Some people have had a visceral response to the novel Sex with an Enormous Fish. Not only is there is a general perception that closeness to fish is slimy and unpleasant, but also that it is rare.

This site presents evidence of intimacy between people and fish since the beginning of recorded time. As you wade through the overwhelming mass of examples and descriptions, you will become convinced that, while sex with fish may indeed be uncomfortable and perhaps rather outside the spirit of the more familiar religious texts, it does appear to be the norm.

Click on the pictures to go to the facts about human interactions with fish.

Disguising piscophilic proclivities with the story of an attractive mermaid has a much longer history than we might expect.

Tudor nobles were refreshingly honest about their presumed ancestry.

Kindling desire in an exotic mate. The Piri Reis map of 1513.

The time the Royal Academy of Arts actively promoted sex with fish.

It’s not only men who have a weakness for the merfolk.

What more obvious symbol of man’s lust for fish than the mermaid?

What did Jonah really do with that big fish?

Not technically fish, but what is going on between women and octopodes?

Did the Knights of the Round Table choose a solo route to having sex with their fish? This exhibit in the Ashmolean Museum suggests that this may have been the case.

Ichthyophallic marital aid from Assyrian Nineveh.

A Japanese solution to the practical issues of rituals involving sex with fish.

First recorded use of sex with fish to advertise cigarettes.

A lovely sculpture in rural England showing a cherub in joyous congress with an ecstatic osteichthyan partner.

The papers reported it as a man ‘saving’ a fish. It’s pretty obvious what was really happening.

Why is Venus embarrassed? The usual reason.