The Joy of Sexus

by León, Vicki

  The introduction to her book begins: “Philaenis of Samos, daughter of Ocymenes, wrote the following things for those wanting … life.” (The rest of the line is missing.) The author methodically organized her book into chapters, such as “How to Make a Pass,” and “Seduction through Flattery” (a small fragment reads: “say that he or she is ‘godlike’ “). Other surviving chapter names include: “Cosmetics for Seduction Success”; “The Use of Aphrodisiacs”; “Abortion Methods”; and “Sexual Positions.”

  On Indecent Kisses evidently contained some suggestions for female-to-female intimacy that terrified males in ancient Greece and Rome, where the thought of women engaging in mutually satisfying behavior turned male stomachs. The brilliant seventh-century B.C. poetry and lyrics of Sappho of Lesbos had done much to bring attention to X-rated activity among gals out into the open, but the thought of lesbians (or tribades, as they were more commonly referred to then) had the average Athenian or Roman breaking out in hives. (See the entries on tribades and outercourse elsewhere in this book for more details.)

  Philaenis’s handbook for the voluptuary really pushed the outrage envelope, because it apparently included illustrations of sexual positions. Yes indeed: a Joy of Sex B.C., with how-tos for couples gay and straight. In the reign of Emperor Trajan the Roman poet Martial, who preened himself on hip vulgarity and flippant, ad hominem porn, found Philaenis’s matter-of-fact nonfiction and art so horrifying that he scurried home to write scurrilous epigrams about her.

  Another writer from Samos, a poet called Aeschrion, was even more dismayed to have “his” home island named as Philaenis’s turf as well. In response, he wrote an epigram denying that she ever wrote lewd books or “did research” by consorting with men in that way.

  For all the stir she caused, Philaenis was by no means the only gal to carry out such work. A talented female poet called Elephantis also did illustrated editions that focused on how to organize group sex. Wow. It got a mention from Roman historian Suetonius, author of the still-famous Lives of the Twelve Caesars. In his biography of Emperor Tiberius, he said that the nasty old voyeur owned a copy of her “learn through pictures” book. It got heavy use on the isle of Capri at his sexual pleasure park, where youngsters were forced to engage in group sex. According to Suetonius, it was used as a reference, “so that no one should lack a model for the execution of any lustful act he was ordered to perform.”

  Other feminine porn artists included Nico of Samos, called a writer of lewd books by Xenophon; and Astynassa, who took on the literary persona of Helen of Troy’s personal maid to pen her book on sexual positions.

  Although only a smidgen of biographical data has surfaced about male pornographers, nevertheless they did crank out a disreputable number of raunchy little books. Their numbers included authors Sabellus, Musaeus, Mummius, Sotades of Mantinea, Timon of Phlius, Botrys, and a fellow from fabled Sybaris called Hemitheon. The latter wrote a homoerotic novel called Sybaritica, cited for its “lubricity” by writers Martial and Lucian.

  Purveyors of pornography back then evidently felt compelled to describe the postures of venery, as sex positions were called, and brag about the number they’d included in their book. Author Paxamus, for example, boasted of twelve positions in his tome called Dodecatechnon (Twelve Techniques). The poet Martial also commented on “the debauched books of Elephantis, with nine postures.”

  So what were the favorite Greco-Roman positions, anyway? Judging by the extant paintings and illustrations, one called the Rider was extremely popular. The woman sat proudly above the man, who was supine on his back. If she faced him, the pose was called Venus pendula conversa; if away, it was Venus pendula aversa. (See the amount of Latin you can learn if the topic is gripping enough?)

  Another subset of titillating tales also became popular in the second century B.C. The first may have been written by Aristides of Miletus, a luxurious Greek city-state in Asia Minor. Called Milesiaka (Milesian Tales), they were collections of short stories, told in the first person, using ribald language and salacious anecdotes of love and adventure. They appealed to male readers, these trashy novels; some were even found in the gear carried by legionaries.

  As mentioned in the entry on masturbation, early porn books often enhanced private moments for many a lustful Roman or Greek, engaging in what the Victorians liked to call “self-pollution.”

  The Priapeia:

  Before e-books there were tree-books

  One of the ripest, raunchiest collections of printed matter ever made in ancient times was the Priapeia, a garland or collection of short Latin poems or epigrams. “Printed” isn’t the adequate word to describe the Priapeia, which had a very unusual genesis.

  A Roman garden wasnt complete unless it boasted a statue of the god Priapus, whose fierce supersized member would guard the premises.

  Initially written on leather, papyrus, parchment, and possibly tree bark, these poems ran from two lines long to twenty or more. They were nailed or fastened onto the carved wooden figure of the god Priapus—and not just one Priapus, either. Most of the statues of this god adorned the lush walled gardens of the well-to-do, or sat inside temples throughout Rome. (Others appeared on board merchant ships, since Priapus was also the protector of sailors and patron god of navigation.)

  Some statues were sophisticated images, beautifully carved and painted bright red. But many were deliberately crude, simply a tree trunk roughly shaped into human form. In both instances, the attention-getting body part of the Priapus god was his massive, at-attention virile member. In everyday language it was called a mentula, the street slang for phallus.

  Priapus worship was said to have come from Greece, the cult later spreading to Italy. Other accounts insisted it was derived from the Egyptians and their adoration of Apis, the sacred bull. Like the older god Pan, Priapus’s backstory included being raised by shepherds and being a minor deity of wilderness and woodlands.

  In any event, these fierce scarlet images were very ancient fertility symbols, apropos for gardens filled with fruit trees, herbs, and edible plants. Priapus also protected livestock as well as wild animals. For property owners, the Priapus figure acted as a garden vigilante and an evil-eye deterrent. His oversize phallic aggression visually threatened fruit robbers, cattle rustlers, vegetable thieves, and any other no-good varmints with a terrible punishment: rape.

  Thus the Priapeia poems attached to the Priapus figure—which poetically threatened the reader—added more emphasis.

  How did the Priapus poetry come into being, anyway? It seems to have developed at a reunion of Roman literati, who were spending a relaxing day in the ultra-fancy gardens of Maecenas, swimming in Rome’s first warm water pool and swilling good wine. Maecenas, a tight friend of Rome’s first emperor, was also the literary patron of Horace the poet and other wellknown writers. His gardens were the first ones in Italy to be lush, Persian-style walled paradises.

  Over the course of that jovial, competitive afternoon (or perhaps a series of afternoons) the group wrote poems and epigrams, then affixed them to the massive Priapus that stood guard on the grounds of the temple in the Maecenas gardens. Later, some ninety-five of these poems to Priapus were collected into a printed volume that saw publication in Rome. The “hard copies,” as we’ll call the ones not attached to the statues, became so popular with a wider audience that well-known writers of erotic or scatological themes, from Catullus and Petronius to Tibullus, were eager to add to the collection. And did so, with brio. Because of its ripely obscene content and often disturbing rape imagery, the Priapeia was for many centuries not translated into English.

  Pherenike of Rhodes:

  Cloaked in Olympic victory

  Born into an athletic dynasty on the Greek island of Rhodes, Pherenike— whose name means “carrying victory”—grew up surrounded by testosterone and superstars, starting with her dad, Diagoras, a towering figure who won first prize in the men’s boxing event at the 464 B.C. Olympic Games. (Back then, winners were awarded simpl
e olive wreath crowns, but later got showered with golden perks as well.)

  Her big, burly brothers continued the winning streak. In boxing and the ferocious boxing-wrestling event called the pancratium, Pherenike’s brothers swept six different Olympic Games. Doreius, her youngest sibling, was the family standout. He took crowns in three successive Olympiads, plus eight victories at the Isthmian Games, seven at the Nemean, and more on the Great Games circuit besides.

  As their sister, Pherenike probably cheered them on in person. As a youngster, and as an unmarried women, she would have made the long trek from Rhodes to Olympia with her family to see one or more of her brothers’ triumphs. At the ancient Olympics, only unmarried women and girls (a euphemism for virgins) could attend; matrons were barred. No one could recall the reason or the start date for the ancient ban—or for its awful penalty: any Mrs. with the temerity to gate-crash would be hurled to her death off the Typaeum cliffs nearby.

  While at Olympia, Pherenike may well have seen the Heraean Games, too. Every four years, just prior to the Olympics, footraces for girls and women were held on the same grounds. These competitions to honor the goddess Hera were more ancient than the Olympics themselves and three-time winners were honored with statues that stood alongside those of the Olympic winners in the sacred precinct.

  In time, Pherenike married a sports-mad athlete named Callianax. They had two sons, who grew into husky lads—and likely contenders. In 404 B.C. her older son, Eucles, won his boxing event and brought the olive crown of Olympia home to his mother. Because she was now a married woman, Pherenike didn’t get to witness his win.

  Even though Nike, the deity of Olympic victory, was a goddess, the ancient Olympics barred married women even as spectators.

  In a few years, her younger son Pisodorus seemed primed for the boxing competition, and they entered his name into the boys’ boxing event at Olympia. But during the mandatory ten-month training period prior to the Olympics, tragedy struck. Pherenike’s husband, her son’s trainer, died suddenly. Pisodorus was staggered. So was his mother. But the new widow, remembering she was part of the mighty Diagoras dynasty, didn’t hesitate.

  “I’ll finish training you, son,” she said.

  And so began their well-kept secret, a clandestine training regimen. Pherenike, who’d watched her brothers and husband box and train for years, knew what skill sets her son needed to master. As muscular and coordinated as the other males in the family, young Pisodorus had the tools to be a winner. Speed, power, and elusiveness being key elements to success in boxing, Pherenike soon had her son running laps and later, spending hours pounding the millet-filled punchball. During sparring practice, wearing his ear guards and soft padded gloves, he bobbed and wove like an early Muhammad Ali.

  In June of 388 B.C., Pisodorus reported to the training area at Elis, the place where all athletes spent the last month before the games.

  In the July heat the ninety-eighth Olympic Games began, with religious ceremonies and sacrifices to Zeus, Hera, and the other Greek gods. As a first-timer, Pisodorus was probably nervous; he might have been even more shaky had he known what his mother was up to. She wasn’t a demure, hidden-away matron like those of Athens. A Rhodian from a family of athletes, Pherenike was fit and moved boldly. She couldn’t stand the thought of not being there to support her son. Since she’d been to earlier Olympic events, she knew what the official trainers wore, what they did, and where they stood during the matches.

  Pherenike dressed herself in the special full-length robe of a trainer, and carried the wooden staff they used. (She may have donned a fake beard and cut her hair as well, for all we know.) At any rate, her disguise passed muster, and Pherenike gained entry into the trainers’ enclosure, which was surrounded by a low fence.

  The herald’s trumpet blared, and Pisodorus began his match. She’d done her job well, she saw. The teen moved quickly, overwhelming his opponent with left jabs, hooks, right crosses, and blows to the body. His speed and power awed her. The crowd roared their approval. At length, her son’s opponent raised his index finger—the signal of defeat.

  Pherenike couldn’t contain herself. Letting out a war whoop of delight, she jumped the fence and ran to kiss her son. Either the high-pitched sound of her voice, or perhaps what her jump over the fence revealed, blew her disguise. The spectators, thousands of them, murmured in astonishment, which grew into a roar of outrage.

  The ten Olympic judges were in a terrible quandary. No trainer had ever been revealed as a woman before! And a married woman—that was the real horror. Anxiously they conferred. Before long, they came to an ingeniously Greek solution. Pherenike would go unpunished—no fatal fling off the sheer Typaeum cliffs for her. With solemn faces, they announced that in light of her family’s contributions to the glory of the Olympic Games, she would not undergo the penalty for breaking the taboo.

  However, they quickly added, “From this day forward, trainers as well as athletes will participate in the nude at the Olympic Games.”

  Exultant, Pherenike and her son got to walk away from the Olympic Games together. From then on, however, she possessed lasting fame of her own, and a new nickname among the Greeks. They fondly called her Kallipatira, “good father.”

  Koan Silk:

  See-through is sexy

  Although thousands of Greek vases and statues depicting naked gods, goddesses, men, women, and satyrs in varying states of excitement would seem to indicate otherwise, the Greeks were also fond of clothed ambiguity.

  Ambiguity—as in first you see it, now you don’t—could be highly erotic.

  For over a thousand years, however, every stitch worn by the Greeks and Romans was made at home on looms that produced rectangular pieces of wool or linen. A shorter chunk became a Greek chiton or a Roman tunic. A longer piece of cloth, pinned or stitched at the shoulders and cinched with one or more belts, became a nice drapey gown, usually more demure than daring.

  Another large piece of fabric, called a peplum or palla, served as a shawl or head covering when women went outdoors. The whole ensemble looked great on statues of shapely goddesses. On the average Greek or Roman gal, we’d call it the muffled look.

  For ceremonial activities, however, such as religious processions, girls and unmarried women sometimes got to wear shorter chitons or tunics. During athletic competitions from the first century A.D. on, in which Greek and Roman girls and women around the Mediterranean took part, a female participant wore a short tunic with one shoulder strap, leaving one breast bare. Several statues still survive of female athletes in such garb, including a Roman copy in the Vatican Museum.

  Only among Spartans young and old did women get to let it all hang out. Skimpy tunics were the norm. So was nudity during sports events.

  So did any other Greek or Roman gals ever get to emulate Spartan sartorial freedom? Yes, indeed.

  The Greeks called it the “Amorgian chiton”; the Romans, the “Koan vest.” We’d call it “very sexy.” It was a clingy, flattering gossamer gown that covered everything from neck to ankles yet revealed it at the same time. Its fabric: a feather-light, see-through silk.

  Why do we know so little about it? Until recently, silk was thought to be a jealously guarded secret, exclusive to ancient China. And indeed it was—until clever traders from Persia and the Middle East hijacked a few silkworm eggs and the contraband eventually got to ancient Greece.

  Another reason for our lack of knowledge: it was very tough to depict transparent cloth on a painting or carved in stone. So there are few traces of this garment in Greco-Roman art. One superb example does exist—the stone artwork called the Ludovisi Throne, which depicts the love goddess being lifted from the sea. On it, the sculptor has managed to show her body through this breathtaking fabric that clings to her.

  By Aristotle’s time or possibly earlier, wild silkworms were stealthily brought to the small Greek islands of Amorgos and Kos (not far from present-day Turkey), where their output was made into cloth. The insects were housed in
mulberry trees. To make silk, the Chinese preferred to kill the butterfly inside the cocoon, whereas the Greeks allowed it to work its way out, breaking the threads as it went. Greek women on Amorgos, accustomed to making linen from flax, used the same technique, called hackling, to make their silk. The fabric soon got dubbed amorgina after the island, as well as metaxa and a confusion of other names.

  Spartan women bared more flesh than other Greeks. Their athletic females wore mini-tunics that covered just one breast.

  Naturally the stuff cost a fortune, but Greek women from housewives to heterae soon got their husbands, families, and lovers to cough up. By 411 B.C., when playwright Aristophanes first put on Lysistrata, the satirical play where women carry out a sex strike to keep their men from going to war, the fashion was red-hot among the Athenians. In the play, Aristophanes included lines about the women sexually teasing the men by coming forward “naked in their Amorgian chitons.” These lines were understood, and roared at, by everyone in the audience.

  When wealthy philosopher Plato wanted to send a thank-you gift to the daughters of the household where he’d enjoyed hospitality on Sicily, he specified in a letter: “Give the daughters of Kebes three tunics seven cubits long, not those expensive Amorgian ones, but the more ordinary kind made of Sicilian linen.” Was that familial diplomacy? Or was Plato an aristocratic cheapskate?