title: Community of Madrid

text: The Complutense University of Madrid is one of the most prestigious, and the largest, university in Spain and one of the oldest universities in the world. It has 10,000 staff members and a student population of 117,000. Nearly all academic staff are Spanish. It is located on two campuses, in the university quarter Ciudad Universitaria at Moncloa in Madrid, and in Somosaguas. The Complutense University of Madrid was founded in Alcalá de Henares, old Complutum, by Cardinal Cisneros in 1499. Nevertherless, its real origin dates back from 1293, when King Sancho IV of Castile built the General Schools of Alcalá, which would give rise to Cisnero's Complutense University. During the course of 1509-1510 five schools were already operative: Artes y Filosofía (Arts & Philosophy), Teología (Theology), Derecho Canónico (Canonical Laws), Letras (Liberal Arts) and Medicina (Medicine). In 1836, during the reign of Isabel II, the University was moved to Madrid, where it took the name of Central University and was located at San Bernardo Street. Subsequently, in 1927, a new University City ("Ciudad Universitaria") was planned to be built in the district of Moncloa-Aravaca. The Spanish Civil War turned the University City into a war zone, with several faculties sustaining severe damage during the conflict. By 1943 the Central University started to be known as the University of Madrid.


title: Community of Madrid

text: In 1970 the University of Madrid was renamed to Complutense University of Madrid. It was then when the new campus at Somosaguas was created in order to house the new School of Social Sciences. The old Alcalá campus was reopened as the independent University of Alcalá in 1977.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Another important university is the Autonoma, perhaps Spain's best university for research along with the Complutense, was instituted under the leadership of the famous physicist, Nicolás Cabrera. The Autonoma is widely recognised for its research strengths in theoretical physics. Known simply as "la Autónoma" in Madrid, its main site is the Cantoblanco Campus, situated 15 kilometers to the north of the capital (M-607) and close to the municipal areas of Madrid, namely Alcobendas, San Sebastián de los Reyes, Tres Cantos and Colmenar Viejo.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Located on the main site are the Rectorate building and the Faculties of Science, Philosophy and Fine Arts, Law, Economic Science and Business Studies, Psychology, Higher School of Computing Science and Engineering, and the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education. The Medical School is located outside the main site and beside the Hospital Universitario La Paz.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Other local universities, among many others, are the Technical University of Madrid, as the result of merging the different Technical Schools of Engineering; the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, founded in 1499; the Carlos III, whose philosophy is to create responsible free-thinking people with a sensitivity to social problems and an involvement in the concept of progress based on freedom, justice and tolerance and the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, involved in a number of academic exchange programmes, work practice schemes and international projects with over 200 Higher Education Institutions in Europe, South America, North America, and Asia.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Other universities in Madrid: Rey Juan Carlos University (public), Alfonso X El Sabio University, Universidad Antonio de Nebrija, Universidad Camilo José Cela, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Universidad Europea de Madrid, and Universidad San Pablo (all of them private).


title: Community of Madrid

text: Madrid is also home to the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, and many other private educational institutions.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Madrid is served by Barajas International Airport. Barajas is the main hub of Iberia Airlines and consequently serves as the main gateway to the Iberian peninsula from Europe, the Americas, and the rest of the world. Current passenger volumes range upwards of 52 million passengers per year, putting it in the top 10 busiest airports in the world. Given annual increases close to 10%, a new fourth terminal has been constructed. It has significantly reduced delays and doubled the capacity of the airport to more than 70 million passengers per year. Two additional runways have also been constructed, making Barajas a fully operational four-runway airport.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Cercanías Madrid is the commuter rail service that serves Madrid, the capital of Spain, and its metropolitan area. It is operated by Cercanías, the commuter rail division of Renfe, the former monopoly of rail services in Spain. The system is infamous for being the target of 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. The attacks triggered a small reduction in the ridership of the system, but it is still the most used and most profitable (by 2004) of the commuter rail services in Spain. The total length spans .


title: Community of Madrid

text: Spain's railway system, the "Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles" (Renfe), operates the vast majority of Spain's railways. In Madrid, the main rail terminals are Atocha in the south and Chamartín in the north.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The crown jewel of Spain's next decade of infrastructure construction is the Spanish high-speed rail network, Alta Velocidad Española AVE. Currently, an ambitious plan includes the construction of a network, centered on Madrid. The overall goal is to have all important provincial cities be no more than four hours away from Madrid and no more than six hours away from Barcelona. As of 2008, AVE high-speed trains link Madrid-Atocha station to Seville, Málaga, and Toledo in the south, Valencia, Albacete, Cuenca and Alicante in the east, and to Zaragoza, Tarragona, Girona, Leida, Huesca and Barcelona in the north-east. AVE trains also arrive to Segovia, Valladolid, Zamora and León.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Already connected by tunnels used by conventional rail lines, a tunnel link connecting the Atocha and Chamartín stations with high-speed rail services is finished but, as of August 2019, yet to be inaugurated.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Serving the city's population of some six million, the Madrid Metro is one of the most extensive and fastest-growing metro networks in the world. With the addition of a loop serving suburbs to Madrid's south-west "Metrosur", it is now the second largest metro system in Western Europe, second only to London's Underground. In 2007, Madrid's metro system was expanded, and it currently runs over of line. The province of Madrid is also served by an extensive commuter rail network called Cercanías.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Metro fees are regulated by the Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM) jointly with fees for commuter rail, bus transport and light-rail.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The flag, coat of arms and hymn of the Community of Madrid were set through the regional Law 2/1983 published in the official regional gazette on 24 December 1983:


title: Community of Madrid

text: The flag is described as follows: ""the flag of the Community of Madrid is crimson red, with seven silver five-pointed stars, arranged 4 and 3 on the centre of the canvas"". According to the law, the flag should wave both at the outdoors (occupying a preferential place next to the flag of Spain) and at the indoors of every public building of the autonomous administration as well as every public building of the municipal administrations located within the territory of the autonomous community.


title: Community of Madrid

text: ""The coat of arms of the Community of Madrid features just one partition gules, and on it, two paired, embattled, turreted, castles or, with port and windows tinctured azure, masoned sable, surmounted by seven five-pointed stars argent arranged four and three on chief."" The crest describes the heraldic representation of the royal crown of Spain.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The official anthem was defined along the flag and coat of arms. However it has very limited institutional use, and thus, it is barely known.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Although the region does not produce enough food to be self-sufficient, the varied territory of the region outside the urbanised centre provides enough food commodities to create its own cuisine: cheese of Campo Real, vine with Vinos de Madrid DO, strawberries and aspargus from Aranjuez, muskmelons from Villaconejos, artichokes from Ciempozuelos, "judiones" from Montejo de la Sierra, garlic from Chinchón, chickpeas from Navalcarnero, lentils from Colmenar de Oreja, cauliflower from Griñón or a number of vegetables from the Alberche Valley.


title: Community of Madrid

text: In addition, due to the rich restaurant business in the region, "all the regional cuisines of Spain are represented in Madrid" according to . As the madrilenian cuisine has absorbed much from the rest of regional cuisines of Spain, there is ambiguity when it comes to define the former; however, dishes such as the "cocido madrileño", the "potaje de garbanzos", the "", the "sopa de ajo" or the "tortilla de patatas" are considered part of the madrilenian cuisine regardless of their geographical specificity. By April 2011 the region had over 40,0000 bars, 2,700 coffee shops and nearly 10,000 restaurants.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The majority of the religious population is Catholic, Roman Catholicism is, by far, the largest religion in Community of Madrid. According to a 2019 CIS poll, 18.9% of the surveyed people in the region identified as practising Catholic and 43.0% as non-practising Catholic. The most important religious minorities are evangelicals, Jews and Muslims.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Spanish Evangelical Church (IEE), several Presbiterian or Reformed Churches, the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church (IERE), Baptist and Free churches (Unión Evangélica Bautista Española, Federación de las Iglesias Evangélicas Independientes de España), the Asambleas de Hermanos), Pentecostal Churches (Asambleas de Dios, Iglesia de la Biblia Abierta, Iglesia Filadelfia, Iglesia Cuadrangular), Charismatic churches (Iglesias de Buenas Noticias, Asamblea Cristiana, Asamblea para la Evangelización Mundial para Cristo), minor churches such as The Salvation Army, Mennonite Churches and Hermanos en Cristo), non-grouped evangelical churches, and adventist churches. Pentecostal churches have lately experienced a notable growth due to the arrival of immigrants from Latin-America. Evangelicals also have a notable following among the Romani population. The Muslim population includes the first contemporary Muslims in Spain (who came from Middle East and had middle class university background), converts (chiefly sunni Muslims) and representatives of a second arrival of Muslim economic migrants (with more of an economic migrant profile than the first wave).


title: Community of Madrid

text: Since the second half of the 20th century the Jewish population in the region grew due to both Sephardi Jews that came from the MENA, as well as exiles from Latin America (mostly Argentinians) primordially Ashkenazim.


title: Community of Madrid

text: There are also Greek, Romanian and Russian orthodox Christians, Jehovah Witnesses (15,031 according to 2001 estimations) and Mormons (6,700 according to 2007 estimations). There are some buddhists (the majority of which have Spanish citizenship and are from the middle to uppermiddle class), and small minorities of believers of religions of vedic origin: hinduism (primordially Sindhis), sikhism, Hare Krishna and Brahma Kumaris. There are a scarce amount of believers of the Baháʼí Faith. Other confessions, often derided as "cults" ("sectas") in the country, such as the Unification movement and Scientology, have a marginal presence.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The regional day is the 2 May, commemorating the Dos de Mayo Uprising of the citizens of Madrid against the French occupation in 1808 that triggered the wave of insurrections marking the beginning of the Peninsular War. It is a public holiday in the Community of Madrid since 1984, when it was approved by the regional legislature and sanctioned as law.


title: Community of Madrid

text: A floral tribute is traditionally offered to the fallen "heroes" by the regional authorities. The ceremony of presentation of commemorative medals to stand out individuals also take place on this day in the Royal House of the Post Office.


title: Community of Madrid

text: According to a 2010 study by the National Sports Council (CSD), madrilenians led the country in terms of grassroots sports practice.


title: Community of Madrid

text: Roughly a 52% of the regional population between 15 and 75 years old practised one sports modality, while a 10% of the population between 15 and 75 years old practised two or more sports. The most practised sports modalities were: fitness gymnastics (43.6%), football (22.1%), swimming (20.7%), cycling (19.6%), jogging/running (16.2%), padel (9.9%), athletics (8.3%), basketball (6.9%), other football modalities (6.6%), hiking (6.1%), martial arts (4.5%), body-building (3.5%), shooting/hunting (0.9%) and recreational fishing (0.2%).


title: Community of Madrid

text: Association football is the most popular sport in Spain in terms of passive following. The Madrid Football Federation is the governing body of the sport of football in region. The Community of Madrid has its own autonomous team, the Madrid autonomous football team, taking part in friendly fixtures. It currently has 2 top flight men's football teams: Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. The first of them, Real Madrid, has become one of the most valuable sports teams in the planet.


title: Community of Madrid

text: The regional administration had its own big track and field stadium, "La Peineta", inaugurated in 1994. It was later transferred to the Madrid City Council, becoming the center of two unsuccessful bids of the city of Madrid to the Summer Olympics.


title: Finger heart

text: The mini heart gesture is a trend that was popularized in South Korea in which the index finger and thumb come together like a snap to form a tiny heart.


title: Finger heart

text: Before the appearance of finger hearts, it was common to make small hearts with two hands or to make large hearts by raising and curving both arms above the head. Conventionally, heart display using both hands and arms has been performed worldwide, but finger hearts are also called Korean Finger Hearts because they are associated with the rise of South Korean pop culture.


title: Finger heart

text: In South Korea, it is a known symbol among Korean celebrities (namely actors and singers) and their fans, and is popularly performed using the thumb and index finger.


title: Finger heart

text: Though various instances of finger hearts may be found from before 2010 (namely, in K-pop musician G-Dragon's childhood photo), finger hearts are considered to have been first popularized by actress Kim Hye-soo then in the K-pop community by Infinite's Nam Woohyun in 2011.


title: Finger heart

text: The thumb and index finger gesture has become popular across Asia due to the popularity of K-pop and Korean dramas, and increasingly so in other parts of the world as a factor of the Korean Wave. Most notably the K-pop band BTS have popularized the gesture to a wider international audience.


title: Finger heart

text: During the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, The North Face provided gloves with highlighted thumb and index finger sleeves to highlight this symbol.


title: Finger heart

text: In 2021, the finger heart was introduced as emoji "Hand with Index Finger and Thumb Crossed" with the release of Unicode 14.0 U+1FAF0.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros (passionate, romantic or sexual relationships) intended to arouse similar feelings in readers. This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text.


title: Erotic literature

text: Although cultural disapproval of erotic literature has always existed, its circulation was not seen as a major problem before the invention of printing, as the costs of producing individual manuscripts limited distribution to a very small group of wealthy and literate readers. The invention of printing, in the 15th century, brought with it both a greater market and increasing restrictions, including censorship and legal restraints on publication on the grounds of obscenity. Because of this, much of the production of this type of material became clandestine.


title: Erotic literature

text: The oldest located love poem is Istanbul 2461, an erotic monologue written by a female speaker directed to king Shu-Sin.


title: Erotic literature

text: In ancient Sumer, a whole cycle of poems revolved around the erotic lovemaking between the goddess Inanna and her consort Dumuzid the Shepherd.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Songs, found in the last section of the Tanakh, celebrates sexual love, giving "the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each other, proffering invitations to enjoy".


title: Erotic literature

text: Many erotic poems have survived from ancient Greece and Rome. The Greek poets Straton of Sardis and Sappho of Lesbos both wrote erotic lyric poems. The poet Archilochus wrote numerous satirical poems filled with obscene and erotic imagery. Erotic poems continued to be written in Hellenistic and Roman times by writers like Automedon ("The Professional" and "Demetrius the Fortunate"), Philodemus ("Charito") and Marcus Argentarius. Notable Roman erotic poets included Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Martial and Juvenal, and the anonymous Priapeia. Some later Latin authors such as Joannes Secundus also wrote erotic verse.


title: Erotic literature

text: "Haft Peykar" () also known as "Bahramnameh" (, "The Book of Bahram") is a romantic epic by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi written in 1197. This poem is a part of the "Nizami's Khamsa". The original title "Haft Peykar" can be translated literally as “seven portraits” with the figurative meaning of “seven beauties.” The poem is a masterpiece of erotic literature, but it is also a profoundly moralistic work.


title: Erotic literature

text: During the Renaissance period, many poems were not written for publication; instead, they were merely circulated in manuscript form among a relatively limited readership. This was the original method of circulation for the "Sonnets" of William Shakespeare, who also wrote the erotic poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece".


title: Erotic literature

text: In the 17th century, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–80) was notorious for obscene verses, many of which were published posthumously in compendiums of poetry by him and other "Restoration rakes" such as Sir Charles Sedley, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, and George Etherege. Though many of the poems attributed to Rochester were actually by other authors, his reputation as a libertine was such that his name was used as a selling point by publishers of collections of erotic verse for centuries after. One poem definitely by him was "A Ramble in St. James's Park", in which the protagonist's quest for healthy exercise in the park uncovers instead "Bugg'ries, Rapes and Incest" on ground polluted by debauchery from the time when "Ancient Pict began to Whore". This poem was being censored from collections of Rochester's poetry as late as 1953, though, in line with the subsequent general change in attitudes to sexuality, it was dramatised as a scene in the film "The Libertine" about his life, based on an existing play.


title: Erotic literature

text: English collections of erotic verse by various hands include the "Drollery" collections of the 17th century; "Pills to Purge Melancholy" (1698–1720); the "Roxburghe Ballads"; "Bishop Percy's Folio"; "The Musical Miscellany"; "National Ballad and Song: Merry Songs and Ballads Prior to the Year AD 1800" (1895–97) edited by J. S. Farmer; the three volume "Poetica Erotica" (1921) and its more obscene supplement the "Immortalia" (1927) both edited by T. R. Smith. French collections include "Les Muses gaillardes" (1606) "Le Cabinet satyrique" (1618) and "La Parnasse des poetes satyriques" (1622).


title: Erotic literature

text: A famous collection of four erotic poems, was published in England in 1763, called "An Essay on Woman". This included the title piece, an obscene parody of Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man"; "Veni Creator: or, The Maid's Prayer", which is original; the "Universal Prayer", an obscene parody of Pope's poem of the same name, and "The Dying Lover to his Prick", which parodies "A Dying Christian to his Soul" by Pope. These poems have been attributed to John Wilkes and/or Thomas Potter and receive the distinction of being the only works of erotic literature ever read out loud and in their entirety in the House of Lords—before being declared obscene and blasphemous by that body and the supposed author, Wilkes, declared an outlaw.


title: Erotic literature

text: Robert Burns worked to collect and preserve Scottish folk songs, sometimes revising, expanding, and adapting them. One of the better known of these collections is "The Merry Muses of Caledonia" (the title is not by Burns), a collection of bawdy lyrics that were popular in the music halls of Scotland as late as the 20th century.


title: Erotic literature

text: One of the 19th century's foremost poets—Algernon Charles Swinburne—devoted much of his considerable talent to erotic verse, producing, inter alia, twelve eclogues on flagellation titled "The Flogging Block" "by Rufus Rodworthy, annotated by Barebum Birchingly"; more was published anonymously in "The Whippingham Papers" (c. 1888). Another notorious anonymous 19th-century poem on the same subject is "The Rodiad", ascribed (seemingly falsely and in jest) to George Colman the Younger. John Camden Hotten even wrote a pornographic comic opera, "Lady Bumtickler’s Revels", on the theme of flagellation in 1872.


title: Erotic literature

text: Pierre Louÿs helped found a literary review, "La Conque" in 1891, where he proceeded to publish "Astarte"—an early collection of erotic verse already marked by his distinctive elegance and refinement of style. He followed up in 1894 with another erotic collection in 143 prose poems—"Songs of Bilitis (Les Chansons de Bilitis)", this time with strong lesbian themes.


title: Erotic literature

text: Although D. H. Lawrence could be regarded as a writer of love poems, he usually dealt in the less romantic aspects of love such as sexual frustration or the sex act itself. Ezra Pound, in his "Literary Essays", complained of Lawrence's interest in his own "disagreeable sensations" but praised him for his "low-life narrative". This is a reference to Lawrence's dialect poems akin to the Scots poems of Robert Burns, in which he reproduced the language and concerns of the people of Nottinghamshire from his youth. He called one collection of poems "Pansies" partly for the simple ephemeral nature of the verse but also a pun on the French word "panser", to dress or bandage a wound. "The Noble Englishman" and "Don't Look at Me" were removed from the official edition of "Pansies" on the grounds of obscenity; Lawrence felt wounded by this.


title: Erotic literature

text: From the age of 17, Gavin Ewart acquired a reputation for wit and accomplishment through such works as "Phallus in Wonderland" and "Poems and Songs", which appeared in 1939 and was his first collection. The intelligence and casually flamboyant virtuosity with which he framed his often humorous commentaries on human behaviour made his work invariably entertaining and interesting. The irreverent eroticism for which his poetry is noted resulted in W H Smith's banning of his "The Pleasures of the Flesh" (1966) from their shops.


title: Erotic literature

text: Canadian poet John Glassco wrote "Squire Hardman" (1967), a long poem in heroic couplets, purporting to be a reprint of an 18th-century poem by George Colman the Younger, on the theme of flagellation.


title: Erotic literature

text: Italian Una Chi distinguished herself among other publications for coldly analytical prose and for the crudeness of the stories.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic fiction is fiction that portrays sex or sexual themes, generally in a more literary or serious way than the fiction seen in pornographic magazines. It sometimes includes elements of satire or social criticism. Such works have frequently been banned by the government or religious authorities. Non-fictional works that portray sex or sexual themes may contain fictional elements. Calling an erotic book 'a memoir' is a literary device that is common in this genre. For reasons similar to those that make pseudonyms both commonplace and often deviously set up, the boundary between fiction and non-fiction is broad.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic fiction has been credited in large part for the sexual awakening and liberation of women in the 20th and 21st centuries.


title: Erotic literature

text: "The Satyricon" of Petronius Arbiter (later made into a film by Fellini) is an ancient Roman novel, which has partially survived, narrating the misadventures of an impotent man named Encolpius, who has been cursed by the god Priapus. The novel is filled with bawdy and obscene episodes, including orgies, ritual sex, and other erotic incidents. The discovery of several fragments of Lollianos's "Phoenician Tale" reveal that a genre of picaresque erotic novel also existed in ancient Greece. Some of the ancient Greek romance novels, such as "Daphnis and Chloe", also contain elements of sexual fantasy.


title: Erotic literature

text: From the medieval period, there is the "Decameron" (1353) by the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio (made into a film by Pasolini) which features tales of lechery by monks and the seduction of nuns from convents. This book was banned in many countries. Even five centuries after publication copies were seized and destroyed by the authorities in the US and the UK. For instance between 1954 and 1958 eight orders for destruction of the book were made by English magistrates.


title: Erotic literature

text: From the 15th century, another classic of Italian erotica is a series of bawdy folk tales called the "Facetiae" by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini. "The Tale of Two Lovers" () written in 1444 was one of the bestselling books of the 15th century, even before its author, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II. It is one of the earliest examples of an epistolary novel, full of erotic imagery. The first printed edition was published by Ulrich Zel in Cologne between 1467 and 1470.


title: Erotic literature

text: The 16th century was notable for the "Heptameron" of Marguerite de Navarre (1558), inspired by Boccaccio's "Decameron" and the notorious "I Modi" which married erotic drawings, depicting postures assumed in sexual intercourse, by Giulio Romano, with obscene sonnets by Pietro Aretino.


title: Erotic literature

text: Aretino also wrote the celebrated whore dialogue "Ragionamenti", in which the sex lives of wives, whores and nuns are compared and contrasted. Later works in the same genre include "La Retorica delle Puttane" ("The Whore's Rhetoric") (1642) by Ferrante Pallavicino; "L'Ecole des Filles" (The school for girls) (1655), attributed to Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange. and "The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea" (c. 1660) by Nicolas Chorier. Such works typically concerned the sexual education of a naive younger woman by an experienced older woman and often included elements of philosophising, satire and anti-clericalism. Donald Thomas has translated "L'École des filles", as "The School of Venus", (1972), described on its back cover as "both an uninhibited manual of sexual technique and an erotic masterpiece of the first order". In his diary Samuel Pepys records reading and (in an often censored passage) masturbating over this work. Chorier's "Dialogues of Luisa Sigea" goes a bit further than its predecessors in this genre and has the older female giving practical instruction of a lesbian nature to the younger woman plus recommending the spiritual and erotic benefits of a flogging from willing members of the holy orders. This work was translated into many languages under various different titles, appearing in English as "A Dialogue between a Married Woman and a Maid" in various editions. "The School of Women" first appeared as a work in Latin entitled "Aloisiae Sigaeae, Toletanae, Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris". This manuscript claimed that it was originally written in Spanish by Luisa Sigea de Velasco, an erudite poet and maid of honor at the court of Lisbon and was then translated into Latin by Jean or Johannes Meursius. The attribution to Sigea and Meursius was a lie; the true author was Nicolas Chorier.


title: Erotic literature

text: A unique work of this time is "Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery" (1684), a closet play by the notorious Restoration rake, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester in which Bolloxinion, King of Sodom, authorises "that buggery may be used O'er all the land, so cunt be not abused", which order, though appealing to soldiery, has deleterious effects generally, leading the court physician to counsel: "Fuck women, and let Bugg'ry be no more".


title: Erotic literature

text: An early pioneer of the publication of erotic works in England was Edmund Curll (1675–1747), who published many of the Merryland books. These were an English genre of erotic fiction in which the female body (and sometimes the male) was described in terms of a landscape. The earliest work in this genre seems to be "Erotopolis: The Present State of Bettyland" (1684) probably by Charles Cotton. This was included, in abbreviated form, in "The Potent Ally: or Succours from Merryland" (1741). Other works include " A New Description of Merryland. Containing a Topographical, Geographical and Natural History of that Country" (1740) by Thomas Stretzer, "Merryland Displayed" (1741) and set of maps entitled "A Compleat Set of Charts of the Coasts of Merryland" (1745). The last book in this genre appears to be a parody of Laurence Sterne's "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy" (1768) entitled "La Souriciere. The Mousetrap. A Facetious and Sentimental Excursion through part of Austrian Flanders and France" (1794) by "Timothy Touchit".


title: Erotic literature

text: The rise of the novel in 18th-century England provided a new medium for erotica. One of the most famous in this genre was "Fanny Hill" (1748) by John Cleland. This book set a standard in literary smut and was often adapted for the cinema in the 20th century. Peter Fryer suggests that "Fanny Hill" was a high point in British erotica, at least in the eighteenth century, in a way that mainstream literature around it had also reached a peak at that time, with writers like Defoe, Richardson and Fielding all having made important and lasting contributions to literature in its first half. After 1750, he suggests, when the began, the quality of mainstream writing and of smut declined in tandem. Writes Fryer: "sex was driven out of the English novel in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The castration of imaginative English literature made the clandestine literature of sex the most poverty stricken and boring in Europe".


title: Erotic literature

text: French writers kept their stride. One genre, which vies in oddness with the English "Merryland" productions, was inspired by the newly translated "Arabian Nights" and involved the transformation of people into objects which were in propinquity with or employed in sexual relationships: such as sofas, dildos and even bidets. The climax of this trend is represented in French philosopher Diderot's "Les Bijoux indiscrets" (1747) in which a magic ring is employed to get women's vaginas to give an account of their intimate sexual histories.


title: Erotic literature

text: Other works of French erotica from this period include "Thérèse Philosophe" (1748) by Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens which describes a girl's initiation into the secrets of both philosophy and sex; "The Lifted Curtain or Laura's Education", about a young girl's sexual initiation by her father, written by the French revolutionary politician Comte de Mirabeau; and "Les Liaisons dangereuses" (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the late 18th century, such works as "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue" and "120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade were exemplars of the theme of sado-masochism and influenced later erotic accounts of sadism and masochism in fiction. De Sade (as did the later writer Sacher-Masoch) lent his name to the sexual acts which he describes in his work.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the Victorian period, the quality of erotic fiction was much below that of the previous century—it was largely written by 'hacks'. Some works, however, borrowed from established literary models, such as Dickens. The period also featured a form of social stratification. Even in the throes of orgasm, the social distinctions between master and servant (including form of address) were scrupulously observed. Significant elements of sado-masochism were present in some examples, perhaps reflecting the influence of the English public school, where flagellation was routinely used as a punishment. These clandestine works were often anonymous or written under a pseudonym, and sometimes undated, thus definite information about them often proves elusive.


title: Erotic literature

text: English erotic novels from this period include "The Lustful Turk" (1828); "The Romance of Lust" (1873); "The Convent School, or Early Experiences of A Young Flagellant" (1876) by Rosa Coote [pseud.]; "The Mysteries of Verbena House, or, Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving" (1882) by "Etonensis" [pseud.], actually by George Augustus Sala and James Campbell Reddie; "The Autobiography of a Flea" (1887); "Venus in India" (1889) by 'Captain Charles Devereaux'; "Flossie, a Venus of Fifteen: By one who knew this Charming Goddess and worshipped at her shrine" (1897). A novel called "Beatrice", once marketed as another classic of Victorian erotica from the pen of the ubiquitous "Anon", now appears to be a very clever 20th-century pastiche of Victorian pornography. It first appeared in 1982 and was written by one Gordon Grimley, a sometime managing director of Penthouse International.


title: Erotic literature

text: Clandestine erotic periodicals of this age include "The Pearl", "The Oyster" and "The Boudoir", collections of erotic tales, rhymes, songs and parodies published in London between 1879 and 1883.


title: Erotic literature

text: The centre of the trade in such material in England at this period was Holywell Street, off the Strand, London. An important publisher of erotic material in the early 19th century was George Cannon (1789–1854), followed in mid-century by William Dugdale (1800–1868) and John Camden Hotten (1832–1873).


title: Erotic literature

text: An evaluation of 19th-century (pre-1885) and earlier underground erotica, from the author's own private archive, is provided by Victorian writer Henry Spencer Ashbee, using the pseudonym "Pisanus Fraxi", in his bibliographical trilogy "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" (1877), "Centuria Librorum Absconditorum" (1879) and "Catena Librorum Tacendorum" (1885). His plot summaries of the works he discusses in these privately printed volumes are themselves a contribution to the genre. Originally of very limited circulation, changing attitudes have led to his work now being widely available.


title: Erotic literature

text: Notable European works of erotica at this time were "Gamiani, or Two Nights of Excess" (1833) by Frenchman Alfred de Musset and "Venus in Furs" (1870) by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The latter erotic novella brought the attention of the world to the phenomenon of masochism, named after the author.


title: Erotic literature

text: Towards the end of the 19th century, a more "cultured" form of erotica began to appear by poets such as Algernon Charles Swinburne, who pursued themes of paganism, lesbianism and sado-masochism in such works as "Lesbia Brandon" and in contributions to "The Whippingham Papers" (1888) edited by St George Stock, author of "The Romance of Chastisement" (1866). This was associated with the Decadent movement, in particular, with Aubrey Beardsley and the "Yellow Book". But it was also to be found in France, amongst such writers as Pierre Louys, author of "Les chansons de Bilitis" (1894) (a celebration of lesbianism and sexual awakening).


title: Erotic literature

text: Pioneering works of gay male erotica from this time were "The Sins of the Cities of the Plain" (1881), which features the celebrated Victorian transvestite duo of Boulton and Park as characters, and "Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal" (1893).


title: Erotic literature

text: Two important publishers of erotic fiction at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were Leonard Smithers (1861–1907) and Charles Carrington (1867–1921), both of whom were subject to legal injunctions from the British authorities in order to prohibit their trade in such material. Because of this legal harassment the latter conducted his business from Paris. Erotic fiction published by Carrington at this period includes "" (1894) and "The Memoirs of Dolly Morton" (1899) set on a slave-plantation in the Southern States of America.


title: Erotic literature

text: 20th-century erotic fiction includes such classics of the genre as: "Suburban Souls" (1901), published by Carrington and possibly written by him also; "The Confessions of Nemesis Hunt" (issued in three volumes 1902, 1903, 1906), probably by George Reginald Bacchus, printed by Duringe of Paris for Leonard Smithers in London; "Josephine Mutzenbacher" (1906) by Anon. (presumably Felix Salten); "Sadopaideia" (1907) by Anon. (possibly Algernon Charles Swinburne); "Les Mémoires d'un jeune Don Juan" (1907) and the somewhat disturbing "Les onze mille verges" (1907) by Guillaume Apollinaire; "The Way of a Man with a Maid" (1908) and "A Weekend Visit" by Anon.; "Pleasure Bound Afloat" (1908), "Pleasure Bound Ashore" (1909) and "Maudie" (1909) by Anon. (probably George Reginald Bacchus), and "My Lustful Adventures" (1911) by the pseudonymous 'Ramrod'; "Manuel de civilité pour les petites filles à l'usage des maisons d'éducation" (1917) and "Trois filles de leur mère" (1926) by Pierre Louys; "Story of the Eye" (1928) by Georges Bataille; "Tropic of Cancer" (1934) and "Tropic of Capricorn" (1938) by Henry Miller; The "Story of O" (1954) by Pauline Réage; "Helen and Desire" (1954) and "Thongs" (1955) by Alexander Trocchi; "" (1969) by Vladimir Nabokov; "Journal" (1966), "Delta of Venus" (1978) and "Little Birds" (1979) by Anaïs Nin and "The Bicycle Rider" (1985) by Guy Davenport and "Lila Says" (1999) by an anonymous author.


title: Erotic literature

text: Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" is usually described as an erotic novel, but in the view of some it is a literary drama with elements of eroticism. Like Nabokov's "Lolita", Johannes Linnankoski's "The Song of the Blood-Red Flower" is also often described as erotic novel, only a little explicit and cleverly cloaked in gentler romance.


title: Erotic literature

text: "Lolita" and "The Story of O" were published by Olympia Press, a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebadged version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary works. "The Girls of Radcliff Hall" is a "roman à clef" novel in the form of a lesbian girls' school story written in the 1930s by the British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, under the pseudonym "Adela Quebec", published and distributed privately in 1932.


title: Erotic literature

text: Another trend in the twentieth century was the rise of the lesbian pulp fiction. Works such as "The Price of Salt" (1952), "Spring Fire" (1952), "Desert of the Heart" (1964), and "Patience and Sarah" (1969) were only a few examples of this subgenre. Many of the authors were women themselves, such as Gale Wilhelm and Ann Bannon. Many gay men also enjoyed gay pulp fiction, which borrowed the same sexploitation format as the lesbian books.


title: Erotic literature

text: Chinese literature has a rich catalogue of erotic novels that were published during the mid-Ming to early-Qing dynasties. Some well-known erotic novels with explicit sexuality during this period include "Ruyijun zhuan" ("The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction"), "The Embroidered Couch", "Su'e pian", "Langshi", "Chipozi zhuan", "Zhulin yeshi", and "The Carnal Prayer Mat". The critic Charles Stone has argued that pornographic technique is the "union of banality, obscenity, and repetition", and contains just the "rudiments" of plot, style, and characterization, while anything that is not sexually stimulating is avoided. If this is the case, he concluded, then "The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction" is the "fountainhead of Chinese erotica", but not pornography. The novel "Jin Ping Mei" (or "The Plum in the Golden Vase"), written by an author who used only a pseudonym (as his real name is unknown), is generally regarded as the greatest of all Chinese erotic novels. Its literary status is unparalleled among erotic fiction and its has been described by critic Stephen Marche in the "Los Angeles Review of Books" as "one of the world's great novels, if not simply the greatest."


title: Erotic literature

text: There is also a tradition of erotic fiction in Japan. Some portion of this is doujinshi, or independent comics, which are often fan fiction. The sharebon (洒落本) was a pre-modern Japanese literary genre. Plots revolved around humor and entertainment at the pleasure quarters. It is a subgenre of gesaku.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the 21st century, a number of female authors, including Alison Tyler, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Carol Queen, rose to prominence. Mitzi Szereto is an editor and author who said she wants to see the term "erotica" removed from novels and anthologies that include depictions of sexual activities. Other authors celebrate the term but also question why literature featuring sexual activity should be considered outside literary fiction.


title: Erotic literature

text: The debate was rekindled in 2012 by the release of the "50 Shades of Grey" trilogy written by E. L. James. The success of her erotica for every woman, dubbed 'mommyporn', gave rise to satires like "Fifty Shames of Earl Grey" by 'Fanny Merkin' (real name Andrew Shaffer), a book of essays called "Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades" (ed. Lori Perkins) and editors of erotic imprints re-evaluating the content and presentation of the genre.


title: Erotic literature

text: One development in contemporary erotica is the knowledge that many women, and not just men, are aroused by it. This is regardless of whether it is traditional pornography or tailor-made women's erotica. Romantic novels are sometimes marketed as erotica—or vice versa—as "mainstream" romance in recent decades has begun to exhibit blatant (if poetic) descriptions of sex. Erotic romance is a relatively new genre of romance with an erotic theme and very explicit love scenes, but with a romance at the heart of the story. Erotic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction and utilizes erotica in a fantasy setting. These stories can essentially cover any of the other subgenres of fantasy, such as high fantasy, contemporary fantasy, or even historical fantasy. The extents of the genre to break existing conventions and limits in subject matter have managed to shock popular audiences, with genres such as monster erotica emerging with the ease of digital publishing.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic fantasy fiction has similarities to romantic fantasy but is more explicit. Erotic fantasy can also be found in fan fiction, which uses plot elements and characters from popular fiction such as television, film, or novels. Erotic fan fiction may use characters from existing works in non-canon relationships, such as slash (homoerotic) fan fiction. Fan fiction and its Japanese counterpart, doujinshi, account for an enormous proportion of all erotica written today.


title: Erotic literature

text: The Internet and digital revolution in erotic depiction has changed the forms of representing scenes of a sexual nature. Jennifer Anne Skipp concluded that erotic literature was available among the poor and performed at public readings in 18th-century Britain.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotica was present on the Internet from its earliest days, as seen from rec.arts.erotica on Usenet. This news group was a moderated forum for the exchange of erotic stories that predated the creation of the World Wide Web. Most of this migrated to the alt.* hierarchy forums by the 1990s, including alt.sex.stories. The vast majority of Internet erotica is written by amateurs for the enjoyment of the author and readers instead of for profit. The increased interactivity and anonymity allows casual or hobby writers the opportunity not only to author their own stories but also to share them with a world-wide audience. Many authors adopt colorful pseudonyms and can develop cult followings within their genre, although a small number use their real names. Among transgender or non-binary authors, it is a common practice to adopt a feminine or masculine alter-ego, although a writer may use their own given name.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the 21st century, a new literary genre of student published journals at American universities was started. The following is a partial list of publications:


title: Erotic literature

text: Prostitution was the focus of much of the earliest erotic works. The term "pornography" is derived from the Greek "pornographos" meaning "writer about prostitutes", originally denoting descriptions of the lives and manners of prostitutes and their customers in Ancient Greece. According to Athenaeus in "The Deipnosophists" these constituted a considerable genre, with many lubricious treatises, stories and dramas on the subject. A surviving example of this genre is Lucian of Samosata's "Dialogues of the Courtesans".


title: Erotic literature

text: Accounts of prostitution have continued as a major part of the genre of erotic literature. In the 18th century, directories of prostitutes and their services, such as "Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies" (1757–1795), provided both entertainment and instruction.


title: Erotic literature

text: In the 19th century, the sensational journalism of W. T. Stead's "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" (1885) about the procuring of underage girls into the brothels of Victorian London provided a stimulus for the erotic imagination. Stead's account was widely translated and the revelation of "padded rooms for the purpose of stifling the cries of the tortured victims of lust and brutality" and the symbolic figure of "The Minotaur of London" confirmed European observers worst imaginings about "Le Sadisme anglais" and inspired erotic writers to write of similar scenes set in London or involving sadistic English gentlemen. Such writers include D'Annunzio in "Il Piacere", Paul-Jean Toulet in "Monsieur de Paur" (1898), Octave Mirbeau in "Jardin des Supplices" (1899) and Jean Lorrain in "Monsieur de Phocas" (1901).


title: Erotic literature

text: Well-known recent works in this genre are "The Happy Hooker: My Own Story" (1971) by the Dutch madame Xaviera Hollander and "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" (2005) by Belle de Jour.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic memoirs include Casanova's "Histoire de ma vie", from the 18th century. Notable English works of this genre from the 19th century include "The Ups and Downs of Life" (1867) by Edward Sellon and "My Secret Life" by "Walter". Edward Sellon was a writer, translator and illustrator of erotic literature who wrote erotica for the pornographic publisher William Dugdale, including such works as "The New Epicurean" (1865). The true identity of "Walter" is unknown. Ian Gibson, in "The Erotomaniac" speculates that "My Secret Life" was actually written by Henry Spencer Ashbee and therefore it is possible that "Walter" is a fiction.


title: Erotic literature

text: A famous German erotic work of this time, published in two parts in 1868 and 1875 entitled "Pauline the Prima Donna" purports to be the memoirs of the opera singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Various discrepancies with known facts of the singer's life, however, have led many to doubt the veracity of this book and the erotic adventures contained in the second volume, at least, appear to be implausible. These include the author indulging in lesbian sadomasochism, group sex, sodomy, bestiality, scatology, necrophilia, prostitution, and vampirism all before she had reached the age of 27. 20th-century contributions to the genre include Frank Harris's "My Life and Loves" (1922–27) and the convicted Austrian sex criminal Edith Cadivec's "Confessions and Experiences" and its sequel "Eros, the Meaning of My Life" (published together 1930-1). A 21st-century example is "One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed" (2004) by Melissa Panarello.


title: Erotic literature

text: Sex manuals are among the oldest forms of erotic literature. Three brief fragments of a sex manual written in the fourth century BC that is attributed to Philaenis of Samos have survived. Modern scholars generally regard it as a work of parody probably written by a man, and this was most likely Athenian sophist Polycrates. Other examples of the genre from the classical world include the lost works of Elephantis and Ovid's "Ars Amatoria". The Indian "Kama Sutra" is one of the world's best-known works of this type. The "Ananga Ranga", a 12th-century collection of Indian erotic works, is a lesser known one. "The Perfumed Garden for the Soul's Recreation", a 16th-century Arabic work by Sheikh Nefzaoui, is also well-known and is often reprinted and translated. There is anecdotal evidence that, as late as the mid-20th century, sex therapists and other physicians prescribed erotic literature as treatment for erectile dysfunction.


title: Erotic literature

text: The ancient Chinese versions of the sex manual include the texts that contain the Taoist sexual practices. These include books that show illustrations of the ideal sexual behavior because sex in this religion is not considered taboo but a manifestation of the concept of the yin and yang, wherein the male and female engage in an act of "joining of energy" or "joining of essences". The belief is that proper sexual practice is key to achieving good health. The manuals included the Ishinpo text, which is a medical document that also included sections devoted to sexual hygiene and sexual manuals of the Tang and Han dynasties.


title: Erotic literature

text: Chi kung manuals include warming a wet towel and covering penis for a few minutes, then rubbing one direction away from base of penis hundreds of times daily, similar to chi kung. Squeezing sphincter while semi-erect or fully erect dozens of times daily, particularly a few hours before intercourse will help delay orgasm or enhance non-ejaculatory pleasure. The Universal Tao system was developed by Mantak Chia to teach Taoist meditative and exercise techniques to balance the body and increase and refine one's vital energy, or chi ("chee"). Front and back channel, the back channel is where the perineum is located between anus and scrotum moving up the tailbone to the crown, the front channel is moving down the front of your body down the midline. Breathing up the back channel and then breathing out from the front channel down to and from the abdomen moves chi. Many practices combined help chi to be transformed into spiritual energy or shen.


title: Erotic literature

text: Not all sex manuals were produced to arouse or inform readers about sexual acts. Some were created as a form of satire or social criticism, as in the case of a mock-sex manual produced in the early sixteenth century by Pietro Aretino. It was in response to the clerical censorship of the nude engravings of the Roman artists Marcantonio Raimondi. This was released in cheap wood, with a corresponding sonnet serving as the voice of the characters.


title: Erotic literature

text: Erotic or pornographic works have often been prosecuted, censored and destroyed by the authorities on grounds of obscenity. In Medieval England, erotic or pornographic publications were the concern of the ecclesiastical courts. After the Reformation the jurisdiction of these courts declined in favour of the Crown which licensed every printed book. Prosecutions of books for their erotic content alone were rare and works which attacked the church or state gave much more concern to the authorities than erotica or 'obscene libel' as it was then known. For instance the Licensing Act of 1662 was aimed generally at "heretical, seditious, schismatical or offensive books of pamphlets" rather than just erotica per se. Even this Licensing Act was allowed to lapse in 1695 and no attempt made to renew it.


title: Erotic literature

text: The first conviction for obscenity in England occurred in 1727, when Edmund Curll was fined for the publication of "Venus in the Cloister or The Nun in her Smock" under the common law offence of disturbing the King's peace. This set a legal precedent for other convictions. The publication of other books by Curll, however, considered seditious and blasphemous, such as "The Memoirs of John Ker", apparently most offended the authorities. Prosecutions of erotica later in the 18th century were rare and were most often taken because of the admixture of seditious and blasphemous material with the porn.


title: Erotic literature

text: It was the Obscene Publications Act 1857 which made the sale of obscene material a statutory offense, giving the courts power to seize and destroy offending material. The origins of the Act itself were in a trial for the sale of pornography presided over by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Campbell, at the same time as a debate in the House of Lords over a bill aiming to restrict the sale of poisons. Campbell was taken by the analogy between the two situations, famously referring to the London pornography trade as "a sale of poison more deadly than prussic acid, strychnine or arsenic", and proposed a bill to restrict the sale of pornography; giving statutory powers of destruction would allow for a much more effective degree of prosecution. The bill was controversial at the time, receiving strong opposition from both Houses of Parliament. It was passed on the assurance by the Lord Chief Justice that it was "intended to apply exclusively to works written for the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of a nature calculated to shock the common feelings of decency in any well-regulated mind." The House of Commons successfully amended it so as not to apply to Scotland, on the grounds that Scottish common law was sufficiently stringent.


title: Erotic literature

text: The Act provided for the seizure and destruction of any material deemed to be obscene, and held for sale or distribution, following information being laid before a "court of summary jurisdiction" (magistrates' court). The Act required that following evidence of a common-law offence being committed – for example, on the report of a plain-clothes policeman who had successfully purchased the material – the court could issue a warrant for the premises to be searched and the material seized. The proprietor then would be called upon to attend court and give reason why the material should not be destroyed. Critically, the Act did not define "obscene", leaving this to the will of the courts.


title: Erotic literature

text: While the Act itself did not change, the scope of the work affected by it did. In 1868 Sir Alexander Cockburn, Campbell's successor as Lord Chief Justice, held in an appeal that the test of obscenity was "whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall." This was clearly a major change from Campbell's opinion only ten years before – the test now being the effect on someone open to corruption who obtained a copy, not whether the material was "intended" to corrupt or offend.


title: Erotic literature

text: Cockburn's declaration remained in force for several decades, and most of the high profile seizures under the Act relied on this interpretation. Known as the Hicklin test no cognisance was taken of the literary merit of a book or on the extent of the offending text within the book in question. The widened scope of the original legislation led to the subsequent notorious targeting of now acknowledged classics of world literature by such authors as Zola, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence plus medical textbooks by such as Havelock Ellis rather than the blatant erotica which was the original target of this law.


title: Erotic literature

text: In contrast to England, where actions against obscene literature were the preserve of the magistrates, such actions were the responsibility of the Postal Inspection Service in America. They were embodied in the federal and state Comstock laws and named after the postal officer and anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock, who proved himself officious in the work of suppression both in his official capacity and through his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The first such law was the Comstock Act, (ch. 258 enacted March 3, 1873) which made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail. Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states.


title: Erotic literature

text: This question of whether a book had literary merit eventually prompted a change in the law in both America and the UK. In the United Kingdom the Obscene Publications Act 1959 provided for the protection of "literature" but conversely increased the penalties against pure "pornography." The law defined obscenity and separated it from serious works of art.


title: Erotic literature

text: [A]n article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.


title: Erotic literature

text: After this piece of legislation questions of the literary merit of the work in question were allowed to be put before the judge and jury as in the "Lady Chatterley" trial. The publishers of the latter book were found not guilty by the court on the grounds of the literary merit of the book. In later prosecutions of literary erotica under the provisions of the act, however, even purely pornographic works with no apparent literary merit escaped destruction by the authorities. Purely textual pornographic texts, with no hint of libel, ceased to be brought to trial following the collapse of the "Inside Linda Lovelace" trial in 1976. However, in October 2008, a man was unsuccessfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act (the "R v Walker" trial) for posting fictional written material to the Internet allegedly describing the kidnap, rape and murder of the pop group Girls Aloud.


title: Erotic literature

text: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution gives protection to written fiction, although the legal presumption that it does not protect obscene literature has never been overcome. Instead, pornography has successfully been defined legally as non-obscene, or "obscene" been shown to be so vague a term as to be unenforceable. In 1998 Brian Dalton was charged with creation and possession of child pornography under an Ohio obscenity law. The stories were works of fiction concerning sexually abusing children which he wrote and kept, unpublished, in his private journal. He accepted a plea bargain, pleaded guilty and was convicted. Five years later, the conviction was vacated.


title: Erotic literature

text: Importing books and texts across national borders can sometimes be subject to more stringent laws than in the nations concerned. Customs officers are often permitted to seize even merely 'indecent' works that would be perfectly legal to sell and possess once one is inside the nations concerned. Canada has been implicated in such border seizures.


title: Erotic literature

text: Although the year 1857, as well as 1959 legislation, outlawed the publication, retail and trafficking of certain types of writings and images regarded as pornographic, and would order the destruction of shop and warehouse stock meant for sale, the private possession of and viewing of pornography was not prosecuted in those times. In some nations, even purely textual erotic literature is still deemed illegal and is also prosecuted.


title: MyAnimeList

text: MyAnimeList, often abbreviated as MAL, is an anime and manga social networking and social cataloging application website run by volunteers. The site provides its users with a list-like system to organize and score anime and manga. It facilitates finding users who share similar tastes and provides a large database on anime and manga. As of 2008, the site claimed to have 4.4 million anime and 775,000 manga entries. In 2015, the site received 120 million visitors a month.


title: MyAnimeList

text: The site was launched in November 2004 by Garrett Gyssler and maintained solely by him until 2008. Originally, the website was called AnimeList, but Gyssler decided to incorporate the possessive "My" at the beginning, following the fashion of the most important social network in those years: Myspace.


title: MyAnimeList

text: On August 4, 2008, CraveOnline, a men's entertainment and lifestyle site owned by AtomicOnline, purchased MyAnimeList for an undisclosed sum of money. In 2015, DeNA announced that it had purchased MyAnimeList from CraveOnline, and that they would partner with Anime Consortium Japan to stream anime on the service, via Daisuki.


title: MyAnimeList

text: MyAnimeList announced in April 2016 that they had embed episodes from Crunchyroll and Hulu directly onto the site, with over 20,000 episodes being made available on the site.


title: MyAnimeList

text: In January 2017, MyAnimeList rewrote an anti-Nazi article written by a contributor on the site to be more pro-Nazi without notice to the contributor.


title: MyAnimeList

text: On March 8, 2018, MyAnimeList opened an online manga store, in partnership with Kodansha Comics and Viz Media, allowing users to purchase manga digitally from the website. The service originally launched in Canada but later expanded to United States, the United Kingdom, and several other English-speaking countries.


title: MyAnimeList

text: MAL became inaccessible for several days in May and June 2018 when site staff took it offline for maintenance, citing security and privacy concerns. The site operators also disabled the API for third-party apps, rendering them unusable. The moves were done in an effort to conform to the European Union's GDPR program.


title: MyAnimeList

text: MyAnimeList was acquired by Media Do in January 2019; with their purchase, they announced their intention to focus on marketing and e-book sales to strengthen the site.


title: MyAnimeList

text: On September 25, 2019, HIDIVE and MyAnimeList announced a partnership which would incorporate MyAnimeList's content ratings into HIDIVE's streaming platform, while exclusively providing MyAnimeList users with a curated selection of embedded HIDIVE content for free.


title: MyAnimeList

text: On February 18, 2021, MyAnimeList announced Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan have started investing in MAL.


title: MyAnimeList

text: In October 2021, MyAnimeList collaborated with e-book publisher Media Do to release "Fist of the North Star Manga Fragments: Dying Like a Man", a series of non-fungible token (NFT) products based on the "Fist of the North Star" manga.


title: MyAnimeList

text: MyAnimeList lists anime (Japanese animation), aeni (Korean animation), and donghua (Chinese animation). Similarly, MyAnimeList has information on manga (Japanese comics), manhwa (Korean comics), manhua (Chinese comics), as well as dōjinshi (fan comics) and light novels. Users create lists that they strive to complete. Users can submit reviews, write recommendations, blogs, post in the site's forum, create clubs to unite with people of similar interests, and subscribe to the RSS news feed of anime and manga related news. MAL also starts challenges for users to complete their 'lists.'


title: MyAnimeList

text: MyAnimeList allows users to score the anime and manga on their list on a scale from 1 to 10. These scores are then aggregated to give each show in the database a rank from best to worst. A show's rank is calculated twice a day using the following formula:


title: MyAnimeList

text: Where formula_2 stands for the total number of user votes, formula_3 for the average user score, formula_4 for the minimum number of votes required to get a calculated score (currently 50), and formula_5 for the average score across the entire anime/manga database. Only scores where a user has completed at least 20% of the anime/manga are calculated.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Black Nova Scotians (also known as African Nova Scotians and Afro-Nova Scotians) are Black Canadians whose ancestors primarily date back to the Colonial United States as slaves or freemen, later arriving in Nova Scotia, Canada, during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As of the 2021 Census of Canada, 28,220 Black people live in Nova Scotia, most in Halifax. Since the 1950s, numerous Black Nova Scotians have migrated to Toronto for its larger range of opportunities. Before the immigration reforms of 1967, Black Nova Scotians formed 37% of the total Black Canadian population.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The first Black person in Nova Scotia, Mathieu da Costa, a Mikmaq interpreter, was recorded among the founders of Port Royal in 1604. West Africans were brought as enslaved people both in early British and French Colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many came as enslaved people, primarily from the French West Indies to Nova Scotia during the founding of Louisbourg. The second major migration of Blacks to Nova Scotia happened following the American Revolution, when the British evacuated thousands of slaves who had fled to their lines during the war. They were promised freedom by the Crown if they joined British lines, and some 3,000 African Americans were resettled in Nova Scotia after the war, where they were known as Black Loyalists. There was also the forced migration of the Jamaican Maroons in 1796, although the British supported the desire of a third of the Loyalists and nearly all of the Maroons to establish Freetown in Sierra Leone four years later, where they formed the Sierra Leone Creole ethnic identity.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In this period, British missionaries began to develop educational opportunities for Black Nova Scotians through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Bray Schools). The decline of slavery in Nova Scotia happened in large part by local judicial decisions in keeping with those by the British courts of the late 18th century.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The next major migration of Blacks happened during the War of 1812, again with African Americans escaping slavery in the United States. Many came after having gained passage and freedom on British ships. The British issued a proclamation in the South promising freedom and land to those who wanted to join them. Creation of institutions such as the Royal Acadian School and the African Baptist Church in Halifax, founded in 1832, opened opportunities for Black Canadians. During the years before the American Civil War, an estimated ten to thirty thousand African Americans migrated to Canada, mostly as individual or small family groups; many settled in Ontario. A number of Black Nova Scotians also have some Indigenous heritage, due to historical intermarriage between Black and First Nations communities.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In the 20th century, Black Nova Scotians organized for civil rights, establishing such groups as the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, the Black United Front, and the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. In the 21st century, the government and grassroots groups have initiated actions in Nova Scotia to address past harm done to Black Nova Scotians, such as the Africville Apology, the Viola Desmond Pardon, the restorative justice initiative for the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, and most recently the official apology to the No. 2 Construction Battalion.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The first recorded Black person in Canada was Mathieu da Costa. He arrived in Nova Scotia sometime between 1605 and 1608 as a translator for the French explorer Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts. The first known Black person to live in Canada was an enslaved person from Madagascar named Olivier Le Jeune (who may have been of partial Malay ancestry).


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Of the 10,000 French living at Louisbourg (1713–1760) and on the rest of Ile Royale, 216 were African-descended slaves. According to historian Kenneth Donovan, slaves on Ile Royal worked as "servants, gardeners, bakers, tavern keepers, stone masons, musicians, laundry workers, soldiers, sailors, fishermen, hospital workers, ferry men, executioners and nursemaids." More than 90 per cent of the enslaved people were Blacks from the French West Indies, which included Saint-Domingue, the chief sugar colony, and Guadeloupe.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Among the founders recorded for Halifax, were 17 free Black people. By 1767, there were 54 Blacks living in Halifax. When Halifax, Nova Scotia was established (1749), some British people brought slaves to the city. For example, shipowner and trader Joshua Mauger sold enslaved people at auction there. A few newspaper advertisements were published for run-away slaves.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The first Black community in Halifax was on Albemarle Street, which later became the site of the first school for Black students in Nova Scotia (1786). The school for Black students was the only charitable school in Halifax for the next 26 years. Whites were not allowed to attend.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Prior to 1799, 29 recorded Blacks were buried in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia), of which 12 of them were listed with both first and last names; seven of the graves are from the New England Planter migration (1763-1775); and 22 graves are from immediately following the arrival of the Black Loyalists in 1776. Rev. John Breynton reported that in 1783, he baptized 40 Blacks and buried many because of disease.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: According to a 1783 report, 73 Blacks arrived in Halifax from New York. Of the 4007 Blacks who came to Nova Scotia in 1783 as part of promised resettlement by the Crown, 69% (2775) were free, 35% (1423) were former British soldiers, and 31% (1232) were slaves of white Loyalists. While 41 former slaves were sent to Dartmouth, none were sent to Halifax. 550 Jamaican Maroons lived in Halifax for four years (1796-1800); they were resettled in Freetown (now Sierra Leone). A return in December 1816 indicates there were 155 Blacks who migrated to Halifax during the War of 1812.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The British had promised enslaved people of rebels freedom if they joined their forces (See Dunmore's Proclamation and Philipsburg Proclamation). Approximately three thousand Black Loyalists were evacuated by ship to Nova Scotia between April and November 1783, traveling on Navy vessels or British chartered private transports. This group was made up largely of tradespeople and labourers. Many of these African Americans had roots in the American states of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Maryland. Some came from Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York as well. Many of these African-American settlers were recorded in the "Book of Negroes".


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1785 in Halifax, educational opportunities began to develop with the establishment of Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Bray Schools). In Halifax, for example, the first teacher was a "capable and serious Negroe woman". Initially, the school was in the Orphan House and had 36 Black children, six of whom were enslaved. She was followed by Reverend William Furmage (d. 1793), Huntingdonian Missionary who was buried in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia). After a year he was followed by Isaac Limerick. Limerick moved the school and went into debt to maintain it. The next teacher was a white woman, Mrs. Deborah Clarke (1793-1809), followed by Mary Fitzgerald. The school was dissolved in 1814 (when the Royal Acadian School was established for Blacks and whites). The next teacher was Daniel Gallagher, who held the position of schoolmaster for a long period. The school was in the Black community on Albemarle Street, where it served the people for decades under the son of Rev. Charles Inglis.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Many of the black Loyalists performed military service in the British Army, particularly as part of the only black regiment of the war, the Black Pioneers, while others served non-military roles. The soldiers of the Black Pioneers settled in Digby and were given small compensation in comparison to the white Loyalist soldiers. Many of the blacks settled under the leadership of Stephen Blucke, a prominent black leader of the Black Pioneers. Historian Barry Moody has referred to Blucke as "the true founder of the Afro-Nova Scotian community."


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Blucke led the founding of Birchtown, Nova Scotia in 1783. The community was the largest settlement of Black Loyalists and was the largest free settlement of Africans in North America in the 18th century. The community was named after British Brigadier General Samuel Birch, an official who assisted in the evacuation of Black Loyalists from New York. (Also named after the general was a much smaller settlement of Black Loyalists in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia called Birchtown.) The two other significant Black Loyalist communities established in Nova Scotia were Brindley town (present-day Jordantown) and Tracadie. Birchtown was located near the larger town of Shelburne, with a majority white population. Racial tensions in Shelburne erupted into the 1784 Shelburne riots, when white Loyalist residents drove Black residents out of Shelburne and into Birchtown. In the years after the riot, Shelbourne county lost population due to economic factors, and at least half of the families in Birchtown abandoned the settlement and emigrated to Sierra Leone in 1792. To accommodate these British subjects, the British government approved 16,000 pounds for the emigration, three times the total annual budget for Nova Scotia. They were led to Sierra Leone by John Clarkson (abolitionist) and became known as the Nova Scotian Settlers.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The other significant Black Loyalist settlement is Tracadie. Led by Thomas Brownspriggs, Black Nova Scotians who had settled at Chedabucto Bay behind the present-day village of Guysborough migrated to Tracadie (1787). None of the blacks in eastern Nova Scotia migrated to Sierra Leone.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: One of the Black Loyalists was Andrew Izard (c. 1755 – ?). He was formerly enslaved by Ralph Izard in St. George, South Carolina. He worked on a rice plantation and grew up on Combahee. When he was young he was valued at 100 pounds. In 1778 Izard made his escape. During the American Revolution he worked for the British army in the wagonmaster-general's department. He was on one of the final ships to leave New York in 1783. He traveled on the Nisbett in November, which sailed to Port Mouton. The village burned to the ground in the spring of 1784 and he was transported to Guysborough. There he raised a family and still has descendants that live in the community.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Education in the Black community was initially advocated by Charles Inglis who sponsored the Protestant Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Some of the schoolmasters were: Thomas Brownspriggs (c.1788–1790) and Dempsey Jordan (1818–?). There were 23 Black families at Tracadie in 1808; by 1827 this number had increased to 30 or more.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: While most Blacks who arrived in Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were free, others were not. Enslaved Black peoples also arrived in Nova Scotia as the property of White American Loyalists. In 1772, prior to the American Revolution, Britain outlawed the slave trade in the British Isles followed by the Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. This decision, in turn, influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves' freedom and chastising his colleagues in the Presbyterian church who enslaved people. Historian Alan Wilson describes the document as "a landmark on the road to personal freedom in province and country." Historian Robin Winks writes "[it is] the sharpest attack to come from a Canadian pen even into the 1840s; he had also brought about a public debate which soon reached the courts." In 1790 John Burbidge freed the people he had enslaved.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Led by Richard John Uniacke, in 1787, 1789 and again on January 11, 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) waged "judicial war" in their efforts to free enslaved people from their owners in Nova Scotia. They were held in high regard in the colony. Justice Alexander Croke (1801–1815) also impounded American slave ships during this time period (the most famous being the "Liverpool Packet"). The last slave sale in Nova Scotia occurred in 1804. During the war, Nova Scotian Sir William Winniett served as a crew on board in the effort to free enslaved people from America. (As the Governor of the Gold Coast, Winniett would later also work to end the slave trade in Western Africa.) By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few people left enslaved in Nova Scotia. (The Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery all together.)


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: According to one historian, on June 26, 1796, 543 men, women and children, Jamaican Maroons, were deported on board the ships Dover, Mary and Anne, from Jamaica after being defeated in an uprising against the British colonial government. However, many historians disagree on the number who were transported from Jamaica to Nova Scotia, with one saying that 568 Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) made the trip in 1796. It seems that just under 600 left Jamaica, with 17 dying on the ship, and 19 in their first winter in Nova Scotia. A Canadian surgeon counted 571 Maroons in Nova Scotia in 1797. Their initial destination was Lower Canada but on July 21 and 23, the ships arrived in Nova Scotia. At this time Halifax was experiencing a major construction boom initiated by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn's efforts to modernize the city's defenses. The many building projects had created a labour shortage. Edward was impressed by the Maroons and immediately put them to work at the Citadel in Halifax, Government House, and other defense works throughout the city.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The British Lieutenant Governor Sir John Wentworth, from the monies provided by the Jamaican Government, procured an annual stipend of £240 for the support of a school and religious education. The Maroons complained about the bitterly cold winters, their segregated conditions, unfamiliar farming methods, and less than adequate accommodation. The Maroon leader, Montague James, petitioned the British government for the right to passage to Sierra Leone, and they were eventually granted that opportunity in the face of opposition from Wentworth. On August 6, 1800, the Maroons departed Halifax, arriving on October 1 at Freetown, Sierra Leone. In their new home, the Maroons established a new community at Maroon Town, Sierra Leone.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1808, George Prévost authorized a Black regiment to be formed in the colony under captain Silas Hardy and Col. Christopher Benson.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The next major migration of Blacks into Nova Scotia occurred between 1813 and 1815. Black Refugees from the United States settled in many parts of Nova Scotia including Hammonds Plains, Beechville, Lucasville and Africville.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Canada was not suited to the large-scale plantation agriculture practiced in the southern United States, and slavery became increasingly rare. In 1793, in one of the first acts of the new Upper Canadian colonial parliament, slavery was abolished. It was all but abolished throughout the other British North American colonies by 1800, and was illegal throughout the British Empire after 1834. This made Canada an attractive destination for those fleeing slavery in the United States, such as American minister Boston King.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1814, Walter Bromley opened the Royal Acadian School which included many Black students – children and adults – whom he taught on the weekends because they were employed during the week. Some of the Black students entered into business in Halifax while others were hired as servants.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1836, the African School was established in Halifax from the Protestant Gospel School (Bray School) and was soon followed by similar schools at Preston, Hammond's Plains and Beech Hill.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Following Black Loyalist preacher David George, Baptist minister John Burton was one of the first ministers to integrate Black and white Nova Scotians into the same congregation. In 1811 Burton's church had 33 members, the majority of whom were free Blacks from Halifax and the neighbouring settlements of Preston and Hammonds Plains. According to historian Stephen Davidson, the Blacks were "shunned, or merely tolerated, by the rest of Christian Halifax, the Blacks were first warmly received in the Baptist Church." Burton became known as "an apostle to the coloured people" and would often be sent out by the Baptist association on missionary visits to the black communities surrounding Halifax. He was the mentor of Richard Preston.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: New Horizons Baptist Church (formerly known as Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, the African Chapel, and the African Baptist Church) is a baptist church in Halifax, Nova Scotia that was established by Black Refugees in 1832. When the chapel was completed, Black citizens of Halifax were reported to be proud of this accomplishment because it was evidence that former enslaved people could establish their own institutions in Nova Scotia. Under the direction of Richard Preston, the church laid the foundation for social action to address the plight of Black Nova Scotians.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Preston and others went on to establish a network of socially active Black baptist churches throughout Nova Scotia, with the Halifax church being referred to as the "Mother Church." Five of these churches were established in Halifax: Preston (1842), Beechville (1844), Hammonds Plains (1845), and another in Africville (1849) and Dartmouth. From meetings held at the church, they also established the African Friendly Society, the African Abolition Society, and the African United Baptist Association.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The church remained the centre of social activism throughout the 20th Century. Reverends at the church included William A. White (1919–1936) and William Pearly Oliver (1937–1962).


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Numerous Black Nova Scotians fought in the American Civil War in the effort to end slavery. Perhaps the most well known Nova Scotians to fight in the war effort are Joseph B. Noil and Benjamin Jackson. Three Black Nova Scotians served in the famous 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry: Hammel Gilyer, Samuel Hazzard, and Thomas Page.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1894, an all-Black ice hockey league, known as the Coloured Hockey League, was founded in Nova Scotia. Black players from Canada's Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island) participated in competition. The league began to play 23 years before the National Hockey League was founded, and as such, it has been credited with some innovations which exist in the NHL today. Most notably, it is claimed that the first player to use the slapshot was Eddie Martin of the Halifax Eurekas, more than 100 years ago. The league remained in operation until 1930.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), was the only predominantly Black battalion in Canadian military history and also the only Canadian Battalion composed of Black soldiers to serve in World War I. The battalion was raised in Nova Scotia and 56% of battalion members (500 soldiers) came from the province. Reverend William A. White of the Battalion became the first Black officer in the British Empire.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Led by minister William Pearly Oliver, the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was formed in 1945 out of the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church. The organization was intent of improving the standard of living for Black Nova Scotians. The organization also attempted to improve Black-white relations in co-operation with private and governmental agencies. The organization was joined by 500 Black Nova Scotians. By 1956, the NSAACP had branches in Halifax, Cobequid Road, Digby, Wegymouth Falls, Beechville, Inglewooe, Hammonds Plains and Yarmouth. Preston and Africville branches were added in 1962, the same year New Road, Cherrybrook, and Preston East requested branches. In 1947, the Association successfully took the case of Viola Desmond to the Supreme Court of Canada. It also pressured the Children's Hospital in Halifax to allow for Black women to become nurses; it advocated for inclusion and challenged racist curriculum in the Department of Education. The Association also developed an Adult Education program with the government department.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Along with Oliver and the direct involvement of the premier of Nova Scotia Robert Stanfield, many Black activists were responsible for the establishment of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission (1967). Originally the mandate of the commission was primarily to address the plight of Black Nova Scotians. The first employee and administrative officer of the commission was Gordon Earle.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In keeping with the times, Reverend William Oliver began the Black United Front in 1969, which explicitly adopted a Black separatist agenda. The Black separatist movement of the United States had a significant influence on the mobilization of the Black community in 20th Century Nova Scotia. This Black separatist approach to address racism and black empowerment was introduced to Nova Scotia by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s. Garvey argued that Black people would never get a fair deal in white society, so they ought to form separate republics or return to Africa. White people are considered a homogenous group who are essentially racist and, in that sense, are considered unredeemable in efforts to address racism.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Garvey visited Nova Scotia twice, first in the 1920s, which led to a Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA) office in Cape Breton, and then the famous 1937 visit. He was initially drawn by the founding of an African Orthodox Church in Sydney in 1921 and maintained contact with the ex-pat West Indian community. The UNIA invited him to visit in 1937. (Garvey presided over UNIA regional conferences and conventions in Toronto, in 1936, 1937, and 1938. At the 1937 meeting he inaugurated his School of African Philosophy.)


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Despite objections from Martin Luther King Jr., this separatist politics was reinforced again in the 1960s by the Black Power Movement and especially its militant subgroup the Black Panther Party. Francis Beaufils (a.k.a. Ronald Hill) was a fugitive Black Panther facing charges in the U.S. who had found refuge in rural Nova Scotia. The separatist movement influenced the development of the Halifax-based Black United Front (BUF). Black United Front was a Black nationalist organization that included Burnley "Rocky" Jones and was loosely based on the 10 point program of the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Stokely Carmichael, who coined the phrase "Black Power!", visited Nova Scotia helping organize the BUF.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Reverend William Oliver eventually left the BUF and became instrumental in establishing the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, which opened in 1983. The organization houses a museum, library and archival area. Oliver designed the Black Cultural Centre to help all Nova Scotians become aware of how Black culture is woven into the heritage of the province. The centre also helps Nova Scotians trace their history of championing human rights and overcoming racism in the province. For his efforts in establishing the four leading organizations in the 20th century to support Black Nova Scotians and, ultimately, all Nova Scotians, William Oliver was awarded the Order of Canada in 1984.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, African Nova Scotians began leaving their settlements in order to find work in larger cities and towns such as Halifax, Sydney, Truro and New Glasgow. Many left Nova Scotia for cities such as Toronto and Montreal, while others left Canada altogether for the United States.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Bangor, Maine's lumber industry attracted Black people from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for decades. They formed a sizeable community on the town's west end throughout the early-1900s. A small African Nova Scotian community had also developed in Sudbury in the late 1940s due to aggressive recruitment efforts in Black Nova Scotian settlements by Vale Inco.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: By the 1960s, a Black Nova Scotian neighbourhood had developed in Toronto, around the Kensington Market-Alexandra Park area. First Baptist Church, the oldest Black institution in Toronto, became the spiritual centre of this community. In 1972, Alexandra Park is said to have had a Black Nova Scotian population of over 2,000 - making it more populous than any of the Black settlements in Nova Scotia at the time. Escaping rural communities with little education or skills, young Black Nova Scotians in Toronto faced high poverty and unemployment rates.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In 1977, between 1,200 and 2,400 Black Nova Scotians lived in Montreal. Though dispersed throughout the city, many settled among African-Americans and English-speaking West Indians in Little Burgundy.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Dwayne Johnson, Arlene Duncan, Beverly Mascoll, Tommy Kane, and Wayne Simmonds are examples of prominent individuals who have at least one Black Nova Scotian parent that settled outside the province.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Several organizations have been created by Black Nova Scotians to serve the community. Some of these include the Black Educators Association of Nova Scotia, African Nova Scotian Music Association, Health Association of African Canadians and the Black Business Initiative. Individuals involved in these and other organizations worked together with various officials to orchestrate the government apologies and pardons for past incidents of racial discrimination.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: The Africville Apology was delivered on February 24, 2010, by Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the eviction and eventual destruction of Africville, a Black Nova Scotian community.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: On April 14, 2010, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Mayann Francis, on the advice of her premier, invoked the Royal Prerogative and granted Viola Desmond a posthumous free pardon, the first such to be granted in Canada. The free pardon, an extraordinary remedy granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy only in the rarest of circumstances and the first one granted posthumously, differs from a simple pardon in that it is based on innocence and recognizes that a conviction was in error. The government of Nova Scotia also apologised. This initiative happened through Desmond's younger sister Wanda Robson, and a professor of Cape Breton University, Graham Reynolds, working with the Government of Nova Scotia to ensure that Desmond's name was cleared and the government admitted its error.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: In honour of Desmond, the provincial government has named the first Nova Scotia Heritage Day after her.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Children in an orphanage that opened in 1921, the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse by staff over a 50-year period. Ray Wagner is the lead counsel for the former residents who successfully made a case against the orphanage. In 2014, the Premier of Nova Scotia Stephen McNeil wrote a letter of apology and about 300 claimants are to receive monetary compensation for their damages.


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Since the immigration reforms of the 1970s, a growing number of people of African descent have moved to Nova Scotia. Members of these groups are not considered a part of the distinct Black Nova Scotian community, although they are Black Canadian. The last group to be accepted as members of the Black Nova Scotian ethnic group are Bajans who came to Cape Breton in the early 1900s, referred to as the "later arrivals".


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Black Nova Scotians were initially established in rural settings, which usually functioned independently until the 1960s. Black Nova Scotians in urban areas today still trace their roots to these rural settlements. Some of the settlements include: Gibson Woods, Greenville, Weymouth Falls, Birchtown, East Preston, Cherrybrook, Lincolnville, Upper Big Tracadie, Five Mile Plains, North Preston, Tracadie, Shelburne, Lucasville, Beechville, and Hammonds Plains among others. Some have roots in other Black settlements located in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island including Elm Hill, New Brunswick, Willow Grove (Saint John, NB) and The Bog (Charlottetown, PEI).


title: Black Nova Scotians

text: Prominent Black neighbourhoods exist in most towns and cities in Nova Scotia including Halifax, Truro, New Glasgow, Sydney, Digby, Shelburne and Yarmouth. Black neighbourhoods in Halifax include Uniacke Square and Mulgrave Park. The ethnically diverse Whitney Pier neighborhood of Sydney has a significant Black population, first drawn there by the opening of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company steel mill in the early 20th century.


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: Samuel Wanamaker, (born Wattenmacker; June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993) was an American actor and director who moved to the United Kingdom after becoming fearful of being blacklisted in Hollywood due to his communist views. He is credited as the person most responsible for saving The Rose Theatre, which led to the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, where he is commemorated in the name of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the site's second theatre.


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of tailor Maurice Wattenmacker (Manus Watmakher) and Molly ("née" Bobele). His parents were Ukrainian Jews from Mykolaiv. He was the younger of two brothers, the elder being William, long-term cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: He trained at the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now at DePaul University) and at Drake University and began working with summer stock theatre companies in Chicago and northern Wisconsin, where he helped build the stage of the Peninsula Players Theatre in 1937.


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: Wanamaker began his acting career in traveling shows and later worked on Broadway. In 1942 he starred with Ingrid Bergman in the play "Joan of Lorraine" and directed "Two Gentlemen from Athens" the following year.


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: In 1943, Wanamaker was part of the cast of the play "Counterattack" at the National Theatre, Washington, D.C. During the play, he became enamored of the ideals of communism. He attended Drake University prior to serving in the U.S. Army between 1943 and 1946, during the Second World War. In 1947, he returned to civilian life as an actor and director. In 1948 he starred in and directed the original Broadway production of "Goodbye, My Fancy".


title: Sam Wanamaker

text: In 1951, Wanamaker made a speech welcoming the return of two of the Hollywood Ten. In 1952, at the height of the McCarthy "Red Scare" period, Wanamaker, who was then acting in the UK, learned that despite his distinguished service in the Army during World War II, his years as a communist could lead to his being blacklisted in Hollywood. He consequently decided to remain in England, where he reestablished his career as a stage and film actor, along with becoming a director and producer. He explained: