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The Shocking Truth of Sexuality in Pompeii
History Inside
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537 views Dec 2, 2022

Pompeii has a significant erotic past, as sex was power in the Roman empire. Whoever had the most sex workers in their brothel was considered the most powerful man in town. What surfaced under the ashes of Pompeii are hidden truths about the concept of sexuality in Pompeii. What has been unearthed is shocking, mind-boggling, and will leave you with many questions!

Pompeii’s Sex Culture
Pompeii was not what we see today. The city has seen some dark times and hides many secrets! On August 24, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted in Central Italy which buried the neighboring city of Pompeii in hot lava. Following this tragic string of events, the city of Pompeii was considered a mass of rubble, and for centuries nobody knew that life used to exist there.

However, the accidental revelation that this mass of rubble is actually a city led to diggings and ended with lifting the veil of the shocking truths of Pompeii’s sex culture. The excavations disclosed soul-stirring images of the agonizing death of the people of Pompeii. They gave an insight into the life of people in the ancient Roman Empire. The picture of the Roman Empire has always been vivid and luxurious, but the ugly truths of the Empire have been concealed from the public. Excavators found evidence of widespread sex trade in Pompeii. The shocking details for the public would be erotic murals, the phallic Street lanterns, the sexually arousing drinking cups, or the many representations of Priapus, the fertility God whose striking features pop up in artwork all over town. It was challenging for people to come and be confronted with what ran against the Christian morality of the day and the sexual elements came out very starkly. A very famous story that is being told to people is that Charles third was having a picnic with his court. They are excavating, and he is presented with a statue before him of the famous figure in which a Penn is making love with a nanny goat. Brothels and sex clubs were everywhere in the city. Women used to sell them to men, men to other men, and men to wealthy women. The question arises if this sex trade was a secret. If so, who initiated and controlled it and benefitted from this dirty business? And is this the only city that was deeply embedded in sin, or is it a clear picture of how things were in ancient Rome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x59gceikR2w

Actually though there is erotic art in all civilizations Pompeii had enough more of it to make the archaeologists question why it was excessive in that culture.

Augustus, who exiled his own daughter, Julia the elder, whom he did love greatly but exiled her for promiscuous behavior.

Roman women were supposed to be virtuous, Girls were expected to safeguard their chastity, modesty and reputation, in preparation for eventual marriage.

From the start of the Roman Republic, there was a high emphasis placed on a woman’s virginity. Pudicitia (chastity) was a goddess of feminine purity, and was worshipped by Roman women. Only those who were virgins were allowed to enter the temple. A woman’s sexual life began with the consummation of her marriage in her husband’s cubiculum (private room), where slaves did not enter. In Roman houses, it was common for men and women to each have their own cubicula, allowing the potential for them to carry on separate sex lives from. While it was expected that women should only have sexual relations with their husbands, it was common for a man to have many sexual partners throughout his life. After marriage, women were scrutinized in the household to prevent any adulterous behavior.

Julius Caesar’s second wife, Pompeia, attempted to have private relations with Publius Clodius. Julius Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, who monitored Pompeia’s actions, prevented their private meetings. The mere possibility of Pompeia committing adultery caused Caesar to divorce her.

Forms of public erotic behavior would take place in the theatre of Pompeii. It is important to recognize the sexual acts that occurred in the theatre.

Sexual acts were very much apart of the plays. The actors would play there roles all the way to the end. The favorite place for such moments of lustful eroticism was the theatre in which sexual allusion played a substantial and conspicuous part. Sexual acts were often mimed on stage and sometimes the players forged ahead and completed the act.

Often times the crowd would seek sexual acts at the end, which was appreciated by the upper class, but because sexual acts would often seep into the crowd, this demoralized the art on stage, and this is what frustrated the upper class.

This may be the reason that Augustus felt it was necessary to segregate the theatre from the opposite sex.

Erotic scenes could have caused some people in the crowd to become excited, it seems more likely that sexual activities in the crowd were possible to take place, but not a common factor at every show. It would be very unrealistic to believe that the sexual acts on stage would erupt the crowd into mass orgies, but may have played a factor in the other erotic places of the city after the performance.

Augustus sought to contain this phenomenon by having the women sit in separate sections of the theatre to keep their involvement from becoming a show within a show.

Why would Augustus create laws to separate the men and women from the theatres? Could it be that upper elite’s felt that such behavior demoralized the Roman people and made them seem uneducated and barbaric?

Rooms in the brothels in Pompeii were so small that a bed made of stone would be about the only piece of furniture able to fit in there.

The workers were likely slaves. The sexual experience by the prostitutes, a slave’s job. Not as enjoyable as you might think. It was a person forced to work all day long under a horrendous situation, a dog kept in a cage to make money for the owner of the brothel.

The erotic art around these areas and around the city may have acted like a pre-stimulus to entice clients and to a client while waiting.

The possibility that lines would form in the brothels is not too far fetched. The erotic art may have acted like a pre-stimulus to the client while waiting outside the rooms of the brothel. More murals of erotic art though the corridor itself is a cramped space the paintings would give clients something to look at while they were waiting their turn.

This could have been a strategy used by the owner of the lupanar (brothel) to make the erotic art stimulate the men enough, so that there session may go quicker than planned, allowing for more clientele to circulate through the brothel to insure the maximum revenue for the day.

It is very well noted in several books that tons of money circulated through the brothels. So much in fact that Rome found it very necessary to tax the prostitutes of their hard work, and it seemed to be a very worthwhile tax for the collectors of Rome…indeed much of the other evidence, points to the profitability of the tax. This aspect receives further confirmation from the implications the high rate of taxation imposed on the prostitutes.

I often wonder what the disease rate from all this behavior in Pompeii was. I’m guessing it had to be rampant. There were no antibiotics.

It was a a patriarchal society and Pompeii was selling sex at a great profit to its men who either had the money to own slaves which were both women men and children or to buy the act from people who had no way of making a living for themselves otherwise.