Pompeii - Eroticism and Prostitution

Pompeii has a reputation for lasciviousness and was often a by-word for sex and prostitution but in reality the people were no more promiscuous than other roman towns and cities and the erotic artwork discovered in Pompeii were sources of art, titillation, fertility and lucky charms as well as some being deliberately explicit.

The many phallus symbols embedded in to the walls of walls of the city thoroughfares have been crudely analyzed as clever directional arrows pointing to Brothels or marking the brothels themselves. It is more likely that they symbolized both male dominance and prosperity. For instance the giant phallus found outside a bakery is accompanied by the slogan above it

Good fortune dwells here

Also outside the House of the Vettii a large painting of the god of fertility Priapus The family was wealthy and had a high reputation in the city so it is unlikely they would have painted this depiction if it was thought in any way unseemly.

Inside the houses in the public areas paintings often mixed food and wine with suggestive depictions of Pan, Venus and Mars