A short tour through history’s most awkward bedroom wisdom
Scroll through any modern men’s or women’s magazine and you’ll still find “expert” tips promising better sex, stronger desire, or mind-blowing chemistry. Some of it’s helpful. Some of it’s… questionable.
What many people forget is that this confusion didn’t start with lifestyle blogs or glossy magazines. Humans have been giving each other strange, misguided, and sometimes wildly judgmental sex advice for centuries. Long before influencers and comment sections, there were philosophers, doctors, priests, and etiquette writers who felt very confident telling everyone else how sex should work.
Spoiler: a lot of them were very wrong.
Let’s rewind and look at some of the most impressive misfires.
“There’s only one proper position”
While ancient texts like the Kama Sutra were surprisingly curious and observational about intimacy, medieval Europe took a sharp turn toward control and restriction.
In the 13th century, a highly respected theologian decided that sex should be simple, minimal, and above all predictable. According to him, only one position was truly “natural.” Everything else ranged from mildly inappropriate to outright sinful.
He even ranked positions by moral decay, with face-to-face intimacy at the top and anything involving creativity or variation sinking straight to the bottom. Pleasure wasn’t the point. Order was.
Whether this ranking came from deep reflection or pure imagination remains a mystery.
“Hands are unnecessary. You have better options.”
Fast-forward to 17th-century France, where a very blunt book aimed at educating young women decided to weigh in on what not to do.
Manual stimulation? Strongly discouraged. Not because it didn’t work but because the author felt it was an inefficient use of anatomy. The message was clear: if you’re going to bother at all, do it “properly.”
The same book casually recommends pistachios after sex, claiming they restore strength better than anything else on Earth. No explanation. Just confidence.
Nutrition advice has always been bold.
“If your mind wanders, your child will suffer”
By the 19th century, sex advice had shifted from moral panic to pseudo-science.
One American author insisted that men must stay mentally focused during intercourse at all times. A drifting thought, he warned, could result in weaker offspring both physically and intellectually.
He even blamed the “mediocre” children of great thinkers on this supposed lack of concentration. Genius fathers, apparently, were just too distracted in bed.
No pressure.
Masturbation: public enemy number one
Victorian England had a particular obsession with stopping young men from touching themselves.
Books from the era warned that self-pleasure would drain vitality, damage the brain, and ruin moral character. The proposed solution? Exhaustion.
Parents were advised to keep boys running, wrestling, and playing all day so they’d be too tired to feel temptation at night.
Girls, on the other hand, were believed to have almost no sexual desire at all unless something had gone terribly wrong.
History has not aged this opinion well.
“Separate bedrooms save marriages”
In the early 1900s, some relationship guides promoted an idea that feels oddly modern and completely backwards.
Married couples were encouraged to sleep in separate rooms to avoid becoming too familiar with each other. Too much closeness, they warned, leads to boredom. Distance keeps desire alive.
The logic? Temptation is easier to resist when there’s a door in between.
The same advice books often suggested that women should only have sex when trying to conceive. Enjoyment wasn’t part of the equation.
“Lubrication is unnatural”
As sexual education slowly became more open, some voices still doubled down on purity.
One early 20th-century medical writer compared using lubricant to greasing your mouth so food would slide down more easily. His verdict: unnecessary, artificial, and morally questionable.
The solution to discomfort, apparently, wasn’t adaptation or communication it was endurance.
“Scrubbing floors will calm your desire”
By the 1960s, advice finally turned its attention toward teenagers but not in the way you’d hope.
One popular author suggested that housework was an excellent way for young women to control sexual urges. Mopping floors, she claimed, improved posture, shaped the body, and quieted the mind.
Young men, meanwhile, were told to do literally anything else: sports, chores, musical instruments, lawn care. The goal wasn’t understanding desire it was outrunning it.
One can only imagine how many confused trumpets and half-painted garages resulted.
So… what’s the lesson?
Looking back, it’s tempting to laugh and we should. But there’s also something reassuring here.
Every generation thinks it has sex figured out. And every generation gets some of it wrong.
The difference today is that curiosity is finally allowed to coexist with honesty. Pleasure isn’t a moral failure. Desire isn’t a disease. And no one seriously believes pistachios are the key to sexual enlightenment.
At least, not yet.
