Fellatio, Anyone?
Bill and Monica may have elevated the blowjob to superstar status, but they didn’t invent fellatio. Hell, bonobos do it. They didn’t even perfect it, as far as I know. If you want tips, look to the performances of Sasha Gray. (Watching her, I reaffirmed by belief that the young have much to teach us). So, it could be in our ancestry, primate and human, but we haven’t all always taken a such a dim view of it.
The ancient Greeks, for example, likely didn’t have a problem with the nob job. After all, it was a pretty good contraceptive.
The Romans, conversely, saw everything as a power issue—and the BJ was no exception. In Latin there were two words to differentiate the giver and receiver: “irrumare” to penetrate, and “fellare,” to be penetrated. One is active and in control, the other passive and being controlled.
Practicing irrumato is different than just happily receiving the attention of another—it involves active thrusting into the mouth, and was considered an act of power by the Romans; Roman men could practice it on anyone of lower rank but to receive it from anyone of lower rank would have been taboo. In fact it was looked down on in general because “known practitioners were supposed to have foul breath, and were often unwelcome as guests at a dinner table.” (Maybe it’s not surprising that the Greeks invented and early form of chewing gum from the sap of the mastic tree.)
Around the same time (300 CE), the Kama Sutra asserted that oral sex was fine, but more as a stimulant provided by eunuchs before marital sex, or as an aid to masturbation.
The Middle Ages saw oral sex reduced to a sin because it was useless (nonprocreative) fun. (So how come Skeeball isn’t a sin?) Whether it was especially taboo or in vogue at different times in the next few centuries is a little difficult to discern but at least it pops up in the 19th century as in this painting of fellatio by Charles Chaplin from the Kinsey Institute Gallery, as well as in the story of Felix Faure. Faure was a French politician who died in 1899 while having sex in his office with a younger woman. It was alleged to be oral sex. (One wonders if there were moments Bill Clinton didn’t wish he’d gone thataway.)
The ancient Greeks, for example, likely didn’t have a problem with the nob job. After all, it was a pretty good contraceptive.
The Romans, conversely, saw everything as a power issue—and the BJ was no exception. In Latin there were two words to differentiate the giver and receiver: “irrumare” to penetrate, and “fellare,” to be penetrated. One is active and in control, the other passive and being controlled.
Practicing irrumato is different than just happily receiving the attention of another—it involves active thrusting into the mouth, and was considered an act of power by the Romans; Roman men could practice it on anyone of lower rank but to receive it from anyone of lower rank would have been taboo. In fact it was looked down on in general because “known practitioners were supposed to have foul breath, and were often unwelcome as guests at a dinner table.” (Maybe it’s not surprising that the Greeks invented and early form of chewing gum from the sap of the mastic tree.)
Around the same time (300 CE), the Kama Sutra asserted that oral sex was fine, but more as a stimulant provided by eunuchs before marital sex, or as an aid to masturbation.
The Middle Ages saw oral sex reduced to a sin because it was useless (nonprocreative) fun. (So how come Skeeball isn’t a sin?) Whether it was especially taboo or in vogue at different times in the next few centuries is a little difficult to discern but at least it pops up in the 19th century as in this painting of fellatio by Charles Chaplin from the Kinsey Institute Gallery, as well as in the story of Felix Faure. Faure was a French politician who died in 1899 while having sex in his office with a younger woman. It was alleged to be oral sex. (One wonders if there were moments Bill Clinton didn’t wish he’d gone thataway.)
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