'The purpose-built brothel is almost too good to be true,' McGinn writes.
In keeping with its address—the Street of the Overhanging Balcony—the lupanar is a top-heavy two-storey building that tapers to a corner.
No one knows what the upper floor was for—it's been rebuilt—but the overhanging 'balcony' may have provided shelter while the punters queued or the hookers stood on the corner, clad in colored togas (the dress code for whores).
Some brothels also advertised themselves with lamps that were always lit, not unlike the neon in modern red-light districts.
Once inside, customers were saluted by the twin erections of a doubly endowed Priapus, the crude fresco ensuring them they were about to get extra lucky.
A short, L-shaped passageway running through the middle of the whorehouse connected the five tiny rooms where the prostitutes worked, while frescoes above each doorway depicted erotic couplings on comfortable beds.
STINKY SEX
Despite these artistic pretensions, the reality of sex in the brothel would have been a far grittier affair.
Virtually every grunt, moan, queef and fart would've been a communal experience.
The hookers' cubicles were cramped and gloomy, with small built-in beds made of brick and masonry.
Besides the incessant noise of rutting, the whorehouse would have reeked of the urine the Romans used to wash their clothes, the funk emanating from the cells, the stink from the open latrine at the end of the hallway, and the gases produced by Roman 'foods of love' such as beans and onions (one regular named Scordopodonicus was renowned for his noxious wind).
Punters often complained about the whores' halitosis, and it's fair to say that the type of 'she-wolf' who worked in a lupanar was probably best appreciated by the light of the moon.
However, there's no sign of curtains or hinges on the cubicles in Pompeii, so the doorways may have been left open for paying voyeurs.
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