A deep dive into the oddly sexual history of where the Easter Bunny comes from.

Bonking isn’t really the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Easter Bunny. Unless it is, in which case, we’re not sure we can help you.

Moving on.

For generations, parents have been hiding chocolate eggs in pot plants and around the back garden, telling their children the treats are gifts from the magical Easter Bunny.

Easter being a Christian holiday symbolising the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, one could assume a ye olden time Easter Bunny might’ve come from biblical beginnings.

However, it would appear the opposite is true. So how did the Easter Bunny become such a huge symbol of the Christian celebration?

Short answer: sex. Or, more politely put, procreation.

To find out exactly why we’ll be stuffing our faces with sweet, delicious chocolate rabbits this Easter, we dove deep on the history and origins of the modern Easter Bunny.

Side note – you really ought to try this easy no-bake Easter recipe ASAP. Post continues after video.

Where does the Easter Bunny come from?

So where did the Easter Bunny come from? By all accounts, Germany.

Some folklorists have suggested the Easter Bunny comes from German folklore and an ancient Anglo-Saxon myth around the fertility goddess Ostara. The Encyclopedia Mythica explains that:

“Ostara is the personification of the rising sun. In that capacity she is associated with the spring and is considered a fertility goddess. She is the friend of all children and to amuse them she changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit brought forth brightly coloured eggs, which the Greek goddess gave to children as gifts. From her name and rites the festival of Easter is derived.”

According to The Conversation, the earliest published reference of the Easter Bunny and its egg-laying abilities is in a late 16th-century German text. A German tradition dictated Osterhase or Oschter Haws, as their Easter Bunny was originally called, would lay coloured eggs in nests made by children over the Easter period.

History.com reports this tradition made it to America when a group of Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1700s. Come the 19th century, actual eggs had been replaced with chocolate eggs, and nests with baskets. Easter Bunny chocolates also started popping up – the creators of possibly the world’s most famous chocolate bunny, the Lindt Easter Bunny, claim their bunny-shaped chocolate was inspired when one of the Maîtres Chocolatiers saw a little bunny one morning in his garden.

What does the Easter Bunny symbolise?

This is where the sexual stuff comes in.

You know the saying, 'bonking like rabbits'? It comes from the fact rabbits and hares are notoriously talented at procreating, and procreating a lot.

Still, what do the sex lives of rabbits have to do with Easter and the Easter Bunny?

Religious artworks have associated rabbits and hares with Mary, mother of Jesus, for centuries, The Conversation reports. Titian’s painting The Madonna of the Rabbit depicts this relationship - Mary holds the rabbit in the foreground, signifying both her virginity and fertility. The rabbit is white to convey her purity and innocence.

Specifically, the link between hares (not rabbits) and the virgin birth comes from the fact they are able to produce a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first.

Seeker reports the University of Florida's Center for Children's Literature and Culture also traced back the Easter Bunny's heritage to 13th-century, pre-Christian Germany, when people worshiped a goddess called The Teutonic deity Eostra. She was the goddess of spring and fertility, and her symbol was the rabbit because of the animal's high reproduction rate.

The only icky part about the Easter Bunny being a bit of a sex fiend is, well, that Hugh Hefner thought they same thing about rabbits.

The late Playboy founder chose bunny ears as his Playboy logo, calling the women featured in his magazine Playboy Bunnies because "a girl resembles a bunny".

“The rabbit is a fresh animal, shy, vivacious, jumping – sexy. First it smells you, then it escapes, then it comes back, and you feel like caressing it, playing with it. A girl resembles a bunny. Joyful, joking," he told The Guardian.

Eugh.

Try not to think of that while you're enjoying your Easter Bunny chocolate.

Do/did you believe in the Easter Bunny? Tell us in the comments!

Want more Easter content? Read more here:

• The $9 Kmart Easter bunny costume you need for your child this Sunday.
• We've ranked Australia's best Easter chocolates and we won't be backing down.
• This is for everyone who knows the pain of having a birthday at Easter.