Please don't buy this book if you are offended by pictures and
frank discussion of sexual intercourse. Perhaps for us the most
startling aspect of Roman life is the frequent depictions of sex
which assailed citizens in many public and private situations. They
show couples and groups in various combinations and positions,
sometimes passionate, sometimes oddly detached, sometimes deeply
tender; the illustrations come from the public baths, domestic
utensils, villa wall frescoes and sculptures. The author, an art
historian, concludes that Roman ideas of sexuality, untrammelled by
later notions of shame and guilt, were more complex than classical
literature suggests, and that they were vastly different from our
own. As far as is possible, he places this erotic art in its
original context, allowing new insights even to the familiar.
Though not for prudes, this is a fine, scholarly work on a
long-neglected subject. (Kirkus UK)
"Clarke teaches us to think about how this art was understood and
felt by those who lived with it in their daily lives and he
speculates that it might even reflect what the Romans actually did.
This is the first genuinely contextual and theoretically informed
study we have of a vast panoply of classical art about sex. It will
be an illuminating book for classicists, historians, and anybody
else who finds lovemaking interesting."--Thomas Laqueur, author of
"Making Sex
"There are few scholars as able to take on this material, as
well versed in theories of sexuality, and as comfortable dealing
with both heterosexual and homoerotic content as Clarke. The topic
is timely and the execution is professional."--Natalie Kampen,
Barnard College
"This book should attract not only classicists, but also
scholars of sexuality in any field. Clarke succeeds both in
introducing little-known material and in defamiliarizing the
familiar examples of erotic art."--Anthony Corbeill, University of
Kansas
""Looking at Lovemaking proves that the ancients were very
different from you and me--that they saw sex not primarily as
procreation and never as sin but rather as sport, art, and
pleasure, an activity full of humor, tenderness and above all
variety. John R. Clarke, by looking at Roman artifacts from several
centuries destined to be used by different social classes, reveals
that the erotic "visual record is far more varied, open-minded and
playful than are "written moral strictures, which were narrowly
formulated by the elite and for the elite. This book is at once
discreet and bold--discreetly respectful of nuance and context,
boldly clear in drawing the widest possible conclusions about
themalleability of human behavior. Clarke has, with meticulous
scholarship and a fresh approach, vindicated Foucault's
revolutionary claims for the social construction of
sexuality."--Edmund White, author of "The Beautiful Room is
Empty
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