Suburban Baths: A Social Analysis

Throughout history, researchers have relied on the visual artistic culture represented through pictorial language as one of the main ways to analyze Roman Society. Some of this information became highly controversial as it contradicted some of the ideals proposed by various literary documents and artifacts. One of the aspects that over time has provided historians with a perplexing definition of the relationship between sexuality and Roman everyday life was the erotic frescoes situated in the Suburban Baths of Pompeii. This imagery in a sense proposed that sexual practices were a natural constitute of normal Roman society. In this essay through analysis of these frescoes, I will examine how images of taboo sex acts in the Suburban Baths accentuate the normative expectation of dominating men by mocking the depictions of the dominant women in Ancient Rome.
One of the main aspects of this essay will be to question the rigid models of masculinity and femininity in Ancient Rome and how study of these pictorial depictions has helped researchers interpret the various meanings and suppositions of sexual gender behavior in this heterogeneous society (Clarke 2003). The analysis of these representations of eroticism and how they contradict the social roles adopted in this society will …show more content…
The signs of women dominance over the men can be noticed through the analysis of the artwork where women have been painted in a series of sexual positions. In addition to brothels, frescoes of sexually explicit scenes have been witnessed in various locations within Pompeii. Some of the areas where these frescoes have been located include brothels, bathhouses, and some private homes. In different frescoes and sexual positions, the artwork presented a platform for analysis and determination of the role of women in an attempt to assess whether a form of female dominance and independence was