Hollywood legend Zalman King was a film director, producer and writer. Born in New Jersey, USA in 1941, he began his career as a screen actor, but is better known as the director of controversial films such as Two Moon Junction and Wild Orchid, and the long-running Showtime series Red Shoe Diaries. He also collaborated with director Adrian Lyne on the ground-breaking psychosexual drama 9½ Weeks, starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke.

King found a kindred spirit in the owner of SexArt, who created the site with the innovative concept of presenting cinema-quality adult movies that would be accepted as serious filmmaking. King was already renowned – even notorious – for incorporating erotica into his mainstream movies, and together they developed something original, high-class and authentic: Kamikaze Love (also known in the mainstream world as Pleasure Or Pain).

Kamikaze Love was King’s last movie before his death in 2012, not long after SexArt’s launch. His spirit lives on in SexArt’s sensual depiction of female sexuality, beauty and desire.

Sexuality has been immortalised in art since ancient times, and its depiction has evolved along with each emerging technology; it should come as no surprise that erotic films have existed since the invention of the motion picture.

The Victorian era saw the first erotic moving images, with films of women stripping and dancing provocatively. Fatima’s Coochie Coochie Dance, which featured suggestive sequences of a belly dancer’s gyrating hips, was released in 1896 and was one of the first films to be censored. Kissing on film – considered pornographic at the time – soon led to far more graphic depictions of masturbation and sex.

By the 1940s, so-called “stag films” were being produced and circulated underground; but possessing or even viewing them was illegal and punishable by jail time. Post war, further technological innovation made amateur filmmaking more accessible to all, and the introduction of 8mm and super-8 film led to an explosion in erotic filmmaking.

Denmark was the first country to legalize pornography in 1969, soon followed by other European countries, as mass-produced, higher quality productions became a legitimate business. In the US, several high-profile releases such as Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door in the 1970s brought erotic films more mainstream acceptance.

The development of videotape in the eighties brought another seismic shift in production, with inexpensive technology available to all. The adult industry has always been an early adopter of new delivery methods, and as the home camcorder, DVD, and then the internet followed, erotic film was at the forefront of each fresh wave of innovation. This ease of accessibility and greater social acceptance of erotic material has led to a blurring of lines between adult movies and the mainstream, with arthouse films featuring explicit content, and adult films embracing more inclusive values.

Since its launch in 2012, SexArt has elevated erotic filmmaking to a new level of excellence, seamlessly blending passionate portrayals of authentic sexuality with stellar mainstream film production quality to create something uniquely exciting. It’s high-caliber adult entertainment for today’s discerning audiences – once seen, never forgotten.