This helps to bracket out modern conceptions of homosexuality and heterosexuality that can only keep us from understanding the cultural conditions that surrounded sex in the minds of the ancient Romans. Clarke shows that there is a big difference between the message of ancient writings and that of ancient works of art. For example, the former tell us of the shame that is incurred by someone who engages in oral sex, but the latter show us pictures of men and women engaging in both fellatio and cunnilingus. Clarke explains this disparity by saying that the Roman writers were writing for and about the elite. Their values are those of the class they belong to.
Visual art displays the non-standard attitudes.
The study of the visual arts therefore expands the scope of ancient Roman sexuality far beyond the elite class. The diffusion of sexual imagery across class boundaries enables us to see the faces of people who had no part in writing the ancient texts. A study of this issue will underscore how difficult it is for us to really understand the Roman sexual framework. Such sexual usages would be shocking to modern morality, but it constituted no problem for the Roman elite, since it was love between unequal partners. However, one should never have sex with another freeborn male, whether a boy or an adult.