War, Sex, and Hierodules

The history of the Iraq war will be written by historians. Kind of a silly tautology, but bear with me. I think because it will be historians writing it America will come off looking much worse then if, say, journalists or accountants were writing that history. And the reason for this is the looting of Iraq's museums and the burning of its libraries. America will sleep with the barbarians on historian's book shelves, right there with those who burned the library at Alexandria, right there with those who blew up the Parthenon. This cannot be undone.

The artifacts from this planet's cradle of civilization cannot be replaced. The lives lost are individual tragedies, they are lost potential in vast number. But life is tenacious and soon they will be replaced by the oldest form of unskilled labor.

The sketchy records we have of Sumerian civilization, the mother or all civilizations, has much to say about sex and fertility. Apparently there was little modesty about the act in Sumerian culture. They had the same problems as we did, though perhaps slightly different approaches. For example, it seems that masturbation alone or with a partner was a popular technique for enhancing potency. They had anal sex, both male and female and aside from the pleasure aspects it was also used as a method of birth control, certainly by the hierodules, the temple prostitutes.

The famous temple prostitutes came in two flavors, as it were. There were the priestesses who were professional worshipers of the fertility goddess. They enacted symbolic and quite sexual "marriages" with male worshipers. Then there were also ordinary women who prostituted themselves at least once in their lives in the temple as part of their religion. Apparently men did this also.

The main goddess of the Sumerians was Inanna, a goddess of war, death, and of course fertility. She was a very sexual and sexy deity. In fact, one of the oldest extant written texts tells the very racy story of The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi, full of lines like "plow my vulva" and "he smoothed my black boat with cream". I rather like that one. There's actually a whole modern book devoted to Inanna. There's also Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature.

All this was circa 2000 BCE, but by about 1600 BCE the region was giving raise to the first written legal codes, like The Code of the Nesilim, c. 1650-1500 BCE. They recognized certain practicalities of sexual wandering:

191. If a free man picks up now this woman, now that one, now in this country, then in that country, there shall be no punishment if they came together sexually willingly.

Works for me.

On the other hand there were some rather interesting items regarding farm animals:

187. If a man have intercourse with a cow, it is a capital crime, he shall die. They shall lead him to the king's hall. But the king may kill him, the king may grant him his life. But he shall not approach the king.

So cows are right out. So are pigs or dogs it would seem:

199. If anyone have intercourse with a pig or a dog, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a horse or a mule, there is no punishment. But he shall not approach the king, and shall not become a priest. If an ox spring upon a man for intercourse, the ox shall die but the man shall not die. One sheep shall be fetched as a substitute for the man, and they shall kill it. If a pig spring upon a man for intercourse, there is no punishment. If any man have intercourse with a foreign woman and pick up this one, now that one, there is no punishment.

So horses and mules seem to be OK. The rule seems to be that if you eat it you don't want anybody to "smooth it with cream" first. On the other hand, nothing wrong with a little cum in your food.

The beastie crowd is still alive and well of course, with perhaps the most interesting story in that area being that of Bodil Joensen. Girls do have that thing with adoring horses, don't they? Personally I never really saw the attraction. Also the thought that some of these animals may not be entirely willing participants makes the whole thing even less appealing to me.