Despite our differences in opinion and cultures, there’s one thing just about everyone can agree on: Sex is amazing. No matter how much we may enjoy it, though, it’s one of the most mysterious aspects of evolution. Scientists have been trying to answer why we have sex at all for quite some time now,^[1] as from an evolutionary perspective, it doesn’t quite make sense.

Not only is sexual reproduction quite costly for the organisms, evolutionarily speaking, but we also don’t quite know for sure why we find so many things, like breasts, for example, sexually arousing, especially when other animals that also reproduce sexually aren’t like this.

Now, we’re not saying that we’re closer to figuring out the evolutionary reasons for sexual reproduction than qualified scientists, but we can certainly look into the various theories that try to do just that. Even if none of these definitively answer the question, they provide some interesting insights into this awesome yet mysterious feature of humanity.

10 Sex Could Have Helped Speed Up Evolution

A big reason why scientists are consistently scratching their heads over sex is that we don’t know for sure that it provides any benefits over asexual reproduction in evolutionary terms. Asexual reproduction is simple: You take an organism, divide it in two, and produce an offspring that is identical to the parent. There’s no risk for introducing new genetic disorders to your genetic line, and you don’t have to make the effort of finding a mate to reproduce.

According to one theory, the cost of sexual over asexual reproduction could well be offset by a boost in the speed of adaptation to new environments for sexual creatures. A study done on a type of single-celled green algae that reproduces sexually backs it up, too.^[2] If not for sexual reproduction, the theory suggests, life would have taken a lot longer to develop the adaptation mechanics needed to adapt to new environments, so that’s another thing we have sex to thank for.

9 Sex May Have Evolved As A Response To Parasites

Humanity may have won the evolutionary war now, but that victory was a long time coming. It was a brutally competitive world out there, with many organisms fighting for the same resources in the same area. It wasn’t just huge predators, either; many life-forms were just as threatened by parasites. According to some scientists, sexual reproduction had a huge role to play in resisting them.

It’s known as the Red Queen Hypothesis, one of the various theories that try to explain why we reproduce sexually despite all its disadvantages. It suggests that as parasites tend to attack, and adapt to attacking, genetically similar organisms (like in the case of asexual reproduction), sexual reproduction would have helped keep offspring genetically unique and hence at a lower risk of a parasitic infection.

Researchers even carried out an experiment on a freshwater snail found in New Zealand which can reproduce sexually as well as asexually. They found that the part of the population that reproduced asexually had a much higher chance of being infected by a worm parasite than the others, suggesting that sexual reproduction evolved as a natural response to parasites.^[3]

8 The Female Orgasm Could Be A By-Product Of Orgasms In Men

There’s no bigger mystery regarding sex than the female orgasm. Many men have trouble getting their female partners to it, and scientists cannot wrap their heads around why it exists at all. Unlike the male orgasm, the female orgasm doesn’t do anything for reproduction, as women have a whole different mechanism for producing eggs that’s not reliant on male performance in the bed. So, what gives?

According to one theory, the female orgasm serves absolutely no evolutionary purpose and is actually a by-product of orgasm in males developed early during gestation, when the fertilized egg goes through the same stages of development regardless of whether or not it ends up male.^[4] There are plenty of other theories to explain the female orgasm, though this one stands out because we know of another feature that serves no purpose and only exists as a by-product of development in the other sex: male nipples.

7 Humans Aren’t Meant To Be Monogamous

Cheating in a relationship has probably existed for as long as relationships themselves. No matter how committed most couples are to each other, cases of one of them going out and sleeping with someone else are abundant, so much so that memes about it are a subculture of their own on social media. It’s less of an evolutionary mystery and more a social anomaly; we’ve been doing one-on-one relationships throughout our history, so we should have gotten used to them by now.

According to science, though, there’s a simple reason behind why we have such a hard time staying in long-term, committed relationships. It’s because we never evolved to be monogamous in the first place and were always meant to have multiple sexual partners. This isn’t to say that we should forsake monogamy, as a lot of our accomplishments have come from going against how we we’re designed, but remaining faithful to our partners definitely doesn’t come to us naturally.^[5]

6 Oral Sex Could Help Avoid Miscarriages

Oral sex is a rather important part of foreplay in any sexual encounter, unless we’re talking about people who are just bad in bed. Many would argue that it’s not just a prelude to the final act but an intrinsic part of the act itself. All the same, if we look at oral sex from an evolutionary perspective, it doesn’t make sense. We don’t know why it causes arousal or why, in many cases, it can serve as a passable alternative to intercourse, which is what’s actually needed for reproduction.

According to studies, oral sex, at least when performed on men by women, may have developed as a way to have fewer miscarriages. One study found a definite link between swallowing sperm and a reduced risk of preeclampsia in women, a condition which certainly increases the risk of miscarriage.

A Dutch team of obstetricians looked into it further and found more links between oral sex and a lower risk of miscarriages. They think that it’s because when the female gut is exposed to male semen, the body is able to develop immunity toward antigens present in it.^[6]

5 Foot Fetish May Safeguard Against STDs

Even if a lot of us may outright deny that it exists in public, foot fetish is perhaps one of the most common types of fetishes around. It’s more common than you’d think, and despite its obvious appeal for those who find feet attractive, science simply has no idea why it exists, evolutionarily speaking. The feet are easily the last thing someone trying to find a partner would flaunt, which rules out any reproductive merit it may have had in the past. Freud suggested that some people find feet sexually attractive because they kind of look like the penis, which is verifiably not true if you ask anyone who has both.

According to a more plausible theory, our fetish for feet may have developed as a response to widespread STDs. In a study, researchers looked at all the times the foot was sexualized in popular imagination in history.^[7] They were surprised to find that all those times coincided with whenever there was an STD outbreak in that region, though the study was largely limited to Europe. In a way, it makes sense, as the feet may have emerged as a safer alternative to regular sex when it got too risky.

4 Women Have Permanently Enlarged Breasts Due To Bipedalism

The opinion on breasts worldwide is simple: Just about everyone loves them. They’re an important organ for arousal for both men and women during sex. It almost sounds like blasphemy to question their existence, but for the sake of knowledge and science, we have to: Why do breasts exist at all?

If you’d say all animals have them, that’s not really true. Take apes: The only time their breasts are enlarged is when they’re lactating, and as soon as that’s over, they go back to flat chests. Human females are the only ones who have permanently enlarged breasts, and science has been trying to figure out why for quite some time, with little success.

According to some scientists, though, the breasts developed as a natural response to humans standing up on their own two feet during evolution. You see, when we were on all fours, the breasts provided no attraction benefits for the females, and it was the back end that served as the most visible part of the female reproductive anatomy. When we stood up on our feet, we developed breasts as another way of attracting better mates for reproduction.^[8]

3 Homosexuality May Have Survived Due To Society’s Opposition To It

Homosexuality is another mystery scientists have been trying to crack for some time now, as it flies against all the theories of evolution and sexual reproduction we currently have. We know that it’s genetic to an extent, and we know that gay people exist, even if they’re a minority of the general population. There has got to be some way that it’s being successfully passed down to subsequent generations. This is despite the obvious fact that homosexual sex cannot naturally yield children.

Well, according to one evolutionary biologist, society’s ostracizing of gay people throughout history may have had a big role to play in homosexuality surviving through the ages.^[9] As it was less okay to come out in the earlier days, gay people were forced to enter straight marriages, which led them to having babies and helping the population to survive. And the statistics back it up; 37 percent of the LGBT community in the US has children, and around 60 percent of them are biological.

2 Female Moaning May Be A Call To Other Men In The Vicinity

Moaning during sex is a perfectly natural response, though you may have noticed that women tend to do so much more than men. Some may say that it’s because men don’t tend to show emotions unless it’s absolutely necessary, but even for men who do make sounds during sex, they’re generally nothing compared to the ladies. Moaning may seem like a response to sexual pleasure during the act, though evidence suggests that it has nothing to do with orgasm, as the sounds actually subside when women are close to climax.

According to some theories, it may be more of a social response than a sexual one. Studies suggest that there’s a specific reason why women moan so loudly during sex: It’s because they’re inviting other men to the party in case their current partner is unable to fertilize their eggs. They tested this hypothesis on baboons and found that the males listening to a couple having sex could learn a lot from the nature of the sound, like how likely the female is to be impregnated by the ongoing act.^[10]

It may not apply to modern, mostly monogamous society, though it would have greatly helped our chances back when promiscuity encouraged the survival of the species.

1 Sex May Not Be About Reproduction At All

In the evolutionary biology circles, sex is considered to be one of the biggest anomalies, as we’ve mentioned above. If we go by the popular notion that it’s the best way for us to reproduce, it comes across as hugely disadvantageous for the species. If we didn’t have two sexes and just reproduced on our own, we could grow our species twice as fast. There’s also the question of males, as due to reproducing sexually, we also have to bear the cost of a gender that does comparatively next to nothing for reproduction (strictly evolutionarily speaking, of course).

According to one theory, we may just be looking at it the wrong way. Sex may not have anything to do with reproduction at all. Rather, it developed as a way to exchange and collect useful genes in the earliest stages of evolution. (We still don’t have a definitive idea on exactly when life started reproducing sexually.) The theory is called the libertine bubble theory, which argues that sexual reproduction originated at a time when we were nothing but “bubbles” in the primordial soup, with genetic information all over the place. These “bubbles” developed sex as a way to attach useful DNA information to each other to get the best of everything that was out there, and it just stuck over time.^[11]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

Throughout the ages, different cultures have had vastly different sexual practices, ranging from mundane to bizarre. Like culture itself, sexuality is more than just a means of procreation; it is an expression of the dominant ideas of the time and can tell us a lot about what’s floating around in the collective zeitgeist of a particular society—and ourselves as a species. So it goes without saying that if we peer into the sexual lives of the distant past, we find hints of ourselves, no matter how different they may have been in their expression of this fundamentally universal human activity.

Babylon (or Babylonia) was one of the first civilizations in existence, a region of settlements that is believed to have been initially established around 4000 BC.^[1] Famous for the Code of Hammurabi, Babylon was a society rich with culture, including a detailed writing system, accounting with mathematics, a diverse cuisine, and, of course, sex, with even the wild and lusty Greeks viewing the Babylonians as a sex-obsessed culture. Here is a glance into the world of Babylon, told through the lens of ten facts about sex in the ancient civilization.

10 Sex With Strangers

Greek sources tell us much about the sex lives of the Babylonian people, and needless to say, Babylon had some sexual practices which would make us in modern times raise an eyebrow, with even the Greeks thinking them a vile culture when it came to their sexual norms.

One of these practices was having sex with strangers, as told by the Greek writer Herodotus. He describes a bizarre and unusual practice in which Babylonian women were sent to a temple, once in their lives, to have sex with a complete stranger.^[2] It’s almost as if it could be seen as a rite of passage for women in ancient Babylon, and this was apparently a very widespread practice, accepted and performed by pretty much every single Babylonian woman. Note that some historians have disputed the specifics of Herodotus’s account but do accept that cultic prostitution existed in Babylon. (More on that below.)

9 Temple Prostitution

Temple prostitution was replete throughout the ancient world in and around the Fertile Crescent.^[3] This practice dates all the way back to the ancient Sumerian culture, which began in 4500 BC and from which Babylonian culture sprang up. Babylon is believed to have had dedicated temples set up specifically for prostitution. These divine brothels were more than just a place where people bought sex—this was a truly religious experience for the ancient Babylonians.

The exchange here wasn’t even sex for money; it was a communal, ritualistic practice to give thanks and worship to the gods of ancient Babylon. This was both quite a unique practice for the Babylonians and similar cultures in the ancient Middle East and a staple of their religious lives.

8 The Sin Of Chastity

In an interesting twist from the Judeo-Christian culture we’ve erected since the days of ancient Babylon, in Babylonian culture, it was actually sinful not to have sex.^[4] According to Herodotus’s account of women being sent once in their lives to a temple for sex, the first man to throw a coin into her lap got to have sex with her. Whether he was rich or poor, young or old, she was obliged to indulge him, irrespective of his or her social status. Herodotus also wrote of less formal prostitution outside of the temples, wherein a man would allow someone to have sex with his wife or children, so long as the sex was paid for.

So basically, if anyone wanted sex in ancient Babylon, it was theirs for the taking. While some sources today have referred to this as rape, it was widespread and socially acceptable in Babylonian culture, which had a near-fetish for fertility. This was a deep part of their religious experience, acts of offering and worship to their sex goddess Innana (also known as Ishtar). Just think about that: There was a culture on Earth where it was considered a sin to turn down sex, proving, once again, that if humans can dream it, and it’s sexual, they will do it.

7 Debauched Dinners

Orgies and prostitution were pretty common in the ancient world, and Babylon was no exception. However, free love and open sexuality weren’t restricted to massive annual or semiannual festivals, and sex would take place in common settings. Herodotus tells us of lavish, steamy dinner parties and how they would go down. Essentially, the ancient Babylonians would have orgies that started off as simple dinner parties but, bit by bit, would progress into something that would take on a more sexual nature.

As the dinners would proceed, Herodotus noted that women would undress piece by piece, until they were totally in the nude.^[5] From here, we can only imagine the wild nights that ensued, and Herodotus noted that it was customary for dinner parties to lead to completely socially acceptable prostitution, which even the Greeks thought absolutely bizarre.

6 Consecration

The Code of Hammurabi says much about the sex practices of the day and the laws that concerned them. In ancient Babylon, every marriage needed to be consecrated with sex, and a marriage wasn’t official until the newlyweds actually had intercourse.

Etched into a surviving stone tablet from 1754 BC, Hammurabi’s Code says, “If a man takes a woman to wife, but has no intercourse with her or does not draw up a marriage contract, this woman is no wife to him.”^[6] So if you wanted to take a woman’s hand in marriage, drew up a marriage contract, and handled the whole nine yards, none of it was actually official until some actual sex took place.

5 Sex Everywhere

The Babylonians weren’t bashful or shy when it came to getting down and dirty; they would do it anytime, anywhere, and seemingly with anyone, whenever they wanted. Babylonians would openly have sex in the center of town, go for a midday excursion out in the countryside, or even climb up atop a rooftop and decide to do the nasty overlooking the city.^[7]

It really didn’t matter much, and nobody minded, as they were an extremely sexually open culture. From temples to rooftops, to the good, old-fashioned bedroom, the Babylonians did it everywhere. One can only imagine an entire city of people having sex all over the place, a rather bizarre mental image indeed.

4 Marriage Markets

Marriage markets were another peculiar part of Babylonian culture. Massive markets would be set up, and women of age were sold off to the highest bidder. Herodotus is once again the writer who handed down our knowledge about these markets, describing in detail exactly how they operated.

Apparently, all of the women would sit down, and, not unlike a modern beauty pageant, one woman would be asked to stand and take the center stage, at which point the men in the audience would begin to place their bids on her, until she was sold. This was done in a particular order, too, starting from what was considered the most attractive and working their way down to what was considered least attractive woman.^[8]

Considering everything else we know about Babylonian sex culture, this was most probably a meat market of sorts, where men would buy the wives that they happened to desire. They would soon need to have sex with them to make the marriage official, of course.

3 Eye For An Eye

The Code of Hammurabi remains famous to this day for its general tone of “an eye for an eye,” explicitly stating which punishments were just and right for which transgressions and wrongdoings. Of course, sex was no exception to this . . . and sometimes their idea of what constituted “an eye for an eye,” was unusual, to say the least.

In a similar legal text dating back to the ancient days of Babylon, we’re told of another policy, whereby if a man is the father of an intact virgin, and another man has sex with her, the father of the virgin is then allowed to take and do with that man’s wife as he pleases. He would then be justly entitled to “ravage her.” However, in Hammurabi‘s version of this same situation, if a man had sex with a father’s untouched virgin (who is betrothed to another man), the man would be put to death and the woman would be spared to live.^[9]

2 Adultery

It might surprise you given what’s been covered so far, but adultery carried a high price in Babylon. Such a crime would warrant a punishment of execution, and not exactly a nice method of execution, either: A wife caught cheating on her husband would be forcibly drowned. Hammurabi’s Code tells us what the prescribed punishment should be in quite great detail, saying that if a wife of one man is caught red-handed in the act of cheating, both her and the man she was cheating with should be bound with rope and thrown into the water until they both drowned.

However, supposing the husband of the wife wanted to spare her life, he could opt to not press charges and forgive her, and in this case, the king at the time would reserve the same right to opt to spare the man she was cheating with. If the husband who had been betrayed did not care to save his wife, however, the king was powerless to save either life, and both would be sentenced to die.^[10]

1 Homosexuality

Like most other cultures on Earth before the Judeo-Christian domination which took place after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of ancient Rome, the Babylonians felt no sense of social stigma about homosexuality, and like the ancient Greeks, they practiced it openly and freely. They did, however, have specific homosexual acts which were thought to bring about bad fortune, though others were thought to bring good fortune. It has been noted by scholars that Babylonian men sometimes liked to assume the role of women in sex, but to do so was looked down upon.^[11]

Since anal sex wasn’t off limits, the ancient Babylonians even used heterosexual anal sex as a form of contraception, meaning they understood the processes that led to pregnancy, and it’s also very possible that homosexual sex served as an alternative to this same end; to avoid pregnancy. Nonetheless, the Babylonians were kinky freaks by today’s standards in a lot of ways, and very little was off-limits.

I like to write about dark stuff, history, horror, and murder. Also sex.

When it comes to humanity, very little in life shows us who we really are more than how we express ourselves through sex. From sex habits to sex laws, our sexuality tells much about humans in many, many other facets of life, such as how we view and care for one another, how we think of our place on the social ladder (and the places of others), and, of course, what we find desirable or undesirable in other people.

Sex is one of the most fundamental forms of both communication and introspection that we have, and it’s been this way since the dawn of time. Ancient Egypt was one of the marvels of the ancient world, exotic and unusual in almost every way. It seems that we can hardly get enough of their unorthodox practices and bizarre beliefs; even by ancient world standards, Egypt was definitely a weird place. Here are ten bizarre sex habits from the world of ancient Egypt.

10 Masturbation And Creation

Christians believed that God spoke the world into existence; Genesis tells us that God said, “Let there be light,” before a succession of other statements which literally spoke everything into existence through the use of mere words. The formless chaos became formed and predictable, and life came into existence. But the ancient Egyptians were no prudes; they were a lot kinkier and a lot more bizarre.

In one ancient Egyptian creation myth, the world and all of creation came into existence through nothing other than an act of masturbation. (And here we thought masturbation was a useless endeavor.) Somewhat similar to the Christian telling of creation, in the Egyptian version, the universe started as absolute nothingness, like the formless abyss of the Christian tale, but there was one living god, Atum, who masturbated, and through that act, he gave birth to a pair of twin gods. Thus, the first act of creation was performed.^[1] This myth laid the groundwork for what would be a uniquely strange culture in the way of sex, and it would actually be present in other sex rituals that people would perform.

9 Pharaoh Masturbation

From this myth came sexual practices and ceremonies that involved masturbation, which the ancient Egyptians saw as a life-giving process of creation. The ancient world, especially ancient Egypt, was obsessed with growth, birth, creation, and that which gave life, with many myths and legends springing up in and around the concept of fertility. So, in a way, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, regardless of how bizarre it is to us today, that the pharaohs of ancient Egypt are said to have ceremoniously masturbated into the Nile river, which was also revered for its life-giving properties.^[2]

The symbolism here is pretty powerful when we consider the fact that the ancients viewed time in a circular format, rather than a linear succession of moments. In fact, the ancient Egyptian word for “semen,” “progeny,” and describing the floods of the Nile were all the same word, mtwt. The ancient Egyptians knew the life-giving, fertilizing ways of the predictable floods of the Nile—and they saw the same properties in semen.

8 Food Of The Gods

Another unusual sex myth which sprang up from this ancient culture was that of Horus and Seth (or Set), which was highly sexually charged, with an ultra-kinky element to it. Horus and Seth were a pair of gods that were always fighting with each other, perpetually in bitter conflict, and their story is representative of a lot of how the ancient Egyptians viewed life. The two would basically fight over who would inherit the throne of ancient Egypt from Osiris, Seth’s brother and Horus’s father, and Horus would end up taking it—Seth would constantly challenge him for it, though.

Much like the ancient Greeks and Romans, the ancient Egyptians likely viewed homosexual acts as tolerable, even socially accepted, and the dominant party would warrant a higher social status; in homosexual interactions, the receiving party was considered the submissive, and the giving party, or the party pleasured, was the dominant party. This carried over into the myth.

Seth and Horus were battling for the throne one day and were basically trying to pin one another, forcing the other to be a submissive sexual partner.^[3] Seth was trying to shame Horus by making him accept the female sexual role, thereby garnering the support of the other gods. However, the plot was foiled by Isis, who managed to keep Seth’s semen from coming into contact with Horus. In turn, she managed to trick Seth into eating Horus’s semen, thereby handing the victory to Horus.

7 Incest

There is an abundance of evidence showing that marriages or sexual relations between members of the “nuclear family“—parents and children—were common among royalty or special classes of priests since they were the representatives of the divine on Earth. They were often privileged to do what was forbidden to members of the ordinary family. During the Ptolemaic period (305 to 30 BCE), King Ptolemy II even used the practice as “a major theme of propaganda, stressing the nature of the couple, which could not be bound by ordinary rules of humanity.”

Even King Tut was not spared from the practice of incest in ancient Egypt. His parents—Akhenaten and Akhenaten’s sister—were brother and sister. DNA analysis has recently been completed on 11 mummies that were closely related to Tuthenkamen. The results revealed that Tutankhamun was, beyond doubt, the child born from a first-degree brother-sister relationship.^[4] Tut was also wed to his half-sister. Of course, serious health issues surrounded these relationships, as inbreeding among successive generations took its toll on the family. While the practice helped solidify the ruling family’s power, it was not only seen in the royal class, even though it was forbidden by law.

6 Necrophilia And The Embalmers

It makes sense when we consider the Egyptians’ sex obsession and couple it with their bizarre death obsession (or, more appropriately, obsession with life after death) that necrophilia might be part of their culture. The Greek writer Herodotus tells us a lot about the practices of other cultures in the ancient world, especially when it comes to sex; he told us plenty about the sexuality of the ancient Babylonians. He had some things to say about Egypt as well—particularly concerning necrophilia.

Herodotus said that in ancient Egypt, one would want to let the bodies of their loved ones sit out for three or four days to dissuade the embalmers from having sex with the corpses, as embalmers wouldn’t want to have sex with a body that was already beginning to rot.^[5] So, apparently, it happened at least frequently enough for Herodotus to mention it.

5 Necrophilia Gods

Further, the Egyptians had necrophilia built right into their mythology. Remember Seth and Horus? Seth was the brother of Osiris. After Osiris died, which set off the bitter rivalry between Horus and Seth, another god named Re had pretty extensive sexual relations with the dead body of Osiris. Even crazier than that? Re is a different name for the same figure that first masturbated the world into existence, Atum. Also, Horus, the son of Osiris, was created through the union of Isis and the dead body of Osiris; Horus was a god born out of necrophilia.^[6]

If the Egyptian gods did it, it’s safe to say the Egyptians themselves did it on some level too. Atum, aka Re, masturbated the universe into existence by creating the first two gods. Later, Osiris comes along and dies, and then Isis has sex with the dead body of Osiris and gives birth to Horus. Then Horus and Seth battle constantly to have sex with each other in a strange struggle for dominance.

4 Circumcision

Aside from the ancient Hebrews, circumcision was an unusual thing in the ancient world that many must have seen as absolutely insane. (Imagine being from a culture that had no circumcision at all and discovering a people who did it.) Today, many societies have augmented the practice into their culture, at least partially, through thousands of years of Judeo-Christian domination. But in the fifth century BC, the time when Herodotus was writing, the Hebrews were a very small culture, and Christianity didn’t even exist.

The ancient Egyptians, however, definitely practiced circumcision, as Herodotus again notes.^[7] He tells us that Egyptian men were circumcised, but people from other countries who traveled to ancient Egypt were not and didn’t have to be circumcised. The Egyptians not only had circumcisions but also textual mentions of the practice of mass circumcision exist, with one text noting the circumcising of up to 120 men in a single day. In other words, the Egyptians had circumcision parties.

3 Sacred Prostitution

Like in ancient Babylon, prostitution was seen as a divine and respectable act done for the gods.^[8] Prostitutes were afforded a relatively high social status in ancient Egypt, especially if we compare it to prostitution today. In many nations, prostitution is illegal and relegated to clandestine affairs done behind closed doors. Ancient Egyptian prostitutes, however, were able to work openly and freely and would tattoo themselves and wear red lipstick and other makeup to signify and differentiate themselves from non-prostitutes.

Prostitution was likely an extremely common practice that the Egyptians viewed as just another trade—one that carried a bit of social status. Unlike Babylon, however, prostitutes were limited in the places where they could service clients.

2 Gender Fluidity

The ancient Egyptians even had a concept of gender fluidity that deeply permeated their culture, especially regarding the gods and the afterlife. The gods were constantly going through rebirths, with cycles of life and death which matched those of the Earth, with crops growing, being harvested, and growing again. And sometimes, sex changes would transpire. This was even believed to happen to humans posthumously. It was believed that women would have to transform into men to achieve a successful transition into the prized, beloved afterlife that this culture did so much to obtain.^[9]

Aside from this, the genders weren’t very differentiated in ancient Egypt, and women did most of the same things men did, which was extremely unusual for the time, to say the least. Their highly sexualized gods also had various features of the other gender. For example, depictions of Egyptian goddesses featuring beards have been uncovered.

1 Contraception

Much like today, the ancient Egyptians also had a desire for working contraceptives. They enjoyed a sexually liberal society and, accordingly, enjoyed sex for the sheer pleasure it brings. Thus, good contraception was a valuable thing to have.

Condoms made from sheep intestines served to protect from pregnancy and also prevented the spread of STDs. They even knew what has been confirmed today, that acacia gum, from the acacia tree, worked as a spermicide and would reduce the likelihood of pregnancy.^[10] Women would even take animal dung (including that of crocodiles) and shove it into their vaginas in hopes of blocking the sperm and, thus, preventing pregnancy. When it came to both sex and contraception, the ancient Egyptians took it seriously and did it like no others.

I like to write about history and dark stuff.

Films like 300 and Troy depict awesome Greek warriors slashing their enemies in battle, but did you know Leonidas and Achillies had a freaky side? Sexuality was everywhere in the ancient world, from pornography on pottery to sex with satyrs. The Greek view on sex is much different from our own today, with many seemingly bizarre practices from our modern perspective. Greek openness on sex, homosexuality, and relationships created a much different culture than our own; here are 10 weird, or weird to us, sexual things the ancient greeks did:

10 Sex Myths We All Believe

10 Very, Very Weird Methods of Contraception

Today, scientific advancement has made birth control methods more effective and safe than ever. In ancient Greece, couples sought to limit family size through bizarre beliefs and pseudoscience. One popular method was having the female partner sneeze and drink something cold after having sex, I am not sure how this was supposed to work but rest assured this is not an effective method of contraception. Another method involved a woman attempting to block her cervix with a block of wood, this one doesn’t sound very pleasurable. One surprisingly effective method the Greeks used was consuming large amounts of dates and pomegranates before and after sex. Modern studies have actually shown that dates and pomegranates do in fact decrease fertility, but I recommend consulting your physician on some more modern and less nonsensical forms of protection.

In case you would prefer to use an ancient Greek method of contraception, here are some recommended instructions from the physician Soranus: “hold her breath, draw her body back a little so the semen cannot penetrate into the uteri, then immediately get up and sit down with bent knees, and this position provoke sneezes”.

9 Public Masturbation was a Meme

In the modern world, the general consensus is that masturbation is best left to the privacy of your own home. In Ancient Greece, public masturbation was used by the infamous philosopher Diogones to fight the power. Diogones, the founder of cynicism, lived in a barrel and was called a dog by many of his critics. When someone finally scolded him for his habit of public relief, Diogones responded: “If only it were so easy to soothe hunger by rubbing an empty belly”.

In Aristophones’ famous comedy Lysistrata about women withholding sex from men in order to stop war, the Spartans are roasted for their enthusiastic engagement in self pleasure. It is fitting that the appeal of a Spartan herald with a large erection begins the peace talks. We can only wonder if the events in Lysistrata worsened the Spartan’s dependence.

8 Kissing Women was Considered Weird

With some of the strange items on this list, one may wonder why the seemingly normal practice of kissing was considered weird, at least under certain circumstances. Kissing as a form of greeting was normal, even when greeting those who you had just met. Many men would greet their peers with a kiss on the hand, the cheek, the lips prior to important business meetings. We can only imagine modern politicians swapping the traditional handshake with stealing a quick kiss on the lips.

Kissing your wife however, a common practice today, could be considered a sign of weakness for a man. The famous Athenian general Pericles was criticized for frequently kissing his wife on the lips in public. This is primarily because a kiss signified equality between two parties, and women in most Greek city-states were not equal to men. This also gave the impression that Pericles could be taken under the control of his wife, likely rooted in the sexist trope in Greek literature of the evil seductress.

7 State Sponsored Prostitution

It may be difficult to imagine presidential candidates debating rates in state run prostitution rings, but in ancient Greece, prostitution was legal and was in some cases run by the state. Athenian lawmaker Solon regulated prices in state sponsored brothels. These brothels had both female and male sex workers, the latter primarily servicing older male clients. These establishments would apparently offer many cheap rates compared to those prostitutes on the streets, who cleverly would wear sandals which would leave an imprint reading “follow me” on the ground. High class citizens did have some options at the public brothel however. These patrons could sign a contract with a mistress, workers who were skilled in pleasing men both physically and with their superior wit. Solon would fittingly use the tax revenue Athens gained from these public brothels to build a temple to Aphroditie, the goddess of love and pleasure.

6 Pederasty Was Normal

An unfortunate reality of Spartan culture was that older men often took advantage of young boys during their military training. The prevalence and acceptance of these relationships are debated, but many young boys were taken advantage of by their training mentors. At the age of seven, Spartan boys were taken from their homes and put into state sponsored military training in the Agoge. This included rigorous military training and the boys developing skills for their lifelong profession as warriors. In many cases, these boys first sexual partners were their male peers in the Agoge. Same sex partners were normal and encouraged in Greek society, and seen as a sign of male comrodary. Accounts differ on the acceptance of male mentors engaging in relationships with students. Some state that it was considered acceptable if the relationship was not only built on physical pleasure, while others state that once a boy reached puberty all relationships were acceptable. The true prevalence and normalcy or these relationships will likely be lost in history.

5 Drawing Penises Literally Everywhere

Today this form of art is generally reserved for the men’s bathroom. Most people are aware of the prevalence of nudity in Greek statues, and the pride Greeks had in their art. One Athenian statesman was even executed for allegedly chopping off Hermes’ member on an important statue. Greeks would even slap a random phallus on the pillar of a bust. But statues were not the only medium of expression Greeks would use to show wangs to the world. Skilled artists would depict fallacies everywhere from public art works to wine glasses. Drunk Greeks probably found these images hilarious when drinking from such Kylixs during the famous symposium or wine drinking parties. One vase even depicted a woman tending to a crop field of phallaces. No matter how strange the Greeks were, no one can deny their sense of humor.

4 Religion and Sex

Greek polytheism was primarily built around practitioners paying homage to various gods through sacrifice and other methods of veneration. Aphrodite, the god of procreation and pleasure, was often appealed to for matters in the bedroom. The origin story of Aphrodite itself is strange. In Greek Myth, she rose from foam that was made in the ocean after Uranus’ genitalia fell into it, her name meaning foam-arisen. Aphroditie’s sexuality and beauty is a primary subject in Greek mythology, committing adultery with many men. She is well known for her role in the Judgement of Paris and starting the Trojan war, showing her volatile personality and vanity.

One particularly strange episode involving Aphrodite in mythology happened when a man named Glaucus insulted her. She responded by feeding his horses magic water, causing them to turn on him during a chariot race. Glaucus was crushed to death, and his horses proceeded to eat him. Nice.

3 Adultery was Far Worse than Rape

With Greek sexual openness in mind, the strictness around unfaithfulness in marriage may seem strange. In fact, seducing another man’s wife was considered worse than rape. The reason for this is due to the belief that a woman was the “property” of a man. This meant that committing adultery was a form of stealing. Sexual assault was also considered immoral, but if the woman was unmarried it was not considered as serious a crime. Sexual assault is common in Greek mythology with many gods deceiving women and impregnating them. According to the historian Herodatus, adultery needed avenging by the man, while assault did not, resulting in greater severity placed on it. A man who caught another man with his wife was able to inflict any punishment on him. This ranged from public humiliation to murder.

2 Wild Drinking Parties

The Greeks loved their wine. The symposium was an important part of Greek culture. Between 14 and 27 men reclined on pillowed couches in an inner room, and served as a forum for intellectual discussions. Many famous works of literature depict these complex philosophical discussions at the symposium, including Pato’s Symposium. In reality, the symposium could become far less civil than its depiction in literature. Drunken madness could ensue, with large amounts of alcohol, drinking games, and drinking songs. Musicians and other performers were often hired for the symposium, who could end up performing sexual favors for guests. Although women generally were not allowed at the symposium, high scale prostitutes were sometimes hired for guests.

1 Making Your Wife More Masculine to Appear Attractive

As previously mentioned, Spartan boys frequently had their first relationships with other boys in the Agoge. Therefore, it is only natural that a Spartan man should force his new bride to shave her head and appear more masculine before having sex with her to appear more like those previous partners… wait what? Yes you heard that correctly, Spartan women would wear mens clothing and have their heads on their wedding days in order for their husbands to transition from same-sex to heterosexual relationships. The transformation for a woman to resemble a man was often undertaken by a bridesmaid or servant, a far cry from the modern wedding day makeover.

Men would then be forced to sneak into their wives homes in order to consummate the marriage. This was thought to increase the sexual desire between husband and wife. The bride would be laid in bed with a man’s cloak and sandals in the dark. Her new spouse would then sneak into her room during the night and capture her. With the other items on this list, kidnapping your wife dressed in male drag out of her parents house really doesn’t sound too bad.

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