Perhaps it’s because sex now comes to us in data flows so vast, they overwhelm our perspective. For example, there’s about 173 years’ worth of streaming content on Pornhub alone! There’s lusty viewing for every penchant from solo sex to full-on orgies.
Or perhaps it’s because pop culture has somehow led us to believe that human sexual liberty is a recent development. That, somehow, lust and licentiousness, orgies and group sex were beyond our forebears imaginations or abilities.
For whatever reason, people nowadays tend to think that wild, no-holds-barred sex orgies are a trend of modern times. But the fact is that people have been doing the slap and tickle in groups for thousands of years.
Is the Sex Orgy as old as Humankind?
Orgies have always been popular. Group sex is depicted in Paleolithic cave art. The ancient Romans are known as much for their orgies as for their laws and aqueducts. The Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, supposedly had sex with more than one hundred men a night!
Orgies and The Worship of Fertility
Fertility – both of the soil and of the people who worked it– was of singular importance to ancient people. It ensured the continuation of the family line, provided social stability, and promised a good harvest. This explains why many ancient religious groups worshipped sex for its pleasure and life-giving properties.
Such groups, as well as ordinary tribes, often held large sex festivals. These celebrations allowed people to have unbridled sex with none of the usual strings attached!
For example, one of earliest known public sex rituals regularly took place in ancient Sumer. Here, the followers of the fertility goddess Ishtar partook in wild sex orgies in the hopes of getting in the good graces of goddess they worshipped.
How Divine Recompense in Egypt Came in the form of Lust and Orgies
People in ancient Egypt were just as familiar with group sex. Egyptian mythology includes a tale similar to the story of Noah. In it, the sun god, Ra, recoiling from humanity’s wickedness, killed almost everyone along the Nile.
But the carnage was so terrible that the sight of it made the god relent. In an act of divine recompense, he rewarded the few survivors by flooding the fields with beer.
The survivors got drunk on the deluge and beseeched Ra for bountiful harvests. They also engaged in public, orgiastic sex that repopulated Egypt.
Licentious Revelry Among the Greeks
The ancient Greeks, too, were fond of collective sexual activities. In fact, the word ‘orgy’ ultimately derives from the Greek orgion, which means ‘a licentious revelry’.
Orgies were a form of worship characteristic of the congregations of Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility and wine making. During Dionysian festivals, people consumed massive quantities of wine, and fornicated in groups all day, every day
These Greek festivals have inspired art through the millennia. Famous painters and illustrators have made vivid use of their imaginations to capture the debauchery of these ancient parties.
The Roman Bacchanalia
The Romans adopted Dionysus and changed his name to Bacchus in around 200 BC. The Roman historian Livy reports that the Romans held orgies in the god’s honor three times a year. At first, the Romans restricted the Bacchanalia to women who abstained from sex for 10 days beforehand.
But eventually, the Bacchanalian celebrations came to include men. For years, the ritual orgies took place on a monthly basis. Members of the cult would gather in private homes or woodland groves for all-night orgies of drinking and group sex.
At first, the Romans restricted the Bacchanalia to women who abstained from sex for 10 days beforehand. But eventually, the Bacchanalian celebrations came to include men and, for years, the ritual orgies took place monthly.
Jainism and the Temples of Orgy
Speak to a typical Jain today and you’re likely to run into a wall of prudishness. But the temple art from a thousand and two thousand years ago tells a dramatically different story.
And it isn’t only the Jain temples that have carved a record of wild orgies into history. The country is littered with similar scenes of ecstacy from various religions and cults.
Fat Tuesday and a Papal Orgy
Christianity gradually supplanted paganism in Europe. The Christian’s solemn springtime holiday, Easter, followed 40 days of Lent, a time of quiet reflection beginning on Ash Wednesday. But the day before Ash Wednesday, everyone partied. The Christians called the celebration Fat Tuesday—in French.
The Spanish equivalent was Mardi Gras or Carnaval. Ever since, Mardi Gras and Carnival have been celebrated with an abundance of alcohol and the loosening of sexual constraints. Do you think all those people celebrating Mardi Gras in Rio every year have church attendance on their mind? Nope, they’re looking forward to participating in an age-old ritual!
Several Renaissance Popes celebrated Carnival year-round. In 1501, the Italian nobleman and Catholic Cardinal, Cesare Borgia, threw a party at the Papal Palace. The party featured the Pope, high-ranking clergy, and 50 courtesans. They dined together, then stripped naked and cavorted openly.
Renaissance Italian nobility also enjoyed masked balls. Many of the masks featured exaggerated noses resembling erections. With participants’ faces and identities obscured, masquerades often reached their climax with lusty communal sex.
A European Tradition
Brothels were commonplace and graded by social class in 17th-century Europe. Upper-class men also joined fraternal organizations, or gentlemen’s clubs, at around that time. Many such associations made regular deals with madams. The madams would then send dozens of sex workers to country estates for unrestrained group romps.
This tradition continued well into the 20th century. In 1961, British aristocrats and a bevy of young women attended a pool party at an English country estate. As the party rose into full swing, Secretary of War John Profumo frolicked with the alleged sex worker, Christine Keeler. But the young woman was also involved with a Russian naval attaché – a suspected spy. The ensuing scandal almost toppled the British government.
High-Flying Swinging and Group Sex in America
Of course, the Americans were never far behind. Modern American swinging developed during World War II at airbases. American fighter pilots suffered substantial casualties during the war. Pilots and their wives understood that many flyers would not return.
Before the men flew off, pilot couples intermingled sexually in tribal bonding rituals. These rituals implied a tacit commitment by surviving flyers and their wives to look after the widows.
The couples held “key parties.” The men tossed their house keys into a hat. The women picked keys and spent the night with the man whose doors they opened. After the War, swapping spread throughout the military, and then to surrounding communities.
All the World Loves an Orgy
Today, more people engage in group sex than most would think. Katherine Frank, and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Nevada, says orgies are a global phenomenon.
“Despite potential stigma and legal penalties, consensual group sex occurs around the world and among people of varying sexualities, ages, ethnicities, and other social distinctions,” Frank says.
Frank took a job as a stripper as she conducted research for a study on group sex.
“In any given encounter, participants may witness or engage in a variety of activities—kissing, masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex, and so on—with multiple or sequential partners, “ Franks says.
Are you thinking about taking a swim in the orgy pool? Do you find the idea of group sex intriguing – perhaps even enticing? Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.
