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Wall paintings in Pompeii brothel reveal ‘menu’ of sex services on offer

(Picture Wikimedia Commons)
(Picture Wikimedia Commons)

Paintings on the walls of the doomed city of Pompeii offer a startling insight into the sex lives of people two millennia ago.

Researchers now believe that the paintings in the ‘Lupanar of Pompeii’ are actually a menu – depicting the services on offer from the prostitutes within.

The Lupanar was the biggest brothel in Pompeii – one of several in the city’s red light district – and researchers believe that the murals actually depict the ‘specialities’ offered by the men and women in each room.

Images show group sex and what appears to be spanking.

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But it would not have been a pleasant place to work, according to expert Professor Kelly Olson – and most of the women were slaves.

(Picture Wikimedia Commons)
(Picture Wikimedia Commons)

. ‘It’s very small, dank and the rooms are rather dark and uncomfortable,’ she told CBC.

‘Married men could sleep with anyone as long as they kept their hands off other men’s wives.