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| https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb3eyb/sex-in-america-is-incredibly-uptight |
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2486 - Unusual Sex Practices
Morality is defined very narrowly in America. Most Americans are extremely ethnocentric and react negatively if not violently in opposition to cultural practices in other countries that Americans deem savage, barbaric, evil, disgusting, or in some other way "immoral."
I do not post often about sex or sexual practices on this blog, but this entry from Medium caught my eye, and I decided to share.
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| Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash |
I’ve also found the perfect replacement for The Bachelorette
Ash Juberg - Nov.23, 2021
Today I learned a lot about sex.
I’ve written about sex festivals, orgasm retreats, and hotels with sex buffets. I‘ve even done a deep dive into the sexcapades of athletes at the Olympics. If there was anything that could be covered in a Sex Travel guidebook, I thought I had covered it.
Until I came across the story of the Sambia tribe in Papua New Guinea and learned of the sexual rituals that they participate in. From there, I went down a sexual rabbit hole uncovering fascinating sex rituals and practices from around the world.
So, it’s time to once again dust off your virtual passports as we earn some frequent flyer miles on another sexual adventure around the world together.
Bring protection. And a camera.
To become a man, you must first taste a man
In the remote Eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea live the Sambia tribe.
They came to the attention of the rest of the world when they were studied by Gilbert H. Herdt — the founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. Herdt found that for a Sambia boy to become a man, he had to participate in ritualized homosexuality.
This journey to manhood commences at the age of six or seven and takes fifteen years to complete. After being removed from their mother’s home at this tender age, the boys are trained to develop — jurungdu — the characteristics of a successful warrior.
Where does one find jurungdu?
Semen. And seeing as young boys don’t have semen, in order to become a warrior, they need to ingest semen. So these young boys must perform fellatio on older boys and swallow their semen.
Once they reach a certain age, they stop performing oral sex and move to the next stage of the journey — where they receive fellatio from the next intake of young boys.
Upon graduation from these rituals, they are considered men and are allowed to marry a woman.
Fertility dance
I have watched many nature documentaries and seen impressive pre-mating rituals from animals. Birds, in particular, put on quite a show when trying to attract a partner.
Similarly, women in the Wayuu tribe in northern Colombia perform a dance to attract a partner.
Unlike the Sambia, the Wayuu is a matriarchal society. The women enjoy a high status and have all the power to choose their potential mates — the final stage of which is the Chichimaya.
As soon as the girls become teenagers, they are hidden away from the boys in the tribe. They will live with a family member — usually an aunty, be given a new name, and learn the skills of becoming a mother and provider. When they are deemed ready, they are invited to participate in the Chichmaya.
The girls will gather, and the boys of the village will dance around them in a circle. The boys will call out to them, make gestures and attempt to entice the girls to chase them.
If the girl is interested, she will chase the boy and attempt to trip him over. If she can trip him up, then they will get married. I guess that is the literal sense of falling in love.
The Chicimaya sounds like a far better dance than the Macarena or the Nutbush.
The city of brotherly love
We now move into the Upper Dolpo region of Nepal. Nestled in the Himalayas, this village practices fraternal polyandry.
I had never heard of this term before today — the things I learn as a sex writer — but it means brothers that marry the same woman.
The first marriage is usually arranged with a family selecting a wife for their oldest son. The newly wedded couple will live with the man’s younger brothers, with the woman helping to raise her future husbands. Once the boys come of age, she will marry them and begin sexual relationships with them.
It seems the wife progresses from teaching the children about the birds and bees in the way a parent would, to then showing them about the birds and bees in the way a lover would.
So why does this practice exist?
Primarily it is due to the lack of land and resources in the region. By living together, the family can share what little they have. Any children that are born call all the men in the marriage “dad.”
Forget Sister Wives. I want to see Brother Husbands.
15 miles to the Love Shack
We are racking up the frequent flyer miles today.
Now we head to the Ratanakiri region of Cambodia to look at the Kreung tribe. It is an area where electricity and running water are not common, but female empowerment is.
When a girl reaches the age of puberty, their fathers will build them a bamboo hut to live in, away from their family. This hut becomes a love shack of sorts, and the girls are encouraged to explore their sexuality and experiment with boys away from the prying eyes of their families.
Boys are invited into their love shacks where they can talk, and if the girl is interested, they can partake in sex. The young boys are taught to show respect, and the power lies squarely with the female.
One western journalist visited the tribe and interviewed the girls about their sex lives. She reported that the girls asserted their sexual power and independence and found it the perfect way to select their future life partner. The journalist found no accounts of rape or jealousy between the boys who abide and respect the decision of who is chosen.
I have another TV show suggestion for any producers reading this. Replace the Bachelorette with Love Shack — it’s a far better way to find a life partner.
A Bloody Mary
For our final stop on today’s global sex tour, we visit the religious sect known as the Bauls.
The Baul faith combines Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Tantra and is practiced throughout Bengali India, and Bangladesh. One of the things they worship is bodily fluids. They call the ‘four moons’ — seed, feces, urine, and menstrual blood.
The one fluid of the four that men don’t possess is menstrual blood, so they are spiritually incomplete.
But as we learned with the Sambia tribe, if you don’t possess a certain fluid, there is a solution.
When a girl has her first period, it is time for celebration. They catch the menstrual blood in a cloth and mix it with cow’s milk, camphor, coconut milk, and palm sugar. The girl’s family and friends then drink this twist on the Bloody Mary.
For couples, there is another way for men to ingest menstrual blood, and that is through the mouth of their penis. This is done by having sex while a woman is menstruating.
While this sounds far more preferable to drinking blood, it should be noted that the Bauls believe men have a limited amount of ‘seed’, and thus, men shouldn’t ejaculate during sex. Instead, the women are encouraged to orgasm, energizing their partner and forcing their menstrual blood into the man’s genitals.
Sexuality is different around the world. What the western world considers ‘normal’ is vastly different in many other places. The examples above may seem unusual to some of us but are important customs for the people involved.
One thing which stood out was the sexual power lay with the women. Whether it be in a Nepali village where the female ran the household and had the support of a family of brothers. Or in the Kreung or Wayuu tribes, where young females were empowered to make their own sexual choices which involved experimentation and exploration.
And the Bauls forbid the male orgasm and instead focus on the woman’s orgasm to benefit both people — physically and spiritually.
Perhaps our more ‘enlightened’ western society can learn from each of these sexual practices.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2112.08 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2350 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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