During the Enlightenment, sex became a powerful tool of social criticism.  It may be hard to imagine, but pornographic literature, in addition to arousing readers, communicated a new, radical philosophy.  This new philosophy, rooted in a mechanical view of the world, saw nature as comprised of microscopic bodies—or atoms—in constant motion, colliding and separating, propelled forward by nothing but push-pull mechanics.  Similarly, pornography depicted human bodies in motion, propelled forward by the mechanistic drive for pleasure, often colliding in the bedroom.  Just as atoms in a mechanical universe could be assembled in an infinite number of ways, so too could sexual acts afford unlimited combinations of people and positions.  Peasant, lord, bishop, sun, tree, and rock—every one of these bodies was a collection of the same basic matter.  The radical implications of such a materialist view was that nature provided no justification for hierarchy, whether social, political, or religious; all things were fundamentally equal.  It was easy therefore to conclude that hierarchy was ultimately unnatural and unjust. Thus, in giving voice to this new set of ideas, pornography directly criticized traditional religious and political authorities