# Strange sex scene from the Turin Papyrus **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691 "2011-03-06T18:17:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/21 "2011-03-07T02:10:08Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > She’s pretty clearly painting her lips while looking at it, and it’s shaped like an [Egyptian mirror](http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/education/egyptians/mirror.shtml), and not like a [fan.](http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/IH019904.html) I retract my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/22 "2011-03-07T02:38:55Z")
> [@](#): > > I bet it would if you had a three foot erection like the dude in the scroll, though. How do you know I don’t? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/23 "2011-03-07T03:00:11Z")
Isn’t it obvious? It’s the Egyptian version of a sybian. Link broken, possibly NFSW. [noparse][http://flashwarner.com/images/Tn\_sybian\_gmax1.jpg[/noparse]](http://flashwarner.com/images/Tn_sybian_gmax1.jpg%5B/noparse%5D) The guy below her is vibrating it with his hand. Do they have to have Howard Stern doing commentary to spell it out for you? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/24 "2011-03-07T03:30:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How do you know I don’t? 😉 Oh, you \*know \*that’s gonna get you a “cite?”, right? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/25 "2011-03-07T04:19:25Z")
Why do you need a cite for the proposition that you don’t know he doesn’t? Your very post amounts to an admission you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/26 "2011-03-07T05:00:18Z")
The Wikipedia links to a page with a different recreation of the papyrus. It doesn’t really make it any clearer. The prime difference is that the cone thing looks more like a conical mushroom or something. Going by her ignoring the man and being all vain and stuck up…perhaps some sort of joke about being tight-twatted? The work appears to be at least partially humorous, so it seems reasonable that all or many of the characters might be parodies of real people. Without knowing those people, we don’t get the joke. On the other hand, I think that both the Wikipedia and the other site are reaching when they suggest that the animals are there to set a theme. This is a scroll. That means that as you first unroll it, you see what is at one end. If you put the animal scene on the outside loop, a casual glance won’t reveal the contents. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/27 "2011-03-07T05:29:02Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Is she painting her lips or applying kohl- in effect, eyeshadow? The tip of the brush is near her lips, not her eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/28 "2011-03-07T05:48:43Z")
Actually, the part with the animals engaged in human activities is pretty interesting too. It looks like the earliest example of the “dogs playing poker” genre. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this was hung on a wall somewhere where guys were drinking beer. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/29 "2011-03-07T05:49:29Z")
The Wikipedia article cited speculation that it might be part of a running joke about some middle aged guy’s fantasies of visiting a brothel & possibly their clashes with reality. So maybe the guy, who looks like he’s kind of in a subservient or supplicating position, can’t garner the interest of the lady pleasuring herself while applying her makeup. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/30 "2011-03-07T05:53:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Actually, the part with the animals engaged in human activities is pretty interesting too. It looks like the earliest example of the “dogs playing poker” genre. Now I’m picturing some of the most ancient vampires\* of Anne Rice’s universe filling their overstuffed luxurious apartments with pictures of dogs playing poker and other tacky ornaments, challenging a mortal visitor: “Are these not the funniest things upon which you have ever laid eyes?!” and then falling into preternatural fit of the giggles. (\*who were supposed have originated from ancient Egypt) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/31 "2011-03-07T05:58:13Z")
I’ve got a friend that sells condoms in Texas. I’m pretty sure his xtra small latex might fit those Egyptian guys. If the condoms are too big they can always tie them on with string. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/32 "2011-03-07T13:16:00Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yes, y’know, I was about to say, the lady on the far right of the larger panel **jjimm** linked has a remarkably nonchalant expression for someone facing that sort of a challenge :eek:. I don’t know. The internet is full of women looking extremely bored as frightening-looking things are done to their nether parts. Plus ca change… ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/33 "2011-03-07T16:03:31Z")
I have been a “student” of ancient Egypt for almost 60 years. My home library has about 150 books, some popular, some scholarly, on Ancient Egypt. I have read them all. Yet I don’t recall ever having read about the Turin Papyrus and its erotic drawings. I just checked and neither the three volume \*\*Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt \*\*(2001) or the three volume **Egyptology At the Dawn Of The Twenty-First Century** (2003) mention it. Once again a SDMB has provided me with information I didn’tt get anywhere else and changed my view of something I thought I knew very well. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/34 "2011-03-07T16:49:19Z")
Rule 34 dates back to antiquity. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/35 "2011-03-07T18:26:52Z")
All of a sudden, I’m much more interested in Egyptology. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/36 "2011-03-07T19:15:53Z")
Has anyone interpreted the writing? Might be interesting. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/37 "2011-03-07T19:26:48Z")
> [@Jake](#): > > Has anyone interpreted the writing? Might be interesting. 😉 I suspect it has to do with pizza delivery. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/38 "2011-03-07T19:50:38Z")
Or male enhancement. Plus ca change, as a poster said up above. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/39 "2011-03-08T01:58:43Z")
I _knew_ Hef was _old_, but _still…!_ ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691/40 "2011-03-08T14:45:10Z")
I can totally understand why that guy has trouble standing up. And I agree that some foreskin doesn’t retract unless pulled back manually . . . but it can become tight and painful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-sex-scene-from-the-turin-papyrus/573691.md?page=1)