Erotic photography is a style of art photography of an erotic, sexually suggestive or sexually provocative nature. Erotic photography is often distinguished from nude photography, which contains nude subjects not necessarily in an erotic situation, and pornographic photography, which is of a sexually explicit nature. Pornographic photography is generally defined as "obscene" and lacking in artistic/aesthetic value. However, the line between art and pornography has been both socially and legally debated, and many photographers have created work that intentionally ignores these distinctions. Erotic photographs are normally intended for commercial use, including mass-produced items such as decorative calendars, pinups and for men's magazines, such as Penthouse and Playboy, but many art photographers have also dabbled in explicit or erotic imagery. Additionally, sometimes erotic photographs are intended to be seen only by a subject's partner. The subjects of erotic photographs include professional models, celebrities and amateurs. Well-known entertainers do not generally pose nude for photographs. The first entertainer to pose nude for photographs was the stage actress Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–1868). However, a number of well-known film stars have posed as pin-up models and been promoted in photography and other media as sex symbols. The majority of erotic photographs are of female subjects, but erotic images of men are also published. Beginnings Before 1839, depictions of nudity and erotica generally consisted of paintings, drawings and engravings. In that year, Louis Daguerre presented the first practical process of photography to the French Academy of Sciences. Unlike earlier photograph methods, his daguerreotypes had stunning quality and did not fade with time. Artists adopted the new technology as a new way to depict the nude form, which in practice was the feminine form. In so doing, at least initially, they tried to follow the styles and traditions of the art form. Traditionally, in France, an académie was a nude study done by a painter to master the female (or male) form. Each had to be registered with the French government and approved or they could not be sold. Soon, nude photographs were being registered as académie and marketed as aids to painters. However, the realism of a photograph as opposed to the idealism of a painting made many of these intrinsically erotic. In Nude Photography, 1840–1920, Peter Marshall notes: "In the prevailing moral climate at the time of the invention of photography, the only officially sanctioned photography of the body was for the production of