Phallus

Raunchy scenes may redden faces at a new exhibition in Pompeii on art and sexuality in the ancient Roman city, where sculptures and paintings of breasts and buttocks abound.

Archaeologists excavating the city, which was destroyed by the eruption of nearby Vesuvius in 79 A.D., were initially startled to discover erotic images everywhere, from garden statues to ceiling frescos.

According to Aristophanes, human beings used to have four arms, four legs, and two sets of genitals, either two male sets, or two female, or one of each. But Zeus split everyone in two, forcing them to wander around on just two legs looking for their other half, with their sexual orientation determined by the genitals of that alter egothey yearned for.

These remarkable images show some of the earliest known examples of what we these days might dub pornography.
The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs, in Xinjiang, north-west China, depict an intense fertility ritual the likes of which is almost unique in the ancient world.

Located in Reykjavik, Iceland’s Phallological Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of penises, with an eye-popping array of penile parts collected from hundreds of different animals.

And the good news is: size doesn’t appear to matter.

The penis is a symbol of fertility in many cultures. Many people in Greece have heard of, or even visited the unique ‘phallic’ custom called ‘Bourani’ in the region of Tyrnavos near the city of Larissa in central Greece.

Men in ancient Rome had a problem with their… penis, according to Italian researcher Dr. Francesco Galassi, who came to this conclusion after studying a Pompey mural covered by lava 2000 years ago.