[1] The first line, Pēdīcābo ego vōs et irrumābō ('I will sodomize and face-fuck you'), sometimes used as a title, has been called "one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin—or in any other language".

[3] Subsequent Latin poets referenced the poem not for its invective, but as a work exemplary of freedom of speech and obscene subject matter that challenged the culturally prevalent decorum or moral orthodoxy of the period.

Ovid,[4] Pliny the Younger,[5] Martial,[6] and Apuleius[7] all invoked the authority of Catullus in asserting that while the poet himself should be a respectable person, his poetry should not be constrained.

[10] NPR bleep censored the first line of Catullus 16, both in Latin and English translation in the radiophonic exchange between Guy Raz and Mary Beard in 2009.

Catullus's gentle attitude left him vulnerable in the cynical and cruel environment of Roman high society.

[12] According to T. P. Wiseman, Catullus used the obscenity to get his message that "soft" poetry could be more arousing than explicit description to "sensibilities so much cruder than his own".

Apparently Catullus and his contemporaries believed a man could do almost anything sexually and remain respectable, so long as he stayed within the masculine role.

[8]Craig Arthur Williams says Catullus 16 demonstrates that in Roman ideology of masculine vir, a man is not compromised by his penetration of other males, in fact his manhood status is bolstered.

But the joke is (or rather one of the jokes in this complicated little poem)—if you can't infer from his kiss-y verses that [Catullus] is effeminate, then neither can you infer from his poetic threats of violent penetration that he is capable of that either.Micaela Wakil Janan offers the following modern English prose translation of the poem: Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth, you queer Aurelius and you fag Furius!

[25] Paul Allen Miller, Professor of Comparative Literature and Classics at the University of South Carolina, suggests Catullus 16 contains information regarding: The poem is included as the sixteenth movement of Michael Linton's seventeen movement "Carmina Catulli", a song-cycle for bass-baritone and piano.