Lupanar
[4] This specific location was considered a popular social hub or a "piazza" based on graffiti that included sports tournament advertisements, political propaganda, and other more colloquial messages.
Although historians were initially hesitant to provide insight into ancient brothels to the public, the Lupanar is now a widely visited tourist attraction within Pompeii.
[6] Late 19th century historian Wolfgang Helbig made the statement that "an analysis of individual paintings [from the brothel] is unnecessary and inadmissible.
Ancient erotic art became a popular mode of study to offer insight into Greco-Roman sexuality, partnership, and power dynamics.
[8] The Roman word for brothel was lupanar, meaning a wolf den, and a prostitute was called a lupa ("she-wolf").
[9][10] Early Pompeian excavators, guided by the strict modesty of the time period, quickly classified any building containing erotic paintings as brothels.
Given a population of ten thousand in Pompeii during the first century CE, this leaves one brothel per 286 people or 71 adult males.
Using stricter and more thorough criteria for identifying brothels brings the number to a more realistic figure of nine single-room establishments and the Lupanar at VII, 12, 18–20.
[3] Most citizens of Pompeii partook in wall writing as a way of messaging, advertising, gossiping, and spreading important information.
[16] Limited spelling and poor grammar and syntax provided insight into the spectrum of literacy amongst the Pompeiian population.
[24] Classical scholar Sarah Levin-Richardson[25] argues that the graffiti are more than just records of sexual liaisons or advertisements of the services of prostitutes; they illustrate an inter-active discourse regarding masculinity.
Many scholars of Ancient Rome have attributed such wall writings including bar advertisements, love letters, greetings, insults, and even financial records to female writers.
[16] The frescoes were intentionally placed above eye level to establish symbolic distance between the viewer (the client) and the sexual journey they were to embark on.
[16] Frescoes also helped create a sense of luxury, as they depicted large rooms with fancy bedding and wealth, customers could look at these pictures and imagine that they were having a similar lavish experience.
[32] Although a wide range of sex acts including oral and homoerotic engagements were shown in graffiti and other artworks across Pompeii, the Lupanar's frescoes solely depict heteronormative intercourse between a male and female party.
Penetration of the male, oral sex given to a female, and a reversal of traditional gender roles in intercourse were taboo within the Roman society and therefore, often hidden from public view.
While the erotic frescoes often did not depict the real sex acts that took place within the brothel, they were supplemental to advertisements for specific prostitutes and activities.
[36] One of the most infamous examples of sex worker abuse in Ancient Rome, more specifically northern Africa, involved an enslaved woman named Adultera who was forced to wear a lead collar.
It is unclear if the prostitutes wrote this themselves considering literacy was mostly common amongst male populations; however, it is possible that they knew how to express such ideas in text.
Because the local fountains and the Lupanar itself was near the popular piazza, prostitutes were granted precious moments of freedom in which they socialized and interacted with the public.
[26]The rampant misogyny of Ancient Rome was greatly detrimental to all lower-class women, as exemplified in their nicknames as "she-wolves."
Although upper-class individuals were given elevated treatment within the brothels, laborers and slaves alike were known to frequent the institution for relaxation, socializing, and sexual gratification.
[6][41] The brothel was a highly profitable business model that involved a specialized investment system that went through groups of pimps and the leasing of slave women.
[6] Even an inexpensive prostitute made two or three times as much as an unskilled male laborer, making lupanars profitable for masters, pimps, and landlords.
This also led scholars to believe that prostitutes would shave the facial and body hair of clients while inside the brothel.
[6] Prostitutes were expected to fetch water to bring back to the brothel for cleanings, shavings, and other bodily care practices.
Although their primary position was to fulfill the client's sexual appetite, they were also responsible for maintaining the brothel's cleanliness and order.
