He was anxious and unctuous.

Yeah slight grammatical error on my part, on account of me being online when I should be in bed sleeping.

Still, worked out pretty well

Upon reflection, it strikes me as a little weird that the Ecclesiarchy doesn't take an incredibly oppressive and repressive hardline view on sex. Not because it's a conservative religious organization (although it is ) but because Slaanesh. The measures the Imperium takes to combat Chaos are, uh, extreme. So why not go so far as to outlaw sex altogether and mandate that all babies must be test tube babies? Why not sterilize most/all of the population at birth? That's right pleasure god, we've removed all sexual organs from our people and thereby closed off one avenue of corruption! Praise the Emperor, etc.

And so on. I dunno, maybe it's too resource intensive and you can't have infinite hordes of Guardsmen if you have to grow them all in tubes. Maybe it's just not possible to maintain the requisite iron grip on all the worlds of the Imperium. Maybe the writers never thought about it. Whatever.

Slaneesh isn't about sex per say or pleasure. It's about utter depravity, pushing your personal experiences to the edge of taboos and then going across that line. Its about saying there is never enough. Now this is quite dependant on ones personal and social mores. If the Imperium made merely having regular bog standard sex a taboo insisted on 'test tube reproduction' and wasn't completly sure it could enforce it (and lets be fair it couldn't) then before you know it you'd have warp incursions from every Administratum stationary cuboard.

As for the opening post

'The Eisenhorn' series talks about a lot of these issues. Joy Girls is the term for Female prostitues. The Inqusitor doesn't seem partiuclarly surprised or perturbed by them so they aren't heretical.

Eisenhorn also mentions losing his virginity in the Scholar Progenum to a maid I believe (would need to reread the section).

In the book Legacy a central plot point is the extensive harem of a Rogue Trader.

In short look at all the sexual practices on Earth. Right? Now multiple this by a million (a million worlds) and across 10,000 years.

Slaneesh isn't about sex per say or pleasure. It's about utter depravity, pushing your personal experiences to the edge of taboos and then going across that line. Its about saying there is never enough.

Well, yes and no... I think Chaos is all about the slippery slope, that creeping erosion of a calm and disciplined (controlled) self. Every time you engage in sex and/or pleasure, you risk sacrificing that control, because once you're "at it", primal instincts take over and you feel an urge to continue, to satisfy that hunger, to push forward. And this is what will ultimately risk pushing you into Slaanesh's domain. It's the same with acting in anger, just this time you risk calling upon Khorne.

Note further, however, that even the very acts of feeling pleasure or anger can feed the Chaos Gods, simply because emotions are their sustenance by the way the Immaterium works. Yes, mindless depravity and utter bloodshed - the very epitomes of Slaanesh's and Khorne's portfolio - will provide a much bigger burst of emotional fuel, but at the end of the day, this is just a bonus. There are no "safe levels" of emotion, as I really don't think these Warp spirits have a threshold below which they'd just ignore the psychic food you are providing.

And decadence is not an emotion, merely a condition caused by the emotions Slaanesh is about.

As for the opening post

'The Eisenhorn' series talks about a lot of these issues. Joy Girls is the term for Female prostitues. The Inqusitor doesn't seem partiuclarly surprised or perturbed by them so they aren't heretical.

Eisenhorn also mentions losing his virginity in the Scholar Progenum to a maid I believe (would need to reread the section).

Though it's worth pointing out that at this level of detail, the sources may disagree with one another. For example, codex fluff notes that the Schola Progenium is strictly gender-segregated, to prevent exactly that from happening. There is a reason they call it "Abnettverse", though, and that is because the author has a reputation for portraying the setting in slightly different ways.

I still agree with your last sentence, though -- the Imperium is vast, with a great many different cultures, and sexual practices or taboos will reflect this. Including whether or not prostitutes are regarded as legal or heretical on individual planets.

I wonder if the ecclisiarchy has an prerscribed sexual position (like missonary) that is ok, while all the other ones are taboo...

I also wonder what it is called...

Well, there are Missionaries in 40k, too ...

But I believe that such details, too, would be up to individual worlds and their parishes. I imagine most would not care. Some might propagate the Missionary position. Others would recommend something else. All part of local tradition, sometimes backed by the clergy.

It is worth noting that, in spite of the term (which was supposedly only popularised by Alfred Kinsey in 1948, before which the position was known by a multitude of other names), it was never actually adopted by the Catholic Church as a whole and only advertised by parts of the clergy. It is also obviously (way) older then Christianity, and was not historically affiliated with the religion for centuries even after it became dominant.

At least according to Wikipedia. ^^

Gotta love the internets. The most obscure pieces of historical information at your fingertips!

>>>> In the book Legacy a central plot point is the extensive harem of a Rogue Trader.

"If I had to stand by and obediently and quietly watch my mother go out the airlock,

you are going to stand there obediently and quietly and watch your girlfriend get executed"

Well, there are Missionaries in 40k, too ...

But I believe that such details, too, would be up to individual worlds and their parishes. I imagine most would not care. Some might propagate the Missionary position. Others would recommend something else. All part of local tradition, sometimes backed by the clergy.

It is worth noting that, in spite of the term (which was supposedly only popularised by Alfred Kinsey in 1948, before which the position was known by a multitude of other names), it was never actually adopted by the Catholic Church as a whole and only advertised by parts of the clergy. It is also obviously (way) older then Christianity, and was not historically affiliated with the religion for centuries even after it became dominant.

And this is basically how it's been with actual religion. Aside from general rules that (almost) every sect of Christianity agrees with ("Don't fool around with your neighbor's wife"), different places have taken different stances. Some sects say that you should only do it when you're actively trying to have kids, and then no one involved should actually derive any pleasure from it. Some are more, "Whatever, man." Some think it's a very serious failing on the man's part if he isn't pleasuring adequately. Others tend to be more... patriarchal.

Which, again, is part of the reason why I think it's a good thing that it's not officially treated. Given how weird everything else can be in this universe, I'm okay with sex being left to the imagination - something more timeless than the Imperium, something that is just left alone by the Ministorum.

But dude - Rogue Trader. Sex in the 40k universe is whatever proclivities your character has and can get away with. You want a harem so large that you have to drag a cruiser behind yours just to hold them all? If your trader is that into it, then by all means, break out a tow cable and hire some eunuchs.

All I wanana say is Tyranid "crabs" ROTFL - imagine that?!

AKA the cock pinch-est little sons of whoreS you can imagine AKA "cock crustaceans" (QUOTE "Bubbles" TPB)

All I wanana say is Tyranid "crabs" ROTFL - imagine that?!

AKA the cock pinch-est little sons of whoreS you can imagine AKA "cock crustaceans" (QUOTE "Bubbles" TPB)

And when a tyranid synapse creature gets close enough, those pubic hair crabs come under direct control of the hive mind.

Also the 'nids have a creature called a "Dominatrix." *wink wink

* and no, unless you are a Slaanesh titan with specific mutations you aren't big enough

Mmmm. Nothing turns me on quite like spore cloud ducts.