Did ancient Rome have any sexual taboos?

[DNK]

Well, I remember some Roman poet, maybe Ovid or Catullus, getting ostracized for his "immoral" poems about lovemaking (and sleeping with the emperor's daughter or something like that), which would lead me to believe that at times there may have been "family values" types ruling the place. As with most things, it would probably vary from time to time and place to place.

So how many taboos are there in the US today? Some communities swing, orgify, etc, at will. Others don't seem to do anything at all for months on end.

 

[challenger]

Roman authors such as Suetonius frequently used sexual pervertions and the likes to portray people as evil. It is a (Hollywood/Popular) myth that ancient Rome was easy-going, sexually. It wasn't any more extreme than at any other point in history; brothels and prostitutes existed everywhere.

 

[firecoder]

Roman authors such as Suetonius frequently used sexual pervertions and the likes to portray people as evil. It is a (Hollywood/Popular) myth that ancient Rome was easy-going, sexually. It wasn't any more extreme than at any other point in history; brothels and prostitutes existed everywhere.

im sure brothels and prostitution existed in almost every type of history

 

[challenger]

That's what I said (or was trying to say).

 

[Gaius Octavius]

During the "Rape of Lucretia" episode in the transition from the monarchy to the republic, Livy reports that Lucretia's attacker, Sextus Tarquinius, threatened to kill her, place her in bed with a slave, and kill him, too, if she didn't have sex with him (Sextus). The idea was to make it look like he'd suddenly come into the room, found the two of them in bed together, and killed them - which was legal IIRC. There was the dual reason of infidelity and sleeping with a slave, which could be considered a taboo (though they were by no means unique events).

I highly doubt they did, if they di I'm sure any of our resident rome experts would know...I'm thinking Gaius.

I didn't even see this until after I posted! I'm afraid Roman "preversions" aren't exactly my area of expertise, so that's all I could think of at the time.

 

[Bast]

I think I read somewhere that homosexuality was condoned but men were generally expected to have kids with a woman.

I also read that sex with child slaves were ok. I think sex with any slave wasn't taboo. If there were taboos, only between free citizens. I think.

 

[luiz]

The romans were full of sexual taboos, the notion that before christiniaty people lived in some sort of hippy free-love society is nothing but BS.

For starters, while it was acceptable for a man to have sex with a boy (as long as he was the "active"), homossexuality in general was frowned upon and was the object of ridicule. This became specially true after the popularization of the stoicism (a philospphy that preached pre-marital abstinence and a sexual morality close to that of christinianity). In fact even the once common man-boy relations became some sort of taboo in the later pagan period.

 

[Ethics]

Roman authors such as Suetonius frequently used sexual pervertions and the likes to portray people as evil. It is a (Hollywood/Popular) myth that ancient Rome was easy-going, sexually. It wasn't any more extreme than at any other point in history; brothels and prostitutes existed everywhere.

I wouldn't say Suetonius portrayed anyone as "evil" so much as he wrote to a Caesar's positive and negative traits. Certainly, looking at someone like Caligula, his pervertions will make him look reprehensible, but Suetonius definately left it up to the reader to decide.

The Roman Republic, and Imperial Rome certainly had sexual and behavioral taboos. Augustus used Mark Antony's behaviors in the east with Cleopatra to galvanize Rome against him by playing the conservative Roman value card with the voters. He also proposed and passed marriage laws to get the Romans and Italians to making babies again (although, these proposals were a joke amongst the Romans when even Augustus was doing the horizontal hokey-pokey around town... fortunately Germanicus and Agrippina made a good match for such passage of laws).

Now, this does not mean such things such as homosexuality were completely frowned upon. It just depended who was penetrating who. Those who do not play catch will always rise to the occassion!

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Before christianity even started did the romans have any sexual acts that were considered taboos? were any sexual acts punishable in any way? If the list isn't too long can someone list them?

The taboo was based on social class. The partner who was of the higher social class could only engage in acts that did not demean his station. So a man could not perform oral sex on a woman, because that meant he was servicing her and men were a higher social class to women. But the reverse was allowed. This relationship was consistent regardless of gender.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

So that means a male slave or plebeian could perform oral sex on a noblewoman?

 

[kulade]

If no one has already said it, it was at times awkward for the woman to assume active rolls (on top) in sex. The passive rolls in sex were reserved for women as a symbol of the man's power over her. Homosexuality, thus was dishonorable to the passive male, but not to the active. An old soldier's chant was , "Caesar conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar." Thus humiliating Iulius Caesar for passive rolls in sex.

Another taboo was "Cunnilingus" meaning literally "Vulva-tounge" (I guess you can guess what it is ). It was very dishonorable for a man to preform this on a woman.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

I already knew what it was anyway

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

So that means a male slave or plebeian could perform oral sex on a noblewoman?

Yes.

I might add that this was a public taboo. It's likely that people were still practicing the very things that were forbidden, in private, because there was always rumor about it.

Btw, as far as adultery goes, it only applied to women. If a man had sex with someone other than his wife, that was ok, but if a woman had sex with someone other than her husband, that was not ok. The reason is because women were treated as property, whose value is reproductive. If your wife had sex with another man, there was no way to know if her child was yours. Again, it's clear that Roman wives were sleeping around, because we hear so much about it.

In ancient Rome, regardless of your gender or social status, sex was widespread and easy enough to obtain. Even if you were not very appealing, you could solicit a prostitute (male or female), which was perfectly legal. If you owned any slaves, you could compel them to have sex with you. There was no notion that sex had anything to do with love, so people tended to do it with less hesitation. Sex was considered a biological urge, no different than hunger, sleep, or thirst. In fact, a husband who actually loved his wife was said to be naive.

Most of these practices began to disappear through the influence of philosophy and Christianity. Christianity, in particular, caused sex to be viewed as a necessary evil, but one which the pious should indulge in as infrequently as possible. As the influence of religion has decreased in the last 500 years, so has its influence over sexuality, and we are seeing a gradual return to the ancient Roman notion of sex being purely a leisure activity, rather than an act of love.

 

[luiz]

Most of these practices began to disappear through the influence of philosophy and Christianity. Christianity, in particular, caused sex to be viewed as a necessary evil, but one which the pious should indulge in as infrequently as possible. As the influence of religion has decreased in the last 500 years, so has its influence over sexuality, and we are seeing a gradual return to the ancient Roman notion of sex being purely a leisure activity, rather than an act of love.

This does not necessarily have much to do with christianity but with the new realities of the post-imperial period.

The franks, even when they were pagans, were far more repressive of sexuality than the christian galo-romans. In their warrior society the "purity" of women was everything, as men died young and needed to be sure that their offspring was actually theirs, to carry own with the bloodline. The punishment for female adulteries, under frankish law, was for them to be strangled and thrown in the mud.

Also note that in the high medieval christian world view, sex was not associated with love but rather with passion, which was frowned upon.

 

[SickCycle]

They were bisexual.. Julies Caesar was known as "Every mans wife and everyone womens husband" haha

I think you should check some of these peoples facts.

Greeks were homo too.

 

[luiz]

They were bisexual.. Julies Caesar was known as "Every mans wife and everyone womens husband" haha

I think you should check some of these peoples facts.

Greeks were homo too.

Maybe you should check your facts. To suggest that romans were bissexual, or that even most of them were, is really questionable (to say the least). The same goes for saying the greeks were "homos". Some were, most probably (certainly) weren't.

BTW, the claims about Caeser's alleged homo/bissexuality come from his political opponents (which in turn suggests that homossexuality was not widely accepted in Rome, after all opponents would use it as slander). When Mark Anthony wanted to make Octavian look bad, he spread the rumour that he and Caeser were lovers.