What's the church got to do with the missionary position?

The missionary position is a strange name for a face-to-face, horizontal, often heterosexual bedroom maneuver with the man on top.

But the story behind the naming of this routine sexual position has more plot twists than one might expect.

Did missionaries spread the idea of the missionary position?

Since medieval times, Catholic popes, bishops and priests were meant to refrain from having sex, an indulgence that would distract from their devotion to God.

But that does not mean they think other people should not be doing it.

"The church of course needs people to go to the church, to keep the church alive. So, the more you have children, the more you are a good Christian," said Cinzia Giorgio, teacher of women's history and the author of "The Erotic History of Italy," which she wrote while teaching at a university linked to The Vatican.

Furthermore, it was claimed there was one particular sex position was most conducive to making those babies: the missionary position. It is alleged that medieval Church authorities made the assertion for centuries, not based on scientific evidence, but on some vague thoughts about gravity.

A plausible and very popular theory is that missionaries, who travelled around the world trying to convert people to Christianity, were telling people to have sex this particular way in order to increase the Christian population.

"But that is not true," Kate Lister, a historian of sex and sexuality and the author of "A Curious History of Sex," told DW.

Lister says there is no evidence Christian missionaries promoted this position.

"Even though you will find this theory in books, in medical texts, dictionaries and research papers, it's a giant rumor. It was just taken as a gospel truth that the missionary position came from Christian missionaries. It didn't."

But though missionaries might not have popularized a classical sex position, they did impose a whole new system of sexual morality and values.

This includes in India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, an ancient guide to love and sex, where talk about sex became a taboo topic when missionaries helped the British colonize the country.

The Khajuraho temples in India feature a variety of artwork, some of which are erotic art Image: Pond5/IMAGO

Solving the mystery of a sexual cliche

But why do we still call it the missionary position?

"The term itself crops up round about the 1960s," says Lister, adding that it can be traced back to legendary US sexologist Alfred Kinsey.

In 1948, Kinsey wrote a groundbreaking book, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," which argues that Americans apparently prefer a face-to-face, man-on-top sex position. He called it "the English American position."

Kinsey further referenced the work of anthropologist, Bronisław Malinowski, who had travelled to Australia, New Guinea and Melanesia to "study" Indigenous people in 1914-1920. In one of his numerous books, he writes about the sex lives of the Trobriand people in Papua New Guinea.

Quoting from this book in his own work, Kinsey said that Malinowski noted that the Trobriand people were actually laughing at the way white men had sex. He said they performed "caricatures" of the English American position around campfires "to their great amusement." And that the locals called it "the missionary position."

Not every missionary position is intended to be a missionary position...Image: Chai v.d. Laage/IMAGO

The problem was, however, that Kinsey made a mistake while researching and quoting Malinowski.

"If you go back to Malinowski's work, he doesn't actually say that," notes Kate Lister.

Instead, at one point in his book Malinowski actually wrote that the Trobriand people did make fun of face-to-face, man-on-top style sex but that they learned from "white traders, planters or officials," not missionaries.

And Trobriand people did come up with a phrase to mock something romantic the white man did, but it translated to "missionary fashion" not "missionary position," - and it was in reference to holding hands and public displays of affection, not sex.

"So Kinsey has misreported the work of Malinowski," according to Lister. She adds that the myth of how this sexual positioned was named still "enters general conversation and culture" because it is a "good and interesting" story. 

Along the way the story is altered slightly: Rather than locals mocking white man sex, it was often wrongly suggested that the missionaries were telling people to have sex in this way.

How the whole misunderstanding came to light

In 2001, anthropologist Robert Priest wrote a paper called "The Missionary Position: Christian, Modernist, Postmodern" - for which he unexpectedly went down a rabbit hole sifting through numerous texts trying to fact check the true story behind the name.

"Kinsey apparently invented a legend while believing himself to be reporting historical fact," wrote Priest. "[He] coined a new expression while thinking he was reporting an old one."

Edited by Stuart Braun.

This article is an adaptation of a podcast episode by Charli Shield and Rachel Stewart and edited by Sam Baker. Listen to 'Don't Drink the Milk: The curious history of things' for more - on our website or wherever you listen to podcasts.