Love, Sex, and Desire in Modern Egypt: Navigating the Margins of Respectability

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And because royalty loves to emulate the gods, siblings ruling over Egypt frequently married one another. Like modern civilizations, ancient Egyptians wanted to have some degree of control over their family planning. Sex in ancient Egypt functioned along a very different axis of pleasure and propriety than it does in a modern Western context, but that doesn't mean ancient Egyptians did everything they could think of - or that ancient Egypt was one nonstop party. Rumor has it she filled either a hollowed-out gourd or an empty papyrus box (sources differ) with angry bees, then used the makeshift device as a vibrator.

If you thought the Romans and Greeks were unique when it came to bumping uglies, wait until you see the ancient Egyptians. People frowned upon the practice, and if colleagues discovered an embalmer was using a corpse for carnal purposes, theydenounced him. Virginity also didn't have the same religious significance as it did for the Romans, who placed female virginity next to godliness and considered sexual restraint a virtue. Representations of intercourse with animals, with corpses, and with siblings all have a place in the story of sexuality in ancient Egypt. One approach detailed on ancient papyrus suggests they used gum made from acacia tree sap to "cover the mouth of the womb" during intercourse.

Notably, the ancient Egyptians had strict rules about things like adultery and used early forms of birth control. Also, ancient Egyptians considered physical acts depicted between a human and an animal less visually offensive than the same between two humans. Egyptian gods and goddesses often took the shape of animals, so there was a divine connection to the idea of human-animal intercourseas drawn in the glyphs. And there is at least some corroboration for the effectiveness of this approach, as acacia gum contains lactic acid, a known spermicide. Most people know ancient Egyptians practiced mummification, but the embalmers who performed the process didn't always respect the bodies.

According to Herodotus, toguard against necrophilia, families did not immediately surrender the bodies of deceased women who had been great beauties. Seth and Nephthys, Osiris and Isis, and Shu and Tefnut are just a handful of the brother-sister couples from Egyptian mythology. For example, ancient Egyptians thought visual depictions of animals doing it were less offensive than human-human intercourse.

In another method, they applied acombination of honey and sodium bicarbonate to the inside of the vagina. Most people in ancient Egypt didn't engage in incest, but Egyptian royalty and mythological godsoften married and had children with their siblings. To be clear, the bee vibrator story has always been a rumor of unknown originand not verifiable fact, but the theory goes that the bees swarming around inside the contraption would have caused it to vibrate and move around, making it ideal for Cleopatra's supposed purposes. They also kept records of their practices, which paved the way for advances in sexual intercourse in the centuries since.