When you hear the phrase 10 crazy sex you probably imagine modern taboos, but the ancient world was a veritable roller‑coaster of erotic experiments, legal loopholes, and outright bizarre beliefs. Humanity’s fascination with desire has never waned, and the past is littered with stories that make today’s headlines look tame.
10 Crazy Sex Overview
10 Contraception
Before the age of anesthesia and modern obstetrics, bringing a child into the world was a perilous, excruciating ordeal. The playwright Euripides captured this dread through Medea, who declared she would rather face battle than endure labor.
It’s no surprise then that women of antiquity hunted for ways to sidestep the birthing nightmare, sometimes simply to enjoy intimacy without the looming threat of death. Their ingenuity led them to the best remedies available in their era.
Archaeologists have uncovered a 1800 BC Egyptian formula for a pessary: a concoction of chopped crocodile dung blended with honey and salt, sprinkled over the womb. While it may have acted as a spermicide, the scent alone would likely have killed the mood. The Greeks and Romans, meanwhile, prized a plant called silphium—a giant fennel prized for culinary and medicinal uses. So effective and delicious it was worth its weight in silver, silphium vanished from cultivation, the last stalk disappearing under Emperor Nero, forcing later generations to seek contraception elsewhere.
9 Pedico and the Courts
Most readers picture the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as hotbeds of vice, and indeed the term “sodomy” originates from their story. Yet the Romans, inheriting Greek customs, continued the practice known as pedico, a form of back‑door intercourse that both men and women embraced. Women liked it for its contraceptive effect—no pregnancies resulted—while men found it increasingly socially acceptable as the biblical stigma faded.
The truly astonishing twist lies in the legal arena. In cases of adultery, Roman courts allowed the aggrieved party to retaliate by sodomizing the offender. If the offender was unavailable, a large radish could serve as a stand‑in, turning the courtroom into a theater of bizarre retribution.
8 Pederasty in Athens
Imagine a celebrated philosopher openly admitting a fondness for sleeping beside naked youths—today that would spark outrage, but in fifth‑century‑BC Athens it was considered perfectly natural. Literary and artistic evidence shows that male attraction to adolescent boys was a common, socially sanctioned practice among the elite.
The older lover, called the Erastes, courted his boy, the Eramenos, with gifts and mentorship. The relationship was framed as mutually beneficial: the elder enjoyed sexual intimacy, while the youth received a powerful patron who could usher him into Athenian society. Though portrayed by some as a benign May‑December romance, the age gap was stark; any adult who remained an Eramenos was deemed shameful.
7 Brothels
While many cultures relegated prostitution to shadows, the Romans celebrated it openly. The Lupanare of Pompeii, preserved in volcanic ash, reveals a bustling brothel where walls were plastered with graffiti advertising the services of each woman. Graphic images adorned the rooms, ensuring even the illiterate could discern what was on offer.
Babylon took the concept further. According to Herodotus, every Babylonian woman was required at least once in her life to serve as a sacred prostitute in the temple of Ishtar, accepting any coin presented to her. Some scholars dispute the universality of this practice, yet there is broad agreement that divine worship and sexual commerce were deeply intertwined in Mesopotamian society.
6 Ancient Sex Toys
In 2005, German archaeologists unearthed a 26,000‑year‑old phallus, arguably the world’s earliest known dildo. Carved from stone, this eight‑inch masterpiece suggests our ancestors were unafraid of splinters. Yet stone was not the only material; wooden penises have also been found, indicating a diverse toolbox for pleasure.
The Greeks made the most explicit record of ancient sex toys. Pottery shards display women brandishing dildos, and literary sources like the mime by Herodas describe a leather dildo maker who masqueraded as a cobbler. Even Aristophanes referenced the trade in his comedy Lysistrata, where women’s sex strike threatened to collapse the dildo market.
5 Pantomime Actor’s Phallic Antics
Greek tragedies were solemn, but after a long day of heavy drama the Athenians loved to unwind with bawdy comedy and satyr plays. Central to the humor were oversized leather phalluses that actors could yank out at will, turning any scene into a rib‑tickling spectacle.
Aristophanes, the master of Old Comedy, weaponized these giant penises for jokes about masturbation, impotence, and even suggested using the phallus as a ship’s rudder. His lines, such as “Peace, profane men! … come forward and … hold the phallus well upright,” showcase how unabashed ancient humor could be.
4 Wandering Uterus
The term “hysterical” stems from the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who believed women’s erratic behavior resulted from a “wandering uterus.” This organ, they thought, roamed the body like a mischievous animal, causing a host of symptoms.
Egyptian papyri describe remedies designed to coax the errant womb back to its proper place, while Plato famously likened the uterus to a creature that caused chaos wherever it travelled. Modern medicine has long dispelled the notion, but it once dominated female health theory.
3 Spartan Women
Sparta stood apart from the rest of Greece, granting its women freedoms unheard of elsewhere. Queen Gorgo famously replied to a foreign envoy’s query about Spartan women’s dominance over men: “Because we are the only women who bear men.”
Yet their wedding night was anything but conventional. The bride’s hair would be shaved, and she would don a man’s cloak and sandals. In this disguise she would wait in darkness for her husband to slip in and claim her. Some historians argue this cross‑dressing prepared the groom for the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers, blending masculine rites with marital intimacy.
2 Penis Charms
Across the ancient Mediterranean, the phallus was everywhere—from statues called Herms in Athens to bronze casts in Rome. In 415 BC, a drunken mob smashed the erect penises on these shrines, plunging the state into crisis, underscoring how seriously the Romans took these symbols.
Phallic imagery was believed to possess apotropaic power, warding off evil. They appeared on frescoes, carved reliefs, and even as winged penises hung with tiny bells—tintinnabulae—that chimed in the wind, serving both as charming wind chimes and protective talismans.
1 Egypt’s Incestuous Gods
Royal dynasties have long tried to keep bloodlines pure through sibling marriages, and ancient Egypt took this to a divine extreme. Pharaohs were considered earthly gods, mirroring the relationships of their deities. The most famous divine couple, Osiris and Isis, were brother and sister.
When Set murdered Osiris, dismembering him, Isis gathered his scattered parts—except his penis, which a crocodile had devoured. The Nile’s claim on the god’s organ was seen as a source of fertility for the land. In what may be the earliest recorded mention of oral sex, Isis fashioned a clay phallus for Osiris, breathed life into it, and restored his potency.