There is a festival in Indonesia, called the Pon festival. In this festival, people visit an island to have s$x with strangers. The Pon Festival has visitors arriving at a shrine to have adulterous s₤x believing that it brings good luck.
The festival attracts couples who come to the spot to have s₤x with complete strangers even if they are married to other people. Conversations about s₤x and exploring s₤uality are viewed as taboo in several parts of the world as they are projected as being against traditional values.
But several rituals and beliefs dating back centuries tell another story about the attitude towards s₤x in these very places.
The event is held seven times a year and during the festivities, revelers will hike up Gunung Kemukus, a hilltop Islamic shrine, found
on the island of Java to take part in a holy ceremony to ensure good luck and fortune by having s₤x.
Participants in the festival of Pon, have to spend the night atop the mountain and have s₤x with a stranger if they want good luck and fortune to befall them in the future.
What’s more, is that tradition holds that this will only work if they have s₤x with the exact same person all seven times throughout the year during Pon.
The ritual itself involves offering prayers and flowers at the gravesite of Pangeran Samodro – one of the sons of a Javanese king. Participants then must wash in a sacred spring and then find a stranger to do the horizontal tango with.
Indonesia is known to be the most populated Muslim majority country in the world and considering this, it seems quite bizarre for a ritual requiring extramarital s₤x to exist in the country. But a festival in Indones
ia involving s₤xual intercourse between strangers next to a shrine seems to paint a very different picture.
The Pon Festival which takes place at a shrine on Mount Kemukus in Java The strangers are then required to meet seven times every 35th day to complete the ritual.
The shrine of Gunung Kemukus houses the remains of a 16th-century Javanese prince called Pangeran Samudro and his stepmother Nyai Ontrowulan.
It is believed that the two fled to Solo when the king discovered their affair only to be caught by villagers while having s₤x before they were killed.
One version of the story says that Samudro sanctioned adulterous s₤x before his death. He also said that having more scandalous intercourse than the prince and his stepmother on the grave can bring good luck.
Several people visit the shrine hoping for good luck and success in business, and while s
ome do inform their legal spouse about the trip, most prefer to keep it a secret.
