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I Am A Lady, Call Me Not A Lord...

Above all else, the important thing for the Roman man was to be dominant. Homosexuality was socially acceptable only under these circumstances: If a man was the inserter he retained his masculinity. The man on the receiving end was labeled effeminate and ridiculed.

Nero married two men. In the first marriage, he castrated his lover and dressed him up as the bride. In the second it was the emperor who played the bride. He wore a bridal veil and on the wedding night imitated the sounds of a woman being deflowered. For Nero this kind of spectacle was an elaborate form of erotic play. It titillated him to put on shows and dress in women’s clothing. He was not alone in his love of transvestitism. It might be said that the emperor who did not like to dress in women’s clothing was the exception.

Emperor Caligula appeared onstage wearing wigs. Emperor Elagabalus wanted to be a woman. One way in which he satisfied this urge was to himself in real brothels. He wanted to cut off his genitals. He asked a doctor to create a vagina for him by means of an incision. He shaved and wore makeup. To one guest in his house, he declared, "I am a lady, call me not a lord."

Homosexual relations were often portrayed by poets, Juvenal- being one particular favorite of mine, wrote with such, dare I say- "eloquence" :

"Thallus, you faggot, softer than rabbit fur,
or goosedown, or a sweet little earlobe,
or an old man's listless dick, lying in cobwebs and neglect. And yet, when the full moon shows the other guests starting to nod and yawn, you're grabbier than a plunging hurricane. Give me back my housecoat, which you pounced on, and my good Spanish flax table napkins, and the painted boxwood writing tablets, which you keep on display, jerk, like they were heirlooms, unstick them from your claws and give them back or I'll use a whip to scribble some really embarrassing lines, hot as the iron that brands disgrace on a common thief, on your wool soft sides and dainty little hands. You'll get excited in a brand new way, your head will spin like a boat caught out on the open sea when the winds go mad."(Juvenal-from Venucine Lucerna)

Many critics blamed this type of behavior on the influence of the Greeks. Juvenal satirizes the effeminate nature of the imported Greek actors:

"On the stage they reign supreme
In female parts, , matron or slave-girl,
With no concealing cloak: you’d swear it was a genuine
Woman you saw, and not a masked performer.
Look there, beneath that belly: no bulge, all smooth, a neat nothingness ‒ even a hint of the Great Divide."

"Celadus the Thracier (a famous Greek gladiator)makes the girls moan!" (graffiti in the Pompeiian barracks of the gladiators)

Certain emperors liked to put on shows. Life, for them, was a kind of live theater. They played out their fantasies on stage and off. Anybody who chose not to participate was out of luck and possibly out of life. Nero certainly was one. He held banquets in public places, using the city’s public spaces however he liked.

He set live Christians on fire for the amusement of his guests. He had a raft constructed on a lake. As guests rode around on the lake, they could see the imported birds and animals and fish that were brought from the ocean. On one shore there were brothels and on the other naked prostitutes danced and gestured. Nero also established a theatrical festival that was held every five years. Roman nobles performed naked boxing tournaments onstage to the shock of the people.

Critics blamed the Greeks for this "degeneracy." One ancient theatre critic (Camille of Paglia) wrote:

"The more moral an emperor, the less he was drawn to theater… theatrical transformation, a seductive principle of our time, can never be reconciled with morality. From antiquity on, professional theater has been under a moral cloud… an emperor’s appearance onstage was shocking, since actors were "de-classed", barred from Roman citizenship…Tertullian complains of theater’s immorality and its frequenting by prostitutes, who even took to the stage to advertise themselves." (Camille of Paglia: Excerpts From An Ancient Critic)

Women found male actors and gladiators exciting, especially the pantomime actors. It is still common today as we women certainly appreciate the stocky, burly, muscular men of sports like football- A modern day "gladiatorial" event indeed, sans the physical sense of death, but surely the death of one team's "pride" of course. Emasculating yet fulfilling! Again Juvenal says:

"When pansy
Bathyllus dances Leda, all fouettes and entrechats,
Just watch the women. One can’t control her bladder, Another suddenly moans in drawn-out ecstasy
As though she was coming."

Women virtually peed their pants watching these actors, a phenomenon that cannot strike our modern ears as strange. At the end of the republic, pantomime and mime replaced classical drama as the favorite form of entertainment. Pantomimes resembled ballet and acted out well-known stories and myths. Tacitus called pantomimes "evils of the city." Mime performances were overtly sexual. There is an account by the ancient physician Galen about a woman who became bed-ridden over her love for a pantomime dancer:

"I was called in to see a woman who was stated to be sleepless at night and to lie tossing about from one position to another… After I had diagnosed that there was no bodily trouble, and that the woman was suffering from some mental uneasiness, it happened that, at the very time I was examining her… somebody came from the theatre and said he had seen Pylades dancing. Then both her expression and the color of her face changed. Seeing this, I applied my hand to her wrist, and noticed that her pulse had suddenly become extremely irregular…I kept very careful watch when it was announced that Pylades was dancing, and I noticed that the pulse was very much disturbed. Thus I found out that the woman was in love with Pylades."(Written Works of a Physician: Galen of Pergamom)

Perversion in the great cities was seen everywhere...

"Myrtis, you do great blow jobs." (graffiti from street corner in Pompeii)

Seneca tells the tale of a man who used mirrors to enhance his sexual experience:
"All my organs are occupied in the lechery. Let my eyes, too, come into their share of the debauchery and be witnesses and supervisors of it. By means of a device let even those acts be seen which the position of our bodies removes from sight, so that no one may think I do not know what I do … To what purpose my depravity if I sin only to the limit of nature? I will surround myself with mirrors, the type which renders the size of objects incredible. If it were possible, I would make those sizes real; because it is not possible, I will feast myself on the illusion. Let my lust see more than it consumes and marvel at what it undergoes." (Seneca, Natural Questions II, 19)

Seneca adds the comment: "Shameful behavior! Perhaps he was murdered quickly, even before he saw it; he ought to have been immolated in front of a mirror of his own." (Seneca, Natural Questions I, 16)

In this passage we see mirrors as a pornographic tool, the predecessor of television and film. By watching himself in the sex act, he became both object and subject, anticipating the homemade porn video by two thousand years.

For those less experienced, Ovid provided some answers. His 'Ars Amatoria' ("The Art of Love") caused an uproar. It instructed men in the ways of winning and keeping women and women on how to please men:

"What a girl ought to know is herself, adapting her method, taking advantage of the methods nature has equipped her to use. Lie on your back if your face and all your features are pretty; if your posterior is cute, better be seen from behind … Little girls do all right if they sit on top, riding horseback; Hector’s Andromache knew she could not do this: too tall! Press the couch with your knees and bend your neck backward a little if your view, full-length, seems what a lover should crave. If the breasts and the thighs are youthful and lovely to look at, let the man stand and the girl lie on a slant on the bed. Let your hair come down, in the Laodamian fashion. If your belly is lined, better be seen from behind … Let the woman feel the act of love to her marrow, let the performance bring equal delight to the two. Coax and flatter and tease, with inarticulate murmurs, even with sexual words, in the excitement of play, and if nature, alas, denies you the final sensation cry out as if you had come, do your best to pretend … if you have to pretend, be sure the pretense is effective, do your best to convince, prove it by rolling your eyes, prove by your motions, your moans, your sighs, what a pleasure it gives you."(Ovid,'The Art Of Love'

I say that it truly seems it was Ovid, that was the first author of a book so like "The Joy Of Sex"...

Other poets were not so much concerned with instructing the reader as telling a story, often autobiographical. Catullus wrote innumerable poems dealing with erotic situations. Some of them were more to the point than others, one example from his work titled 'Carmen' says:

"I beg you, my sweet, my Ipsitilla,
my darling, my sophisticated beauty,
summon me to a midday assignation;
and, if you're willing, do me one big favor:
don't let another shoot the door bolt,
and don't decide to suddenly go cruising,
but stay at home & get yourself all ready
for nine - yes, nine - successive copulations!
Honestly, if you want it, give the order:
I've eaten, and I'm sated, supinated!
My prick is poking through my cloak and tunic."
[Catillus, Camille 25- translated by Jacob Rabinowitz, June 1988]

Pornography in ancient Rome seems to have welled up from the dark unconscious of the people, their imagination and inventiveness apparently limitless. The man watching his own sex act in mirrors has found the excitement in the moving image. Nero dressing as a woman and marrying a man has turned his own life into a pornographic show. Instead of renting a video, men stopped in at brothels. In many senses, they were more active participants in their own sex lives than we today, often playing roles in live pornographic scenes, not simply passively observing, as is done in modern society, when viewing films or reading magazines.

Romans lived in a world where sex was not taboo. Because our world frets so over the subject, pagan sexuality has been relegated to a dank corner of history. Museums keep the most lurid pieces in their collections locked away and only recently have some of these pieces comes out of the closet and up from the sub-basement. Yay!

What we do know now is that pornography, or sexual representation, has always and will always exist. It is man’s nature to externalize and give form to his sexual desire, just as it is his nature to survive. Sexuality is the healthy will to life that cannot be suppressed and will find any and every way to thrive. Pornography is the also irrepressible black sheep in the family of arts, always rebellious and ever incorrigible. Boo! Hiss!

So there you have it- Porn and antiquity go hand in hand...Long live Porn! Hail Debauchery- Long May You Live!

13greeneyedlady

Irish

Irish- glad you're enthused! I'm so happy the knowledge of the glory that was once Rome, isn't wasted on you!

Linda- Mmmmm-hmmmmm! Can you imagine the fine 'professore' giving you the test!!! Perhaps a powerful gladiator, or power-hungry senator??? Yum!

Cheryll- me too, me too! Imagine zipping along the time space continuuim- popping in here or there thru time! Imagine the most handsome sex-craved lovers you could have!!! Oh relish the thought!

XIIIViridisOculusDomina-13greeneyedlady!

Irish

Irish...there's always room for one more, it's more fun to travel in groups anyways! Think of the times we could have running amok!

Daniel...sorry it's too over the top for ya...I just love history and because it has to do with the origins of some sexual proclivities, I thought it'd be fun and most fitting to share...

nola...'Gentlemen prefer blonds' is the phrase you were alluding to LOL...good for you girl! Thanks for the extra tidbit of info you shared! It tickles me to hear other's input!

XIIViridisOculusDomina-13greeneyedlady

thanks for sharing!

13greeny...Kerin