Ancient Roman Masturbation

For the past four years, a photograph of a plaster cast of an ancient Roman man who died in the city of Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE has been circulating online with the claim that he died while masturbating, since his right hand happens to be positioned near his groin in a masturbation-like pose. Historically speaking, it is highly unlikely that this particular man really died while masturbating. The position of his hand is most likely a result of the muscle contractions resulting from the excruciating heat shock that killed him, rather than the result of anything he was doing before he was killed.

Nonetheless, there is a wealth of fascinating historical and archaeological evidence for both male and female masturbation in ancient Rome, including in the city of Pompeii. Needless to say, the following article contains discussion of evidence that is not suitable for children.

The meme of the so-called “masturbating man” from Pompeii

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, it sent out a devastating pyroclastic surge of extremely hot gas and dust. Most of the people who were still in the city of Pompeii at the time of the pyroclastic surge died suddenly of heat shock within a matter of seconds. Heat shock induces muscle contractions and shrinkage of body tissues due to dehydration. These contractions and shrinkages caused many of the people of Pompeii to enter what medical experts have called “pugilistic poses,” with their elbows and knees flexed, their fists clenched, and their toes curled.

The volcano swiftly buried the entire city underneath eight to nine feet of hardened ash and pumice. It buried the corpses of the people who died in the eruption as well. When these people’s corpses decayed, they left behind human-shaped hollow cavities, with only skeletal remains inside.

Thousands of years later, in 1863, the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli became the head of excavations at the archaeological site of Pompeii. He realized that the hollow spaces his workmen kept finding in the ruins with skeletal remains in them were left behind by decomposed bodies.

Fiorelli therefore came up with the idea of pouring plaster into the cavities to preserve the shapes of the bodies. These plaster casts help to capture the final moments of the victims’ lives as they died in terrifying agony.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the plaster casts of the victims of the eruption in the “Garden of the Fugitives”

On 9 June 2017, the official Instagram page of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii shared a photograph taken by the archaeologist Dr. Massimo Ossana showing a plaster cast of a man who died in Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, lying on his back with his right hand in a clenched fist near his groin. The original caption in Italian reads as follows: “Calco in gesso di una vittima dell’eruzione.” This means, in English: “Cast in plaster of one victim of the eruption.”

ABOVE: Screenshot of the post on the official Instagram page of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Because of the posture of the man’s hand, many people quickly assumed that he died while masturbating. On 1 July 2017, the Twitter user “Persian Rose” (with the handle “@ PersianRose1”), who has since been suspended from Twitter, reposted a black-and-white version of the same photo that the Archaeological Park of Pompeii had shared on Instagram nearly a month earlier. Persian Rose, however, gave the photo the new caption: “Masturbating man, Pompeii, 79 CE.”

ABOVE: Screenshot of Persian Rose’s share on Twitter of the image of the so-called “masturbating man”

The so-called “masturbating man” quickly became a viral meme that was shared on countless social media platforms. Over the years since, the “masturbating man” has continually reemerged in memes and other references. Someone even apparently made a custom action figure of the man and put it up for sale on Etsy.

ABOVE: Photograph of the “masturbating man” action figure from Etsy

The truth

Unfortunately for all the masturbation enthusiasts out there, the so-called “masturbating man” probably did not, in fact, die while masturbating. The position of his hand is far more likely to be a result of the uncontrollable spasms and contractions that his body underwent as he died a horrible, painful death from heat shock, rather than a result of him having been in the middle of getting off when he died.

The man’s overall posture is clearly a “pugilistic pose” induced by heat shock, similar to the ones in which so many other victims of Vesuvius were found. Both his arms and his right leg are flexed, both his fists are clenched, and his toes are curled. Although these features are also associated with orgasm, in this case, they are far more likely to be a result of heat shock.

The Daily Dot contacted Dr. Pier Paolo Petrone, a biomedical researcher at the University of Naples whose work since 1995 has specialized in the analysis of the human victims of Mount Vesuvius from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and asked him about the so-called “masturbating man.” Petrone responded in a rather gruff email. The Daily Dot quotes him as giving the following statement in their article published on 3 July 2017:

“There is no way to demonstrate any ‘masturbating man,’ and it is out of place to discuss such an affirmation (I hope a joke, however bad) of some young time waster… The individual in the photo is an adult man, killed by the hot pyroclastic surge (hot gas and ash cloud which killed most of the population living around Mount Vesuvius), with both arms and legs flexed due to the heat.”

Fans of ancient masturbation need not lose hope, though! The so-called “masturbating man” from Pompeii was probably not masturbating when he died, but it is quite likely that he did masturbate many times throughout his life, since a whole plethora of references to masturbation exist throughout ancient Roman literature. And, thankfully, I am just enough of what Dr. Petrone would call a “young time waster” to tell you all the dirty details about ancient Roman masturbation habits.

Male masturbation in ancient Rome

Ancient Roman authors generally portray masturbation as a shameful activity associated with those who lack status and manliness. Elite Roman men generally believed that sex was supposed to be an activity in which an adult male citizen proved his manliness by dominating a woman, a boy, or an enslaved man through penetration.

Elite Romans generally tended to regard any form of sexual activity that did not involve an adult male citizen penetrating someone other than an adult male citizen as shameful and unnatural. Nevertheless, at the same time, Roman literature suggests that nearly all men masturbated at least occasionally, despite many of them apparently feeling deeply embarrassed by it.

Gaius Lucilius (lived c. 180 – c. 103 BCE), one of the earliest satirists to write in the Latin language, wrote a naughty poem about male masturbation, using the character of a personified penis, who is given the name “Mutto” after a slang word for “penis,” whose “girlfriend”—a left hand—comforts him by wiping away his “tears.” A single line of this poem is preserved through quotation and is numbered as Lucilius’s “Fragment 335.” It reads as follows:

“at laeva lacrimas Muttoni absterget amica.”

This means, in English:

“But a ‘girlfriend’—the left hand—wipes away Mutto’s tears.”

The much later satirist Marcus Valerius Martialis (lived 38 or 41 – c. 103 CE), commonly known in English as “Martial,” lived in Spain and was of Celtic and Iberian ancestry, but he wrote in Latin and held Roman citizenship. He wrote many obscene poems that have survived, some of which include references to masturbation.

In most cases, Martial portrays masturbation as an unmanly behavior that enslaved people and men of low status engage in. Nevertheless, in his Epigrams 2.43, Martial admits to masturbating himself. He begins by describing his lust for a beautiful enslaved boy from the region of northwest Asia Minor, apparently named Ganymede. Then, however, he declares, in line fourteen:

“at mihi succurrit pro Ganymede manus.”

This means, in English:

“But my hand will substitute for Ganymede!”

Thus it seems that even the men who made fun of others for masturbating did it themselves.

There is even evidence that at least one man who lived specifically in the city of Pompeii sometime shortly before the city’s destruction enjoyed masturbating regularly. A graffito from Pompeii (CIL 4.2066) reads as follows in Latin:

“multa mihi curae cum [pr]esserit artus has ego mancinas, stagna refusa, dabo:”

This means, in English:

“When my worries oppress my body, I make my left hand pour out my pent-up waters.”

Thus, it seems there was at least one real “masturbating man” in Pompeii; he just probably wasn’t doing it during his final moments.

ABOVE: Censored version of an illustration by the French illustrator Édouard-Henri Avril for De Figuris Veneris: A Manual of Classical Erotica (published in 1906), showing an ancient Roman man masturbating while fantasizing about an orgy

Roman words for masturbation

The Romans had several different words that they used to describe masturbation. The most common such word was the first-conjugation deponent verb masturbari, which is the root of the Modern English word masturbate. Another very common word, however, was the first-conjugation verb fricare, which literally means “to rub,” but was widely used as a vulgar slang word meaning “to jerk off” or “to wank.”

Another word was the third-conjugation verb glubere, which literally means “to peel the bark from a tree,” but was sometimes used as a slang word meaning “to jerk off” or “to wank.” The Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (lived c. 84 – c. 54 BCE) uses the word in this sense in his “Carmen 58,” in which he denounces his girlfriend Lesbia as unfaithful, accusing her of giving handjobs to random men at crossroads and in back alleys. He writes:

“Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,
illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,
nunc in quadriviis et angiportis
glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.”

This means, in English:

“Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia,
that Lesbia, the one whom Catullus
loved more than himself and all his own,
now, at crossroads and in back alleys
she jacks off the magnanimous grandsons of Remus.”

Other ancient Roman words that were sometimes used to mean “to masturbate” include sollicitere (“to disturb”), tangere (“to touch”), tractare (“to tug”), contrectere (“to fondle oneself”), trudere (“to thrust”), terere (“to rub”), haereo (“to cling”), deglubere (“to strip off bark”), and radere (“to scratch” or “to shave”).

Philosophical arguments for masturbation

The Classical and Hellenistic Greeks seem to have been a bit less hung up about masturbation than the later Romans. Multiple Greek philosophers even advocated masturbation as a good thing. Literate people living in the Roman Empire who wished to justify masturbation could therefore draw on statements by older Greek philosophers who advocated in favor of it.

The Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextos Empeirikos (lived c. 160 – c. 210 CE), who lived in the Roman Empire and disapproved of masturbation, cites the opinion of the Hellenistic philosopher Zenon of Kition (lived c. 334 – c. 262 BCE), who is generally known as the founder of the influential philosophical school of Stoicism, in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.207. He writes:

“τό τε αἰσχρουργεῖν ἐπάρατον ὂν παρ’ ἡμῖν ὁ Ζήνων οὐκ ἀποδοκιμάζει· καὶ ἄλλους δὲ ὡς ἀγαθῷ τινι τούτῳ χρῆσθαι τῷ κακῷ πυνθανόμεθα.”

This means, in English:

“Zenon also does not condemn masturbation, which is shameful among us. We also learn that others have done this wicked deed as though it were a noble one.”

The Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtios, who lived in the Roman Empire in around the third century CE or thereabouts, retells a famous anecdote in his work The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 6.2.46 about the early Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (lived c. 412 – c. 323 BCE), who was notorious for living under tub in the street and frequently masturbating in public. Diogenes Laërtios writes:

“ἐπ᾽ ἀγορᾶς ποτε χειρουργῶν, ‘εἴθε,’ ἔφη, ‘καὶ τὴν κοιλίαν ἦν παρατρίψαντα μὴ πεινῆν.’”

This means, in English:

“When he would sometimes jerk off in the marketplace, he would say: ‘If only it were also possible to relieve my hunger by rubbing my belly!’”

Thus, if you were a literate Roman person who was philosophically inclined, you could perhaps cite Greek philosophers like Zenon and Diogenes to justify your masturbation.

ABOVE: Diogenes Sitting in His Tub, painted in 1860 by the French Academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme

Female masturbation in ancient Rome

I say “literate Roman person,” rather than “literate Roman man,” because there is evidence that some Roman women masturbated too. Unfortunately, nearly all the literary sources that have survived from ancient Rome were written by men, who write frequently about male masturbation, but almost never discuss female masturbation.

Ironically, there are seemingly more references to other people performing mutual masturbation on women than women masturbating themselves. For instance, the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (lived 43 BCE – c. 17 CE) discusses how a man can sexually stimulate a woman by manually rubbing her genitals in his Ars Amatoria 2.703–32, written in around the year 2 CE. Meanwhile, a graffito from Capua (CIL 10.4483) reads: “Cunnu[m] tibi fricabo.” This means: “I will rub your cunt!”

One of the very few passages in all of Roman literature that explicitly and clearly mentions solo female masturbation is Martial’s Epigrams 11.104.13–16, which discusses it in a mythological context:

“masturbabantur Phrygii post ostia servi,
Hectoreo quotiens sederat uxor equo,
et quamvis Ithaco stertente pudica solebat
illic Penelope semper habere manum.”

This means, in English:

“The Phrygian slaves were masturbating behind the doors,
whenever the wife of Hektor [i.e., Andromache] sat upon her horse,
and, although the Ithakan [i.e., Odysseus] was snoring, the chaste Penelope
was accustomed to always have her hand there [i.e., on her vulva].”

In this passage, Martial is clearly implying that Penelope, the wife of Odysseus in Greek mythology, was fond of masturbating in bed while Odysseus was asleep. He may also be implying that Andromache, the wife of Hektor, was fond of masturbating as well, since it’s hard to tell whether the “horse” he references in this passage is, in fact, Hektor himself or some kind of sex toy.

ABOVE: Odysseus and Penelope, painted in 1563 by the Italian Mannerist painter Francesco Primaticcio

Archaeologists have also uncovered numerous ancient Roman objects shaped like erect penises. The ancient Romans regarded the erect penis as an apotropaic symbol that could ward off evil and some of these objects are clearly talismans intended to ward off evil and bring their owners good fortune. Some of these objects, however, were almost certainly used as dildos.

As Paige Blackwell discusses in this article about ancient Roman masturbation, some of the ancient Roman dildos that archaeologists have uncovered are double-ended. The odds are fairly good that these were used for lesbian sex.

Despite the many ancient Roman dildos that have survived, I am not currently aware of any clear, explicit references to women masturbating using dildos in Roman literature. There are, however, several well-known, explicit references to women masturbating using dildos in earlier Greek literature.

ABOVE: Photograph from this article by Paige Blackwell of a double-ended ancient Roman dildo

Most famously, as I previously noted in this article from February 2021 about ancient Greek obscenity, the ancient Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (lived c. 446 – c. 386 BCE) makes a joke about women masturbating using dildos in his comedy Lysistrata, which was first performed in 411 BCE. In lines 108–110, the character Lysistrata remarks to a group of her fellow women:

“ἐξ οὗ γὰρ ἡμᾶς προὔδοσαν Μιλήσιοι,
οὐκ εἶδον οὐδ᾽ ὄλισβον ὀκτωδάκτυλον,
ὃς ἦν ἂν ἡμῖν σκυτίνη ‘πικουρία.”

This means:

“Indeed, ever since the Milesians betrayed us,
I haven’t seen any dildo eight fingers in length,
which might have been a leather succor to us all.”

This passage clearly alludes to the fact that the Greek polis of Miletos in Asia Minor, which was apparently the foremost exporter of fine leather dildos in the Classical Aegean, attempted to break away from the Delian League shortly after the Athenians suffered their infamous catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian expedition of 413 BCE.

The later Greek comic poet Herodas, who lived in around the third century BCE, wrote a whole comedy sketch about a woman who has recently purchased a red leather dildo, known as Mime VI. This scene is known from a papyrus that was discovered in Egypt in the nineteenth century. The word Herodas uses for the dildo in the scene is βαυβών (baubṓn).

There are also ancient Greek vase paintings dating to many centuries before the time of the Roman Empire that depict naked women holding dildos, apparently in preparation to use them to masturbate.

ABOVE: Greek red-figure amphora painting by the Flying Angel Painter, dating to around 490 BCE, depicting a naked woman holding a dildo