Article on Rome not written by me.

The following is from several sources including “Sexual Life in Ancient Rome”,
by Otto Kiefer.

The early Roman republic did not share the Greeks attitudes regarding nudity,
especially male nudity.The Romans went so far that they did not consider it
decent for growing boys to bathe with their fathers,or sons-in-law with fathers-in-law.
The Romans felt that “shame has its beginning in public nakedness.”

The early Roman republic was, as far as antiquity allows us to see, a masculine
state, a state run by men for men. The ruling sex, men, had all the property
rights; at marriage the wife brought a dowry to her
husband; the man had the tendency to assign to the subordinate sex, woman, the
house and the home as her province. The early Romans had many other marks of
a masculine state, in connection with married
life; especially the regulations on feminine chastity, the “double standard
of morality.”

The later emancipation of Roman women, however, changed everything, including
the destruction of the double standard of morality. If one sex frees itself
in a state dominated by the other sex, simultaneously
with the loss of power by the ruling sex, the peculiar functions and natures
of the sexes also change. The woman has hitherto been nothing but a chaste and
discreet housewife and mother. She know shows herself as an independent personality;
she disregards the ties which once bound her, vindicates her own right to happiness
and sexual expression and pursues it with all her might. When she does, her
actions are regarded as degeneracy by those who only know the masculine state
and its ideology.

That is exactly the change which occurred in the history of Rome. Roman women
declared their sexual liberation, but this new freedom was not expressed in
sexual life alone. The freedoms which Roman
women achieved were economic, legal, and included political emancipation as
well.

The Roman civilization had a history of a nation whose predispositions included
sexual excesses, brutality, immorality , and cruelty. Roman women after their
emancipation adapted the same behavioral characteristics and predispositions.


Education in ancient Rome was carried out on under the scourge, symbolic of
the will to power. A people whose motto is power will therefore rear its children
under this influence. Corporal punishment in schools must have generally been
very severe, not to say cruel. The physical punishment of boys was especially
harsh. But everything which the Roman children, especially the boys, had to
suffer from the severe discipline of school and home, was mild in comparison
with the punishments which Romans inflicted on their enemies, their slaves,
and criminals. But the harsh treatment of their slaves was not limited to Roman
men. Roman women of nobility demonstrated a propensity for harsh cruelty, including
the humiliation and physical punishment of slaves, especially male slaves.


The Romans felt that public nakedness was shameful for those denuded. Many slaves
in Rome were prisoners of war. During one war their enemy was a devoutly religious
nation of warriors who believed that a male should never expose his nakedness
in the presence of any women except his spouse. They believed,in fact,that to
do so would keep them from entering the kingdom of God. The Queen of Ticitus
ordered all male captive prisoners stripped naked and paraded through the streets
before all the women of Ticitus including herself. The parades of naked male
prisoners became a tradition in an effort to humiliate
and demoralize their captive soldiers of war.

Roman women of nobility were surrounded by slaves who catered to their every
whims. Roman women lavished in luxurious baths, massages, and body oils. Roman
women spent most of the day being pampered and indulging in sexual excesses.
These slaves, males and females were always nude. Nakedness of slaves symbolized
their status as property of the women.

Young sexually mature male slaves were carefully selected for sexual purposes.
Roman women sought “aesthetically perfect” male slave specimens for this purpose.
The Roman women of nobility carefully
selected boys with “remarkable phallic endowments’ and “heavy testes.” The Roman
women believed that the depositing and absorption in their vagina of the semen
of youthful sexually mature boys served to rejuvenate their sexuality and capacities
for pleasure. These young male slaves were said to have superior erection and
ejaculation capacities that made them desirable for the repeated daily sexual
couplings that most Roman women of means demanded. Most Roman women had several
young males for sexual purposes and it was said to be a status symbol among
the ladies who had the most “sexual” slave boys.

In the end the fall of Rome was a natural consequence of the extreme cruelty
to its enemies, sexual degeneracy, luxury, and disposition of its people.


The evolution of the history of the Roman civilization, including the emancipation
of Roman women, has some parallels to our society. As one who enjoys studying
the history of sex practices and nakedness
customs, one has to wonder where we fit in our own evolution?