Why Was Erotic Art So Popular in Ancient Pompeii?

Smithsonian ^ | April 28, 2022 | Meilan Solly

[SunkenCiv]

This is the moment of the unspoken joke. [long pause] ;^)

[SunkenCiv]

That does it, I’m goin’.

I wonder if they have pizza in Naples? ;^)

[Jamestown1630]

They had fast-food stalls :-)

[Vermont Lt]

…because people like sex. And Italian women are hot.

[Political Junkie Too]

Because, as a port city it was visited by people of many different languages.

The artwork was how they communicated to people who didn't speak the local language.

Don't think of it as erotic art, think of it as a menu of services offered.

-PJ

[SunkenCiv]

Just to be polite, I’d stop at each one. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Some of that too.

[wita]

The Bible doesn’t say how long it took to build, or how much help they had either worldly or other worldly.

[SunkenCiv]

:^) I cannoli imagine how it was back then...

[SunkenCiv]

The Bible gives the size, hence the estimate is accurate. Anything not in the account didn’t happen.

[GOPJ]

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p09xtq4m/the-forbidden-erotica-of-ancient-pompeii

[SunkenCiv]

Well, they didn’t have Viagra back then.

[IrishBrigade]

‘I think that God set the Universe up to run according to Law; people may interfere...Sometimes they’re just in the way...’

a perfect encapsulation of the deist philosophy; the creator creates, and then moves on to somewhere else....

.

[wita]

Anything not in the account didn’t happen.

I think God has the story available for review. If we have the ability to record history, I can’t even imagine His capability to record and more. I recognize your comment might have a bit of /s.

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t think it’s possible for God to ‘move on’.

He’s in and through everything; everything IS God, nearer than hands and feet, closer than breathing, etc.

We live and have our being IN Him.

Our failures lie simply in not recognizing this, and by not recognizing it, abusing it.

[PIF]

OK you win

[HereInTheHeartland]

Well aware of all that. But your statement indicates lack of respect of Christianity and freeing power it has had over the old pagan cultures.

Your statement :

“If you had been brought up and lived in Pompeii at the time, you would have understood it in a much deeper way than your ‘new religion’ has taught you to understand it now.”

[ifinnegan]

Are you serious or just joking?

[Jamestown1630]

I had an Asian Studies teacher in high school who taught us a lot about Eastern religions. He was a very interesting man, and we were naturally curious as to his own religion.

When we asked him, he said that he was a NeoZoroastrian.

It was his very polite way of saying ‘None of your business’.

(In the interest of full disclosure, though, I’m partial to the Gnostics - even though the Zoroastrian religion has much to commend it.)

[Jamestown1630]

I stand by my statement. We can never really escape from what we were born into and what was ingrained in us, and we will always understand that in ways that people not raised in it cannot.

You can’t interpret or understand what these people really thought and believed through your modern, Christian lens.