Catullus 16 is great. Do you really think vulgar is the right word? I suppose it could be, but it only brings a smile to my face, not disgust.

Anyway; here is the text in Literal Translation from wikisource, with the Latin at the bottom.

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,

Cocksucking Aurelius and bottom-man Furius,

You who think that I'm a pussy

Because of my delicate verses.

It's right for the devoted poet

To be chaste himself, but it's not

Necessary for his verses to be so.

Verses which then have taste and charm,

If they are delicate and sexy,

And when they can incite an itch,

And I don't mean for boys, but in

Those hairy old men who can't get their dicks up.

You, because you have read of my thousands of kisses,

You think I'm a pussy?

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.

This poem tells us a whole load about ancient Roman masculinity, though you also require some context to make fully sense of it.

The words translated as pussy here, 'pathicus' and 'cinaedi' don't really mean that literally, they are just Latin words for "woman-like man coward" and refer exactly to the type of man who likes to be anally penetrated by other men.

These 'types' of men were completely vilified in Roman culture. Catullus has clearly been accused of being one because his poems didn't exactly conform to what was expected of Roman masulinity - in that they celebrate behaviours thought to be effeminate, like dancing, uncontrolled drinking, and womanising (yes, womanising was thought to be effeminate.)

What Catullus is telling his detractors is basically "yes, I write soft poetry. And I'll still orally rape you and then you'll find out that I'm not some effeminate but a real man."

Roman sexuality has been described by Amy Richlin as having a 'priapic model' of sexuality which meant that the penetrator was constructed as the masculine role in every situation - and the penetrated in many ways was degraded as feminine. Catullus here is threatening to feminise his critics in the ultimately aggressively masculine way - by penetrating them.

So yes, I guess vulgar is the correct term, upon reflection.

More deeply, he's talking about how art and the artist must be seperated - that art doesn't necessarily reflect personal character.

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi, qui me ex versiculis meis putastis, quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum. Nam castum esse decet pium poetam ipsum, versiculos nihil necessest; qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem, si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici et quod pruriat incitare possunt, non dico pueris, sed his pilosis qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos. Vos, quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis? Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.