Tentacles. They are synonymous with hentai. While tentacles are part of the monster genre, they are unique in that you don’t always see the rest of the monster. However, they can also just be an add-on to a monster. Unfortunately, monsters and tentacles often cater to tastes of the non-consensual variety. Thankfully, this is not always the case. George Takei did share this lovely primer on tentacle porn via Facebook. It provides a fairly lengthy explanation of the tentacle porn genre. Here, we will summarize before getting into what makes them intriguing and sexy.
Subversive Origins
Despite tentacle sex often being dubious consent at best, the origins of the genre are delightfully subversive. Porn, like life, always finds a way. While the history is generally traced back to 17th century wood block art, the father of modern tentacle sex is Toshio Maeda. Maeda is responsible for Urotsukidoji, La Blue Girl, and many others.
In an interview with Captain Japan, Maeda states that he began drawing tentacles to bypass Japanese obscenity laws. Since he could not draw a penis, he drew a tentacle instead. Thus, modern tentacle erotica was born.
Roger Corman also produced a significant number of b-movies, such as Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World, that have tentacles and monsters proximal to nude women. All of which are close encounters of the rapey kind. It is worth noting that in the 2010 documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed, Corman’s formula for a successful horror movie is described as “blood, boobs, and beasts.” Very simple. The profits he produced from b-rate horror backs it. However, none of these movies are porn.
A Tentacle For All Functions
Tentacles, in an of themselves, are incredibly diverse. There are flesh tentacles, plant tentacles, slime tentacles, machine tentacles, and more. They also have a variety of tips, customized for their function. There are various tips too: dicks, sponges, slime, grabbers, eyeballs, breast milkers, ovipositors, and more. They can caress, restrain, fuck, deposit eggs, and spew impossible volumes of cum.
Think they are just for women? Not so. There are sucking tentacles designed to harvest cum from men and dickgirls. Artists have evolved tentacles to fulfill any purpose or lustful desire. Regardless of anatomy, tentacles have got you covered.
The Monster Or The Unseen Void
As noted above, you may never see the source of the tentacles. They may be summoned forth from void to fuck the summoner, or another, senseless. This could be through a mirror, a ritual circle, an arcane grimoire, or many other common occult foci. The occult is a transgressive force in Western Culture, which enhances the appeal of its use in tentacle porn. But more than that, it represents mystery and the unknown to the uninitiated. Conversely, for the initiated, it represents intention and the force of will. The summoner is focusing a will to pleasure.
Though, if you do see the monster, it could take a variety of forms. It could be an amorphous mass of flesh or goo. It could be a monster from Lovecraft’s mythos. Though it could also be a human undergoing mutation, or some other humanoid that happens to have tentacles as additional appendages. It could even be an anthropomorphized plant girl, like various depictions of an Alraune. Though it could just be a plant with tentacles.
So Why Are Tentacles Hot?
Well, they are a hedonist’s wet dream for starters. Remember all those types of tentacles I mentioned? The human hand is a wonderful multipurpose tool that can caress, grasp, pinch, pull, twist, rub, and penetrate your body. Now imagine there is a tentacle specialized being the best at just one of those things. But you never get just one tentacle. You get a whole mess of them, each of which is amazing at producing its particular sort of pleasure. It turns out tentacles are for your wife after all 😛
There’s also humanity’s obsession with transgression, which I’ve mentioned before. Maeda started with transgressing censorship. From an American perspective, we are transgressing our cultural prudishness. The Puritan settlers were tremendously influential on American culture. The right-wing segment of Catholicism in America has a strong influence on our sexual dissonance as well. We’ve come a long way (many not so much) in embracing a more liberal view of sexuality; but the cultural impact of the Puritans still has a profound effect on American attitudes about sexuality. Talk about porn openly damn near anywhere in America, and you’re bound to get disapproving glares and uncomfortable eavesdropping (conducting this little social experiment is hilarious, btw 😉 ).
As for what makes tentacles interesting to me, it is a combination of factors. I see porn as being at a very interesting intersection of primal and intellectual. It evokes the intended primal response, but I also find it intellectually stimulating. Well, not all the time, but when porn doesn’t engage my brain, I tend to move on to something else.
Tentacles are very good for this. They push sexuality to the impossible, and the creativity artists bring to tentacles is very stimulating. The idea of taking charge of your pleasure that the occult trappings bring to tentacle sex makes the genre feel empowering too. My preference is for tentacles from the void, or as an add-on to a human or near-human being. I’m not fond of visible, fully non-human tentacle monsters. They are simply too dissonant for me. It’s like the opposite of the Uncanny Valley. With tentacles from the void, I can still at least imagine something I find attractive on the other side of the gateway.
Tentacles In 3DX
Despite the popularity of tentacles, there is a relative dearth of them in 3DX. However, other monsters and dickgirls overshadow them. Why is that? Well, DB-Spencer aided me greatly by chiming in on that. She told me that there is a “lack of quality tentacle assets (sculpting, morph options, rigging, etc)” to use in the field. She also noted they’re very difficult to pose, as they are made up of a large number of segments. After all, the human body only bends so many ways. Tentacles are prehensile, and don’t have bones.
As a result, the fandom doesn’t carry over as strongly from 2D art. You can’t consume if there is no product. On a side note, it is rare to see 3DX versions of monster girls too. If you do, they are likely to have cross pollinated with the dickgirl genre; thus, it has a different audience that is more niche than traditional monster girls.
Conclusion
Tentacles aren’t going away, and the genre definitely has not run its course. It continues to evolve to fulfill more fantasies. The availability of consensual tentacle sex has dramatically increased, which is a great thing for the genre. We even seen them depicted as tender and affectionate. 3DX could use more tentacles. It is clear than many 3DX fans love massive insertions, and tentacles do that better than dickgirls and orcs.
epic gamer
July 2, 2019you a bitch ass nigga I tell you that
Franco
December 26, 2018I enjoyed your article on tentacles/sex and their evolution in the creative 3d venue. I am not a 3d artist, and my first exposure to tentacles where images of child like, big boobed, big bottom;’d girls being violated, or pleasured by slime dripping tentacles. Being a gay man I was happy to find, muscular men being teased, raped, and milked by tentacles. This was all 2d drawing venues. I like to do art via photo manipulation, and I have just started playing with men and tentacles. My venue is more of a sci fi take, that runs on the theory that the tentacles need sperm to survive, it is their food, and what better way than to extract it from Earth men. The best way to get the most out of their men, is slow and teasing methods, that edge men. Finally after all of this slow, and sensual attentions, they drain earth men of every drop and can survive for a period of time till the next feeding. The tentacle could be ore of plant/animal/alien or just an alien tentacle. I share this because I related to the larger than life fantasy tentacles have, promising sensation and erotic ordeals much better than human. It seems that there is a shortage of male tentacle oriented blogs or pic sharing blogs.
Chastity "Chas" Nicollette
July 13, 2017Can you give some examples of consensual tentacle porn?
Tentacles are a kink of mine but scenes with consent and tentacles are heartbreakingly rare.
Elayn Wilde
July 14, 2017Since we don’t feature non-consensual products here, all of the tentacle products in the store are at least dubcon. For browsing 2D, there is the consentacles reddit thread, and there is a consensual tentacle sex subcategory on sankaku channel.
IBT
July 12, 2017Something else to consider with tentacle porn, and with consentacles especially, is what they allow you to achieve in a visual medium … which is essentially Penetration From A Distance. By removing the “mass” of the main body from the site of penetration, you don’t have to resort to X-ray vision tricks in order to be able to view what’s happening. There isn’t a body in the way obscuring what you want to see. The result amounts to a sort of “sex from across the room” sort of deal, where the penetration is with a “living” sex partner (consensual or not) rather than with some sort of non-sentient/inanimate toy that has no “thought” behind what it’s doing, since a toy is a Tool rather than a Partner.