The Missionary Position

9.09.2010 | By: T. P.

We all know the missionary position. But have you ever wondered since when do missionaries have sexual intercourse?

The missionary position was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church. (PhotoXpress)

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The woman lies on her back with her legs bent, while the man is on top. Given that missionaries are considered to only carry out humanitarian work, it's surprising to name such a position after them. It's all the fault of Alfred Kinsey

The history of missionary position

The missionary position appears in the ancient artwork of the Greeks, Egyptians, the ancient civilizations of South America, China and Japan. Some people believe that this sexual position is so popular due to the frequency of the motif. In any case, the missionary position gained its supremacy over others for both religious or ethical as well as health reasons, and not due to any superiority of the position itself. Moreover, if we imagine the missionary position on hard ground or straw mattress, we get an idea why such a position wasn't the most pleasant one, at least for women. On the other hand, who was interested in what women had to say - in those days?

In ancient Greece, people preferred having sex standing up until Artemidos popularized the missionary position as the "only proper and natural" one, because it affirmed the domination of men over women. The Roman Catholic Church reached similar conclusions based on the observations of animals, and even Thomas Aquinas recommended it. The arguments focused on the premise that the missionary position is the best one for getting pregnant and that it is therefore unreasonable to use any other positions. If we follow the teachings of the Catholic Church, the only aim of sexual intercourse is pregnancy and everything else represents the sin of passion. Thus, changing your sexual position is sinful.

The origin of the term ''missionary position''

For a long time, people weren't familiar with the term "missionary position". Every language had its own name for it. In 1948, a comprehensive study titled Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, by Alfred Kinsley, came out in the USA (an excellent film on his life and work was made in 2004). In the study, Kinsley cites an example from the book by Malinowski in which the latter states that the natives of the Trobrianders tribe imitated the English-American position around campfire to which they referred as the "missionary" position. This specific piece of information hasn't been confirmed to date by any anthropologist, sexologist or linguist, and Robert Priest believes that it was a result of confusing different facts and interpretations, but we will not go into details. The term was kept in use and later also spread to other languages: Missionarsstellung, postura del misionero, position du missionaire ... And if you change the name, it may perhaps sound more interesting.