Missionary position

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vaginal intercourse : penetration in the missionary position

The missionary position , also referred to as vis a fronte ( Latin for “strength from the front”, opposite vis a tergo: “from behind”), technically ventro-ventral copulation (belly to belly), is a common position to practice sexual intercourse . The vaginally (or anally ) penetrated partner lies on their back with their legs open and the penetrating partner lies on her (or him). Especially in English-speaking countries , the missionary position is often viewed as vanilla sex , in the sense of "simple, ordinary, without extras".

biology

Humans and some primates belong to the few species that copulate in the position belly to belly (ventro-ventral) to a noteworthy extent and can thus react much more directly to the facial expressions of their partner. The mating behavior, which is rare in the animal kingdom, was observed most frequently in bonobos, mostly in captivity, and only in 2008 in lowland gorillas in the wild.

Investigations on African welted grass mice (genus Rhabdomys ) suggest, however, that ventro-ventral copulation behavior also occurs among rodents more frequently than assumed, whereby, according to observations, the initiative for this position usually comes from the females. Like primates, many female rodents also have a pronounced clitoris and the research group concludes from the result that the females choose the ventro-ventral position primarily because of the more intensive stimulation of the clitoris.

  • Missionary position between man and woman

  • Missionary position between two men

  • Missionary position between two women ( tribadie )

origin of the name

According to popular opinion, this position got its name from the fact that Christian missionaries tried to enforce this position as the only permissible position during sexual intercourse between spouses when other peoples were Christianized. However, this is incorrect. As Robert J. Priest was able to prove, Alfred C. Kinsey (1894–1956) is the originator of this rumor. Kinsey had claimed in his Kinsey reports that Christian missionaries were appalled by the imaginative sexual practices of the South Sea Islanders and had shown them as teaching material drawings that indicated a couple in the only permitted coitus position. The islanders mocked this position as a "missionary position".

Kinsey refers to a standard work on the sexuality of the Melanesians written in 1929 by the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski . Robert J. Priest found out, however, that this story does not occur in Malinowski. Malinowski reports that the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands made fun of the monotonous sex life of whites, but there is no mention of missionaries and their alleged regulations. The previously unknown to them man-up-woman-down position the locals called ibilimapu (“she [the woman] cannot join”) in their language . However, the Trobrianders complained about the new custom adopted by the whites, that lovers show themselves holding hands in public. This behavior was considered indecent by the older Trobrianders and was referred to by them as misinari si bubunela ("missionary fashion "), "one of those newfangled improprieties introduced by missionaries."

By confusing ibilimapu and misinari si bubulena from Malinowski's book, Kinsey created a legend; their designation missionary position (German "missionary position") goes back to Kinsey. According to Christoph Drösser , the Christian whites did not restrict the sex life of the South Sea islanders in a prudish way, as the legend claims, but rather expanded it. There is no trace of church regulations on how to have sexual intercourse. "

Web links

Commons : Missionary Positions  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Missionary position  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alan F. Dixson: Sexual Selection and the Origins of Human Mating Systems. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-156973-9 , p. 83 (English).
  2. ↑ Anna Iovine: When It Comes to “Vanilla Sex,” No Two People Taste the Same Flavor. In: Vice.com . February 14, 2019, accessed May 8, 2020.
  3. ^ Frans de Waal : Bonobo Sex and Society. In: Scientific American . March 1995, pp. 82-88 (English; online at primatesworld.com ( memento of July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ))
  4. ↑ Elke Bodderas: Gorillas like the missionary position. In: The world . February 20, 2008, accessed May 8, 2020.
  5. ↑ Claire M.-S. Dufour, Neville Pillay, Guila Ganem: Ventro-Ventral Copulation in a Rodent: A Female Initiative? In: Journal of Mammalogy . Volume 96, No. 5, 2015, pp. 1017-1023 (English; doi: 10.1093 / jmammal / gyv106 ).
  6. ^ Robert J. Priest: Missionary Positions: Christian, Modernist, Postmodernist. In: Current Anthropology . Volume 42, 2001, pp. 29-68 (English).
  7. ^ Bronisław Malinowski : The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia. London 1929 (English).
  8. ^ Bronisław Malinowski: The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia. London 1929, p. 343 (English).
  9. ↑ Dietmar Bartz : Who invented it? The missionary? In: Miki Bunge (Ed.): Buschbusch Magazin. No. 1, Berlin 2007, p. 67 ( PDF: 7.3 MB, 46 pages on buschbusch.de ( memento of November 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )).
    Same thing: shame conquers the ocean of love. In: mare - the magazine of the seas . Issue 31, 2002, pp. 68-71.
  10. ↑ Christoph Drösser in Right? : The prudish missionaries. In: The time . July 16, 2008, accessed May 8, 2020.