10. Modern Iranian culture: You can have a temporary Marriage if you pay for it
We all know that Muslim practices are among some of the strictest regarding sexual intercourse and the relationships between men and women. For instance, Muslim couples are only allowed to have sex in the missionary position. It's considered gross and degrading for a man to ask any other position from his wife.
However, in certain Muslim countries, like Iran, a young couple who would like to have sex before they're ready to marry can request a “temporary marriage.”
They are allowed to pay for a short ceremony, with a written contract dictating the amount of time they will be “married.” Once this is done, they can have sex like bunnies without contradicting Islamic law.
9. Ancient Greece: When older men would be with younger boys
The most common form of same-sex relationships between males in Greece was "paiderastia" meaning "boy love." It was a relationship between an older male and an adolescent youth. A boy was considered a "boy" until he was able to grow a full beard.
In Athens, the older man was called erastes, and he was to educate, protect, love, and provide a role model for his eromenos, whose reward for him lay in his beauty, youth, and promise.
To love a boy below the age of twelve was considered inappropriate, but no evidence exists of any legal penalties attached to this sort of practice.
8. Ancient Greece: Where homosexuality was completely out of the closet
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identifier the way Western societies have done for the past century.
Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of the active penetrator or the passive penetrated.
This active/passive polarization corresponded with dominant and submissive social roles: the active (penetrative) role was associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood, while the passive role was associated with femininity, lower social status, and youth.
7. Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs: The pharaohes who would practice public masturbation
According to Sex and Society, "even the ebb and flow of the Nile was thought to be caused by Atum's (the god of creation) ejaculation.
This concept spurred the Egyptian pharaohs to ritually masturbate into the Nile to ensure an abundance of water."
The ancient Egyptians were so inspired by the act of self-stimulation that at the festival of the god Min, who represented Pharaoh's sexual potency, men masturbated in public.
6. The Wodaabe: The tribe where men steal each other's wives - Niger
In the Wodaabe tribe of Niger in West Africa, men are known to steal each other's wives. The Wodaabe's first marriage is arranged by their parents in infancy and must be between cousins of the same lineage.
However, at the yearly Gerewol Festival, Wodaabe men wear elaborate makeup and costumes and dance to impress the women – and hopefully steal a new wife.
If the new couple is able to steal away undetected (especially from a current husband who may not want to part with his wife), then they become socially recognized. These subsequent marriages are called love marriages.
5. The Nepalese: A community where brothers share a wife - The Himalayas
According to an article in Psychology Today, “Almost all of the few polyandrous societies practice what anthropologists call fraternal polyandry, where a group of brothers share a wife."
This is the case in the Himalayas, where there is little land available for farming and agriculture, and families with more than one son would be faced with dividing up their land were each son to start his own family.
The solution? Find one wife for all of their sons so that they can live together as one family and keep their family plot intact. Also, as told in the National Geographic documentary Multiple Husbands, this arrangement works best when the wife is adept at "scheduling" time with each brother.
4. Saut d'Eau: Rituals of voodoo and love - Haiti
If you travel to Haiti and visit the waterfalls of Saut d'Eau during the month of July, you may witness quite a risqué ritual.
Voodoo practitioners make this journey each summer to worship the goddess of love. Pretty normal stuff, right?
Wrong. Picture a bunch of buck-naked people twisting and wriggling around in mud mixed with the blood of sacrificed animals, with cow and goat heads thrown into the mix. I'm sure there's nothing like it if you're an exhibitionism lover.
3. The Trobrianders : The tribe where kids start having sex at 6 – Papua, New Guinea
These islanders from a remote tribe in Papua guinea seem like a case study in the ultimate consequences of the sexual revolution: girls want sex just as much as guys, and kids start having sex at a very young age — 6-8 for the girls and 10-12 for the guys — with no social stigma.
There are few customs about dating to inhibit “hooking up” and, of course, revealing clothing has been taken to its limit, with girls actually going topless.
However, while everybody is having sex whenever they want, premarital meal-sharing is a big no-no. You're not supposed to go out for dinner together until after you get married.
2. The Mardudjara: Intimate cutting rituals to achieve manhood - Australia
The first portion of this Mardudjara Aboriginal rite involves a barbaric circumcision followed by the circumcised male ingesting his own foreskin.
After he heals up, the penis is then cut lengthwise on the underside, sometimes all the way to the scrotum. Blood is then dripped over a fire in order to purify it.
From then on, the male will urinate from the underside of his penis instead of the urethra. The real question, however, is how does destroying a boy's 'manhood' bring him into manhood?
1. The Sambians: The semen-drinking tribe - Papua, New Guinea
To become a man in this primitive tribe, boys are removed from the presence of all females at the age of seven, living with other males for ten years. During the ten years, the skin is pierced to remove any contamination brought upon by women.
For the same reason, they also regularly incur nose-bleeding and vomiting caused by consuming large amounts of sugarcane.
To top it off, they are required to ingest the semen of their elders, which is thought to sustain growth and strength. When they are finally introduced back into the tribe, they continue to engage in nose-bleeding at the same time as their wives' menstrual cycles.
