Pride in Italy - by Eden S.

Note: while our site visits were with people who spoke fairly good English, we were still in caves and weren’t always able to hear or clarify details of history they shared with us, therefore you should understand that any historical information I give as partial, and possibly misheard. However, everything shared is true to my memory, so there is that at least.

Today (Jan 13th) we went through the Orvieto underground and visited an old excavation site beneath a private residence. There are many tunnels and cavities under orvieto, remnants from the Etruscans who lived here hundreds of years ago before the Romans drove them out. In the tunnels and cavities are different spaces for different purposes: some were quarries where they would carve out stone building blocks of tufo stone (a soft kind of volcanic stone) and carry it to the surface via pulleys. Other underground spaces had small shelves cut into the stone for raising pigeons, who would fly out during the day, feed themselves, and roost at night, making families: the young ones would be taken from their nests for eating before they could fly, making this was a very convenient source of protein. Another use was for well digging. Hundreds of feet deep water wells was how the Etruscans survived two years under Roman siege before surrendering. In the end, some of these spaces were turned into trash receptacles, or just backfilled.

What we saw today was an old quarry that had been used for trash dumping. This isn’t like a landfill today- think broken pottery, human wastes, and spent bones instead of wrappers and broken pieces of manufacturing. In the last 20 or so years, an archeological team had uncovered it and started the slow excavation process. From looking at the remains of bones and the Etruscan trash, they learned what their diet was, most pork, likely cured, as much pork in Italy is still today, with some lamb and sheep, and almost no beef. The kinds of pottery found tell us about the Etruscan’s skills and wealth by the kinds of pottery fragments they could find. They made what is called bucchero, a black or gray kind of pottery distinct because of the firing technique, and they imported Greek attic pottery, which is classically red and black, made in Athens (hence attic) from a particular type of clay and with techniques nearly impossible to replicate today. The fact that the Etruscans were able to import attic pottery tells about their economic wealth, and their wide networks of trade with other cultures. We saw little fragments of attic pottery in a box the guide passed around. We could touch them, the glaze was still smooth like it was made recently, and the color seemed to have hardly faded. Our guide said there is nothing better than attic pottery, it is one of the best at standing the test of time.

            After this site visit,
I went with some others to the archeological museum where we saw an attic pottery wine cup with and image of two androgynous figures having sex painted on the inside. The museum plaque said that it has an inscription of “shaped it” which I have no clue what it means, but some other students and I have spent a hilarious while trying to guess. To me, it seemed a public proclamation and record of the figures’ sexual pride, perhaps even a queer kind of pride, as we couldn’t tell their genders. But in today’s culture, sex and sex culture is surrounded by vastly different values than the values given to it by the Greeks and Romans. Once the Romans conquered the Etruscans they destroyed most of their cities and rebuilt their own, meaning we don’t have much evidence of Etruscan culture, let alone their values around sex, so I will talk instead to Roman sex culture.

From our readings I’ve gathered a basic picture of Roman sexuality: the structure was hierarchical, with a freeborn Roman man at the top, giving them the most sexual freedom. Culture acknowledged Roman men as bisexual, but placed restrictions on which classes of people they could pursue; they could not have sex with another freeborn Roman man unless he was physically immature (12-20ish, the growing of body hair is one marking of maturity), they could not have sex with noble or married women (without punishment that is), or (usually) other people’s slaves, besides this freeborn Romans could choose.

The other important piece of Roman sexuality was that the idea of being a man was connected with the idea of being the penetrator, as opposed to the penetrated in the context of sexual activity. Further, this idea of being a penetrator was connected with power: the penetrator would be the “active” partner, a role associated with honor and agency, and the passive partner , a role associated with shame, weakness, and dishonor, was there to support the active partner’s pleasure.

In order for a man to be seen as a whole man he must present outwardly as a penetrator, or generally, as someone with power and agency. Those who presented as the penetrated were thought of as lesser men, weaker, and often described as more effeminate. This is true in descriptions of young men who were objects of desire for older men, however, their dishonorable role as the penetrated would be redeemed once they reached maturity and would be seen as capable of fulfilling the penetrator’s role. A woman’s honor came from her virginity, and therefore her role in sex would always be one tied to shame and dishonor. This was different for prostitutes and slaves and non-Romans, as they weren’t considered to have ever had any honor to begin with(which comes from your class status).

Considering these great sexual inequalities, it’s unlikely that the attic wine cup I saw at the archeology museum was a pronouncement of pride in the way we think of it today (relating to equality in consent and pleasure). If there was pride to be had, it would’ve been had by the person in the penetrating position, as this was something that Romans boasted about often. One of our readings described the elicit graffiti found during the Roman period (in Rome) of individual men proclaiming to have penetrated another man. Sharing these kinds of things gave a man more social power, while the sharing of pride today gives people equality and visibility. It’s interesting to me how differently our generation treats sex, but it is more interesting how Roman sex culture helped to build and still supports our own.

Note that I am not super proficient in current mainstream sex culture, but I can see how the Romans’ idea of sex as dominance and a source of pride for men still persists, as this bleeds over into other areas of interaction with other genders, producing misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. In order for the Roman’s sexual hierarchy to work, they needed people who would be of a lower class, and rules that would guarantee that this would always be true. The rules around penetration were one of them, as class dictates who is allowed to be penetrated, or conversely, being penetrated can dictate your class and gender identity (you could only be a woman or a boy if penetrated). Rules around class, gender, age, and citizenship all functioned to serve this purpose of funneling power to those at the top, and although these rules don’t legally exist in the U.S. they still exist culturally for some groups of people, such as cis-gendered men, older adults, and those generally in positions of power. This is why ideas of gender equality, empowering young people, and the sharing of pride are contested topics in some contexts, as they undermine these ancient power structures. None of this is anything new, but it is interesting to be able to trace these unsavory aspects of our society back to Roman culture.

Though, there is evidence of change: on the island of Murano near Venice I saw in a shop these glass sculptures of couples of all different genders enjoying sex. You can tell these sculptures are exhibiting the kind of pride I was looking for in the attic wine cup by the way the artist has portrayed them: each figure is relatively similar in height and size. I feel that this implies a kind of equality between the partners, neither is below the other, or smaller than the other. For the figures in floor positions, their postures seem to indicate an enthusiastic enjoyment, and for those in a standing position, all of them are portrayed in a relaxed posture, whether facing their partner or facing away, which by my logic means they are comfortable, and if they are comfortable they are likely participating willingly and enthusiastically. I get a content feeling looking at these sculptures, as they are important proof of a shift in modern sex culture away from associations of sex with power or shame. The fact someone made these sculptures to display and sell shows that people want to consume art that portrays healthy, prideful sex; likely because it reflect their own, healthy, prideful sexual experiences. These pieces remind us that sex should not be something perverse, and that if we respect each other (as the partners in the glass sculptures seek to respect each other) it can be something to celebrate in a more public way (with some boundaries of course).

In the end, I was happy to have seen these sculptures, and to know that here, even in conservative Italy which birthed Roman sex culture, that there is still pride to be shared and positive changes occuring.