"Soft-porn-icus"

Damn, I love cable television.

Tom and I used to refer to the Starz! Network's Spartacus anthology as "Spar-tukhus" (since there were a lot of butt shots, it only seemed appropriate to substitute the Yiddish word for "rear end").  A former boss of mine bestowed the name “Soft-porn-icus;”  I liked this name better, and the show became our I-can’t-miss-an-episode-rush-home-to-see-all-the-gratuitous-nudity-just-for-my-own-gratification-guilty-pleasures, and she and I would kvetch (more Yiddish) endlessly about what/how much we had seen the night before.

What’s not to love?  Spartacus was four seasons and thirty-nine episodes chock full of super-muscular, ripped guys fighting each other in their underwear (although the correct term in Latin is subligaria).  I didn’t see an un-handsome face in the bunch, and the costuming – when there was any – left little to the imagination.  Familiar faces John Hannah (of The Mummy movies), Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess herself) and Andy Whitfield (1971-2011) starred, and the series brought Liam McIntyre (who succeeded Whitfield in the title role following the his death from cancer after the filming of the first season was completed), Manu Bennett (now on Arrow), Nick E. Tarabay (who filmed two episodes of Burn Notice and played a Klingon in Star Trek Into Darkness), Dustin Clare and Jai Courtney (most recently of A Good Day to Die Hard) to the attention of American audiences.

In addition to lots of complicated, formal dialogue, there was plenty of creative naughty language, and the series quickly became popular due the volume of frontal nudity, not-really-necessary-for-the-story-but-who's-complaining-we-want-more butt shots, and graphic violence in and out of the arena (I repeat: damn, I love cable!).  The series also blows away the Kirk Douglas/Tony Curtis classic and puts the Goran Visnjic television-movie version to shame, so the DVD sets are definitely a “must-have” for the male form/underwear aficionado.

I really, really, really wish the producers could have wrangled eight or nine more seasons, just to grace the airwaves with these ancient-skivvies body shots, but I’m definitely grateful for what I got.  I think I'd have been able to make do in pre-Christian era Rome regardless of my status, especially if I had been in the company of the gladiators below.

It’s actually pretty easy to make a subligaria of your own, if you’re of the mind to.  Here’s how:

·         Take a piece of linen approximately the length of your body from your waist to your knees.  The edge along your waist will need to flare out, kinda like the straps on a diaper (the whole thing should look like a funnel, if you think about it).

·         Bring the flared edges around your waist so they meet below your belly button.  Tie them off with a thin piece of leather rawhide or a prepared strip of linen, so the subligaria is hanging from your waist, but not too tightly.

·         Now, bring the hanging piece from the back between your legs and up through the binding (so that it’s between your skin and the knot you just made).  Make sure that it’s nice and snug (you’re showing off your goods, after all, so don’t be shy).

·         Let the excess linen drape over the front.

·         Double it up as necessary and tie off with a belt (the thicker and broader the better).  You may need to tuck and fold a bit, depending on how much material you used.  All you need now are your accessories: sword, padding, shield, sandals, helmet and you’re ready to go!  (You can probably find exactly what you’re looking for at a Renaissance fair, but as these are few and far between, try resale shops and costume sell-offs.  You may even want to try leather specialty stores.)

There you have it: a quick costume for Halloween, an underwear party, or a white party for next Pride.  All you have to do is remember your key line: “I am Spartacus!”