The Holy Guide to Coital Positions

The Roman Catholic Church's crazy obsession with forbidding almost all things sexual is not a recent development and one cannot help but wonder whether this obsession would have been so overpowering had the Church not been peopled for centuries by supposedly celibate men (the 1500's were full of Popes taking on young boy toys). What one cannot have often becomes a subject of obsession and repressed desire. I continue to believe that if the Church had had married clergy, not only would priests and high clerics have had more of a clue on common sense counseling of parishioners, but perhaps this constant obsession with sex would never have arisen. This article on The Smart Set from Drexel University would almost be humorous were it not for the fact that many people were no doubt punished because of the sexual obsessions and hang ups of the clergy. These clerics had real problems and sound like they had some very serious psychological issues. Here are some highlights:

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Somehow the human race survived the Middle Ages, no mean feat when you consider how much literature was out there condemning sex. Church thinkers like Saint Jerome announced that carnal relations were “filthy” even within the bounds of holy matrimony: “The wise man should love his wife with cool discretion,” Jerome opined, “not with hot desire… Nothing is nastier than to love your own wife as if she were your mistress.”

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In fact, this attitude eventually led the Church to legislate on the most intimate details of married life: In 1215, the cleric Johannes Teutonicus was the first to announce that there was only one “natural” coital position — what we today call “the missionary position,” a term that was coined in the 1960s — which was also optimal for conception. Attempting any other position was a mortal sin, Johannes opined, involving exotic and unnecessary forms of stimulation.

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Alexander of Hales railed against coitus retro, the rear-entry position, as a mortal sin, for it was coupling “in the manner of brutes.” St. Albert the Great [pictured above] discussed in detail four other forbidden positions: lateral (side by side), seated, standing, and anal sex. (Curiously, sodomy at this time was considered no worse if performed with a boy than a woman; it was not until 1533 in England that male-on-male “buggery” became a criminal offense).

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The handbooks listed recommended penance of bread, water, and abstinence for exotic congress. A consensus on the punishments included the following:

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Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years

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Lateral, seated, standing: 40 days

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Coitus retro — rear entry: 40 days

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Mutual masturbation: 30 days

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Inter-femural sex — ejaculation between the legs: 40 days

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Coitus in terga — anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric)

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Kudos to Bob Felton at Civil Commotion for finding the link to this bat sh**tery (to use Pam Spaulding's term).