APPENDIX C΄ ON DEPILATION: BODY COSMETICS IN CLASSICAL ...

552 APPENDIX C΄
We conclude then that in classical times already the practice of
removing the hair from a man’s fundament existed, common enough
to be repeatedly satyrised, and associated with effeminacy and,
specifically, with desire to undergo anal intercourse. I am insisting on
this specific characterization because we can see, in this case too, how
exactly the latter fits with the earlier in our sources. One of Ausonius’
epigrams (CXXXI) is entitled: In quendam, qui laevia sibi inguina
faciebat, and runs thus:
Inguina quod calido laevas tibi dropace, causa est:
irritant volvas levia membra lupas.
Sed quod et elixo plantaria podice vellis
et teris incusas pumice Clazomenas,
causa latet: bimarem misi quod patientia morbum
appetit: -et tergo foemina, pube vir es.
It is very clearly and nicely put: depilation of a man s pudendum
area implies proclivity to exercise energetically his membrum during
copulation (for such hairlessness is an irritant); depilation of a man’s
anal area means dominant desire to enjoy pathetically the activity of
another’s membrum. We have met with half of this situation in
classical times, we cannot doubt the existence of the rest. Although, of
course, the depilation was not really carried out in halves; hairlessness
in the significant areas of a man was a sign of particular devotion to
sexual pleasures in general - but was satyrised under the aspect in
which the person made fun of was makihy himself vulnerable, as well
as from the viewpoint of the comic writer.
We can multiply examples, if we wish. There would be no need for
this exertion, but for the notion that used to, and still does, largely
dominate the scholarly world of the last two centuries, according to
which obscenity and immorality, as we would understand them, were,
grosso modo, foreign to the classical period, and only to be found in
the corrupt and perverted habits of the empire. This is a very
obfuscatory and far from true conception. We should bravely
appreciate, to put it concisely, that ancient morality was based on selfconscious
natural excellences of proud natural essences, not on the
dutiful, weak observance of a Law imposed from without (from
above) on a weak and poor nature.