Benedetta was right: women, especially lesbians, have been using sex toys for a long time. Maybe even 2,000 years ago, according to archeologists who believe they have found the only known lifesize roman dildo.
The 16cm wooden phallus-shaped artifact was discovered in a ditch, on the farthest northern fringes of the empire. The archaeologists are covering their bases, saying the dildo could have fallen off a statue people touched for good luck, despite it not being most likely.
There is space for a hand to hold and guide the object. Photograph: Newcastle University.
It’s definitely not a darning tool which, in 1992, is what it was originally catalogued as. “I have to confess,” said Newcastle University archaeology senior lecturer Rob Collins, “part of me thinks it’s kind of self-evident that it is a penis. I don’t know who entered it into the catalogue. Maybe it was somebody uncomfortable with it or didn’t think the Romans would do such silly things.”
If true, if someone found the figure uncomfortable and catalogued it as a darning tool because it was “too silly for Romans,” then that conclusion couldn’t be further from the truth. Romans had mosaics, frescoes, pot decorations and pendants in the shape of a phallus.
“What makes this [disovery] a first is that it is not a small, miniature phallus,” said Collins. “It’s lifesize. It’s also important because wood just doesn’t normally survive … we couldn’t find any parallels.”
The size and uncertainty of function fascinated researchers. “Often in archaeology when we find an object we can tell what it was used for or deduce what it was used for. That wasn’t the case for this object. We have had to cast our nets wide in thinking what would a six-and-a-half-inch wooden carving of a phallus be used for.
“We had some very interesting discussions.”
Ultimately, it’s most likely a sexual toy. “If that is the case it would be, to our knowledge, the first Roman dildo that’s been encountered from archaeology,” Collins said. “We know from Greek and Roman poetry and Greek and Roman art that they used dildos. But we haven’t had any archaeological examples found which is intriguing in itself.
“If it is that and it is found up here on the northern fringe of the empire and not down in the rich heartland of Roman Italy … it is kind of astounding.”
Sure, gay men could have used it for masturbation. Maybe it wasn’t for solo women or lesbian couples. But to deprive women from the conversation, to pretend it’s more likely that men used it, because they are supposedly “more sexual,” is ahistorical and misogynistic. So it is possible that the first lesbian sex toy has been found!
