                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 best-
looking 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 high-
class 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.

