August 24

August 24, 79 AD: Vesuvius Eruption
Preserved Explicit Gay Graffiti

Exactly 1,938 years ago today, the 19-hour eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum (Bay of Naples, Italy), burying the towns under 10 feet of ash and pumice that was super-heated to around 900 degrees. Mount Vesuvius spewed forth a deadly cloud 21 miles high, ejecting molten and pulverized material at the rate of 1.5 million tons per second, 100,000 times the thermal energy of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Death was nearly instant, as the volcanic flow burned the flesh off the bones of the inhabitants as it buried them. A study of the ruins of Pompeii (three times the size of Herculaneum) revealed a culture at a time before Christian morals dominated the West. An unexpected find in their excavations was explicit gay graffiti, such as "On this spot Auctus copulated with Quintius."

First-century kink (m/m/f three-way)

Other examples from those gay Pompeiian times:

Weep, you girls.  My penis has given you up.  Now it penetrates men’s behinds.

Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you.

Secundus likes to screw boys.

I have buggered men.

Beneath layers of muddy ash was a snapshot of everyday life in a Roman resort town, complete with bank receipts, graffiti, "for rent" signs, public mosaics depicting extremely graphic sex, "beware of the dog" signs, steamy murals, and penis decorations on street corners (a sign of fertility). Oh, and there were electoral propaganda messages, too. Imagine that.

But I digress.

 Dudes in denim:

Towel boys: