|

* History
* Film actor

Organizations|

* Adult Film Association of America
* Critics Adult Film Association
* Fans of X-Rated Entertainment
* Free Speech Coalition
* X-Rated Critics Organization
* List of pornography companies
* List of pornographic film studios
* Fuck for Forest

Opposition to
pornography|

| Movements|

* Anti-pornography movement in the United Kingdom
* Anti-pornography movement in the United States
* Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance

|

Organizations|

* Churchmen's Committee for Decent Publications
* Feminists Fighting Pornography
* Fight the New Drug
* The Marriage Vow
* No More Page 3
* Stop Bild Sexism
* Stop Child Trafficking Now
* Stop Porn Culture
* Women Against Pornography
* Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
* XXXchurch.com

Overuse|

* Accountability software
* Employee monitoring software
* Internet filter
* NoFap
* Parental controls

Views|

* Feminist
* Sex-positive feminist
* Religious
* Opposition

Media|

* Audio
* Film
* Cartoon
* Parody
* Generative AI pornography
* Magazines
* List
* Page 3
* Video games
* Eroge

Possible effects|

* Pornography addiction
* STDs

People|

* British performers
* Gay male performers
* Pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films
* Mainstream actors who have appeared in pornographic films
* Film directors
* List of hentai creators

Events|

* Adultcon
* AVN Adult Entertainment Expo
* Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival
* Brussels International Festival of Eroticism
* Exotic Erotic Ball
* Exxxotica Expo
* HUMP!
* Porn Sunday

Miscellaneous|

* Adult movie theater
* Blue Movie
* Golden Age
* Not safe for work
* Pornification
* Pornotopia
* R18 certificate
* Rule 34
* Sex shop
* Sexualization
* X rating

See also|

* Erotica
* Art
* Comics
* Film
* Literature
* Photography
* Women's
* Human female sexuality
* Human male sexuality
* Human sexual activity
* Nudity
* Overwatch and pornography
* Pokémon and pornography
* Ribaldry
* Right to sexuality
* Sex-positive feminism
* Sex-positive movement
* Sexual content
* Sexual and reproductive health and rights
* Sexual repression
* Sexual revolution
* Stanley v. Georgia
* Imagery of nude celebrities
* sex tape

* Category
* Erotica and pornography portal
* Human sexuality portal

* v
* t
* e

Animation industry in Japan

* History of anime

Industry associations|

* The Association of Japanese Animations
* Japanese Animation Creators Association

Awards|

* Animation Kobe Awards
* Animax Anison Grand Prix
* Anime Grand Prix
* Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year
* Japan Media Arts Awards
* Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film
* Newtype Anime Award
* Ōfuji Noburō Award
* Seiyu Awards
* Sugoi Japan Award
* Tokyo Anime Award

Types|

* Original net animation (ONA)
* Original video animation (OVA)
* Television
* Late night
* UHF

Genres|

* Bara
* Cooking
* Cute Girls Doing Cute Things
* Ecchi
* Futanari
* Girls with guns
* Harem
* Hentai
* Tentacle erotica
* Isekai
* Iyashikei
* Kaitō
* Lolicon
* Magical girl
* Mecha
* Otomechikku
* Ryona
* Shotacon
* Sports
* Teens' love
* Yaoi
* Yuri

Anime programming blocks|

* Animeism
* IMAnimation
* Noise (defunct)
* Noitamina
* +Ultra

Related topics|

* Animage
* Animation director (List of anime directors)
* Animedia
* Katsudō Shashin
* Kinema Junpo
* Manga
* Newtype
* Anime song

* Portal

* v
* t
* e

Film genres

By style|

* Action
* Heroic bloodshed
* Hong Kong action
* Adventure
* Art
* Biographical
* Comedy
* Action
* Black
* Commedia all'italiana
* Sexy
* Dramedy
* Gross out
* Horror
* Parody
* Mo lei tau
* Remarriage
* Romantic
* Sex
* Screwball
* Silent
* Slapstick
* Cyberpunk
* Japanese
* Documentary
* Animated
* City symphony
* Direct cinema
* Docudrama
* Mockumentary
* Mondo
* Pseudo
* Semi
* Travel
* Video essay
* Drama
* Calligrafismo
* Dramedy
* Historical
* Legal
* Erotic
* Category III films
* Commedia sexy all'italiana
* Pink
* Sexploitation
* Thriller
* Educational
* Social guidance
* Epic
* Sword-and-sandal
* Experimental
* Exploitation
* see Exploitation film template
* Fantasy
* Comedy
* Contemporary
* Fantastique
* High
* Historical
* Magic realism
* Science
* Film noir
* Neo-noir
* Pulp noir
* Tech noir
* Gothic
* Romance
* Southern
* Space
* Suburban
* Urban
* Horror
* Arthouse
* Black
* Body
* Cannibal
* Chinese horror
* Christmas horror
* Comedy
* Eco
* Fantastique
* Found footage
* German underground
* Ghost
* Giallo
* List of films
* Holiday
* Japanese horror
* Korean horror
* Lovecraftian
* Melodrama
* Korean
* Natural
* New French Extremity
* Psycho-biddy
* Psychological
* Science fiction
* Slasher
* Splatter
* Satanic
* Maximalist film
* Minimalist film
* Mumblecore
* Musical
* Arthouse
* Backstage
* Jukebox
* Musicarello
* Operetta
* Sceneggiata
* Mystery
* Detective
* Occult detective
* Whodunit
* Giallo
* Crossover
* Pornographic
* Hardcore pornography
* Softcore pornography
* (Malayalam)
* Propaganda
* Reality
* Romantic
* Comedy
* Bromantic
* Fantasy
* Gothic
* Paranormal
* Thriller
* Science fiction
* Art
* Comedy
* Fantastique
* Fantasy
* Gothic
* Horror
* Military
* New Wave
* Space opera
* Steampunk
* Tokusatsu
* Western
* Slice of life
* Iyashikei
* Slow cinema
* Survival
* Thriller
* Comedy
* Erotic
* Financial
* Giallo
* Legal
* New French Extremity
* Political
* Psychological
* Romantic
* Techno
* Transgressive
* Cinema of Transgression
* Extreme cinema
* New French Extremity
* Trick

By theme|

* Animals
* Beach party
* Body swap
* Buddy
* Buddy cop
* Female
* Cabrito
* Cannibal
* Chicano
* Colonial
* Coming-of-age
* Concert
* Crime
* Detective
* Gangster
* Gentleman thief
* Gokudō
* Gong'an
* Heist
* Heroic bloodshed
* Hood
* Mafia
* Mafia comedy
* Mumbai underworld
* Poliziotteschi
* Yakuza
* Cute Girls Doing Cute Things
* Dance
* Disaster
* Apocalyptic
* Drug
* Psychedelic
* Stoner
* Dystopian
* Ecchi
* Ero guro
* Ethnographic
* Exploitation
* Blaxploitation
* Mexploitation
* Turksploitation
* Extraterrestrial
* Food and drink
* Gendai-geki
* Ghost
* Goona-goona epic
* Gothic
* Romance
* Space
* Suburban
* Girls with guns
* Harem
* Hentai
* Lolicon
* Shotacon
* Tentacle erotica
* Homeland
* Isekai
* Jidaigeki
* Samurai
* Kaitō
* LGBTQ
* Yaoi
* Yuri
* Luchador
* Magical girl
* Martial arts
* Bruceploitation
* Chopsocky
* Gun fu
* Kung fu
* Ninja
* Wuxia
* Mecha
* Anime
* Monster
* Giant monster
* Kaiju
* Mummy
* Vampire
* Zombie
* Zombie comedy
* Mountain
* Mouth of Garbage
* Muslim social
* Nature
* Environmental issues
* Opera
* Outlaw biker
* Ozploitation
* Partisan film
* Prison
* Women
* Race
* Rape and revenge
* Road
* Rubble
* Rumberas
* Sageuk
* Sexploitation
* Bavarian porn
* Commedia sexy all'italiana
* Mexican sex comedy
* Nazi exploitation
* Pornochanchada
* Nunsploitation
* Sex report
* Shoshimin-eiga
* Slavery
* Slice of life
* Snuff
* South Seas
* Sports
* Spy
* Eurospy
* Superhero
* Surfing
* Swashbuckler
* Sword-and-sandal
* Sword and sorcery
* Travel
* imaginary voyage
* Trial
* Vigilante
* War
* Anti-war
* Euro War
* Submarine
* Western
* Acid
* Contemporary Western
* Dacoit Western
* Fantasy
* Florida
* Horror
* Meat pie
* Northern
* Ostern
* Revisionist
* Science fiction
* Singing cowboy
* Space
* Spaghetti
* Weird Western
* Zapata Western

By movement
or period|

* Absolute
* American eccentric cinema
* Australian New Wave
* Auteur films
* Berlin School
* Bourekas
* Brighton School
* British New Wave
* Kitchen sink realism
* Budapest school
* Calligrafismo
* Cannibal boom
* Cinéma du look
* Cinema Novo
* Cinema of Moral Anxiety
* Cinema of Transgression
* Cinéma pur
* Commedia all'italiana
* Czechoslovak New Wave
* Documentary Film Movement
* Dogme 95
* Erra Cinema
* European art cinema
* Film d'art
* Film gris
* Free Cinema
* French Impressionist
* French New Wave
* German Expressionist
* German underground horror
* Golden Age of Argentine cinema
* Golden Age of Mexican Cinema
* Golden Age of Nigerian Cinema
* Grupo Cine Liberación
* Heimatfilm
* Hollywood on the Tiber
* Hong Kong New Wave
* Indiewood
* Iranian New Wave
* Italian futurist
* Italian neorealist
* Japanese New Wave
* Kammerspielfilm
* L.A. Rebellion
* Lettrist
* Modernist film
* Mumblecore
* Neorealist
* New French Extremity
* New German
* New generation
* New Hollywood
* New Nollywood
* New Objectivity
* New Queer
* No Wave
* Nuevo Cine Mexicano
* Pan-Indian film
* Parallel cinema
* Persian Film
* Philippine New Wave
* Poetic realist
* Polish Film School
* Poliziotteschi
* The Prague film school
* Prussian film
* Pure Film Movement
* Remodernist
* Romanian New Wave
* Slow cinema
* Spaghetti Western
* Socialist realist
* Social realist
* Kitchen sink realism
* Soviet parallel
* Structural
* Surrealist
* Sword-and-sandal
* Taiwan New Cinema
* Telefoni Bianchi
* Thai New Wave
* Third Cinema
* Toronto New Wave
* Vulgar auteurism
* Yugoslav Black Wave

By demographic|

* Adult
* Black
* Children and family
* Anime
* Men
* Seinen
* Stag
* Teen
* Shōnen
* Shōjo
* Women
* Chick flick
* Josei

By format,
technique,
approach,
or production|

* 3D
* Actuality
* Animation
* Anime
* Art
* Cartoon
* Computer
* Stop-motion
* Traditional
* Anthology
* Art
* B movie
* Behind-the-scenes
* Black-and-white
* Blockbuster
* Cinéma vérité
* Classical Hollywood cinema
* Collage
* Color
* Compilation
* Composite
* Computer screen
* Cult
* midnight movie
* Database cinema
* Direct-to-video
* ONA
* OVA
* Docufiction
* Ethnofiction
* Experimental
* Abstract
* Feature
* Featurette
* Film à clef
* Film-poem
* Found footage
* High concept
* Hyperlink cinema
* Independent
* Guerrilla filmmaking
* List of American independent films
* Interstitial art
* Live action
* animation
* Low-budget
* Major film studios
* Masala
* Maximalist film
* Message picture
* Meta-film
* Minimalist film
* Mockbuster
* Modernist film
* Musical short
* Mythopoeia
* Neorealist
* No-budget
* One-shot
* Paracinema
* Participatory
* Poetry
* Postmodernist
* Reverse motion
* Satire
* Sceneggiata
* Semidocumentary
* Serial
* Shinpa
* Short
* Silent
* Slow cinema
* Socialist realist
* Sound
* Television film
* Underground
* Video nasty
* Vulgar auteurism
* Z movie

* Category

*[lit.]: literal translation
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template