The Ancient Romans were not shy about generating erotic sex scenes in their art and literature. In the Late Empire of the second and third centuries, so much evidence surrounding the pleasures of sex abounded that it can be easy to imagine the Romans (well, the male citizen Romans) solely as pleasure-seeking sensualists.
But we also find that the Late Empire had another side, and this current extolled sexual restraint. The woman featured here from the Severan dynasty (193-211 CE) shows a modest woman, gaze downcast so as not to make eye contact with other men, hair veiled, clothing covering much of her body. That this would have been virtuous surprises no one, because patriarchies throughout time have praised the sexual containment of well-borne women. But Ancient Roman men were also held in high regard for holding back their sexual appetites.
There is even an ancient Greek word for this, “sophrosyne,” meaning female chastity with the specific directive to remain virginal until marriage and experience sex only with her husband. Men could possess sophrosyne too, but it had a different connotation — for men, it meant having self-control of their sexual passions. Restraint and not yielding to sensual pleasure was considered a mark of a wise man — the Stoics were some who championed this perspective. As an extreme example, take the words of the Stoic philosopher Musonius, who wrote that “sexual affairs that have in view the love of pleasure are unjust and unlawful, even within marriage”.
Thus, women who didn”t have sex were considered “not sluts”, but men who refrained were considered “heroically temperate.” You can find this line of reasoning in other societies of course, which speaks volumes about who had sexual agency and how much it was valued.
Source(s): _From Shame to Sin_, Kyle Harper, Harvard UP, 2013, pp 53 and 73. Image Wikipedia.
