ancient greek 'erotica'...

Nothing seems to me more absurd than applying our social mores to other cultures. Some have raised nakedness to the heights: others have damned it to Hell. Is one right and the other wrong? The only person who it seems to me has the right to judge is someone from the culture whose mores and behaviour are being considered.

The ‘Peoples of the Book’ (Jews, Christians and Muslims) have a particularly strong aversion to nakedness and what might be considered a ‘restrictive’ view of sexuality. I wish I could go and see this exhibition. Why? Because, though I know this stuff exists, I have seen only a few photographs of it – and I am fascinated by the Classical world. And why have I not seen this stuff? Well, because, though so many museums have lots of examples, these have been kept locked away, only to be viewed by ‘experts’ who, apparently, are far less shockable than the rest of us… What ludicrous censorship! and amazing that a post-Christian society, such as I would consider Western Europe to be, should still feel constrained by this nervousness about sex. It is simply the case that the Classical world did not have the same ‘prejudice’ and these ‘erotic’ works formed a normal part of their everyday lives – if you don’t believe me go and have a look at the frescoes on the walls of Pompeii…

Now whereas in considering the Classical world, our prejudice merely deprives us of what was, arguably, a non-central part of that culture, in the case of Ancient Egypt, such prejudice entirely undermines our understanding of that culture. For a core Egyptian creation myth was represented in the holy of holies of their greatest temples by an idol of Amun, chief of the gods, holding his phallus in his hand. This was because they believed that Amun created the world through an act of masturbation… Now that is a profoundly different way to see the world than having, in that sacred locus, a man dying on a cross…