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 Historical Sexual Customs Around the World

   By Lust 4 Life

   Historical accounts of different sexual customs through history. 
Interesting in and of themselves and they provide ideas for detailed
stories.  I expect to update this over time as I read and learn more.

   Intro The following are some sources of different sexual customs through
history and around the world.  For me, they provide a rich source of ideas
on which to let my imagination run wild and build detailed stories of
individual sexual encounters.  Please feel free to use this material to
generate ideas and write your own stories (please share if you do), or
email me your ideas for future stories.  The Histories, Herodotus Penguin
Classics, 1954

   Book 1 Pg 44: The base of this monument is built of huge stone blocks;
the rest of is a mound of earth.  It was raised by the joint labour of the
tradesmen, craftsmen, and prostitutes, and on the top of it there survived
to my own day five stone phallic pillars with inscriptions cut in them to
show the amount of work done by each class.  Calculation revealed that the
prostitute's share was the largest.  Working-class girls in Lydia
prostitute themselves without exception to collect money for their dowries,
and continue the practice until they marry.

   Pg 86: In every village once a year all the girls of marriageable age
used to be collected together in one place, while the men stood round them
in a circle; an auctioneer then called each one in turn to stand up and
offered her for sale, beginning with the bestlooking and going on to the
second best as soon as the first had been sold for a good price.  Marriage
was the object of the transaction.  The rich men who wanted wives bid
against each other for the prettiest girls, while the humbler folk, who had
no use for good looks in a wife, were actually paid to take the ugly ones,
for when the auctioneer had got through all the pretty girls he would call
upon the plainest, or even perhaps a crippled one, to stand up, and then
ask who was willing to take the least money to marry her - and she was
offered to whoever accepted the smallest sum.  The money came from the sale
of the beauties, who in this way provided dowries for their ugly or
misshapen sisters.  It was illegal for a man to marry his daughter to
anyone he happened to fancy, and no one could take home a girl he had
bought without first finding a backer to guarantee his intention of
marrying her.  In cases of disagreement between husband and wife the law
allowed the return of the purchase money.  Anyone who wished could come
even from a different village to buy a wife.  This admirable practice has
now fallen into disuse and they have of late years hit upon another scheme,
namely the prostitution of all girls of the lower classes to provide some
relief from the poverty which followed upon the conquest with its attendant
hardship and general ruin.

   Pg 87: There is one custom amongst these people which is wholly
shameful: every woman who is a native of the country must once in her life
sit in the temple of Aphrodite and there give herself to a strange man. 
Many of the rich women, who are too proud to mix with the rest, drive to
the temple in covered carriages with a whole host of servants following
behind, and there wait; most however, sit in the precinct of the temple
with a band of plaited string round their heads - and a great crowd they
are, what with some sitting there, others arriving, others going away - and
through them all gangways are marked off running in every direction for the
men to pass along and make their choice.  Once a woman has taken her seat
she is not allowed to go home until a man has thrown a silver coin into her
lap and taken her outside to lie with her.  As he throws the coin, the man
has to say, `In the name of the goddess Mylitta' - that being the Assyrian
name for Aphrodite.  The value of the coin is of no consequence; once
thrown it becomes sacred, and the law forbids that it should ever be
refused.  The woman has no privilege of choice - she must go with the first
man who throws he the money.  When she has lain with him, her duty to the
goddess is discharged and she may go home, after which it will be
impossible to seduce her by any offer, however large.  Tall, handsome women
soon manage to get home again, but the ugly ones stay a long time before
they can fulfil the condition which the law demands, some of them, indeed,
as much as three or four years.  There is a custom similar to this in parts
of Cyprus.

   Pg 94: As to their customs: every man has a wife, but all wives are used
promiscuously.  The Greeks believe this to be a Scythian custom; but is not
- it belongs to the Massagetae.  If a man wants a woman, all he does is to
hang up his quiver in front of her wagon and then enjoy her without
misgiving.

   Book 2 Pg 106: Now it happened in Psammetichus' time that the Egyptians
were kept on garrison duty for three years without being relieved, and this
was the cause of their desertion.  They discussed their grievances, came to
a unanimous resolution, and went off in a body to Ethiopia.  The king, on
hearing the news, gave chase and overtook them; and the story goes that
when he besought them to return and used every argument to dissuade them
from abandoning their wives and children and the gods of their country, one
of them number pointed, in reply, to his private parts and said that
wherever those were, there would be no lack of wives and children.

   Pg 116: Nevertheless it was Melampus who introduced the phallic
procession, and from Melampus the Greeks learned the rites which they now
perform.  ... These practices, then, and others which I will speak of
later, were borrowed by the Greeks from Egypt.  This is not the case,
however, with the Greek custom of making images of Hermes with the phallus
erect; it was the Athenians who first took this from the Pelasgians, and
from the Athenians the custom spread to the rest of Greece.

   Pg 121: It was the Egyptians who first made it an offence against piety
to have intercourse with women in temples, or to enter temples after
intercourse without having previously washed.  Hardly any nation except the
Egyptians and Greeks has any such scruple, but nearly all consider men and
women to be, in this respect, no different from animals, which, whether
they are beasts or birds, they constantly see coupling in temples and
sacred places - and if the god concerned had any objection to this, he
would not allow it to occur.

   Book 3 Pg 215.  All the Indian tribes I have mentioned copulate in the
open like cattle; (this of course refers to Asian Indians, not North
American native American Indians)

   Book 4 Pg 275.  The Agathyrsi live in luxury and wear gold on their
persons.  They have their women in common, so that they may all be brothers
and, as members of a single family, be able to live together without
jealousy or hatred.

   Pg 299.  They are the only Libyan tribe to follow this practice, as also
that of taking girls who are about to married to see the king.  Any girl
who catches his fancy, leaves him a maid no longer.

   Pg 300.  Each of them has a number of wives, which they use in common,
like the Massagetae - when a man wants to lie with a woman, he puts up a
pole to indicate his intention.  It is the custom, at a man's first
marriage, to give a party, at which the bride is enjoyed by each of the
guests in turn; they take her one after another, and then give her a
present - something or other they have brought with them from home.

   Pg 301.  Next come the Gindanes.  The women of this tribe wear leather
bands round their ankles, which are supposed to indicate the number of
lovers; each woman puts on one band for every man she has gone to bed with,
so that whoever has the greatest number enjoys the greatest reputation
because she has been loved by the greatest number of men.

   Pg 301.  The women of this tribe are common property; there are no
married couples living together, and intercourse is casual, like that of
animals.  When a child is fully grown, the men hold a meeting every third
month, and it is considered to belong to the one it most closely resembles.

   Book 5 Pg 312.  The rest of the Thracians carry on an export trade in
their own children; they exercise no control over young girls, allowing
them to have intercourse with any man they please; their wives, on the
other hand, whom they purchase at high prices from their parents, they
watch very strictly.

   A Society without Fathers of Husbands: The Na of China, Cai Hua

   From Publishers Weekly review: Marriage is the foundation of all
societies, anthropologists have claimed.  Yet the Na, an ethnic minority
living in China's Himalayan foothills, have enjoyed a successful culture
without it.  The Na are a truly matrilineal society: heterosexual activity
occurs by mutual consent and mostly through the custom of the secret
nocturnal "visit"; men and women are free to have multiple partners and to
initiate or break off relationships when they please.  Children are raised
by their mother's family, with the biological father playing no role
whatsoever.  Cai Hua, director of research at the Yunnan Academy of Social
Sciences in China, lived among the Na for extended periods during the 1980s
and 1990s and gathered comprehensive data on their history, religion,
economic practices and social customs in particular, kinship systems.  The
resulting description and analysis, originally presented as his master's
thesis, introduces a fascinating culture for whom "sexuality is not a piece
of merchandise but a purely sentimental and amorous matter that implies no
mutual constraints." (Hua does not mention whether homosexual activity is
similarly tolerated.) Na men and women generally report high satisfaction
with their sex lives.  As in other cultures, though, physically
unattractive, disabled and older individuals have few (if any) romantic
options; high rates of sexually transmitted diseases also occur.  This
painstakingly researched book will provide social scientists with much
useful information and will raise major questions about accepted views of
family relationships and gender roles.

   http://blog.shunya.net/shunyas_blog/2007/10/the-na-of-china.html: Among
the Na, a tribal
people hidden away in the Yongning hills of Yunnan province in southern

China and the subject of the French-trained Chinese anthropologist Cai
Hua's provocative new monograph, there is no marriage, in fact or word. 
Mothers exist, as do children, but there are no dads.  Sexual intercourse
takes place between casual, opportunistic lovers, who develop no broader,
more enduring relations to one another.  The man "visits," usually
furtively, the woman at her home in the middle of the night as impulse and
opportunity appear, which they do with great regularity.  Almost everyone
of either sex has multiple partners, serially or simultaneously;
simultaneously usually two or three, serially as many as a hundred or two.
There are no nuclear families, no in-laws, no stepchildren.  Brothers and
sisters, usually several of each, reside together, along with perhaps a
half-dozen of their nearer maternal relatives, from birth to death under
one roof--making a living, keeping a household, and raising the sisters'
children.

   The Travels of Marco Polo Liveright Publishing, NY 1953

   Book 1.  Ch 41, Pg 78: Of the district of Kamul; And of some peculiar
customs respecting the entertainment of strangers.  When strangers arrive,
and desire to have lodging and accommodation at their houses, it affords
them the highest gratification.  They give positive orders to their wives,
daughters, sisters, and female relations, to indulge their guests in every
wish, whilst they themselves leave their homes, and retire into the city,
and the stranger lives in the house with the females as if they were his
own wives, and they send whatever necessaries may be wanted; but for which,
it is to be understood, they expect payment; nor do they return to their
houses so long as the strangers remain in them.  This abandonment of the
females of their family to accidental guests, who assume the same
privileges and meet with the same indulgences as if they were their own
wives, is regarded by these people as doing them honour and adding to their
reputation; considering the hospitable reception of strangers, who after
the perils and fatigues of a long journey, stand in need of relaxation, as
an action agreeable to the deities, calculated to draw down the blessing of
increase upon their families, to augment their substance, and to procure
them safety from all dangers, as well as s successful issue to all their
undertakings.  The women are in truth very handsome, very sensual, and
fully disposed to conform in this respect to the injunction of their
husbands.

   Book 2.  Ch 8, Pg 125: Of the Figure and Stature of the Great Khan; Of
his four Principal Wives; And of the Annual Selection of Young Women for
him in the Province of Ungut Besides these, he has many concubines provided
for his use, from a province in Tartary named Ungut, the inhabitants of
which are distinguished for beauty of features and fairness of complexion.
Every second year, or oftner, as it may happen to be his pleasure, the
Great Khan send thither his officers, who collect for him, one hundred or
more, of the handsomest of the young women, according to the estimation of
beauty communicated to them in their instructions.  The mode of the
appreciation is as follows.  Upon the arrival of these commissioners, they
give order for assembling all the young women of the province, and appoint
qualified persons to examine them, who, upon careful inspection of each of
them separately, that is to say, of the hair, the countenance, the
eyebrows, the mouth, the lips, and other features, as well as the symmetry
of these with each other, estimate their value at sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen, or twenty, or more carats, according to the greater or less
degree of beauty.  [...] Having undergone this rigorous scrutiny, they are
divided into parties of five, each taking turn for three days and three
nights, I his majesty's interior apartment, where they are to perform every
service that is required of them, and he does with them as he likes.  When
this term is completed, they are relieved by another party, and in this
manner successively, until the whole number have taken their turn; when the
first five recommence their attendance.  But while one party officiates in
the inner chamber, another is stationed in the outer apartment adjoining.
If his majesty should have occasion for anything, such as drink or
victuals, the former may signify his commands to the latter, by whom the
article required is immediately procured.  In this way the duty of waiting
upon his majesty's person is exclusively performed by these young females.
The remainder of them, whose value had been estimated at an inferior rate,
are assigned to the different lords of the household; under whom they are
instructed in cookery, in dressmaking, and other suitable works; and upon
any person belonging to the court expressing an inclination to take a wife,
the Great Khan bestows upon him one of these damsels, with a handsome
portion.

   Ch 11, Pg 134: Of the New City of Taidu; Built near to that of Kanbalu;
Of a rule observed respecting the entertainment of ambassadors; and of the
nightly city police.  The number of public women who prostitute themselves
for money, reckoning those in the new city as well as those in the suburbs
of the old, is twenty-five thousand.  To each hundred and to each thousand
of these there are superintending officers appointed, who are under the
orders of a captain-general.  The motive for placing them under such
command is this: when ambassadors arrive charged with any business in which
the interests the Great Khan are concerned, it is customary to maintain
them at his Majesty's expense, and in order that they may be treated in the
most honourable manner, the captain is ordered to furnish mightily to each
individual of the embassy one of these courtesans, who is likewise to be
changed every night.  As this service is considered in the light of a
tribute they owe to the sovereign, they do not receive any remuneration.

   Ch 22, Pg 153: Concerning the city of Kanbalu; Of the multitude of its
inhabitants; And of the commerce of the place.  Women who live by
prostituting themselves for money dare not, unless it be secretly, to
exercise their profession in the city, but must confine themselves to the
suburbs, where, as has already been stated, there reside above twenty-five
thousand; nor is this number greater than is necessary for the vast
concourse of merchants and other strangers, who, drawn there by the court,
are continually arriving and departing.

   Ch 45, Pg 188: Of the Province of Thebeth A scandalous custom, which
could only proceed from the blindness of idolatry, prevails amongst the
people of these parts, who are disinclined to marry young women so long as
they are in their virgin state, but require, on the contrary, that they
should have had previous commerce with many of the other sex.  This, they
assert, is pleasing to their deities, and believe that a woman who has not
had the company of men is worthless.  Accordingly, upon the arrival of a
caravan of merchants, and as soon as they have set up their tents for the
night, those mothers who have marriageable daughters conduct them to the
place, and entreat the strangers to accept of their daughters and enjoy
their society so long as they remain in the neighborhood.  Such as have
most beauty to recommend them are of course chosen, and the others return
home disappointed.  Those chosen continue with the travelers until the
period of their departure.  They then restore them to their mothers, and
never attempt to carry them away.  It is expected, however, that the
merchants should make them presents of trinkets, rings, or other
complimentary tokens of regard, which the young women take home with them.
They wear all these ornaments about the neck or other part of the body, and
she who exhibits the greatest number of them is considered to have
attracted the attention of the greatest number of men, and is on that
account of higher esteem with the young men who are looking out for wives.
At the wedding, she accordingly makes a display of them to the assembly,
and he regards them as a proof that their idols have rendered her lovely in
the eyes of men.

   Ch 47, Pg 191: Of the Province of Kain-Du The inhabitants of this
district are in the shameful and odious habit of considering it no mark of
disgrace that those who travel through the country should have connexion
with their wives, daughters, or sisters; but, on the contrary, when
strangers arrive, each householder endeavors to conduct one of them to his
home with him.  Here he gives all the females of the family to him, leaves
him in the situation of master of the house, and takes his departure. 
While the stranger is in the house, he places a signal at the window, as
his hat or some other thing; and as long as this signal is seen in the
house, the husband remains absent.  And this custom prevails throughout the
province.  This they do in honour of their idols, believing that by such
acts of kindness and hospitality to travelers a blessing is obtained, and
that they shall be rewarded with a plentiful supply of the fruits of the
earth.

   Pg 195: Of the Great Province of Karzan; And of Yachi, its principal
city.  The natives do not consider it as an injury done to them, when
others have connexion with their wives, provided the act be voluntary on
the woman's part.

   Pg 195: Of a further part of the Province named Karazan As I have said
before, these people never take virgins for their wives.

   English sea customs

   Historical fiction, stories based on period research provide insights
into sexual practices at the time.  An interesting source for me was the
Patrick O'Brien "Master and Commander" series or the somewhat more bawdy,
Dewey Lambdin "Alan Lewrie" series.

   These describe not only the well known fact that sailors are horny and
upon getting shore leave in a foreign port head for the nearest brothel to
enjoy intimate female companionship, but also ship-board recreation in
port. Upon arriving in port, instead of releasing the crew for shore leave
(from which they might not return), one practice was to put the ship "out
of discipline".  A flag indicating this was raised, and along with the
normal local produce boats approaching offering to sell goods to restock
the ship for its next voyage, boats full of prostitutes would approach the
ship.  Prices would be negotiated, women allowed on board.  An initial
inspection by the ship's surgeon for obvious disease might be conducted,
after which the women were released to the men who would divvy them up
amongst themselves.  Space being extremely limited on a sailing ship,
privacy was minimal.  Sheet partitions were hung to give at least a touch
of privacy, and the couples would go at it.  Obviously the sheets did
nothing to dampen the sound of bodies slapping together, the slurping sound
of cocks sliding in and out of pussies, or the gasps and groans of sex. 
The women might stay aboard for several days while the ship was in port,
with the men providing them food from their rations, so these were not one
time fucks, but several days, presumably of as many rounds as the sailor
could get it up, before the next long voyage.  These short term live aboard
women were referred to as "wives", hence the assertion that many sailors
had a wife in every port.  Sometimes even in home port, the "out of
discipline" approach was used rather than shore leave, in which case
legitimate wives might visit, under the same circumstances.  And of course,
with a rigid hierarchy system there were abuses and little recourse for the
men when command was rotten.  There were ships in which some of the junior
officers were voyeurs and would actually watch the couples fucking.  While
women were officially banned at sea on Men Of War, captains were able to
bend the rules (who is going to argue with the absolute master?), and would
sometimes ship a mistress aboard for themselves.  While the captain had a
little more privacy with his private cabins, sound still traveled.

   Pompeii, Rome in general
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_ancient_Rome
"Since rich men were able to hold their own slaves, the Romans had
relatively few highclass prostitutes.  The exploitation of both male and

female slaves for sexual purposes was only part of their forced service. 
Every slave could be sexually abused by their owner, or given as such for
the use of third parties.  ... Paid sexual services were for the most part
of the milieu of the underclass."

   Referring to penalties for married women guilty of adultery, "They used
to shut the woman up in a narrow room, admitting any that would commit
fornication with her, and at the moment when they were accomplishing the
foul deed, to strike bells, that the sound might make known to all, the
injury she was suffering."

   Referring to brothels in Rome, "The houses were easily found by the
stranger, as an appropriate emblem appeared over the door.  This emblem of
Priapus was generally a carved figure in wood or stone, and was frequently
painted to resemble nature more closely." Priapus was a god of fertility
with a permanently erect penis.  Whether the girls were owned by a pimp or
madam, or whether the brothel owner merely rented rooms to the girls from
which to ply their trade, each girl had her own room with a curtain door,
"Over the door of each cell was a tablet upon which was the name of the
occupant and her price, the reverse bore the word "occupata" and when the
inmate was engaged the tablet was turned so that this word was out.  ...
The cell usually contained a lamp of bronze or, in the lower dens, of clay,
a pallet or cot of some sort, over which was spread a blanket or patch work
quilt, this latter being sometimes employed as a curtain."

   "Prostitution was regulated by law.  When an applicant registered with
the aedile, she gave her correct name, her age, place of birth, and the
pseudonym under which she intended to practice her calling.  ... Once
entered there, the name could never be removed, but must remain for all
time an insurmountable bar to repentance and respectability.  ... The
taverns were generally regarded by the magistrates as brothels and the
waitresses were so regarded by the law."

   "Some passages in Roman authors seem to indicate that prostitutes
displayed themselves in the nude.  Nudity was associated with slavery, as
an indication that the person was literally stripped of privacy and the
ownership of one's own body.  A passage from Seneca describes the condition
of the prostitute as a slave for sale: <<Naked she stood on the shore, at
the pleasure of the purchaser, every part of her body was examined and
felt.>> ... In the Satyricon, Petronius's narrator relates how he <<saw
some men prowling stealthily between the rows of name-boards and naked
prostitutes.>>"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum
Sex and fertility were common.  Phallic wind chimes were common

household items.  Pompeii allegedly had the lowest prices for prostitution
in the Roman empire, starting around the cost of a loaf of bread.  The
Lupanare, the largest brothel in Pompeii had 10 rooms on 2 floors.  Each
room has a curtain door with the woman's name and price above it.  While in
most parts of the Roman empire, the men's and women's baths were separate,
in Pompeii they were one.  Erotic (explicit) art was placed in the baths
and many public places, showing intercourse, cunnilingus, and group sex.

   The Oldest Profession; Of Whores and Whoring

   Prostitution is often referred to as the world's oldest profession.  In
a very real sense, it predates humanity.  In many primates the female
requires some display of fitness by a male in order to consent to mate with
him.  This may be no more than a piece of food - pretty analogous to
payment for sex, prostitution.

   The nature of prostitution has undergone a significant change in recent
years.  Recent may depend on how you measure it.  By the 1700s at least (I
presume much earlier?) condoms were available and used for both birth
control and disease protection.  However, natural sex was common, often
demanded, which meant prostitution carried a significant risk of unwanted
pregnancy.  With the advent of the pill in the 1960s this was dramatically
reduced.  Combined with penicillin for disease control we had a brief
golden era where unprotected sex was relatively safe from both pregnancy
and disease.  With the advent of AIDS, random sex without a condom is again
a risky proposition.  That said, for historical sexual fiction, the
baseline is unprotected sex with significant chance of eventual pregnancy.

   At various times different attitudes have prevailed toward unwanted
pregnancy.  Usually a prostitute tries to avoid unwanted pregnancy due both
to the risk of child birth and due to loss of revenue while she is showing
and perhaps less marketable.  There have always been forms of abortion,
whether direct vaginal insertion or various folk medicines.  However,
attitudes toward the new born have also varied.  In the 1700s London it was
apparently not uncommon to simply put a new born on a float down the
Thames, a one way trip to sea.  Unwanted children were also left at
churches, or simply killed.  This leads to the standard that sex happens,
as a result pregnancy happens, but if the resulting child is not wanted, it
is eliminated at birth.

   Throughout history prostitution has existed at various levels.  One can
make an argument that present day marriage is no more than a special form
of prostitution - sex in return for long term support.  The upper class has
been able to maintain mistresses: the 1700s French often kept a mistress in
her own apartment.  There were special schools for the resulting children,
privileged schools but separate from the schools for legitimate children.
The Nazis encouraged their soldiers to take "appropriate" mistresses in
occupied territories and like the 1700 French, provided special orphanages
to care for the resulting children.