Did Missionaries Really Invent the Missionary Position?

Where Do All Those Weird Sex Position Names Come From?

The Missionary Position

Even before we became the sex-crazed porn hounds that Those Who Do Not Understand accuse us of being, chances are good that we had heard about the “Missionary Position.” If we were raised with any kind of religious training, we knew exactly why it was called that. It’s God’s favorite sexual position. Because of this, missionaries wandered to alien lands and demanded that their inhabitants have intercourse in the one and only God-approved position.

Why missionaries were watching people have intercourse is unclear. Some scholars say the whole thing is a deeply sexist and racist urban legend to perpetuate the notion that women are inherently sexually submissive, men are inherently sexually dominant, and tribal people are inherently inferior to their European invaders. The truth is that it is a position our ancestors were probably using millions of years ago. We know that Gorillas, Bonobos, and, as hard as it is to imagine, armadillos, indulge in it.

Ancient pottery and art from the Fertile Crescent depict the woman-on-bottom position, as do artworks of the Greeks, Romans, East Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and Peruvians. Even the Kama Sutra is packed with man-on-top positions. There are also visual examples of what we now call the “Cowgirl Position” from those very same people. Likewise, the Sumerian city-state of Ur in Mesopotamia enjoyed and commemorated the potentially romantic position. There are sorta scientific reasons that some tribal groups have included this position in their arsenal of intercourse. It is believed by some Kerala tribes that if the conception of a warrior child is desired, he must be conceived with his father on top.

That may be how the position itself arrived in some villages, but the actual term “Missionary Position” wasn’t used until 1948, when Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male mistranslated some historic documents and accidently coined the term, thinking it was used by the Trobrianders in a positive sense. It wasn’t. In fact, native people have largely used it in a mocking way.

Prior to the polarization of the name, the French called it the “Classical Position,” the Tuscans called it “The Angelic Position,” some Arabic-speaking people called it “The Manner of Serpents,” and English speakers called it “The Mama-Papa Position,” “The English American Position,” or “Male Superior Position.”

Regardless of how it got its name or what name it got it’s always been a global favorite. Not just because it makes the Pope happy, but because it’s easy to do regardless of how many or few times we’ve done it. We don’t have to contort into one of the more acrobatic of the Kama Sutra-inspired sculptures to get our parts lined up, and it’s comfortable unless one of us is large with child or has a lot of stomach fat. Other benefits of this position are deeper penetration and the intimacy of seeing each other’s faces. Unfortunately, it’s not always the best position for female orgasms since the base of the man’s penis cannot be depended on to properly stimulate the woman clitoris. I’ve always considered this a design flaw.

As sex historian Kate Lister points out, “it took on new and religious significance when the early Catholic Church started to teach that this was the only acceptable position and that everything else was sinful.” As St. Albertus Magnus the Great wrote in Doctor of the Church (c 1206 – 1280), “Nature teaches that the proper manner is that the woman be on her back with the man lying on her stomach.” Backing him up was St. Thomas Aquinas in In Libros Sententiarum, “Marital relations are contrary to nature when either the right receptacle or the proper position required by nature is avoided.”

While some tribes openly mocked the position, despised it, and considered it inappropriate, the religious indoctrination and its threats of eternal punishment were effective with godly white people such as sailors, planters, traders, and officials. They strongly encouraged the Native people whose land they were colonizing and the people they were living with, marrying, and impregnating to make this face-to-face/woman-on-bottom position their favorite, as well.

While the women who partnered with them may have acquiesced, tales of the white man’s inability to give pleasure during sex were rampant. Likewise, rumors about the short lifespan of a European or first-wave North American male colonizer’s pre-ejaculate erection. In other words, the native women reported that many of our forefathers were three pump chumps.

In those days, the Protestant sects were not so interested in sex or what position people employed when engaging in it. Over time, the Catholic Church dropped the subject. Now, if pregnancy is the goal, no holes are barred so long as you only have vaginal sex.

Today, when we have so many erotic and carnal options available, it’s easy to think that missionary is boring, so we want to switch it up a little. For better or for worse, the Missionary Position has developed a reputation for being mainstream, conventional, and even prudish. By comparison, other positions seem more daring, wild, and, as our long-dead church fathers would declare, sinfully animalistic.

This brings us to the next FleshEd topic: Doggy Style. Coming soon.