Sex Thru The Ages, 9/08

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

The day after a holiday and one can only hope that people aren't hungover from celebrating. Well, if they were American. And from a time period that Labor Day is celebrated.

Look, it was an excuse for a day off for a lot of people. That's good enough for a party most of the time.

"Good morning class, today we'll be looking into another era in the history of sex. This time it will be ancient Egypt. Which, trust me, will hold your attention if you find prostitution and ritual virginity losing ceremonies to be just slightly interesting."

"Although," Algren noted, casting a sidelong look at Kirk, "prostitution seems a strong word. Considering the day and age, with medicine the way it was and the average life expectancy so much lower than it is now, the ancient Egyptians had sound reason for what they did."

Riiiight. Thank you for that bit of losing the interest of teenagers there.

"A more... enlightened view of sex then?" Jim suggested. "Where women who exchanged sex for monetary gain or religious purposes advertised their 'wares' as it were by wearing essentially fishnet dresses or tattooing their thighs and going nude."

Algren was a killjoy. He was not sorry for it in the least.

"The goal was to not only conceive a child, but to survive childbirth and bear healthy offspring," he noted, dryly. "If they managed to survive childbirth, then they would come to be seen as a desirable prospect as a future wife. They held elaborate ceremonies, festivals, if you will, which existed for the sole purpose of culminating in a mass..."

... He balked. Look, he was Victorian. There were some words that existed in his vocabulary well enough that were never going to leave his mouth.

"Orgy," Jim said for him, putting extra emphasis on it just to piss the man off.

"... Thank you, Jim." Algren did not look terribly thankful.

Jim gave him a pleasant smile. "No problem. If a woman survived childbirth, you had the opportunity to pick your husband. Polygamy was technically legal, but not engaged in for the most part mostly do to the inability to support so many wives and children."

"While we don't know the exact specifics of the customs involved in the 'act of' during such... events, we do know several key points about the ancient Egyptians." Algren straightened out his jacket. It was not an uncomfortable twitch, shut up. "We know that, for starters, they had absolutely no problems with nudity, in the day, and their paintings were abundant in sexual innuendo. They wrote graphic love poetry, and their sexual practices followed the lead of the Egyptian goddess, Hathor." Why yes, that absolutely was a handout or two, for the curious. "Their society was, in fact, highly centered around fertility."

"So, today we'll be having you try your hand at Egyptian poetry," Jim said, relaxing as he leaned against the teacher's desk. "Yes, love poetry. And we do encourage you to be as graphic as need be keeping in mind this is an open comm."

Comments

Sign In - 9/8

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

Sexy like!

Re: Sign In - 9/8

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen Haras-Uquara

Listen to the Lecture

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

Oh, those Egyptians. Can they be wackier?

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen thought that the practice of assuring one's fertility in such a society was understandable.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri spent a few minutes twitching over the tattoo thing, but got over that quickly enough.

Because there was a lot more to . . . well, the best way to describe it was pretty much this: O.O

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[maythrowuponyou.livejournal.com]

Well this wasn't helping any hangover Bones might have had. He was not writing any damn poetry. Ever.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was just going to look over the handouts, and try not to bang her head against her desk at the various mental flailings and/or images she was picking up from other people in the class.

There was not enough brain bleach in the world for this.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

This was certainly a side of ancient Egypt that Hoshi had never heard about, and she paid careful attention to the lecture.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex was not taking notes but he was smirking like a champ while he twirled his pencil between his fingers. The Egyptians didn't sound too bad. They just sounded open and free. Mark of a good civilization, if you asked him.

Or maybe he was just thinking dirty thoughts. Could be either, really.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[flashesforinfo.livejournal.com]

Dirty poetry writing. For class. She was actually getting credit for this.

This class was amazing.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[oops-mbad.livejournal.com]

Diana's brain went somewhere very weird, so she was now working on not cracking up laughing. No way was she writing poetry.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[glacial_queen]

Karla was confused about the stigma that ritual virginity loss seemed to carry in this world. Perhpas not the brightest idea ever, but she decided to raise her hand and ask anyway.

"Excuse me?" she said, once they had finished the lecture. "Why is virginity so prized in this world anyway? It has an almost...talismanic significance that I don't understand. There seems a great emphasis is places on being or not being a virgin and when and why one loses one's virginity."

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

As Cal jotted down idle notes in his state of generic apathetic interest to keep from getting to thinking too much about stuff, he found himself wondering if, in every class, the only thing he was really going to care about was okay, that's nice, but what about hermaphrodites?

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Leda supposed that it made sense when you lived in a hot area to not wear a lot of clothes. On the other hand, wouldn't you want to cover up to keep the sun off you?

Write Poetry

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

Pair off and get crackin'!

Re: Write Poetry

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen looked for someone to pair off with.

Re: Write Poetry

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri poked at the margins of her notepad, looking awfully fidgety. She could barely think most of this stuff; writing it down might make her head explode.

. . . on the plus side, that might take care of her not-so-little mental problem.

What? She could wish.

Re: Write Poetry

[fratboybitch.livejournal.com]

Alex was not a poetry writer but he did have a really dirty mind. So, he figured that would help him make up for any deficiencies he had with poetry that wasn't 'roses are red, violets are blue'.

He was still twirling his pencil while waiting for a partner.

Re: Write Poetry

[icecoldfrost]

Well, she'd already written the horribly innuendo-ladden story for Castle's class last semester, so this wouldn't be too hard, right?

Emma glared at her notebook. Ugh. So not in the mood.

Re: Write Poetry

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Leda had discovered a horde of naughty song lyrics online recently and was having trouble not using them.

Talk to the Teachers

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

When they tag in!

Re: Talk to the Teachers

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

Jim was, of course, there. In case anyone else had a speech impediment when it came to the word 'orgy'

Re: Talk to the Teachers

[shiroi_tiger]

Algren was there, and he did not have a speech impediment, thank you very much, Jim.

It was a social reservation which was little more than a product of the era he came from. Very different, that.

OOC

[captaininthree.livejournal.com]

Can't we have a four day weekend?

Re: OOC

[oops-mbad.livejournal.com]

In one psych class, we covered Egyptian sexuality. Anything goes was a pretty good summary, with emphasis on anything.