Your question made me think me think of James Cook and Joseph Banks' experiences as described in Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder. I went back to it looking for some insight.

Most conflicts between the islanders and the ship's men seemed to revolve around theft. Sex, on the other hand, seemed to be an amicable form of trade:

Much time was spent in bargaining for sexual favors. The basic currency was any kind of usable metal object: there was no need for gold or silver or trinkets. Among the able seamen the initial going rate was one ship's nail for one ordinary fuck, but hyper-inflation soon set in. The Tahitians well understood a market economy. There was a run on anything metal that could be smuggled off the ship - cutlery, cleats, handles, cooking utensils, spare tools, but especially nails. It was said that the Endeavour's carpenter soon operated an illegal monopoly on metal goods, and nails were leaving the ship by the sackful.

Their queen, Oborea, allowed Banks to sleep with her personal servant, Otheothea, and later offered herself as a companion (though Banks wasn't interested). He also describes a Tahitian man bartering with him for the use of a woman. So it seems like the trading of sexual favors was acceptable within the Tahitian community. But I doubt the Tahitians were happy with their women acquiring "the British disease" - the STD - that became rampant during the ship's stay.

Edit: In response to u/359RP's question, another excerpt from Holmes' book:

The only Tahitian practice that Banks found totally alien and repulsive was that of infanticide, which was used regularly and without compunction as a form of birth control by couples who were not ready yet to support children. Banks could scarcely believe this, until he questioned several couples who freely admitted to destroying two or three children, showing not the slightest apparent guilt or regret. This was a different kind of innocence, one far harder to accept. Banks pursued the question, and found that the custom originated in the formation of communal groups in which the trading of sexual favors were freely exchanged between different partners.

Source: The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (2010, Kindle edition)

In Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes she talks briefly about the sexual practices of the Hawaiians in the days of early European contact. The culture of the time had sexual cultural norms which were not at all like our own and were also deeply troubling to the early waves of New England missionaries.

Although the Hawaiians had marriage, sexual monogamy was not a given in these relationships or even an expectation- for men or women. And this being the prevailing norm- there seems to have been no challenge based on the 'affronted ego' that most people from a current culture would expect.

To add to this- Hawaiian culture had up until the Christian era a highly spiritualist view of procreation, fertility, and familial lineage. Royal siblings routinely married with the intent to procreate, in the hopes of pure and spiritually powerful offspring to lead the royal family in generations to come. Such children, carried lifelong social rank and title specifically tied to the closeness of their parents familial relation. I.e. The child of full siblings out ranked the child of two half siblings, who would in turn out rank the child of cousins. One well know symbol of this cultural and religious focus on fertility was the Pa'u, an intricately woven feather skirt worn by high ranking women. In Vowell's book, she is admonished by a museum historian for referring to one famous pa'u as a "robe" since one intended connotation of the skirt is (by its covering of the sexual organs) a reverence for the fertility of its wearer.

EDIT: type-o

If permitted, may I ask a related question?

Would this of had a significant (if any) impact on the local demographics of any of the islands?

Piggyback question: what would the attitudes of the sailors toward sex have been? Since this is approaching the Victorian era, would they have shared that era's sexual morality or would that have been less of a thing for sailors?

Hello everyone,

In this thread, there have been a large number of incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compounds the issue. As such, they were removed by the mod-team.

In particular, after some internal discussion, we removed a long string of comments relating to a source that is questionable at best.

Please, before you attempt to answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed.

If you're coming here to post an answer, you need to first ask yourself a few questions:

• Do I, personally, know enough about sex and gender relations in Polynesia or a subset of Polynesia to answer this question comprehensively?

• Am I essentially sure of what I'm about to post here?

• Is what I post here supported by academic-level sources?

• If asked, can I provide sources upon request?

Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!