The Island That Hated Sex
The people of Inis Beag treated sex as a “duty” that needed to be “endured”
I’d like to believe that for most folks, sex is something to look forward to. Throughout history, societies have celebrated, studied, paid, and even fought over sex. But not everyone is sex-positive.
Churches and conservatives alike shudder at the thought of all kinds of obscene literature. But I suppose even they would approve and enjoy the deed within the context of marriage.
This isn’t the same for the people of Inis Beag, an Irish island-community studied by social anthropologist John Cowan Messenger in the 1960s. Messenger observed that people from this island absolutely despised having sex. They saw the act as a “duty” that just had to be “endured.”
To protect the island's identity and its community, Messenger gave it the codename “Inis Beag,” which means “little island” in Irish. What follows is a summary of his findings from 1958 to 1966.
Taboo and cause
In the 1960s, Inis Beag’s population consisted of around 350 people who mostly lived by farming and fishing for themselves. They were a largely Catholic community, but years of isolation from the mainland allowed the religion’s conservative beliefs on sex to take a radical turn.
