The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian had been a key erotic symbol in western art for many centuries before Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress’s cinematic take. A copy of Hokusai’s notorious print once owned by the French connoisseur Edmond de Goncourt, who wrote a monograph about the artist, is included in the show, as well as a steamy translation of the picture’s abundant text, which contains several onomatopoeic sighs and exclamations signifying the woman’s fulfilment. But this woodblock print, which is known in the West as The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife and was created in 1814 by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who also famously depicted a tumultuous wave apparently about to swallow up Mount Fuji, is in fact a sophisticated work of art belonging to a genre known as ‘shunga’, or erotic ‘spring pictures’, which thrived in Japan between about 1600 and 1900.

A spellbinding, exhilarating and often eye-popping exhibition, Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art, collating more than 150 works of shunga, opens this week at the British Museum in London. But there was also a powerful sensuality emanating from Glenda Jackson’s Oscar-winning performance as the wayward Gudrun.

Although printed shunga was officially illegal in Japan after 1722, it was widely tolerated – indeed, during the three centuries of its popularity many thousands of images were produced in a variety of formats: multi-volume books, bound albums sometimes exchanged as wedding gifts, painted handscrolls, and sets of small-format prints possibly sold in wrappers. The amount of frontal male nudity was unprecedented in British cinema for the time: a blatant erection slipped past the BBFC thanks to cunning framing subterfuge during the official inspection. One of the most sexually explicit films then made in Britain, it begins with an aggressively symbolic dance performed by Lindsay Kemp’s troupe wearing giant phalluses before decamping to a remote garrison where various Roman soldiers either suppress or give in to their various homosexual urges.

I’m obviously interested in pornography”, Peter Greenaway admitted in 1985, and 10 years later he made his most overtly erotic film, loosely inspired by the famous ‘pillow book’ by 10th/11th-century Japanese lady-in-waiting Sei Shōnagon. After seeing the pumpkin-sized testicles of a randy old farmer, the bean man Mane’emon informs us that things are different in the country. This fresh ebony babe is here to please an experienced British gentleman in ways hes never felt before. If Intimacy (2001) garnered most of the column inches for its unsimulated fellatio scene, it was The Mother that offered the most complex take on its subject, as its middle-aged grandmother May ( Anne Reid in a memorably fearless performance) tries to conquer bereavement-triggered grief through an affair with her daughter’s boyfriend ( Daniel Craig). Most shunga depicts vigorous heterosexual couples in mutual bliss – and these prints were likely cherished by men and women, both young and old, from different strata of society, including samurai lords as well as prosperous merchants and commoners.

If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter . Standing naked at the window with her back to me was Pippa, my lover from last night and the host of the cotta. Beautiful English accents tickle your ears as ladies of all kinds fuck their favorite toys, give hot blowjobs, and get fucked in all holes. I was in a deep sleep, sated by several hours of energetic love-making the night before when something in the room moved and I came too quickly.

I gazed in awe at the naked woman lying in front of me; she looked relaxed and content after a tough week at work. Since my divorce I have used dating sites intermittently with very mixed results on the whole I have been very disappointed with them. Ewan McGregor is the translator who turns out to be ideally equipped (in every sense) to fulfil Nagiko’s desires. When considering shunga, it is important to shed censorious attitudes towards sexuality that have been a fundamental part of western Christian culture for so long. Lasting only a minute or so, this late Victorian film was also catalogued under the title Woman Undressing, which provides evidence that its primary purpose was to titillate, although (presumed) director Esmé Collings only lets his unidentified star strip down to her voluminous petticoat.I’m looking forward to finding out whether you are all talk or whether your tongue is as talented as you say it is.