Sexual Graffiti PDF

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Discusses the effects of sexual graffiti as an outlet for women to express themselves against men....

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Sexual Graffiti a. Female Literacy in the Roman Empire i. Elite families would often educate their daughters as a marker of status 1. Elite sons would start at some sort of ‘elementary school’, then a tutor with more advanced skills, rhetorical education (for his career in politics) a. Women would have these first two stages and then would get married during the time of which men are receiving rhetorical education, which makes sense because women weren’t involved in politics 2. Upper-class Roman women were responsible for the education of their sons a. Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi ii. Slave and free women in several professions would have had some degree of literacy depending on social class 1. Midwives (many of which were slaves and were owned by elite women) 2. Secretaries 3. Bar/shop owners 4. High class 5. Prostitutes iii. Women are praised as educated in inscriptions, literary texts 1. Puella docta a. “an educated girl” iv. Female authors/poets 1. More Greek female poets’ writings survived than Roman female poets’ 2. Sulpicia the elegist (some poems survive) 3. Agrippina the Younger v. Vindolanda tablets 1. Preserves many letters and writings by women 2. Letters between wives and husbands when husbands were stationed away at war vi. Frescos/images of women reading/writing vii. Graffiti 1. Futata sum hic, “I was fucked here” (CIL IV 2217) 2. Tibicina…ego, “I am a female flute player” (CIL IV 8873) b. How to Tell if a Woman Wrote It? i. Latin is a very gendered language ii. Hard to tell if the graffiti was written by a woman or not 1. Latin is a very gendered language, so it is hard to tell if the graffiti was written by a woman or not iii. If it is in the first person with grammatically feminine gender… 1. Possibly but not necessarily, since a man could have written it by the perspective of a woman iv. Self-referntial graffiti is often written in the third person

1. Scribit Narcissus (“Narcissus writes this”, CIL IV 1841) 2. Cornelia Helena amatur ab Rufo (“Cornelia Helena is loved by Rufus”, CIL IV 4637). 3. Hedone dicit assibus hic bibitur dipundium si dederis meliora bibes quattuos si dederis vinam Falernam bibes (“Hedone says you can get a drink here for only one coin. You can drink better wine for two coins. You can drink Falernian for four coins,” CIL IV 1679). c. Two Ways of Doing Feminist History i. Optimistic 1. Emphasizes the way in which women have exercised agency and resisted patriarchy ii. Pessimistic 1. Emphasizes the ways in which women are controlled and marginalized by patriarchy iii. Both true in patriarchal society, because women are oppressed and marginalized, but also exercise their rights and agency iv.

What might an optimistic analysis of Against Neaera by a feminist historian look like? What about a pessimistic analysis?

1. She is dependent on men’s sexual use for her income. 2. She can choose what man she wants to live with. If she’s free, she can choose. 3. She can control her own money and make her own money— something citizen women couldn’t do as they were dependent on their male relatives. 4. Similarly, we can read graffiti in such a manner… d. Agency in Sexual Graffiti i. Men are usually the grammatical subjects of verbs denoting sexual penetration, while women are the objects (or subjects of passive participles) 1. Synethus Faustillam futuit, “Synethus fucked Faustilla” (CIL IV 2288) 2. Phoebus bonus futor, “Phoebus is a good fuckr” (CIL IV 2248 add. 215) 3. Nyphe fututa…, “Nyphe was fucked” (CIL 8897) ii. Penetration in Roman society=____ 1. Powerlessness 2. Lack of male citizen status a. Men should be immune of penetration, and they should only penetrate others iii. Sexual graffiti highlights the social subordination of women (and penetrated men) e. Female Sexual Agency i. Many women appear as the subject of the verb fellare (“to suck cock”)

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1. Fortunata fellat, “Fortunata sucks (cock)” (CIL IV 2259, 2275) ii. Many women’s names appear with the noun fellatrix, “female giver of blow jobs” 1. Secundilla felatrix (CIL IV 9228) iii. Is this declaring sexual agency because the females are the subjects of the sexual act? Is this self-advertising for sex works? iv. Significant that the verb irrumare (“to be fucked in the mouth”) is not used v. Some women’s names appear with the noun fututrix (“female fucker”, “fucktress”) 1. A woman who takes the active role in the act of futuere (“to fuck”) 2. Are these women claiming sexual agency even though they are being penetrated? 3. Levin-Richardson’s view a. “ “We demonstrate that a fututrix is a woman who wants to (or seems to want to) engage in sexual activity, and who moves her body during sex.” (Levin-Richardson 333). 4. Another view a. Μόλα φουτο ῦτρις (Mola the fucktress”, CIL IV 2204) appears directly below futui Mula hic (“I fucked Mula here,” CIL IV 2203 add. 215) on the peristyle of the House of the Silver Wedding. “I Was Fucked Here” i. Why would a woman write this? Was it for agency and subjectivity? 1. A subject a. A person with agency, a person through whose point of view events are focalized b. Subjectivity is a subject vs an object…more agency 2. “Individuals come to occupy the site of the subject...and they enjoy intelligibility only to the extent that they are, as it were, first established in language” (Butler, The Psychic Life of Power, p. 10). a. A way for women to actively contrast themselves as agents 3. “Inscribing the short statements discussed above into the walls of Pompeii can be seen as a process of subject formation, in which women become subjects as the represent themselves and stake claims through written language” (Levin-Richardson p. 334). 4. ““By claiming both subjectivity and agency in sexual acts, women could contest their normative role as passive objects of male desire” (Levin-Richardson p. 334) a. Women are breaking down an equation men have that the penetrated person is the object, but the women believe they are the sexually desirable subject

5. You’re either acting in opposition and still getting affected, or you go along with the social paradigm…regardless society is determining female behavior g. Graffiti About Men i. Can women claim subjectivity and agency by reading aloud graffiti that sexually threatens/objectifies men? ii. “I argue that women could temporarily enact a socially dominant subject status by voicing graffiti that subjugate and objectify men, and that they could experience transitory agency by verbalizing sexual threats against men” (Levin-Richardson 336). 1. Graffiti meant to sexually defame a man typically insinuates that he has been penetrated or performed oral 2. Examples of graffiti they could have used in this way: a. Victor fellator (“Victor the cocksucker”, CIL IV 1708) b. Corus cunnum linguist (“Corus licks cunt”, CIL IV 5178) i. Women can present themselves as socially dominant pleasure receivers c. Ratio mi cum ponis Batacare te pedicaro (“When you hand over the money, Batacarus, I’ll butt-fuck you”, CIL IV 2254)....