Detail of the Khajuraho temples: the Kamsutra on the walls
VILLA JOVI, CAPRI
This mansion, located in the always suggestive island of capri , was the home of the Roman Emperor Tiberius for ten years. Until this place he arrived frightened, convinced that in Rome he lived insecure and that his assassination was imminent. Nevertheless, this panic did not turn the Villa Jovis into a dark den . Not much less. Roman gossip tells that here, the maximum leader of the Empire, was dedicated to organizing orgies and bacchanals where the wine flowed and preliminaries and presentations were superfluous. Today only the ruins of everything remain from where the Mediterranean shines with that intensity that is only known in the gulf of naples.
The city of Pompeii, depravity squared
POMPEII
The discovery of Pompeii not only brought with it a considerable flow of information on urban planning and roman routine . It also served to demystify the exemplary life that was assumed for the noble inhabitants of the Empire. The frescoes found under the lava in his brothel, his inns and in his baths revealed a fondness for eroticism and the most hardcore pornography with intercourse and threesomes that had never been shown with such realism. The confirmation (and hack for the most conservative minds) came with the murals and mosaics found in noble domus such as the one in the Fauno, that of the Centennial or that of Cecilio Giocondo , less explicit, but that, taken to a context of 'normal' life, were more scandalous.
Temple of Apollo in Pompeii
HERCULANE
In the sister city (by proximity and fatal ending) of Pompeii it is also an inexhaustible source of frescoes and risqué mosaics . Both its suburban spas and its brothel are capable of making Hugh Hefner himself blush. However, the palm of the findings goes to the Villa of the Papyri , a domus where the famous was found or marble and zoophilic group of Goat and Pan.
herculaneum
SECRET CABINET: NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF NAPLES It is, without a doubt, the largest collection of erotic archeology in the world . It exhibits the most spicy finds found under the magma of Vesuvius. A rather obscene area of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples that until the year 2000 was closed tight and tight. To zigzag through its exhibitors is to see a succession of gigantic penises, naked bodies, unimaginable postures and scenes of orgies and coitus everywhere. In the end, the Cabinet leaves behind a temple-like reality: the Romans had no problem taking off their tunic and giving themselves over to carnal enjoyment . An image that makes series like Rome or Spartacus not seem like a pot of meat-thirsty writers. Sex, in Ancient Rome, moved mountains.
National Archaeological Museum of Naples
THESSALONIKI BROTHEL, GREECE
After this overdose of Roman perversion, it seems that the Greeks were self-righteous and idolized the male figure. His art only makes clear an aesthetic obsession with the male body and the occasional nod to the formal perfection of the female. . But come on, not much more than some photos of Mario Testino. However, this civilization also has a window into its most intimate past: the Thessaloniki brothel. Its ruins make it clear that it was a place for sex (located next to some public toilets and with an upper floor that looks like a labyrinth of small alcoves), but what was really revealing were the objects found in the excavations: containers of alabaster with phallic shapes, vases with mouths clearly designed to simulate fellatio, and even remains of what would be a masturbator crank. Some of these objects can be admired in the local archeology museum.
Khajuraho, an erotic-festive festival
KHAJURAHO TEMPLES, INDIA
This set of temples could be known for, for example, being the largest in all of India. also for being one of the best preserved , thanks to the fact that he was in his situation, far from the Ganges. But the reality that the good British captain I. S. Burt found in 1838 was quite another. A total of 80 constructions in which erotic sculptures shine of its different facades, in which men, women and animals appear copulating with each other in great detail.
There is no established explanation for the reason for this erotic-artistic festival . Some theories suggest that it was the most effective way to teach the Kamasutra while others advocate because they are a graphic representation of the marriage between Shiva and Parvati . Among all the buildings, the Oscar of porn goes to lakshmana temple , although it is worth losing sight of all of them.
The walls of Khajuraho are pure Kamasutra
SURIA TEMPLE, KORNAK, INDIA
From afar, this temple is a wonder of the orissa style , a perfect place for meditation and silence. However, when approaching , the watermarks of the bas-reliefs form figures that little by little are identified as erotic. And the more the eyes are fixed, the more sacrilegious (in the eyes of the Westerner) they seem, with sexual scenes at close range , extremely explicit in which we lack oral sex, threesomes, penetrations and even bestiality.
Jain temple in Ranakpur
RANAKPUR JAIN TEMPLE, INDIA
This temple does not shock, directly, for its eroticism. It does so because it is a Jain and non-Hindu temple , which suggests that the gratuitous representation of sex and naked bodies was widespread throughout the subcontinent. Among its superb white marble columns, the nude scenes in a row between which there is too much friction.
Jain Temple
MORE EROTIC ART IN INDIA
The connection of Hindu philosophy and religion with tantra makes visiting its temples like imagining Playboy mansions in any city. The fact that desire is the path to personal fulfillment (base of tantra) gave free rein to defend sex as a valid religious experience (and not that of Enrique Iglesias). For this reason, throughout India there are other temples such as that of Markandeshwar , the Orissa sun temple or the temple Virupaksha where pornography is the basis of its iconography. Then came the Mughal Muslims and Victorian Christians to decry the uncensorable. It was already too late and too many temples.
Virupaksha
EROTIC ROOM OF THE LARCO MUSEUM, LIMA
This charming museum of archeology and pre-Columbian art comes with a surprise. In their erotic room shines the curious shape they had the first Peruvian peoples to represent sex . The figures of couples copulating were used to decorate vases and other everyday utensils, while the sculptures of men with disproportionate penises are a popular leitmotif.
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