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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.