The Most Disturbing Part Of Pompeii's Destruction Isn't What You Think

One of the problems with all the lovely adult art is that what it showed was totally inaccurate, especially in brothels (or places that had a side business as brothels, like inns, lunch counters, and taverns). The eruption of Mount Vesuvius saved a false narrative of history that made these women look a lot happier than they were.

According to the Conversation, the images of couples in the act on brothel walls were supposed to get customers in the mood, while also serving as a kind of menu for the options available. The positions shown might also have acted as instructions for some of the less experienced customers. The pictures show fair-skinned women, naked except for the occasional jewelry, with perfectly styled hair, coupling with young, tanned, athletic men. They are doing it on ornate beds with fancy quilts.

In reality, prostitutes met with clients in unbelievably tiny cells. Very few had windows, so they were dark and damp. Many didn't have doors, just a curtain for minimal privacy. The beds, and indeed the rest of the cells, were made of stone. Since free women could only sleep with their husbands, the prostitutes were all slaves.

Because most marriages were arranged and men were not supposed to expect anything but the most vanilla experience in bed with their wives, and only in order to conceive, it was considered vital to society that they seek pleasure elsewhere. But the women (and sometimes men) that they got it from lived horribly.

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