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Early Russian sexual traditions
By Evgeny Kamyshev
September 14, 2004
Russia has rich history of sexual traditions. Unfortunately, we documented our
history worse than the peoples of the East. The ancient Indian Kama-Sutra
manuscript on sex has been preserved until nowadays, while we have to restore
information on our sexual history with the help of the chronicles of foreign
people who visited Russia in ancient times.
Ancient orgies
Byzantine historians considered Slavs as an offshoot of Huns. Prokopy Caesarian
describes our ancestors as enormously tall people of much weight and with
auburn complexion. The majority of Slavs had light-brown hair. In ancient Rus,
a man was the head of the family, and he often had from two to four wives. At
the same time, a wife was not an obedient servant of her husband. Moreover,
those wives who were not loved by their husbands, were authorized to cheat on
them, they did not have to hide it. If such a wife managed to find an admirer
who offered to marry her and promised to do the chief wife, the lady could
leave her husband for another one.
Another Byzantine historian of the 6th century, Mavriky Strateg was surprised
with the way Slavs preferred to make love - in water: either on a bank of a
river or lake, or right in the water in the middle of the river. Mavriky was
surprised that before getting married young people enjoyed sex in groups,
nobody cared about staying a virgin.
For a long time, until the 12th century, our ancestors identified sexuality
with having fun, singing songs and playing music.
The idea of a loose woman was introduced in the 7th century and meant that a
lady is in search of husband (she is wandering around). In the end of 8th
century sorcerers were given a difficult job of depriving of virginity before a
wedding, in a girls bath house they deprived of virginity those fiancees who
remained virgins. After they got this job, the notion of a loose woman changed.
All ladies who had been deprived of virginity, were called loose women. From
XII to XVII century unmarried girls who had had sex, and widows who accepted
men in their home, were called loose women. Only in XVIII century, due to much
efforts put by the church, the word a loose woman became swearing. But the
church was eager it to become an offensive word. In the language and law
practice, a degree of a sin was different for a different kinds of sexual
affairs. A sexual affair with a married woman was considered smaller sin than
sex with an unmarried woman which was called fornication. Prostitutes were
called shameless wenches.
Ancient Slavs practiced sex with absolute absence of homosexuality and sex with
animals, and men had the inclination not to make public their successes in love
affairs.
Sexual bans
Princess Olga was among those to begin pursuing high moral standards in Russia.
In 953 she issued the first known edict on the issue of sex - on refunding the
partner if a lady is not a virgin.
However, only in 967 Prince Svyatoslav forbade sorcerers to be engaged in
depriving girls of virginity and claimed that this is the duty and dignity of
the husband. In addition, Svyatoslav tried to forbid dances on the days when
there were no holidays. The matter is, dances were considered as erotic
performance in ancient Russia - during jumps secret places hidden under a skirt
were exposed. But this was too much - people started protesting. The edict was
cancelled.
Satanic temptation
Russian Orthodox church contributed most in curbing satanic temptation. The
church started gaining strength in Russia in the 12th century.
Sorcerers were liquidated. Midwifes-witch doctors were called mollies damned by
God needed to be eradicated. Even contraception by taking herbs was condemned
as terrible murder.
The Russian Orthodox Church started calling sexual intercourse even between
spouses a sin, except for the sex for conception.
The Church forbade women to use make-up and introduced many fasts which left
only 50 sexual days a year for spouses. Only one sexual intercourse per day was
permitted. Sexual position while standing was banned. Those making love in
water were called witches and sorcerers. Kissing a body was condemned. Only the
missionary position was allowed in sex. A wife being indifferent to sex, was
declared a good wife.
During confession, churchgoers were supposed to tell clergymen about their
intimate side of life.
Busts of Russian females
Russian people were not eager to follow the church's calls. They developed rich
slang vocabulary as the means of expressing emotions in the life plentiful with
bans. There are so many obscene couplets in Russian folklore that all the world
languages total do not have.
People produced interesting reaction to the church bans. In all times, the
church was making fun of a big woman bust, loose women were depicted with big
busts on icons. Meanwhile, men were eager to marry a girl with a big bust, and
girls made many efforts to make their busts bigger.
For example, in the villages of Central Russia girls covered their bust with a
lubricate made of 3 spoons of women milk, a spoon of honey, a spoon of oil and
a cup of peppermint water. The said the bust was growing instantly.
I will take a risk to say that the source of the strange relations between a
man and his mother-in-law should be sought in the 16th century. In that epoch
parents wanted their daughters to get married as early as possible, at 12 - 13
years of age. On the first night after the wedding, the mother-in-law went to
bed with her daughter¦¦s husband to safeguard their girl from a lethal outcome.
Then the lady continued sharing the bed with her son-in-law for 2-3 years.
Satan's feast
In the end of 16th century ethnographer Nikolai Galkovsky was the first to
publish a paper on fornication in Russia. He believes, sexuality reached its
peak in Russia in 16th century.
Sexual intercourses took place not only in taverns, but also on the streets.
Most of sex was made in bath houses which were not separated, but common for
men and women. Weddings were celebrated for 2-3 days, and on the second day no
sober person could be found, and few guests had no sex with 2-3 persons of
opposite sex.
Rich people went even further. Their weddings lasted for a week.
By the way, syphilis was brought in Russia by foreigners in the beginning of
the 6th century, and soon it started taking people lives as cholera and plague.
Woman who fought for morale
As usual, a lady started fighting against sins. Empress Catherine the Great
forbade common bath houses in 1784. However, since that time rooms for love
affairs were established in the bath houses, and today you can find them there.
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