In modern group sex men and women are represented to participate as more or less equal volitional partners. In older times across various cultures (Chinese, Japanese Roman etc) where orgies happened did both men and women of power participate in orgies or was it strictly men and female slaves and/or prostitutes.
Specifically were the male and female head of households allowed to indulge or just the men?
Ancient civilizations did not have our notions of “consent”. In many times and places the notion that a woman could have a basis to say “no” to her husband’s (or male owner’s) demand for sex was inconceivable - it just didn’t enter into anyone’s world view. Likewise, men were entitled to additional women under many circumstances and the approval or not of the wife(s) was irrelevant.
For concubines, slaves, and the like - do you ask a fork if it consents to be used with dinner?
That doesn’t mean it was all a nightmare - quite a few of the women probably participated with enjoyment. They just weren’t asked, they were told to show up at the party and that was that.
Were orgies a thing in old-timey China and Japan?
Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny all wrote of Messalina (the wife of the emperor Claudius) and her scandalous behavior, which was said to include competitions with other woman over who could have sex with the most men in 24 hours, and participation in orgies. This was not done at the behest of her husband, who ultimately had her executed for her many infidelities.
Or so I remember. It’s been a while (like decades) since I read any of the above-mentioned writers.
So, to answer the OP’s question, women may indeed have been allowed to participate in all kinds of things, but it was most definitely not acceptable for the emperor’s wife to do so.
Bear in mind, the tales of Roman debauchery were usually written long after the alleged orgiasts were dead, generally when Rome was ruled by the descendants of their enemies.
From the wiki on Messalina
Couldn’t say, but I have gained the impression that more recent Japanese & Chinese are not as averse as Confucius to loud noisy parties with heavy drinking, smoking and vigorous discussion.
Throw in a few concubines and it could turn into an orgy.
The wives shutting their husbands off if they didn’t quit their warring ways was the plot of some famous ancient play, so the idea was at least conceivable.
You’re referring to Lysistrata by Aristophanes. This is a comedy and the premise isn’t supposed to be particularly realistic, but there’s a scene where one of the women asks what they should do if their husbands don’t take no for an answer. Lysistrata says they should just lie there limply, and that this will still help their cause because men don’t really enjoy sex if the woman isn’t participating. So it seems as though it was accepted by Greek audiences that a man had every right to force himself upon his wife but also that most men preferred not to do this.
nm
We tend to let ourselves imagine that things at a sufficient distance (cultural, temporal and geographic) are or were very different. But actually people are people.
I doubt the women back then were any more ready to participate in orgies than now, and group sex is a very minority sport now. And back then there were the added detriments of no reliable birth control, and more venereal diseases that were a death sentence.
I don’t imagine powerful men back then were any more keen on having their SO give birth to another man’s child than they would be now. The more so when the product of adultery might become the ruler. I really doubt that too many female head of households were participating in orgies.
If you look at human biology - killer sperm, multiple female orgasms, etc, you have to conclude that group sex is the state of nature and monogamy is a patriarchal tool to control women.
Ahhh, the good “old state of nature” gambit.
When you throw around the word “nature” as the basis for an argument be careful where it leads you. For example, the predominance of patriarchal human societies by your reasoning suggests that the control of women by the patriarchy is “the state of nature”. Not saying that’s the case but it’s at least as viable a conclusion as that which you reach.
While the “female head of household” might well be barred from such festivities (or would be having sex only with her husband if present for some reason) slave women would not be held to the same rules. They would not have a choice. If they became pregnant so what, and who cared who the father was? (Well, sometimes the father did care because such bastards were sometimes acknowledged but they didn’t inherit power and wealth)
Indeed but that wasn’t the question.
Quite right.
My post was a pre-emptive attack on anticipated Flintstonianpsuedosociobiology which embarassingly hasnt arrived yet.
Hey, we’ve all been there: talk turned to orgies, and you ejaculated prematurely.
For Japan. No. Women on power did not participate in orgies.
Also, men of power did not, either, but that question wasn’t asked, simply misstated as fact.
Barely Legal Asian Teens is not an accepted cite on SDBM for Japanese sexual behavior. These things are fiction, one should point out.
Cite? Because, you are presuming that Hale’s assertion (History of the Pleas of the Crown, 1st ed. (1736), vol. 1, ch. 58, p. 629) that a wife could not refuse consent to intercourse was uncritically the position all over the world, when it was doubted even then by jurists and also well before the modern era (for instance Reg. v. Clarence (1888) 22 Q.B.D. 23.)
As it is the Romans did criminalise forcible intercourse, they called it strupum, which was distinct from raptio which was taking away a person from lawful guardianship, the word is confusingly the basis of “rape” even though the act is more akin to our kinapping).
Well, there’s always Theodora, wife of Justinian I. She had a very interesting early life which I’m not going to google while at work.
+1 to this. It’s also worth pointing out that some premodern slave states did criminalize sex between masters and slaves (the Christian crusader states in the Levant, for example). The American South obviously didn’t, but then, racially based slavery as practiced in America was kind of an especialy bad permutation of a bad institution.
As regards the OP, I’d suggest it varies quite a bit depending on what culture you look at. There’s a fair amount of evidence that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were fairly promiscuous, for example.