Fututa Sum Sic: Female subjectivity and agency in pompeian sexual graffiti

Abstract

This article argues that Raman women cauld cantest their expected rale as passive sexual objects through writiug aud reading sexual graffiti Building from evidence of female literacy in the Roman world, Ifirst examine how Posupeian women claimed themselves as sexual subjects and agents in graffiti they wrote about themselves. I then explore how they could temporarily experience sexual agency through reading aloud graffiti that defamed men as penetrated or polluted sexual objects. Finally, I suggest that through these grafit simultaneously resisted and reinscribed their marginalization within the dominant sexual paradigm.