Pagan Sex: Patriarchy, Power, and Penetration
WARNING: Explicit descriptions and references to sexual violence in this post!
I want to start with a quote from Douglas Wilson about how sex is not egalitarian and is an expression of male authority and dominance:
[H]owever we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
What is striking to me, is that this way of thinking, talking, and conceiving of marital intimacy, is straight out of the Roman views of sex as domination and penetration.
Wilson’s language, and those who emulate him, are narrating a pagan perspective of sex as a fleshly parable of masculine power. Rather than reflecting the Christian aspiration for mutuality in marriage, surrendering one’s body to each other, loving each other in self-giving and self-sacrifical ways, sex becomes an expression of masculine appetites and dominance.
If you think I’m exaggerating, let me prove my point!
According to Deborah Kamen and Sarah Levin-Richardson, “In the realm of sexual matters, the Romans were particularly concerned with the issue of who penetrated whom. Penetrating was associated with free-born status, masculinity, and social dominance, whereas being penetrated was associated with servility, femininity, and inferiority” (Sex in Antiquity, 449).
In Roman sexual mores, the act of penetration was understood as a way for men to assert their power and dominance over women, and sometimes even over other men. The idea was that the man was taking control of the woman's body, and that this act of domination was a sign of his masculinity, virility, virtue, and power.
This belief was particularly true in the context of heterosexual relationships, chiefly marriage, where men were expected to be the penetrators (dominators) and women the penetrated (dominated). However, the rule also applied to male-male sexual encounters, where the penetrator was seen as the dominant partner. Even in extra-marital acts, whether rape or seduction, the act of penetration was a way for the male aggressor to assert his dominance over the victim, whether male or female, free or slave, Roman or foreigner.
Consider these quotes from Roman literature that make explicit references to masculinity as power and penetration and femininity as submission and being penetrated:
“And control ought to be exercised by the man over the woman, not as the owner has control over a piece of property, but, as the soul colonizes the body.” Plutarch, Advice to the Bride and Groom, 33.
"There is nothing wrong with enjoying pleasures, as long as you don't harm anyone or let them harm you. This means that you should be the one penetrating, not being penetrated." Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.33-34
"When the man is the active agent in intercourse and the woman is passive, then the woman is most womanly." Galen, On the Natural Faculties
"He should have the power of penetration, he should last a long time in the act of love-making, he should have a strong and ample organ, he should be virile in every way." Ovid, Art of Love 3.167-70.
Sorry, from here, it’s adults only!