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-- Modified on 5/30/2011 3:30:06 PM

the hobby bed circa 79 ad

Particularly by the more affluent, though the hobby was tolerated at the lower end as well.  When they excavated Pompeii years ago, they found much artwork that revealed that Roman society had no problem with relatively open displays of sexually that would be banned and illegal in our modern, so-called enlightened society.  Pompeii was a suburb of Naples before it was buried by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., and the entire area was the Vegas of The Empire at that time.   It would have been interesting, and fun, to have been able to participate.  Then again, NYC and Vegas, our playgrounds today, ain't bad either!

i'm a bit of a roman history buff, and as i understand it, marriage and prostitution weren't equivalent to today's institutions.  a marriage could be dissolved by either party for any reason.   roman generals sometimes returned from wars abroad to discover they had been divorced.  at the same time, prostitution did not hold the general stigma it holds in today's america.  marriage, at least in the patrician households, was about producing worthy heirs and members of the family.  it was acceptable to get sexual gratification, at least for men, outside of marriage -- often with young men, if that was where their tastes lay.  but each marriage could find its own way.  octavian/augustus finally enacted laws to try to promote less promiscuity and more "old roman" /family virtues

at any rate, bordellos were common and prostitution seen as a healthy and a normal part of urban life.

I have never played by the rules

That would explain the crappy photos though