Studying the life of our distant ancestors, it should be noted that sex plays an important role in it. And even then say, if 100 thousand years ago, men and women avoided sexual contact, then we would not exist.
So, in pre-Christian Russia, the sexuality of our ancestors of the Slavs was closely associated with festivities, dancing and chants. All actions at these pagan festivals were clearly formalized in the form of rituals and ceremonies that are closely related to the everyday life of the Slavs, weather events and field work. Pagan festivals include the day of Ivan Kupala, Maslenitsa, Kolyada and others. The symbols of these holidays are fertility, sun and procreation - therefore, sexual rituals are an integral part of them.
So Maslenitsa - seeing off winter and meeting the long-awaited spring, had a special set of rituals and festivities. Unfortunately, many of them have already been forgotten. True, some descriptions of Shrovetide rituals remained. So the northern Slavs, practically without clothes, dancing around the flaming effigy of Winter, beat each other with twigs. The Western Slavs, exposing themselves at the Shrovetide festivities, believed that this would help the growth of cereals in the fields.
Church chroniclers described the Maslenitsa rites of the ancient Slavs in the following way: “people went crazy, put on disguises (masks, costumes). Moreover, men were changing into women's suits, and women - in men's. Rampant and debauchery reigned all around."
Sowing for our distant ancestors also had a special meaning. It was believed that nudity when sowing cereals and vegetables should stimulate plant growth. Therefore, sowing was accompanied by numerous unusual rituals: men sowed completely naked (it was believed that by this they symbolically fertilized the earth). During the sowing period, the owner and the hostess made love on the field. In order for flax to grow fibrous and long, women rolled naked on the ground, where they planned to sow this crop. When planting cucumbers on St. George's Day, the hostesses must take off their shirt. If the cucumbers did not grow well, the woman dragged this shirt through the beds, and her naked husband pretended to want to destroy the plants. Among the northern Slavs, women planted turnip seeds naked. After the cabbage was planted, the women, having let down their hair, ran around the site without clothes.
The rituals for the day of Ivan Kupala are no less interesting. The Slavs celebrated it on an incredible scale, cheerfully. All ceremonies were closely associated with herbs, fires and bathing. After the obligatory morning bath, expelling evil spirits, everyone swam naked in the river together. And in the evening everyone was overwhelmed by unprecedented mass festivities with irrepressible dances, cheerful music and jumping over fires. It was believed that the one who skips the fire naked will cleanse his soul and body. All the games at the festivities had an obscene content - they had fun lecherous, merry and unrestrained. Orthodox monks wrote about this sexual festive expanse as follows: “Right there is a great fall for men and youths on women's and girls' vacillation. Likewise, for married wives, the lawless desecration is right there."
The holiday of the change of the annual cycle during the transition from winter to summer - Kolyada. The oldest pagan holiday was considered a confirmation of the faith of the Slavs in the inevitability of the victory of good over evil spirits. To drive away evil spirits and help Kolyada defeat them, the Slavs sang, danced and burned numerous bonfires that day. Everyone was caroling, guessing at the betrothed, offspring and harvest. Games and ceremonies at this celebration were overtly sexual in nature.
The promiscuous sexual relations of the ancient Slavs ceased after the end of the pagan period - after the XI century. It was since then that the sexual life of the Slavs began to be regulated by marriage relations, not excluding the possible polygamy.
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The wedding of the ancient Slavs became a special ritual. The basis of the ceremony is the ransom of the bride or her abduction from another tribe (or clan). Children were considered the property of the father - therefore, a girl could become the property of another man only after a peaceful ransom or violent abduction. However, after the adoption of Christianity by the Slavs, the abduction of the bride left the customs of our ancient ancestors. By the way, earlier at the altar the bride and groom simply exchanged gifts, including the obligatory attribute - an apple, symbolizing love and fertility. But the custom of exchanging rings came much later from Byzantium.
Among the Slavs, the usual forms of marriage were monogamy and polygamy. Everything depended on the prosperity of a man - if he could support many wives, no one would condemn him. So the Slavic princes could afford numerous harems. Prince Vladimir had a harem with wives and concubines. The Tale of Bygone Years says a lot about the love of Prince Vladimir: “And he had wives: Rogneda, whom he settled on Lybed, where the village of Predslavino is now located, from her he had four sons: Izyaslav, Mstislav, Yaroslav, Vsevolod, and two daughters; from the Greek he had Svyatopolk; from Chekhin - Vysheslav, and from another wife - Svyatoslav and Mstislav; and from the Bulgarian - Boris and Gleb, and he had 300 concubines in Vyshgorod, 300 in Belgorod and 200 on Berestovo, in the village that is now called Berestovoye. And he was insatiable in fornication,bringing married women and molesting girls. He was as much a woman-lover as Solomon."
At the same time, it must be said that, according to eyewitnesses, the ancient Slavs of the Christian period were distinguished by the orderliness of marital relations.
And yet it should be noted that the ancient Slavs, with their sexual relations, did not allow the process of human evolution to stop. Many thanks to our distant ancestors for the fact that they really knew how to love and had an open and wide soul. The ancient Slavs knew one most important truth: "love can be received only when you give it yourself!"