Have we got ancient women's sexuality all wrong?

You might assume that women were repressed and even prevented from pursuing sexual pleasure in the classical world. However, as Dr G. Menzies discusses with Lor and Good, this is not the case. They explore how women were active in expressing and pursuing sexual fulfillment, from erotic magic to some particularly graphic graffiti in Pompeii. Please note, this episode contains discussion of some adult topics. Hello, G, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. We'll be talking all about aphrodisia, women's sex, and pleasure in the classical world. I'd love to open this in the same way you open the introduction of your book with an object, the Vindelander Fallers.

What's the story behind this? Oh so this is such a fun story. This is a wooden penis. Like you look at it now and you're like, that's a penis. It's just undeniable. That was found in the Roman settlement of Vindelanda, which is in Britain. I think it's modern day Northumberland. And in 1992, funnily enough, the same year I was born, they found this penis. And they were cataloguing all the objects. Which fair enough, there was thousands and this just got okay, maybe it's a darning tool. Now you look at it and you think, Uh okay, but fine. They said it was a darning tool. They put it in the box of stuff, more professionally than that, but they put it in a box of stuff. And then in

sort of the twenty twenties, really recently archaeologists took another look at it and they were looking at it and thinking A darling to Are we sure? This was very phallic. And it and it really does. It's six inches long. It's about two inches wide. I mean, how did I explain it except say envision a penis? And it's also

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