Lucian on Whipping in the Second Century

The Dialogue of the Heterae is an erotic Greek classic written by Julian (around 150 C.E.) which tells of  a young courtesan being stripped and whipped  by her jealous lover, leaving the marks of the lash on her skin,  treating her as though she were a lowly slave.

The Greek heteterae (or hetaerae) where kept women, courtesans, or prostitutes.  In The Dialogue and old courtesa  is giving advice to a younger one who is just coming out of her teens.   She tells her young protege that a man is not in love unless he sometimes sometimes beats her, slaps her, and tears her clothing in a fit of jealousy.

The young courtesan complains that if she so much as “walks in the shadow of another man” her lover is overcome with an “insane fury.” The old courtesan tells her this is a good sign, because it means the man is in love with her, and money will follow.

“Had you seen him beating me last night, would you but see the marks of his lash on my body now, you would not think him such a lover. Lover indeed! He whips me with more fury than the meanest slave.” (1928 translation, full text here , quoted under fair use doctrine)

ANALYSIS:  This passage is not about beating for sexual pleasure as are the passages from the Kama Sutra which I quoted in an earlier post.   The young prostitute complains that she doesn’t like being whipped by her lover, and the older one advises her to enjoy it as a sign that she has captured her lover’s heart.  There is no mention of  either of these heterae getting sexual pleasure from the whip.  What about the lover who wields the whip.  He does so in a fit of irrational jealousy.  We might say he whips her to establish his possession of her. He tears her clothing and leaves marks on her body.  Certainly this an act of domination on his part, motivated by his sexual intoxication with her and his need to control her.  Whether the lover obtains sexual excitement specifically from the act of whipping her is never stated.

NOTE:  Alternate translations of the work’s title are Mimes of the Courtesans, and Dialogues of the Courtesans  .   This literary format, in which an older woman gives erotic advice to a younger woman, became a popular erotic genre during the Renaissance, known as whore dialogues, which some scholars consider the beginning of “modern” pornography.

flagellation as sexual stimulant

In ancient Greece and Rome, as well as in other cultures, there was an association between fertility (success in conceiving children) and some types of flagellation.  For example, whipping the buttocks with nettles was supposed to increase fertility according to the ancients.

Flagellation was also considered an aphrodisiac, or stimulant of sexual desire.  A man might be flagellated by a courtesan to restore his waning desire, as depicted in Fellini’s movie “Satyricon.”  Greco-Roman art often depicts a sandal being used for erotic spanking or slapping.   It can be surmised that much of this activity was consensual, since the person being whipped was seeking to get something out of it — arousal or fertility.

There are other depictions of the infliction of pain for erotic purposes, that was one-sided or non-consensual.  These images involve slaves, or female prostitutes who were motivated primarily by payment for their participation.

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bdsm in ancient greece

Evidence of (non-consensual) bdsm fantasies in ancient Rome is provided by the “Satyricon” written by Petrarch, sometime in the first centuryof the Common Era.

For example in Book 4 Encolpius is given an aphrodisiac to drink.  His hands are bound behind him and the servant girl Psyche fondles his penis, trying to arouse him.  Psyche also pricks his cheeks with her hair pin to silence him when he tries to cry for help.

A bit later the man Encolpius and the woman Quartilla are forcibly bound together, for sport, by a group of young soldiers.  The type of bondage used on  Encolpius and Quartilla forces her mouth into intimate contact with his, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and their thighs  each pressed into each other’s.  As a result of the aphrodisiac he consumed Encolpius becomes “filled with lasciviousness” and begins performing on Quartilla who “on fire with a similar wantonness” shows no reluctance for the game, to the great amusement of the soldiers.

At the same time as he is thrusting into his bound partner Quartilla, a gay man mounts the bound Encolpius from behind.  Though Encolpius is repulsed by this, he finds himself moving involuntarily in response to the intruder’s thrusts,  just as fast and furiously as Quartilla is wriggling under him.   The young soldiers find this spectacle quite ludicrous and burst into laughter, to the humiliation of Encolpius.

This is only a small sampling of the contents of the “Satyricon.”  It should be enough to demonstrate that pleasure in bondage, humiliation, and forced sex were part of the human psyche long before the Marquis de Sade.

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