Exactly twenty years ago, a young Marc Orriols surprised at the III Ibero-American Congress of Egyptology held in La Laguna (Tenerife) with a presentation on the sexual habits of the ancient Egyptians and specifically on the practice of copulation a tergo (from behind or doggy style) based on iconography in graffiti and ostraca (pieces of pottery or stone with drawings). Now, at the VIII congress, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Orriols (Barcelona, 51 years old), already a doctor in Egyptology, has once again impressed with an intense lecture on the famous erotic papyrus of Turin, Ramesside, from 3,150 years ago, which details several sexual acts and in which he interprets that there is “a mockery of hegemonic masculinity” and it may be the first representation in history of a squirting (female expulsion of liquid during sex).
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Question. What is new in the sex of Ancient Egypt?
Answer. Basically, it confirms our idea that, despite the popular reputation of the ancient Egyptians as uninhibited or indecent, a product of the biased view of Greeks and Romans and cinema — Hollywood has done a lot of damage to our vision of sex in Ancient Egypt — they were a rather modest society. Although in religion one can see a certain sexual fluidity, with gods who copulate or masturbate, that remains in the celestial sphere and for everyday life there are almost no representations.
Q. So they were prudish.
A. Human sex does not appear shown in official art, only in those representations, let’s say, outside the normative, of which there are very few, about thirty for so many years of history. Including one of sex with a donkey. It is true that traditional Egyptologists probably hid or destroyed things they might have found offensive. If Petrie came across a fellatio…
Q. What a contrast with the general idea of what those women with transparent clothes and men with loincloths did.
A. The Egyptians did not dress like that. These are iconographic conventions, there was no silk until the Ptolemaic period and the linen used does not provide such transparency, and try leaving so much body exposed under the Egyptian sun. We confuse images of religious and symbolic meaning, largely funerary, with reality. Figures that seem erotic to us refer to fertility.
Q. Did the concept of non-binary exist?
A. There were deities we could consider as such, Atum, Hapi, Sekhmet, Neith…, and in society it is sensed as a third gender but they rather seem castrated; children were considered agender, this happens in many cultures. In any case, identity issues did not exist culturally, nor is homosexuality documented, neither male nor female. The ancient Egyptians were, formally, binary and heteronormative, the norm in a patriarchal society.
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Q. Can we foresee any favorite position?
A. In the scarce record appears the position a tergo and the woman with her legs above the man’s shoulders. Both allow deep penetration and were possibly identified with female pleasure. But we are still talking about marginal representations. The Turin papyrus, with exceptional details, shows the woman on top, but my interpretation is that it was a humiliating practice for the man and that the whole document echoes a story about the humiliation of a powerful individual and an inversion of the norm, an upside-down world. An unusual mockery of hegemonic masculinity.
Q. Prostitution? Nefernefernefer from Sinuhe the Egyptian charged.
A. It is not documented. We still have to find sex with economic exchange in Ancient Egypt. Nowadays it cannot be stated that there was prostitution; in this case it is not the oldest profession in the world.
Q. Oral sex?
A. Again, practically only the gods. There is little fellatio. A deceased in the Book of the Dead says he has not tried it, as if that made him more virtuous. And there is an ostracon showing a woman being ejaculated in the mouth, from outside.
Q. Goodbye to the Kiss of Cleopatra.
A. The cliché of Cleopatra as the great lustful oriental fellatrix weighs. The Romans attributed it to her to denigrate, brutally sexualizing, a powerful woman who frightened them. The name Cleopatra is still frequent in porn movies.
Q. At least there would be orgasm,
A. The word nedjemet, which means something pleasant, sweet, exists but it seems to refer only to male pleasure…
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