All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

Sex

A young priest listens to confession.

Penitentials - Medieval Priests Had Handbooks to Deal with Sexual Deviance

Penance has played a prominent role in religions all over the world. And the interesting thing is there are documents spanning the globe which discuss penance and provide clear opportunities to find...
Medieval Sex and Scandal: Consistory Courts and Morality in Medieval England

Medieval Sex and Scandal: Consistory Courts and Morality in Medieval England

In the 21st century, most people would consider their intimate and sexual relationships to be a private matter. In the Middle Ages however, the division between private and public areas in the lives...
Girl of Gran Dolina, Individual H3

The 800,000-Year-Old Gran Dolina Boy Just Became A Girl

History is peppered with stories of women who disguised themselves as men to fight in wars, to steal crowns and to topple empires. However, in this story we have an 800,000-year-old little boy who...
Achilles and Patroclus: Brothers from Other Mothers or Passionate Paramours?

Achilles and Patroclus: Close Confidants or Passionate Paramours?

The true nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, characters in Homer’s Iliad , has long been a source of speculation. Were they friends or lovers? Brothers from other mothers or...
The Lupanare and Houses of Pleasure in Ancient Pompeii

The Lupanare: Prostitution and Houses of Pleasure in Ancient Pompeii

Mad emperors, fierce warriors, brutal entertainment, and lascivious lifestyles. These are the familiar images of ancient Rome, but what was it really like? Rumors abounded regarding Roman emperors...
Sex and love were major themes in classic erotic art, as they remain today. (Public Domain/Deriv)

The Erotic Art of Ancient Greece and Rome

Craig Barker / The Conversation Rarely does L.P. Hartley’s dictum that “the past is a foreign country” hold more firmly than in the area of sexuality in classical art. Classic erotic art, erotic...
Ending the Historical Atrocity of Virginity Tests?

Ending the Historical Atrocity of Virginity Tests?

Since medieval times, many Muslim communities have regarded the hymen, the tiny piece of skin known as the vaginal membrane, as proof of virginity and a woman’s moral virtue. Even today in the United...
Kama Sutra couple on bed

The Kama Sutra: Setting the Record Straight

Out of all the necessities in the world, three come to the forefront: food, water, and reproduction. While the first two are necessary for the survival of the individual among the many, the latter is...
Hansanlu Lovers skeletons close up of torsos and skulls

The Eternal Kiss of the Hasanlu Lovers Throws Up Questions of Ancient Love: Romance, Bromance or Something More Familial?

Have you ever heard of the “The Hasanlu Lovers?” If not, don’t be too quickly seduced by the exotic and romantic sounding moniker this phenomenon has been awarded. Colorful and amorous images are...
Ancient Egyptian Goddess. Credit: tk0920 / Adobe Stock

Ancient Egyptian Sex Spell Invoked a Ghost to Entrap a Man

Ancient, magical spells of subjugation, love, and sex sounds like the opening lines to an adult fairy tale, but these steamy evildoings are also found on an 1,800-year-old ancient Egyptian “erotic...
An example of a Sheela na gig, a carving of a naked woman with an exaggerated vulva.

Viva La Vulva! When Did Female Genitalia Become Obscene?

In September 2019, a French ad for feminine hygiene products featuring taboo-breaking representations of vulvas and menstruation sparked controversy . Yet in a cultural context in France, phallic...
Temple Khajuraho, India

Khajuraho: The Sexiest Temples in India

The Khajuraho temple complex is a series of beautifully built and decorated buildings in Madhya Pradesh. Of the 85 temples originally built by the Chandela dynasty between 900 AD and 1130 AD, only 25...
Depiction of an ancient human smile

Ancient Human Smile Used as an Effective ‘Get-Sex’ Tool

A study on the history of facial expressions has discovered humans developed friendly facial expressions to attract less-aggressive, selected breeding partners, as a result of ‘self-domestication’...
Painting by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Orientalism genre, representation of The Book of Exposition. Source: Jeangagnon / Public Domain.

The Book of Exposition and the Enigmatic English Bohemian

Though this title may make many an aspiring writer think it to be instructional for forbidding the writing of on the nose dialogue, The Book of Exposition is far from the case. The Kitab al-Izah Fi'...
Provocative scenes from the medieval poem, ‘Roman de La Rose’, have been discovered. Source: Dmitry Pichugin / Adobe Stock.

Does This Explicit Medieval Poem Hold Dark Undertones?

Fragments from a popular sexually explicit medieval French book have been discovered describing what journalists are calling a “hot-encounter" and “ X-rated language ”, but is this text a much more...
Statue of a woman covering herself. Credit: macondos / Adobe Stock

The Shocking History of Virgin Tests and Cures

Virginity has been the obsession of men for thousands of years. It has driven the best people, like the virgin warrior Joan of Arc, to fight for just cause. Virginity has also lured the worst people...
Like a Virgin? The Controversial Account of Mary, Mother of Jesus

Like a Virgin? The Controversial Account of Mary, Mother of Jesus

The Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, is one of the key symbols of Christianity and a woman whose cult changed the world. However, she may be one of the most misunderstood biblical people. According to...
Medieval woman. Credit:  grape_vein / Adobe Stock

The World’s Oldest Talking Vagina is Discovered…in an Austrian Abbey!

The Vagina Monologues is a play written by Eve Ensler which featured on an Off-Broadway run in 1996 at Westside Theatre exploring consensual and nonconsensual sex, body image, genital mutilation, and...
‘Semiramis’ – a modern depiction of the Sumerian goddess Inanna. In charge of fertility, sex, and war, Inanna was one of the most violent goddessess of the ancient world.

Girls Gone Wild: World Mythology’s Most Sexualized, Crazed, and Furiously Violent Goddesses

Myths, legends, and religions tell of gods and goddesses exemplifying all that is good and right in the world. And there are just as many who represent our deepest archetypal sexual desires, taboos,...
A Huastec Tlazolteotl statue, the British Museum. (The Trustees of the British Museum/CC BY NC SA 4.0) Background: Aztec iconography. (CC0)

Tlazolteotl: An Ancient Patroness and Purifier for all things Filthy

Tlazolteotl was an earth goddess in the pantheon of the Aztecs, although her area of influence is a little wider and more unusual than some goddesses of the earth and fertility. Filth was her domain...
Ancient Egyptian men undergoing circumcision.

The Cutting Truth about Circumcision: It Was All About Rites and Religion

When was circumcision first practiced? How did it evolve? Why was it practiced? The earliest literary evidence of the practice of circumcision goes back to ancient Egypt. There are many hypotheses...
1,500-Year-Old Graffiti reveals Gladiator Battles

1,500-Year-Old Graffiti reveals Gladiator Battles

The Italian word graffiti dates only to 1851, online sources say, but the practice of drawing and scribbling on walls and surfaces in public places dates back millennia. In fact, a Professor from...
Death of Sardanapalus by Eugène Delacroix.

Did the Pleasure-Seeking Epicurus Really Prescribe Hedonistic Happiness?

Epicureanism is a philosophical system based on the teachings of Epicurus which is, in today’s world, often equated with hedonism. Whilst this may be true to some extent, it is an over-simplification...
The “Burney Relief,” which is believed to represent either Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, or her older sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the underworld (c. 19th or 18th century BC).

In Ancient Mesopotamia, Sex among the Gods Shook Heaven and Earth

Sexuality was central to life in ancient Mesopotamia, an area of the Ancient Near East often described as the cradle of western civilisation roughly corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and...

Pages