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Archive 1

Move to move :> (2006)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Move Roman Sexuality to Sexuality in Ancient Rome

I move to move the article under Sexuality in Ancient Rome, as it looks like that's the standard name for history and gender courses offered in the articles cited. Project2501a 19:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

AfD 2006

This was listed for deletion and kept. --SPUI (T - C) 18:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

Beyond the penetration dichotomy of ancient roman sexuality, I'd like to see the article expanded to explore the Ancient Roman's evolving views of sexuality, its basis and justifications, and perhaps discuss additionally, meretrix, and prostibulae. Ember 2199 23:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this could clearly be expanded, I think for instance Romans lacked the concept of sex as sin, as it was a pre-christian religion. (Cf. erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Also, oral sex allegedly was considered more dirty than anal sex, since the mouth was defiled. Many things like that could be covered. 惑乱 分からん 00:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


I heard Roman men had sex with young boys and this was commonplace? Even with marriage? I am very curious about this. Osirisx11 13:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Also sex during the day, except for married couples, was considered obscene. And women, even prostitutes, tended to wear brassieres during sex.
There's already an article about pederasty, but that mainly seemed to be a Greek thing. 惑乱 分からん 17:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

There's Homosexuality in Ancient Rome, which should really be connected better. --Kizor 19:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Why not merge them? - CheNuevara 19:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I guess that makes sense, since the article is quite homonormative already as it is... =S 惑乱 分からん 23:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Article needs a rewrite

If you look up erotic art in pompeii, the pictures and assertions on that page seem to conflict a bit with the broad generalities made on this page. I'm sure there was more diversity in an empire as long-lasting and large in size as Rome than this page admits...72.78.159.55 21:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Article needs a new title

This article is NOT about sexuality in ancient Rome, and a statement such as "men considered women useful only for reproduction" is baloney. (Anyone read Catullus?) This is an article about homosexuality in ancient Rome, and needs to be retitled to reflect that. PiCo 14:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Or, you know, you could expand the article, and change the statement you disagree with. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This article only focuses on Roman homosexuality

this article should either be retitled as "homosexuality and bisexuality in ancient Rome" or greatly expanded to include much more on Roman heterosexuality and other Roman sexual practices, perhaps such as masturbation, zoophilia, pedophilia, and attitudes toward sexuality among slaves, the young, and the old. how did Romans feel about their unmarried daughters having sex? before the Christians, were there any Roman movements advocating monkish chastity? on the question of homosexuality, how far did educated Roman agree with Plato’s call in the Symposium and the Phaedrus for sublimating homosexual desire and his condemnation of males having sex with each other?

it seems as this article, like many here on sexuality, has been taken over by homosexuals and other queers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.154.10 (talk) 09:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

And it's also been contaminated rather badly by varieties of Francophonie. For the queer aspect (for those interested), this book gives a much better idea of what went on (because, among other things, it's based on evidence, not theory):

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Modern-Homosexual-Cultural-Politics/dp/0304338923/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200453720&sr=1-3

The article cited in footnote 1 is a classic example of evidence-free history.

There's a useful review here:

http://lorenzo-thinkingoutaloud.blogspot.com/2009/11/myth-of-modern-homosexual.html

Many of the sexuality questions (including the one about monkish chastity -- short answer, no) could be usefully answered by reading Robin Lane Fox's 'Pagans & Christians' (Viking: 1986), especially pp 336-374. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skepticlawyer (talk • contribs) 00:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Medicine and sexuality

the entire section "Medicine and sexuality" is about a greek interpretation and is uncited. Unless somebody can cite that and cite it in a way that links it to rome, i propose it be deleted. Smitty1337 (talk) 05:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction in section ‘Prostitution’ inferring Plautus - Curculio

This remark concerning Plautus’ comedy Curculio (‘a prostitute is: what everyone treads underfoot’) is not correct.

In the play Curculio , a master and his slave are standing for the door of a leno (usually translated as ‘procurer’). The slave says to his master:

“No one hinders nor forbids you, provided you have the money, to buy what is openly offered for sale. No one hinders another, to go over the public road, as long as you don’t make your way over fenced property; As long as you abstain from nupta, vidua, virgine, iuventute et pueris liberis [married woman, widow (or bachelor woman), girl or young woman, youth, and freeborn young boys], love whatever you please.”

The comparison pertains to: allowed (‘public road’) versus not allowed (‘fenced property’), and has nothing to do with treading underfoot.

I recommend to regard the other statements in this article based on Hallett and Skinner (1997) with some suspicion. --Corriebertus (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I recommend regarding this whole article with suspicion, since much of what it says about Roman sexuality is not only directly contradicted by Roman art depicting sex acts, but seems based on scholarship that cherry-picks Roman literature to suit political preoccupations and biases. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

imbalance and poor use of sources

I'm finding that when legitimate sources are used here, they're often not well understood, and are employed selectively to support a rather nasty view of Roman sexuality that (for instance) is belied by Roman art and a great deal of Latin literature. I also note that Ovid appears only once, and then bizarrely in a citation for same-sex practices, although Ovid is famously averse to "boy love" and probably the most flagrantly hetero of all the Latin poets. Ovid's absence as a major source is like writing an article on psychoanalysis without mentioning Freud, or writing about the Gallic Wars without discussing the role of Julius Caesar. It indicates that the compilers weren't interested in presenting a picture of sexuality in ancient Rome, but in making certain aggrieved political statements. An emphasis on law, for instance, will always skew an article that purports to be on attitudes and behaviors. In the contemporary U.S., the infamous Texas sodomy law, for instance, didn't mean that Texans didn't practice "sodomy," or that practitioners were regularly arrested and convicted.

If you read this article, you'd never imagine that anyone in ancient Rome ever had mutually pleasurable sex. You'd have no clue about Roman attitudes toward sexuality between married couples. The section on adultery is hilarious; again, the emphasis is on law, rather than the way writers talk about it. It's quite evident from Roman historians (let alone poets) that women of the upper classes could sometimes engage in adultery without the dire consequences outlined here; when a big to-do was made about adultery, it was usually for political reasons. (Just as a space alien observing our political campaigns might come away with an imbalanced view that committing adultery leads to disgrace and a loss of career in our culture.) Anyway, this is just a warning to anyone using the article. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed outline

I've been looking for and reading sources on this topic for some months now, and will work on it as I have time. The outline that has suggested itself to me from this review of the available scholarship is as follows:

  • Sexuality in archaic Rome is for now instead Sex, religion and the state, which may be OK.I find that the "theorists" are reacting to things that should be spelled out first. In particular, Lucretius keeps denying the role of the gods; to readers, this will make no sense unless the role of the gods in traditional thinking about sexuality is spelled out first. This section would also outline laws pertaining to sexuality in the earliest period. Perhaps other legislation here, such as the Augustan moral reform.
  • Erotic art and literature. An overview of how the Romans presented sexuality. This is also a kind of "ancient sources" section that makes clear what the rest is based on.
  • Theories of sexuality. How was "human sexuality" understood in the time of the ancient Romans? Both medical theories and philosophical perspectives, which in the Aristotelian tradition can't really be separated. Particularly Stoic sexuality, and Epicurean theories of sex and love especially in Lucretius.
  • Male sexuality.
  • Female sexuality.
  • Sex, family, and society, with the subsections:
    • Marital sex. Clarke has some helpful and interesting perspectives on this.
    • Adultery. But only how it reflects sexual behaviors; see Marriage in ancient Rome for the legalistic aspects.
    • Concubinage and prostitution. For concubinage, same approach as to adultery. Prostitution in ancient Rome has its own article (also in need of dire help), so this piece would again be focused on the role of prostitution in sexual behaviors and attitudes as a whole, not the specifics of the prostitute's life.
  • Sex acts and positions. Based on J.N. Adams' book on the Latin sexual vocabulary; the work of those scholars such as Amy Richlin who are obsessed with the verb irrumo; Ovid's famous poem advising women to choose a position that best suits her body type, and others, and the commentaries; Catullus and Martial and commentary on their references to various sex acts, and other epigraphic and literary evidence; John Clarke's Looking at Lovemaking, on what can be learned about Roman sexuality from pictorial art.

The following topics can be integrated above.

    • Sex and imperialism. How the Romans viewed the sexuality of other peoples under their rule.
  • Uses of sex in religion and magic. Celebration of sexuality or the furtherance of "fertility" in Roman religion, such as the venerable Mutunus Tutunus, Priapus, Venus, Cupid, the fascinus (magical phallus). Chastity of the Vestals. Magic spells for making someone fall in love with you, or ensuring their fidelity.
  • Sexual health and medicine. Magic spells and pharmacological recipes overlap in antiquity, so these two sections should dovetail nicely, and also create a sort of ring composition with "Theories of sexuality" above. This section would deal with "practical" medicine: aphrodisiacs and fertility treatments, including their hilarious recipes for forms of ancient Viagra; contraception (though I also plan an article on Contraception and abortion in classical antiquity, so this would be a summary approach); treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

Because "homosexual" isn't a category of Roman thought, it's wrong in my view to ghettoize it as set of behaviors or orientation set apart. Rather, I plan to treat male-male sex under "Male sexuality," and female-female sex under "Female sexuality." This seems to better reflect Roman attitudes.

I'd love suggestions about any questions others might bring to the topic that should be answered.

If this seems like a useful outline on which a consensus could be achieved, I encourage editors who'd like to contribute to the topic to do so within the framework, as the topic is potentially unwieldy. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's an update on missing bits (I had no idea this would be so massive when I started) that I'm aware of from reading the sources so far. Under "Phallic sexuality," a concise paragraph on circumcision is needed: Romans attitudes toward it, as a marker of Jewish identity (reviled in Martial), and the existence, mirabile dictu, of a reconstructive procedure. Under "Female sexuality," we lack Sulpicia, the depiction of female sexual passion (as with Dido in the Aeneid, and legends involving young women who betray their country for the sake of sexual desire), and a paragraph on pudicitia, the main article for which needs a look. The prostitution section here isn't very good, and the main article needs a massive overhaul. Still lack a section on attitudes toward abortion and contraception, though these topics are now mentioned as medical concerns. The one major section missing will come at the end, "Sex and imperialism." This will deal with: Venus Victrix, "Venus the Conquerer"; sexualized aspects of the depictions of conquered peoples; Roman attitudes toward the sexuality of various peoples brought under their rule (Greeks, Egyptians, Celts, Germans mainly; so far haven't seen much on North Africa as a whole) and the not-conquered Persians and Parthians as the "Other"; depictions of Imperial decadence and debauchery, as by Suetonius, and how this relates to the transition from Republic to Empire, probably starting with Augustus's daughter Julia, the Augustan moral legislation, and Marsyas the satyr as a symbol of both free speech and wanton sexuality, and then the sex-mad emperors such as TIberius and Caligula, and Messalina, and probably concluding with the moral critiques of early Christian writers under the Empire and in the early Christian Empire. This is based on readings mainly of the "Selected bibliography", supplemented with some articles on specific points. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

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Update

This article finally exhausted me, but I'll get back to finishing up a couple of things. Here's what I see as still missing:

Size split?

Split - Article is over 100 kB, and should be split due to size starting with "Male sexuality". Thoughts? Suggestions?

  • You might want to read the article again: "Male sexuality" is the article. If there were no other sections at all, you'd need the male and female sexuality sections, surely—besides the fact that in Roman society, the sexuality of the vir was the baseline or norm by which other sexualities were measured: the article makes no sense without male sexuality, and becomes a collection of dirty words and dirty pictures. Topics that could be spun off include: Lucretius on love and sex, Stoic views on sexuality (though that would require a lot of expansion, since this deals only with Stoic views on sexuality among philosophers of the Roman Empire]], Hermaphroditism and androgyny in ancient Rome, Rape in ancient Rome (which would require combining the topics of male and female rape treated separately, and the legal concepts). The sections on homosexuality could be examined in light of Homosexuality in ancient Rome to see whether they could be further reduced here, but I would be wary of making the article too "heteronormative," to use the jargon, since that would be misleading. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Could you please discuss before spinning off? I don't agree with your choice of topic; I feel that you have removed a central portion of the article, rather than one of the more tangential sections. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Again, as someone who has contributed almost all the content in this article, and who has worked on related articles about Roman sexuality and sections on ancient Rome in overviews of sexuality articles, I would really like to discuss before we rip the article apart. How on earth can "Sex, marriage and society in ancient Rome" be a separate article from "Sexuality in ancient Rome"? Spinoff articles need to have a clearly defined scope. I've named some I view as obvious candidates above. But please, could we do some planning and discuss first? It seems obvious to me that a spinoff article will need an introduction that's unique to the article, or it really isn't a separate article from this one. When you spun off "Sex, marriage and society," you copied this intro—an indication that it belongs within the scope of this article. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Reply - Since no one has made a concerted effort to reduce the size of the article in weeks, and the vote was one to one, I took it upon myself to do so. If you would like to significantly reduce the size of this article on your own, please do so and/or take Sex, marriage, and society in ancient Rome to the full AfD, where this can get more visibility.--Jax 0677 (talk) 18:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm taking it upon myself to reverse your unilateral action, Jax 0677. Consider the "vote" 2-to-1, if that helps. If you think the size of the article needs to be reduced (I don't!), make some constructive suggestions about how to do that, rather than simply cutting out huge chunks of text.
In case it's not clear, I don't see any reason to change the article at all. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Reply - When my SUGGESTION of removing "Male sexuality" was shot down, I SUGGESTED a different section instead. Long articles take forever to load.--Jax 0677 (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Your SUGGESTION was what, exactly? This? Or this edit? That's not suggestion, that's action. Suggestion would be conducting a discussion on this talk page, and I'm missing where you did that—one tersely worded post doesn't fit the bill. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Reply - My suggestion was the first part of this section, which said, and I quote:

"Article is over 100 kB, and should be split due to size starting with "Male sexuality". Thoughts? Suggestions?"

Since the vote was one to one at the time, I split this off starting with a different section. I am pleased to see that there is finally dialogue regarding a split, even if that dialogue is in opposition to doing so.--Jax 0677 (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

This is a ridiculous reply. Above, Cynwolfe tried to engage you in dialogue regarding a split, and you made no replies until after you had split off a major section of the article. The failure to conduct dialogue is yours. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the concerns about length weren't rejected or ignored. I proposed several topics that I thought could stand on their own as articles differentiated in scope from this one. I got no response to these proposals, and assumed that the tagger had decided that reducing the length of this article could wait. Some material is core to the topic here, entirely within this article's scope, and hard to construct independently. See redlinks above for topics I think could make independent articles. However, they would still need to be represented by a summary section, not just lopped out. Could Jax address why those aren't suitable candidates for spinoffs? Cynwolfe (talk) 19:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Reply - I do not disagree with any of your suggested topics. I'll consider working on one of those next. Thanks!--Jax 0677 (talk) 19:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Please keep in mind that we'll still need summary sections here, and that the new articles will need an introduction that outlines scope. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
I've been mulling this over, and while I still think any of the redlinks above could be independent articles, I don't see any need to rush into creating them unless they are properly thought-out as independent topics. In November 2010, when the short, sketchy, misleading article looked like this, it was getting about 8,400 visitors a month. A year later, when the length was closer to its current form, it was getting just over 25,000. In November 2012, the number had increased to a little more than 32,000. If the article were too long or hard to read "comfortably," why would it be gaining visitors? So I'm not seeing the benefits of dismantling something of demonstrated usefulness to readers. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Just because people click on a link in Google search results and "visit" this page doesn't mean what they got as a result was useful or well-written. -- Beland (talk) 20:17, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Race & sex toys (bizarre mix, but meh... :D)

Apparatus on the Warren Cup

I'm interested to know about how race played a role in the sexual exploits of Ancient Rome. Even if they weren't an issue at all, I still think it's notable. Also, thoguh there is a tiny bit about contraceptives/aphrodisiacs etc, I thought a bit more could be given about the various sex toys (or devices) used.--Coin945 (talk) 19:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your intriguing suggestions. I had once planned to deal with issues of "race" (I put that in quotes because it's more like ethnicities) in the last section on Sexual conquest and imperialism. Although Romans seem to have been more concerned with "miscegenation" of social classes, there were some sexual stereotypes pertaining to ethnicity (Germans are more chaste and delay sex till they're 20; Gallic men would rather sleep with other men than their beautiful women; because Jews are circumcised, they're lascivious; Egyptians are, well, always exotic to Romans). Stuff like that. I'll try to put this on my to-do list and look back at the notes I had on that, and of course it's difficult stuff to present without being offensive. (And as you can see above, there are concerns about length, so not only did I get tired of the subject matter, I was aware of opposition to the length of the article.)
About sex toys, in researching the article I didn't encounter much if anything about what we would think of as sex toys. The section on bestiality has something about role-playing that would involve props and costumes and bondage. The section on lesbian sex mentions dildos, but while these are not unusual in Greek art, I believe at least one of my sources said no example is found in Roman art (I think they're referenced, though, in the poetry of Martial). I can't recall seeing any erotic art in which objects were involved in the sex act. There is an apparatus depicted on the Warren Cup that (in a reference I've lost) supposedly appears in other scene as well, though I haven't seen an example: it seems designed for grasping to maintain one's balance or relieve pressure during tricky sex acts. (It's visible here at an angle from which the cup is not usually shown.) The cup's authenticity, however, has recently been questioned, and it may be the product of Victorian pederastic fantasy. I can't really see "sex toys" as an independent section, given the limited information, but perhaps there's more about this than I realize. If you find reliable scholarly sources on this and don't want to contribute to the article yourself, do share them here. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Woow, you really know your stuff. I can't imagine how much you've read about this topic. It seems a shame that you've encountered some opposition. I've thought about the article length myself, and I've come to the conclusion that a more complete article is a better one. I haven't trawled through all the previous talk page archives so I'm not sure why a split never came to fruition, but it seems plausible for this article to be succinctly chopped up, allowing this article to give an overview with many links to the other articles. The information you provided above on ethnicities is extremely fascinating. I think nowadays we always think of us being cultured and the ancients being primitive, so it is just a bizarre experience when you learn stuff like that, and you're like "Ancient Romans are just like us". :D childish I know, but it happens every time. Like when I read about Ancient Roman graffiti. I would love to see the ethnicity stuff in the article. While I have no knowledge of sex toys being used by Ancient Romans, as I said above, a sentence acknowledging that "there is no evidence suggesting this" or something like that would be a better option than saying nothing.--Coin945 (talk) 08:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've found a few things after a very light search:

Most of those don't meet Wikipedia standards for reliable sources (see WP:RS), since there are lots of sources for classical antiquity from scholarly presses, as you found. The four that do were used for this article, but not necessarily on this topic. Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z confirms that dildos are more common in Greek art, but gives a few examples in Roman sculpture that I'm unfamiliar with, plus the literary example from Petronius. Clarke, Art in the Lives of Everyday Romans, mentions the use of dildos by lesbians, which is found in Martial (this is one of the passages in the article in which sex toys are mentioned). Langlands, Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome, and Richlin's compilation for A Companion to the Roman Empire state flat-out something that I had started to suggest above: the use of slave sex meant that objects as toys would've been perhaps superfluous, since the slaves themselves could be used as objects of gratification. "Sex toys" are consumer products, and their greater prevalence in our own sexual culture probably just reflects our consumerism and owning stuff (in the sense of portable, largely disposable objects) as a whole. The readable Alastair Blanshard[4] has some good correctives to modern perceptions of Roman sexual morals. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:20, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Excessive length

This page is showing up on Special:Longpages. It currently has about 197 kB of readable prose, which is twice the 100K limit recommended by Wikipedia:Article size and according to that page would take about 2 hours for the typical person to actually read. Some details definitely need to be moved into subarticles.

I'm agnostic as to how this is done, but it seems like content is spread out among multiple sections and could be more easily moved or condensed if it were collected. I think the split between male and female sexuality is probably not helpful in this regard, and the article could be restructured along other lines. For example, I think we could collect all the law-related content and spin off "Sexuality and law in ancient Rome". All primary coverage of homosexuality and gender identity could be consolidated into a single shorter section, since we already have Homosexuality in ancient Rome. I think we could also spin off something like "Sexuality and art in ancient Rome", collecting content from several sections. For example, the long section "Breasts" has a lot of prose about artistic representations and cultural significance of breasts, which are not all that interesting to those that don't care about artsy things. -- Beland (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Habeo Belandum pro viro, quod viri celeriter finiunt, cum feminae numquam defatigant. --80.187.110.67 (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
@80.187.110.67: I'm sorry, you'll have to speak English. -- Beland (talk) 22:05, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
It was a mildly naughty joke in reference to your initial post and our article topic. "I hold Beland to be a man, as men finish quickly, while women never tire." Ah well...might still be enough for an entry over at Wikipedia:Talk page highlights. Though I was originally hoping for a reply of "Ridevi." ("LOL!") --80.187.110.67 (talk) 07:05, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"cum nos"

Surely doesn't mean "when we" but "with us"?¨Colacho (talk) 16:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Cum can be a preposition meaning "with," but with nos it's nobiscum, perhaps most familiar in the expression from the Latin Church, pax nobiscum. If you know Latin, the most efficient way to get an answer on the other cum is to review "cum clauses" in your grammar book. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
It's an archaic homophone that already by the time of the Republic was spelled the same. Originally, the two words were com ("with") and quom ("when"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.187.110.67 (talk) 16:22, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Sexuality in different periods of Ancient Rome

Was there a noticeable difference in the views and habits between the Roman kingdom, republic, pagan empire, and christian empire? Was elimination of paganism accompanied by changes in laws concerning sexuality? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:4100:77AA:62C5:47FF:FE97:7A72 (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Zoophilia

In Zoophilia, under the section on "Historical and cultural perspectives", it says, referring to acts of zoophilia staged at the Roman games for the pleasure of the audience: 

  "In the West, the most explicit records of sex involving humans and animals activity are associated with reports of the murderous sadism, torture and rape of the Roman games and circus, in which some authors estimate that several hundreds of thousands died. Masters believes beasts were specially trained to copulate with women: if the girls or women were unwilling then the animal would attempt rape. A surprising range of creatures was used for such purposes, and taught how to copulate vaginally or anally. Representations of scenes from the sexual lives of the gods, such as Pasiphaë and the Bull, were highly popular, often causing extreme suffering, injury or death. On occasion, the more ferocious beasts were permitted to kill and (if desired) devour their victims afterwards."

I realize that it doesn't refer to Roman sex activity in particular, but the fact that they apparently enjoyed watching it performed, even if only for the sake of humiliation and debasement of others seems relevant somehow. I don't know anything about the subject, but I had sort of hoped there would be further information on this page, as a link to the "zoophilia" section on this page was included in the "See also" section on the bottom. I'm not sure if the "hundreds of thousands" refers to victims of this specific activity, or if it's referring to the total number of victims at the games, in which case it could clearly be worded a bit more clearly. AnnaGoFast (talk) 04:27, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

This is what happens when writers draw broad generalisations from occasional specifics in history. The Zoophilia article should not be citing R E L Masters for anything at all. A google search identifies him as a pulp-writer and self-styled sexologist. Not a historian, and certainly not a reliable source. Wikipedia has an article on his (sometime) co-author Allen Edwardes, whose work is described as "pseudo-scholarship".Haploidavey (talk) 10:21, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I am sure you are right. Metamorphosis features a man turned donkey who is horrified at the prospect of having to perform a sex act on a human female in the arena. The satirist seems to suggest that audiences might very well be titillated by the prospect of watching this sort of thing, but also that a decent citizen would find it abhorrent. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:389C:F4E9:92B6:86E0 (talk) 15:53, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Sexuality in Italy listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Sexuality in Italy. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. 70.52.11.217 (talk) 05:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Juvenal 9

@Antinoos69: If Juvenal 9 is not to be included in "homoerotic literature", it should certainly be mentioned somewhere in the paragraph "Male-male sex". Although written from a disapproving point of view, it is an important document giving evidence for the existence of male-male marriages or partnerships in ancient Rome and perhaps also for the motivations of those involved. And yet neither here nor in "Homosexuality in ancient Rome" is there any mention of it. One might also mention the plays of Afranius, although they are no longer extant.

Another important article in this area which is not mentioned in either Wikipedia article is the following:

It should be noted also that the statement "Martial urges a wronged husband who has already cut off the adulterous man's ears and nose to complete the humiliation by befouling his mouth with oral rape", deriving from Amy Richlin's article, is not necessarily correct, especially as it involves altering the word irrumare to irrumari. In the following reply to Richlin, Adams interprets the text without emendation in a quite different way, namely that the aggrieved husband did not go far enough, and should have cut off the adulterer's penis as well as his nose and ears:

  • Adams, James N. (1983). "Martial 2. 83". Classical Philology, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 311-315.

Perhaps therefore, in view of scholars' disagreement about the interpretation of this particular poem, the sentence should be omitted, or replaced with other evidence (e.g. Martial 2.47) that oral rape was a possible punishment for adultery. Kanjuzi (talk) 06:25, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Like most scholars, I believe neither in “male-male marriages” nor in “pathic subcultures” in ancient Rome. Like most, I would say Juvenal and others are speaking rhetorically, hyperbolically, and figuratively. In any case, I don’t believe this section in this article is the place to get into minority scholarly views. The problem with Taylor’s minority views, in particular, is his misrepresentation of the work of other scholars, such as Williams, who has complained in print (Roman Homosexuality2, e.g.), rendering Taylor’s article problematic even for the main article.
I don’t know whether this section in this article is the place to get into satirical and rhetorical complexities, which may be better reserved for the main article on same-sex sex.
As for Martial, removal of the contentious reading would seem best here. Replacement without a secondary source for interpretation is problematic on Wikipedia, even in seemingly obvious cases as this. Antinoos69 (talk) 06:39, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

"penetrator–penetrated" binary model, however this model has limitations,

Okay, so what are these limitations, please expand. The phallocentric concept seems a pretty good fit to most of the Roman judgements on what is acceptable, what is vile, degrading etc. Penis-wielding is always best and manliest (virtue and manliness being all but co-extensive, as etymology already indicates), particularly when a man does it to his wife with the sole purpose of engendering children (an attitude not unlike that found in e.g. evangelical folk of our time). Any other stuff with the wife is tantamount to treating her in the same manner as individuals to whom this can be done without reproach, that is to say, prostitutes, "delicate boys", slaves, or even free individuals who are indebted to the penetrator. Thus it is better to spare the decency of the wife and perform other sex acts than the strictly procreational ones with the sort of people I just listed. However, as long as the man remains penetrator, the acts are generally acceptable, as long as he does not overindulge, throw away his money on a courtisane (Rome being literally awash with two-bit whores who were widely affordable, the tastes of the rich naturally ran to prostitutes who would demand exorbitant fees and gifts; just like modern-day "findoms"), and so forth. Below these practices ranked giving pleasure to a partner with any body part other than the penis; especially degrading was any use of the mouth, being the organ of speech and therefore of governance. And below that allowing or being forced to allow another man's penis to enter.

(No original research here, this is all straight from a standard work on the topic.)


2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:389C:F4E9:92B6:86E0 (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Images

Images should illustrate the article. Yes, the Romans loved their erotic art, but we need not and should not dump every Roman piece of art depicting of a sex act from Commons in this article, especially the pottery fragments on which you can barely see the act depicted. Also, the exuberance of adding sex images everywhere has broken up the gallery that originally illustrated the positions section. Many images are repetitive—they essentially show the same thing. I hope to sort more of this out. Too many images affects the readability of the article. If you would like to write an article on Roman erotic art, I encourage you to do so that Cynwolfe (talk) 23:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

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