Missionary
M/F · Vaginal penetration · Penetrating partner on top
Posed figure
Keypoint template
Attributes
- Position family
- One-on-one
- Primary act
- Vaginal penetration
- Partner arrangement
- Penetrating partner on top
- Penetration type
- Vaginal
- Facing
- Face to face
- Dynamics
- Thrusting
- Support / surface
- Flat surface / bed
- Participant count
- Two
- Composition code
- M/F
- Source medium
- Both
- Physical difficulty
- Low
- Prevalence in adult media
- Very common
- Intensity tier (compliance)
- Explicit
Common camera framing
Description: The receiving partner lies supine while the penetrating partner faces them from above, supported on the arms or forearms. It is the archetypal face-to-face penetrative position and the structural parent of a large family of variants.
Variations: Raising the receiving partner's legs onto the shoulders (deep flexion), spreading or closing the legs, placing a pillow under the hips, or the coital-alignment technique (higher, grinding contact). Anal variants use the same arrangement.
On camera: Commonly shot in side profile for full-body framing, or as penetrating-partner POV. Face-to-face contact makes it a staple opener in video.
AI design considerations: Two horizontally-stacked figures, both head-aligned; foreshortening and limb occlusion at the contact point are the main rendering challenges.
Historical provenance
Where this position appears in historical sex manuals, erotic art & literature · full timeline →
- Samputa (the clasping position)Indian (Gupta era) →
Kama Sutra — Vatsyayana · c. 3rd century CE
- Dragon TurnsChinese (Han dynasty tradition) →
Su Nü Jing (Classic of the Plain Girl) — attributed to the Plain Girl dialogues with the Yellow Emperor · c. 2nd century BCE–2nd century CE; preserved in the Japanese Ishimpō (984 CE)
First of the Nine Ways: the classic supine union.
Depicted in the historical record
Museum-attested works showing this arrangement · full timeline →
- Kylix, Triptolemos PainterAttic Vase Painting →
ca. 470 BC · Museo Nazionale, Tarquinia (ARV2 367.94)
- Lupanar wall paintingsPompeii, Herculaneum & the Silver-and-Ceramic Repertoire →
Before 79 CE (one dating: 72 CE, via a coin impression) · Pompeii, in situ brothel
Related positions
Part of the Erotic Pose Catalog open dataset · CC BY 4.0 · keypoints are idealised COCO-17 templates.