Sex symbols

Shocking stories, Fertility rites

Since Christianity became the dominant religion in Britain, pagan practices have either been assimilated or outcast, depending on their compatibility with the new beliefs. Some of the concepts that were in conflict with those of the new church were: the position of women in worship; the acceptance of equality between humans and the environment; and the open expression of sexuality.

Shocking stories

The 12th-century Christian Gerald of Wales gave eyewitness accounts of early pagan rituals that shocked their readers, though his personal agenda would have certainly affected the spin he put on his descriptions.

Gerald recorded a ceremony in Ireland which took place in the early 1100s, where a crowd gathered to watch one of the tribal leaders have sexual intercourse with a horse, before killing it. After he had bathed in the blood of the animal, it was butchered, cooked and eaten by the assembled people.

Other depictions of pagan practices, such as the Bronze-Age stone carvings at Tanum, Sweden, show multiple groups of men with huge erections having sex with animals. The penis regularly appears as a symbol of fertility and power, though there has also been some suggestion that the images could be depicting men wearing prosthetic phalluses, gaining in stature depending on the importance of the individual. The penis represents the male god, but some of the religions that are included under the pagan umbrella give equal status to the female goddess.

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Fertility rites

According to early accounts, pagan women held high positions within their religious group. Their sexuality was often defined by their fertility, the vagina holding mystical power, a vessel for connecting with the mother goddess. Nakedness, simulated intercourse with stone, wooden and horn dildos and the revealing of the vulva to animals all appear to be highly significant. Some rituals concluded with the goddess and god having sex together.

This aspect of paganism has often led to outsiders characterising these religions as being dominated by sexual promiscuity, orgies and infidelity. We have no way of knowing the sexual practices of prehistoric cultures and can only assume that they had their own moral or ethical codes. Modern pagan perspectives have developed in the context of a society where sexual freedom has flourished. Today pagans argue that sexuality is a personal preference and that people are free to practise it within a religious context, providing it is consenting and doesn’t violate the free will of those taking part.

Whatever the context, prehistoric rites or modern conceptions and their interpretations, the essence appears to be one of celebrating the powerful physical and emotional experience of sex. Unlike some religions, paganism doesn’t see this aspect of human experience as separate from any other, or from religious practice.

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