# Another Time Traveler Question - Sex with "the Locals" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441 "2022-08-27T18:30:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/1 "2022-08-27T18:30:34Z")
Inspired by this [thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-time-travelers-worry-about-getting-sick-from-the-local-cuisine/969611). Let’s imagine that our time traveler goes back to, say, the Middle Ages and soon enough attracts the attention of some random medieval Joe/Jane. Yes, _that_ kind of attention. They find a place where they can be alone and… would they have the same expectations as to what comes next, apart from the obvious ? For the past few decades, porn has been easily available. So, our time traveler has, like most of us, at least heard of, probably seen and perhaps tried many sexual activities and positions. Let’s imagine that they spontaneously decide to give their new love interest some oral stimulation. Would medieval Joe/Jane be absolutely disgusted ? Completely confused ? Pleasantly surprised ? Totally blasé ? Same thing with positions. In my experience, missonary is probably the one that comes the most naturally at first. Then, you can spice things up from there. What if our time traveler suggested they tried from behind, or woman on top, or anything else, really ? Just to be clear, the question is not whether these practices existed centuries ago. They did. The question is whether the average medieval Joe/Jane would have had as much knowledge of/experience with them as the average 2022 Joe/Jane. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/2 "2022-08-27T18:36:18Z")
The closest thing I can think of is some more primitive or conservative societies today. I’ve heard of a Muslim man who was enraged when his wife suggested oral sex, thinking she must have learned it from doing it with some other man before. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/3 "2022-08-27T18:44:31Z")
It would be interesting to know how very primitive societies today look at the act of procreation. I would guess that, for the most part, they would do the same things modern societies do concerning positions and oral gratification, etc. (paging Margaret Mead). Remember, the Greeks and Romans had some pretty wild orgies back in the day. The most significant difference between medieval folks and us would be hygiene. I don’t think they looked at bathing the same way we do, which might be off-putting to some. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/4 "2022-08-27T18:48:08Z")
If you have seen the stone carvings at Indian temples, then you know that in ancient times, they knew all the combinations and permutations and all the positions. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/5 "2022-08-27T18:49:14Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > Just to be clear, the question is not whether these practices existed centuries ago. They did. The question is whether the average medieval Joe/Jane would have had as much knowledge of/experience with them as the average 2022 Joe/Jane. Have you read literature from the time period in which you are interested? 🙂 🙂 > [@Velocity](#): > > primitive or conservative societies > [@dolphinboy](#): > > very primitive societies ??? :-/ ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/6 "2022-08-27T18:53:21Z")
That’s not meant as an insult of any kind. I was referring to tribes living in the deepest jungles with little or no contact with the outside world. I know they are studied when encountered, but I doubt researchers watch them 24X7 to see how they interact sexually, but I bet it’s not that different from us. ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/7 "2022-08-27T19:05:35Z")
Well have you searched here? > **[Sex in the Middle Ages](https://www.medievalists.net/2013/02/sex-in-the-middle-ages/)** > > Here are some of the more interesting pieces of research we have uncovered about sex in the Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/8 "2022-08-27T19:05:56Z")
Lima, Peru, has a Museum of Inca History, which houses the Sala Erotica-a building with pornographic pottery. Sex acts in every permutation you can think of, both real and imagined. Some of it is pretty out there even by today’s standards. Don’t know about medieval.peasants but Inca sculptors would not be surprised by your time traveller’s proposals. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/9 "2022-08-27T19:27:32Z")
“What, traveler? You want me to remove my hair? Be though nuts?” ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/10 "2022-08-27T19:57:23Z")
Medieval people did the same things people today do. How do we know? Because the Church issued edicts prohibiting most of them. One big problem would be hygiene. Different cultures had different standards. Nomads in regions where water was scarce didn’t bathe as often as we do. (On the other hand, they were more willing to bathe in cold water than most modern folk.) During the late Medieval and early Renaissance, bathing took a nosedive. But it was never completely out. We know this because churchmen wrote numerous sermons against the fornication that took place in bathhouses. Another problem was the lack of birth control. You would have to convince the woman that a roll in the hay was worth the risk of dying in childbirth. Also that an out-of-wedlock child would not condemn her to a lifetime of poverty. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/11 "2022-08-27T20:03:10Z")
If you look at churches from the middle ages, you’ll see all sorts of raunchy carvings. They’re intended to show the mundane, sinful, carnal world for which the Church is the cure. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/12 "2022-08-27T20:09:57Z")
“Do all men from the future bringeth as much game as thou?” “Just me, baby. Just me.” ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/13 "2022-08-27T20:35:28Z")
Given that hygiene wasn’t then like it is now would make sexual activity back then more “ordinary”. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/14 "2022-08-27T20:54:17Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Another problem was the lack of birth control. You would have to convince the woman that a roll in the hay was worth the risk of dying in childbirth. One reason why acts that could not result in pregnancy would have been very popular. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/15 "2022-08-27T21:23:47Z")
And not just acts with women, butt man and beast as well. > **[Buggery Act 1533](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buggery_Act_1533)** > > The Buggery Act 1533, formally An Acte for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie (25 Hen. 8 c. 6), was an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed during the reign of Henry VIII. > It was the country's first civil sodomy law, such offences having previously been dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts. > The term buggery, not defined in the text of the legislation, was later interpreted by the courts to include only anal penetration and bestiality, regardless of the sex of the participa... ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/16 "2022-08-27T21:24:50Z")
It’s a mid-seventeenth-century source rather than a medieval one, but Samuel Pepys’s diary provides a fair amount of detail about his various extramarital affairs, and his preferred sex act seems to have been mutual masturbation – at least, with women who were not already married to someone else and would have had a hard time explaining how they got pregnant. (Pepys was probably sterile, and probably suspected as much, but he wasn’t taking any chances.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/17 "2022-08-27T21:26:30Z")
“Hail to the King, baby.” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/18 "2022-08-27T21:52:49Z")
The premise of the question reminds me of an objection raised to a proposed amendment to the Victorian-era British law against homosexuality to specify that the prohibition also encompassed lesbianism: > …you are going to tell the whole world that there is such an offence, to bring it to the notice of women who have never heard of it, never thought of it, never dreamed of it. I think that would be a very great mischief. > –the Earl of Desart ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2022, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/19 "2022-08-27T21:54:49Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > “Hail to the King, baby.” This is my boomstick! ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2022, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441/20 "2022-08-28T00:34:31Z")
In earlier eras, it was far more common for entire households to sleep in one room, or even share a bed. Plus, these people tended to live in closer contact with animals than today. In both situations, we might expect an exposure to sexual activity (I.e. a couple getting it on in the same room, however quietly that may be, plus seeing the animals fornicating in the field) that young people don’t often have today. So, even without pornography, I fully expect these people to be familiar with sex. And I would expect that certain “animalistic” positions would be mundane. Given hygiene issues, I’d expect oral sex to be more rare, but their standards of what is tolerable cleanliness is undoubtedly different than what we’d expect today. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-time-traveler-question-sex-with-the-locals/970441.md?page=2)