Tentacle erotica describes a type of adult pornography most commonly found in Japan. It integrates elements of traditional pornography with horror or science-fiction themes. Tentacle erotica can be of a consensual nature, but frequently has elements of non-consensual sex. Tentacle rape or shokushu goukan (触手強姦) is found in some horror or hentai titles, with tentacled creatures (usually fictional monsters) having sexual intercourse with female characters. The genre is popular enough in Japan that its occasionally even the subject of parody. In recent years, Japanese and Asian films of this genre have become more common in the United States and Europe. This, along with the presence of many websites featuring it, has expanded the genre's audience globally, although it still remains a small, fetish-oriented part of the adult film industry. While most tentacle erotica is animated, there are also a smaller number of live-action movies featuring this theme.[1]
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Tentacled creatures appeared in Japanese erotica long before animated pornography. Among the most famous of the early instances is an illustration from the novel Kinoe no komatsu of 1814 by Katsushika Hokusai. It is an example of shunga (Japanese erotic art) and has been reworked by a number of artists. Australian artist David Laity reworked the design into a painting of the same name, and Masami Teraoka brought the image up to date with his 2001 work "Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven", part of his Waves and Plagues collection.
A scholarly paper by Danielle Talerico[2] showed that although western audiences have often interpreted Hokusai’s famous design as rape, Japanese audiences of the Edo period would have associated it with consensual sex. Edo audiences would recognize the print as depicting the legend of the female abalone diver Tamatori. In the story, Tamatori steals a jewel from the Dragon King. However, during her egress, the Dragon King and his sea-life minions (including octopodes) pursue her. Furthermore, within the dialogue in the illustration itself, the diver and two octopi express mutual enjoyment.
In 1990, Toshio Maeda's Manga Demon Beast Invasion created what might be called the modern Japanese paradigm of tentacle porn, in which the elements of sexual assault are emphasized. Maeda explained that he invented the practice to get around strict Japanese censorship regulations, which prohibit the depiction of the penis but apparently do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar (often robotic) appendage. Numerous animated tentacle erotica films followed throughout the 1990s, with more popular titles like Urotsukidoji and La Blue Girl becoming common sights in large video store chains in the United States and elsewhere. The volume of films in this genre has slowed from the peak years in the 1990s but continue to be produced to the present day.
The use of sexualized tentacles in live-action films, while much rarer, actually started in American B-movie horror films and has since migrated back to Japan. B-movie legend Roger Corman first used the concept of tentacle rape in a brief scene in his 1970 film The Dunwich Horror, a movie adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name. A decade later, Corman would again use tentacle rape while producing Galaxy of Terror, released in 1980. Arguably the most notorious example of tentacle rape to date, Corman inserted and directed a scene in which actress Taaffe O'Connell, playing an astronaut on a future space mission, is captured, raped, and killed by a giant, tentacled worm. The film borrows the concept of the "id monster" from the 1950s film Forbidden Planet, with the worm being a manifestation of the O'Connell character's fears. The scene was graphic enough that the film's director, B. D. Clark, refused to helm it, and O'Connell refused to do the full nudity required by Corman, so Corman directed the scene himself and used a body double for some of the more graphic shots. Initially given an X-rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, tiny cuts were made to the scene which changed the movie's rating to 'R', but the graphic detail in which O'Connell's character is stripped, raped, and killed while being simultaneously driven to orgasm by the creature's tentacles has made the film an enduring cult favorite.
An even more popular film from 1981, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, has actress Ellen Sandweiss' character being attacked by the possessed woods she is walking in. The evil spirit inhabiting the woods using tree limbs and branches to ensnare, strip, and rape her, "entering" (i.e. possessing) her through the sexual act in a way very similar to that in which tentacles are normally depicted. The scene was repeated in a much shorter version in the sequel released in 1987.
The popularity of these films has led to the subsequent production of numerous live-action tentacle films in Japan from the 1990s to the present day. The theme has appeared more rarely in adult American cinema and art; one example is American artist Zak Smith, who has painted works featuring octopuses and porn stars, in various stages of intercourse.