The Venting of Sexuality Throughout the Ages


ince the beginning of history, humanity has been driven forward by a multitude of factors: Food, safety, housing, stability, gainful employment and dental plan. From humble beginnings, when we were nothing but stick-flinging apes, we’ve been driven by these things and an unparalleled inventive curiosity, always reinventing our technologies and social ways until becoming the dominant force in the planet, bending nature to our will.

But there has always been another factor, one that has been both positive and detrimental to our species: thirst.

Almost all animals experience a sexual drive, as it’s required by most species to procreate and thus survive, but we’re one of a select few that has a conscious understanding of it. Most animals will just follow their instincts, enact a mating ritual common to the entire species, find a mate, and birth a new generation. But not humans. We do not experience heats like most animals: we’re always fully capable of reproduction once fertile, until we’re too old for it. The earliest documented cases of fertility start as early as 6 years old and remain as such until as late as the mid 70’s.

We’ve as a species have developed a tendency towards making sex into entertainment. And that has gotten us into a whole lot of trouble.

We’re not the only species to have this trait: many varieties of primates do this, some in a casual ways and some in really violent ways. Dolphins also do so, engaging in coitus with fish, divers, one biologist, corpses, and even the sea floor. But all of them have done so in a consistent way. Humans haven’t.

It’s a fact that neurotypical individuals require a way to vent their sexual needs regularly in order function normally – not doing so causes a host of issues. The most common issue is a frustration that affects decision making. Kingdoms have crumbled due to this sexual frustration. Ruler’s would act out on this “thirst” without thinking clearly first, and it’s common advice in some circles to “fap on” a decision so that the person can think without a sexual drive getting involved.

How have people dealt with this through the ages?

We have no records of what sexual etiquette was like in prehistoric times, and it probably varied greatly from tribe to tribe, with some being incredibly liberal about it and others having strict codes of conduct and hierarchies to follow regarding the act.

One of the earliest civilizations which is widely known for its sexual conventions is ancient Greece. The most evident characteristic of ancient Greek sexuality was this: Greeks were hella gay. In reality, this means that the ancient Greeks were obsessed with their appearance, especially the male population. Being a fairly warm area, full of islands and beaches, Greece allowed its inhabitants to live their lives mostly nude. Greek men would train their bodies constantly to achieve what’s commonly known as an Olympian physique, and their art and crafts illustrated this. Temples would be adorned with statues and reliefs of gods and heroes in their naked, muscular glory, and pottery would be painted with scenes from battles or mythology, with warriors fighting with spear and shield and their butts showing. Even their cuirasses were forged to display six packs and powerful pecs.

Most Greek men would eventually settle with a wife and have children, but leisurely sex was widely homosexual. In certain city states, specially Sparta, the first choice for entertainment above masturbation was pederasty. Teenage boys would join older men in bed for casual sex regularly, and it was a widely accepted practice.


he next ancient civilization in which sex was an important part of day to day life was Rome. In its early stages, this wasn’t the case but towards the peak of the empire’s power the Roman elite would engage in orgies and often be incredibly promiscuous, bedding multiple members of both genders. The common man, while not as decadent as the elite, would regularly hire prostitutes. A word we use nowadays derives from this practice: Fornication. Roman prostitutes would stand and offer their services under the arches of bridges, in Latin called fornus, thus the word for hiring a prostitute and using her services was called “fornicationem”, then adopted by most of western Europe with minor variations to describe the act.

After the fall of the Roman empire, Europe sank into the Dark Ages, and a fanatic and fundamentalist view of Christianity rose to power over most of the continent. As such, most acts of sexual release, from masturbation to any form of sexual activity outside marriage was branded as sin. This didn’t stop people from engaging it it though, it just shifted the practice from public view to an illicit status. Youngsters would run off the farm and into the woods, or to a barn to have sex with the neighbor’s son or daughter. Men and women would get drunk and slip to a room in a tavern. And in war, rape was a widespread practice. Infidelity was common among nobility and many wars were fought over it.

It was so until the Renaissance, when religion started losing strength, and the elites of Europe instead focused on science, art and pleasure. The courts would become places where nobility would flirt with each other, and artists would easily attract multitudes of women who wanted to pose for portraits or get intimate with the idols of the time. America was discovered, and as such, lengthy treks were made by boat to the New World, isolating sailors for months at a time with little chance of release, causing them to see all kinds of mythological beings like sirens calling for them, and going ape with the natives when finally reaching the destination and seeing boobies for the first time in half a year.

There were many more changes in the social conventions regarding sex, until the French revolution exploded and drowned the country in anarchy
and lust. Orgies were again commonplace, like in the decadence of Rome. With the complete absence of the rule of law rape was became common, until order was restored.

After that came the Victorian era, and again piety and restraint became the norm. People were horrified at the sight of sex, and prostitution boomed as people sought discrete ways to take care of their “needs”. In America, the situation was similar, except for the frontier areas like the Wild West where civilization had a loose grip and “exotic” dancers and the like were common entertainment for the adult population.


his continued through the first half of the 20th century, with printed pornography and the revolutionary new invention of cinema taking the lead in the entertainment area. Men would look with wide grins at the legs of actresses on the screen, and women would marvel at the hairy and well toned chests of swashbuckling heroes. So was the case until the end of World War II, where a large portion of the world was shaken by the biggest conflict yet recorded in history. With millions of casualties and a feeling of peace after the war, teenagers reaching maturity (without fathers by their side to teach discipline and thus embolden them) and a severe reduction in the male population, saw couples everywhere celebrate by having children. Lots, and lots of children. So many in fact, that a term was coined for this generation: Baby Boomers. The 40’s and 50’s saw the rise of “Pin Ups”, portraits of models and actors that’d become the object of desire of the masses.

The 60’s was the breaking point for the era of prudishness. With the rise of the hippie movement and under the banner of “make love not war”, millions of young people cast off the restrictive norms of society and dedicated themselves to art and sex, much to the chagrin of their parents, governments, and law enforcement. Society was thus divided between the stoic and proper old timers, raised in an era characterized by sacrifice and militaristic patriotism; and the easy going, peace seeking and fun-loving hippies, more concerned with music and nature than with doing their part in society.

The 70’s saw the rise to prominence of drugs, and with it all kinds of excesses. Rock & Roll and other derivations of black music encouraged sex and easy-going fun, after hippies had shown that it was somewhat possible to break from social standards. This followed into the 80’s, where dancing and night life were the preferred form of entertainment, and that translated into everything – from clothing, movies, attitude, and even to the way people would plan their lives. Cocaine and other drugs had become common in night life, and with the dis-inhibition that came with them – came sex. Another thing that resurfaced in the 80’s was homosexuality, with popular culture icons like Freddy Mercury and Rob Halford openly displaying it. An underground gay movement was established.

The 90’s saw the rise of the internet and the fall of the Soviet Union, and with the internet, there was another revolution to sex life: Porn. Porn had always existed, mostly in the form of magazines and movies during the decades before, but now it was widely available in low-definition, 256 color bitmaps to everyone with a computer and a phone line. The world would never be the same.

And in the 2000’s, with the turn of the century, internet spread to kids as well, with the coming of broadband. While in the 90’s it had been mostly dominated by adults and business as well as the tech savvy, the turn of the century saw the internet become something that almost everyone had access to. Websites and online gaming became a popular form of entertainment for the general public, and since internet no longer had a per minute cost, everyone chatted with each other for hours each day, .

And sexuality again was revolutionized. Until the rise of the internet, people had mostly sought and enacted somewhat “normal” fantasies, as they required direct interaction with other “real life” human beings. The advent of anonymity on the internet allowed the weirdos to have their go at it.

Most ‘normal’ people think, depending on gender, when imagining a sexual fantasy, something along the lines of one or two sleek young women in barely covering attire waiting on a bed with flirty smirks on their faces; or one or two muscular hunks with toned chests and strong arms, wearing tight slips as they sit next to a jacuzzi.

But then there are people who won’t think of that. Some would think of a biped neon wolf with a horse member (or multiple ones) hanging between its legs. Of course this kind of weird fantasy has no place in real life, but the internet provided the solution to this:


What is ERP? Well, it was a terrorist organization that fought a guerrilla war against the government in regions of South America in the 70’s… but it also means “Erotic Role Play”. And I’m not talking about those awkward poorly acted scenarios where a wife will dress as a nurse and play around with a pretend needle, no, this is much weirder.

I put on my robe and wizard hat!
I put on my robe and wizard hat!

On the internet, ERP consists of two or more people describing every action their character takes through a text-based chat. This was normal for games like Dungeons & Dragons, where players would take on the role of fantasy heroes and describe their actions and roll dice to see how successful they were, but with ERP it takes a sinister turn.

“I put my weiner in your peach” sounds bland and uninteresting, so what do role players do? Exaggerate. To ridiculous degrees. “Why would they do that?” you’ll ask. That’s because ERP is often engaged in by people who either have no real sexual experience, are turned on by really weird stuff, or simply lack social skills.

This activity sounds really boring when compared to actually going up to a person you like, inviting them on a date, and having real sex. The appeal of ERP is that it involves no amount of challenge, can be safely done from complete anonymity, and you don’t need any qualifications to do it. So many people who are too young or awkward to do the real thing, or who want to fulfill weird fantasies that’d make a real sex partner say “what is wrong with you?” hop onto a chat room and awkwardly ask “hey anyone wanna RP”

And of course it often happens in chat rooms that belong to the weirdest fandoms, and with strange characters, often “OC”s. It’s incredibly common in fanbases such as furries, MLP, homestuck, sonic, and whatever other very specific fandom you can think of. So it often takes strange and unsettling turns.

Some people instead enjoy joining these chats pretending to be into it for a while to then completely desvirtuate (if the word can apply to such an unholy activity) the session and get people angry for the lulz. And let’s be honest, it’s an incredibly fun thing to do, ‘specially compared to talking about foot long knotted dongs.

And while this happens, and it’s hard to find a show on TV that’s geared towards an adult audience and doesn’t involve at least one scene of lesbian sex, scientists wonder why the birthrate of advanced countries is declining. I’ll tell you why: Y’all need Jesus.

So yeah, we all know that real girls (or boys) can be icky,  smell, and cost money, and that 2D girls have no flaws and thus are vastly superior. But make the effort. Get over TFW no GF and go invite that person you like for a date. There’s still time. You don’t need to be another victim of ERP. The friendzone might be scary, but this is much worse. Go, make your parents proud, and restore faith in humanity. You, reader, can do it.


1 comment

  1. I’ve started reading the article at the start of my coffee break.

    By the time it was over, I was still staring at Ugh’s GIF.

    I can’t take my eyes off him playing Pocket Ping-Pong. It is hypnotic.

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