Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by Lizard is way dirtier than you’re expecting.

It’s not just some ill-fated boy whose hand meandered into the cookie jar after his mother told him they were off limits. No, no. He was a lot naughtier than that. As explained by art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon, this painting is chock full of innuendos and symbols that add to a larger, sexier meaning in the artwork.

First is that apparently, if you look at someone while biting your finger in an aggressive manner, it means that you want to castrate them. So the boy getting his finger bitten here could mean that he has done something that is worth castration. Hmm, what could that be?

Secondly, the bowl of fruit (not cookies) in which this boy had placed his hand before being bitten is a symbol for sensual pleasures ie. eating fruit, having sex, etc. I mean the use of cherries is almost laughable.

And last but not least, the flowers – jasmine and a rose – are the flower equivalent of a blinking neon sign that says “Nude Girls.” All of these symbols added together mean that this boy had engaged in sexual intercourse. And as an added bonus Graham-Dixon guesses that the lizard biting him may also mean that he got “the clap” from one of the women he was sleeping with – the consequence of engaging in sensual pleasures especially in the 16^th century. (Fun fact: There are a lot of theories for why gonorrhea is called “the clap” but one of them is that men used to smash their penises in between two hard things – ie. two books, a book and the butt of a rifle, etc. – as an attempt to cure themselves of the disease.)

I bet you weren’t expecting such an obscene meaning from a seemingly innocent painting.