Sex and the Romans + *Vlillette*

A long essay in the Observer around the first-time inclusion of this Pompeian sculpture of Pan and a partner in congress in a British Museum Exhibit.*  Much interesting cultural history.

What intrigues me most about this controversial history for viewing this piece of sculpture, is this:

... in the 19th century the sculpture was transferred to its new home, now the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, where it again became part of a reserved collection.

For anyone still too shy to seek permission or bribe the guard, there were published engravings and photographs. In 2000 the museum opened the "Secret Cabinet" to a fanfare of press (and to women as well as men) but, by keeping the cabinet as an entity apart, still branded Pan and the goat "pornographic".

What is being recalled here, is that in earlier eras, including much of the 20th century, objects such as the contents of the Secret Cabinet could be viewed by anyone who knew enough to ask -- that is, as long as they were male viewers.

As ever, through my years of consciousness of such matters, my XX brain is baffled by this puzzle in the western world about XX people being kept away from seeing erotic art and / or pornography, when, most of the time, it is their own XX bodies that are at least half of the focus of the images. (In the case of the sculpture in question, the goat is definitely given the 'woman's position' in relationship to Pan's penetration.)

One remembers Charlotte Bronte's Professor Paul Emanuel hectoring Lucy Snow in Villette, when finds her gazing at a internationally lauded nearly nude odelesque at an art exhibit.  Lucy too thought this attitude on the part of men idiotic and tells him so.

Professor Constantin Heger, the married professor with whom C. Bronte fell in love and, as a sort of consolation modeled Paul Emanuel, as Heger did not share Charlotte's emotions.

It's also of interest that this novel, as are all the novels written by the Brontes, is penetrated by so many gothic elements.  It was in this era that women had more access to the objects in such Secret Cabinets.

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* I linked to a high quality site's reproduction rather than put it here, since this Pan and Goat congress are readily available to be viewed -- and perhaps people such as those who protest cruelty to animals might not appreciate having such a thing show up without warning.