I recently started reading my kid Astrix and Obelix comics from my old collection and I stumbled across a panel in Astrix and the Laurel Wreath where a family of Romans start a 'surprise' orgy. This got me thinking about how Roman sexuality is displayed in America. For instance I just watched a History channel program about Pompeii and they basically spent the whole two hours explaining how Christians were being prosucuttted and Pompeii was Gamoroh number II and was just spantanouse sex everywhere. How much of this was basic Christian/History Channel bullshit or was orgies a big part of Roman sexuality?
They did, but the portrayal is a bit skewed (it wasn't something that just happened all the time). This is from an AMA on this subreddit on "The History of Sexuality".
A lot of the notion that Rome was full of debauchery comes from the early days of archaeology. Remember, archaeology as a science is relatively new. Pompeii was only rediscovered in the mid-1700s! A lot of the things that were found at Pompeii really shocked people, and the items, in combination with some of the more salacious stories from people like Suetonius and poems from people like Catullus, Ovid, and Martial, gave an impression of a people completely open about sex. Remember, of course, that that view was coming from a group of people who were very much not open about sex. It's really easy to seem debauched when you're being compared to the Victorians.
The whole thread is here which you might like to read:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lkszg/askhistorians_ama_thread_history_of_sexuality/