Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sexuality

Sexuality in ancient Egypt was open, untainted by guilt. Sex was an important part of life - from birth to death and rebirth. Singles and married couples made love. The gods themselves were earthy enough to copulate. The Egyptians even believed in sex in the afterlife. Sex was not taboo... Even the Egyptian religion was filled with tales of adultery, incest, homosexuality and masturbation... with hints of necrophillia! Masculinity and femininity itself were strongly linked with the ability to conceive and bear children...
In the Egyptian community, men had to prove their masculinity by fathering children, while the women had to be able to bear these sons and daughters. Being a mother meant being able to keep her marriage secure and to gain a better position in society.
But an Egyptian family was not just a status symbol - the Egyptians loved their children and were not afraid to show it. But there were some advice to parents, written by scribes:
Do not prefer one of your children above the others; after all, you never know which one of them will be kind to you.
Adultery in Egypt was wrong. Women got the worst punishment for adultery - a man might just be forced into a divorce, but a woman could conceivably be killed for that crime. In the Tale of Two Brothers, the adulterous wife was found out, murdered and her body was thrown to the dogs.
Unmarried women, on the other hand, seem to be free to choose partners as they so desire, and enjoy their love life to its fullest.
Prostitutes advertised themselves through their clothing and make up. Some prostitutes wore blue faience beaded fish-net dresses, some of which is kept in the Weingreen Museum of Biblical Archaeology in Dublin. They painted their lips red, and tattooed themselves on the breasts or thighs and even went around totally nude.
From the close family relationships in Egyptian mythology and the fact that Egyptians seemed to have no taboo against incest, many have concluded that incest was rife in ancient Egypt.
There were probably some brother and sister marriages, but more likely than not, the siblings in question would have been half-brothers and half-sisters. The problem arises from the limited Egyptian terms of kinship, which are very confusing. A 'father' could refer to the actual father, the grandfather or male ancestors, while 'mother' could be the same, but for the females of the family. 'Sister' could mean a lover, a wife, a mistress or concubine, niece or aunt!
The royal family, on the other hand, did have more incestuous marriages. The royal blood ran through the females, not the males. To become pharaoh, a man had to marry a royal princess... which would be his sister or half-sister.
The prevalence of brother-sister marriages within the New Kingdom royal family, a custom in obvious contrast to contemporary non-royal marriage patters, appears to have been an attempt to reinforce the links between the royal family and the gods who themselves frequently indulged in brother-sister unions.
The Turin Papyrus contains various pictures of sexual activity, perhaps focused on Ramses II and his many wives, or maybe depicting an ancient Egyptian brothel. It has been theorised that, more likely, it is just the fantasies of an ancient Egyptian who happened to sketch them out on papyrus. Most of the positions drawn on this papyrus seem to be rather uncomfortable!
The Egyptians thought of their afterlives as more of a continuation of life on earth (albeit a better life). This being the case, the Egyptians believed in sex life after death!
Egyptian men had false penises attached to their mummies while Egyptian women had artificial nipples attached. Both would become fully functional in the afterlife, where they were free to engage in sexual intercourse, if they so desired.
There were even fertility dolls in many graves - women with wide, child-bearing hips that were often carrying children in their arms. Other fertility dolls, known as paddle dolls, don't have any legs, and their bodies end in very wide pubic area, with tiny heads and arms.
These dolls show that the Egyptians believed that fertility and sex were interlinked, though the ancient Egyptians quite clearly enjoyed sex in its own right!


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