When it comes to 10 bizarre sex customs from antiquity, the ancient world never fails to surprise. From ritualized wife exchanges to royal river rites, each practice reveals a wildly different attitude toward intimacy than we have today.
10 Bizarre Sex: A Glimpse Into Ancient Practices
10. Wife Lending
The pre‑Islamic Arab tribes had a curious tradition called wife lending. Far from a simple marital swap, it functioned as an early form of eugenics: lower‑status families would send their wives to distinguished men in hopes of birthing superior offspring. Only men deemed worthy—those with prized attributes—were permitted to sleep with another man’s wife, with the ultimate goal of impregnation.
The process was straightforward. The husband would dispatch his wife to the chosen man’s household, where she would remain until she conceived, whether that took days or months. Crucially, the husband had to abstain from any sexual activity during her stay; if he succeeded, the community would recognize the child as his, despite the biological father being another.
9. Cretan Kidnapping
Pederasty ruled ancient Greece, but on Crete it took on a theatrical, almost cinematic flair. A Cretan lover (the erastes) would first announce his intentions to a boy’s friends, giving the youth a chance to hide or prepare. After a few days, the lover would swoop in, seize the boy (the eromenos) in front of his companions, and a chase would ensue, ending only when the boy was delivered to the lover’s communal hall, the andreion.
Following the dramatic capture, the pair retreated to the countryside for a “romantic getaway” filled with hunting, feasting, fishing and, of course, sex. This liaison could last only a couple of months; any longer risked severe social censure. Upon their return, the boy received lavish gifts—armor, oxen, fine cups and clothing—followed by a sacrificial offering to Zeus. The youth then earned the honored rank of parastathentes, enjoying elevated status at dances and races, as noted by the historian Strabo.
8. Sex Without Ejaculating
In Taoist thought, the life‑force qi splits into yin and yang, and the essence called jing fuels both body and spirit. Taoist scholars believed semen held the richest concentration of jing, and that squandering it could weaken health or even cause death.
Consequently, ancient Chinese practitioners were instructed to engage in intercourse without reaching climax. Paradoxically, they were also encouraged to have frequent sex—especially with beautiful virgins—because the act itself was thought to generate more jing. Thus, the ancient Taoist ideal was a paradoxical blend: more lovemaking, but no ejaculation.
7. Fellatio Comes From The Gods
The earliest recorded instance of fellatio appears in the Egyptian myth of Osiris’s resurrection. After Seth dismembered Osiris, his sister‑wife Isis gathered the pieces, yet could not locate his penis. She fashioned a clay phallus, breathed life into it, and thus restored Osiris—making oral pleasure a divine act in Egyptian lore. The Egyptians, alongside the Phoenicians, even used red lipstick to signal their skill at giving oral pleasure.
Romans, however, despised fellatio, deeming it worse than anal sex and associating it with foul breath. A known fellator could be socially shunned, even barred from dinner parties. Yet the Romans had no qualms about receiving fellatio; slaves and prostitutes were often employed for that purpose.
6. Royal Masturbation
Egyptian creation myth credits the god Atum (or Ra) with the universe’s birth, and his first act was a solitary climax that birthed the pantheon of gods. This seminal event linked semen with the life‑giving Nile. Consequently, the Pharaoh—considered Ra’s earthly avatar—had to reenact Atum’s act each year during the Festival of Nim.
During the ceremony, the Pharaoh would strip, approach the riverbank, and deliberately ejaculate into the Nile, ensuring the sacred waters received his life‑force. Every participating male was then expected to follow suit, believing that their collective contribution kept the river flowing and secured a bountiful harvest.
5. Dildos
The oldest known sex toy—a stone dildo dating back roughly 26,000 years—shows that humans have long enjoyed artificial pleasure. In ancient Egypt, legends claim Cleopatra invented a vibrating device by hollowing a gourd and filling it with live bees, though the tale’s veracity remains debated.
Greeks and Romans refined the dildo further, adding leather sheaths (the olisbos) to mimic real flesh. These leather‑covered toys were so coveted that the playwright Lysistrata featured a sex strike sparked by a shortage of quality dildos. When leather options ran low, Greeks even baked hard loaves called olisbokollikes to serve as makeshift phalluses.
4. Top And Bottom
Modern labels of “gay” differ sharply from ancient Greek and Roman perspectives, where no specific word existed for homosexual orientation. Masculinity dictated that the dominant partner—always the penetrative one—was acceptable, while the receptive role (the “bottom”) was stigmatized as feminine and shameful.
Calling someone a “bottom,” using terms like cinaedus or exoletus, functioned as one of the harshest insults a man could hurl. Thus, same‑sex relations thrived so long as the active‑dominant dynamic remained intact.
3. Mayan Sons
Mayan aristocracy took an active role in nurturing their sons’ sexual lives. When a noble boy entered puberty, his family would select a handsome commoner youth to serve as his sexual partner before marriage, a practice sanctioned by the god Chin, who allegedly demonstrated gay intercourse by sodomizing a demon.
This union was treated as a legitimate marriage under tribal law, and the pair often cohabited until the noble reached roughly twenty years of age. While such relationships were encouraged, nobles were forbidden from being the receptive party; violating this rule incurred penalties comparable to rape.
2. Mandatory Prostitution
Herodotus reported that Assyrian law mandated all unmarried women to partake in temple prostitution for the goddess Ishtar (Mylitta). Every woman, regardless of rank, had to present herself at least once on the sacred steps, wearing a distinctive cord crown to signal participation.
During the rite, a woman would wait for the first stranger who approached, accept his payment, and engage in intercourse in the goddess’s name. After the act, she was considered holy and could no longer be coerced for sex. Herodotus noted that taller, more attractive women were allowed to leave sooner, while less‑favored women often lingered for years.
1. Bestiality
Bestiality traces back at least 25,000 years, as a bone carving shows a lioness licking a massive organ. A seventh‑century B.C. Italian cave painting depicts a man coupling with a donkey. The practice was so widespread that the Bible explicitly condemns it with a death penalty.
Romans turned bestiality into a public spectacle, staging animal‑rape events in the Coliseum and Circus Maximus, even keeping snakes for sexual purposes. Greeks, meanwhile, incorporated it into religious rites such as the Bacchanalia and ceremonies at the Temple of Aphrodite Parne. Egyptian sources claim that young women regularly copulated with bucks, and crocodile hunters allegedly engaged with female crocodiles before slaying them.
While the ancient world was rife with such extremes, the sheer variety of customs reminds us that human sexuality has always been as diverse as it is daring.