Roman sex, 100 B. C.-A. D. 250 Book

I read this right after finishing Kirk Ormand's revised "Controlling Desires," and I highly recommend reading them together.

This one in terms of style is a bit rambling and conversational, and is a little--I hate to use the word moralizing, but there it is--moralizing about modern (1800s-present) attitudes to sex and the way it's caused archaeologists or tourists to address examples of ancient sexuality that they disagree with, such as hiding away "pornographic" items in special rooms of museums locked away from the general public (or at least women of the general public), or destroying ancient depictions of sex either immediately upon discovery or later because some "prude" became offended. Clarke's conversational style ends up deflating the power of this argument, to the point where sometimes I was inclined to disagree out of purely perverse contrariness.

Aesthetically, this is a very nicely designed coffee-table-style book; it looks great (though the text is a little too small). Even if you're just interested in the topic, it's worth your while.

If you have a more academic interest in Roman sexuality, this book brings three important things to the table. First of all, it establishes (as Ormand reiterates in his own book) that erotic art was not just (or even close to primarily) displayed in brothels, but was something anybody with even the slightest pretensions to being class-conscious displayed in their homes, typically on display with a lot of other art (as opposed to "welcome to my special erotic art room"). Second, it establishes that erotic art is not only spread throughout the class structure (on very expensive artworks to reasonably priced pottery), but shows up elsewhere in the Roman world than just Pompeii (see the chapter on Gallic pottery medallions). Finally, the quality of the photography and line drawings (combined with descriptions) make it much easier to parse what's going on, especially in comparison with books like Ormand's where the occasional picture is always small and black-and-white, so that you have to read the description, shrug, and say "I guess I'll take your word for it that that's an arm."