The exquisite sculpture in the first image you see is the “Lely Venus,” a second-century Roman copy of a Hellenistic original. The second photo is a phallus carved into stone, pointing the way to a brothel in the Ancient city of Pompeii. What makes the first a work of beauty, and the second a vulgarity? Obscenity, like everything else, is subject to historical context. In Ancient Rome, for instance, words for feces and urine were common- not shocking, perhaps, considering how public the act of excretion tended to be. According to Melissa Mohr, author of _Holy Sh*t! A Brief History of Swearing_, the most offensive words in Latin revolved around sex and bodies – genitals were both “shameful and awe-inspiring.” Some of the most insulting phrases included anything about oral sex, the clitoris, and words referring to a man penetrated by the act of sex — all taboo, but for different reasons. Check out Mohr’s book for further details.
