Gay Life at the Baths: Pompeii and After

Frontispiece From a Undated 19th Century Edition

Ten to thirty-five brothels and four or five baths have been unearthed in Pompeii, though one wouldn't know it from Pompeii and the Roman Villa at LACMA. Call it historical revisionism or a reframing of the past to suit our current moral boundaries, the Roman Villa show gives us a narrow Architectural Digest slice of Roman life, purged of much of Pompeian prurient interests. Most of the erotic art unearthed in the 19th and 20th centuries remained under lock and key until an exhibition in Naples in 2000. The Naples exhibition included a marble sculpture of Pan fucking a goat. According to the BBC, a local priest condemned the representation as a temptation that could "corrupt the morals of the chastest." Not being chaste, the work doesn't seduce me to the merits of bestiality, though I do admire the virtuosity of the carver. 

Book I, Chapter VII, The Last Days of Pompeii

In Lytton's day, the Victorian Era offered up its own romantic wash of Pompeii, including The Gay Life of the Pompeian Lounger--A Miniature Likeness of the Roman Baths. Having frequented the contemporary Caracalla of Wilmington, Club 1350, I wonder about the current state of homo-social spaces like the baths, and their relationship to similar spaces in antiquity. 

Midtowne Spa Ad c. 1975

I have a memory of seeing the above ad, probably from a mid-70's issue of the Advocate, which was then a gay newspaper. The roof deck and private cubicles are fairly consistent with their current arrangement, as is the second floor TV lounge (seen in the cutaway view). The "gym" area and room with the pool table now host a dark room and video porn room respectively. The lockers have been moved to the rear of the second floor, and that area now is closed off and used for offices. The basement area is another dark room, and if one gropes their way to the back, they'll discover a mirrored wall--all that remains of the dance floor. 

Midtowne Spa Today

The unreinforced masonry façade has been spruced up, but there are more fundamental changes inside. My sense is that all the social spaces--the non-sexual rooms--have been replaced by areas for non-conversational sex. The sex has has become more hygienic--sheathed in latex like a medical procedure--and more impersonal. Though not the intention of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, their interventions have probably led to a decrease in the empathy and affection that was a more common artifact of sex in the 70's. It's rare to find an individual who will kiss in places like these. I think there's a kind of parallel in the transformation of of homosexual subcultures from Greece to Rome: From my trip to the Getty Villa earlier this year it was possible to see Greek representations of homosexual courting and affection (though those depictions were often hidden from plain view, turned to the wall). Perhaps a reader of this blog can disabuse me of this notion, but depictions of homosexual affection (things like kissing--not penetration) aren't represented in Roman Antiquity. 

(more after the quotes)

Tepidarium, Forum Baths, Pompeii

The Pompeians, as all the Southern Italians, were fond of banishing the light of their sultry skies, and combined in their voluptuous associations the idea of luxury with darkness.

- The Last Days of Pompeii

The Baths as Depicted in The Last Days of Pompeii

"A poor place is this, compared with the Roman Thermae!" said Lepidus, disdainfully.

-The Last Days of Pompeii

Midtowne Spa's Tepidarium

The gong that announced the opening of the public baths each day was a sweeter sound, than the voices of the philosophers in their school. 

-Cicero

Fresco From the Pompeii Baths

Graffito uncovered in Pompeii shows acts that are considered more feminine (like being penetrated) are used as slurs. And so was engaging in oral sex. Perhaps the mouth as a representation of the (feminine) sexual body is a pejorative that carries through to this day. When Brokeback Mountain aired on Italian television, the kissing scenes were cut as well as the sex scenes. In the Washington Post, Hank Stuever refers to the contemporary squeamishness with men kissing as, "post-homophobic homophobia."

Dean Sameshima's In Between Days (Without You) 1998 (Midtowne Spa)

With all this writing about the baths, the 70's vs. the 00's, and the loss of intimacy, it's probably expected that I should be typing something here about AIDS and gay men retreating into some psychic seclusion, thus making intimacy fall by the wayside. But I think that a larger influence on our supposedly accepting, post-gay world has been the gay movement's own de-sexualizing and de-feminizing of gay representations. 

Recent events like gay activists advocating for gays in the military point to the promotion of the hyper-masculine--the gay man as soldier. In "No On 8" advertising, gay men were either not represented, with a majority of ads depicting political advocates, actors, or relatives of gay couples. In the rare cases where gay couples are depicted, they're shown playing the role of domestic partners rather than of lovers. I'm not arguing for or against "Don't ask, don't tell," gay unions, or the merits of particular strategies.  I only wish to point out the collateral damage; the banishment of what might be termed in the gay vernacular as the "swish," or the "limp-wristed queen." By severing the tails of its own bell curve, the gay community ostracises its own for the feeble goal of heteronormavitity.

Pompeii Wall Carving: Hic Habitat Felicitas (Happiness Resides Here)

Of course the sexualized body has always existed. Like a half-filled balloon, societies suppress a little phallic happiness in one place, only to have it pop out in another. It is a shame the the more benign expressions of affection and empathy become collateral casualties in the continual war of sexual norms.

Dean Sameshima's Untitled (Tea-Room Drawings), 1995-97

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