Archaeologies of Sexuality

Tracking back to the eighteenth century, antiquarians cultivated an interest in the materiality of sexuality, though one that bordered on fetishization, a focus on objects, images, and spaces presumed erotic or pornographic in function. Finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum (Italy)—mosaics, frescoes, vases, sculptures, bronze artifacts—hinted at culturally distinctive takes on pleasure, procreation, power, and same-sex and inter-species relations. But, come the nineteenth century, religious moralizing deemed such material culture decadent, repugnant, and shocking. Pots from Peru (Chimu, Moche, and Recuay cultures) with sexually explicit depictions garnered similar reactions. “Erotica” were then relegated to secret…