A brief history of oral sex, from ancient China to DJ Khaled So, DJ Khaled point blank refuses to go down on his wife because “it’s different rules for men”. When pushed […]

So, DJ Khaled point blank refuses to go down on his wife because “it’s different rules for men”. When pushed to clarify his stance on withholding head, but expecting plenty from her, he explained that “a woman should praise the man — the king.”

A man thinking his partner should worship him with a blowjob is hardly big news, but what was newsworthy was the public’s reaction. Not only were DJ Khaled’s attitudes roundly condemned by women who (frankly) expect far more from their partners in 2018, but many prominent men came out to bat for team cunnilingus.

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Hurrah! There was genuine bafflement from the heterosexual man camp as to why someone would withhold dining at the Y. Many felt Khaled had let the side down. Others challenged his fears that yodelling in the valley emasculates a man, and argued (rightly) being a good lover means giving good head. There has been a definite historical shift.

His squeamishness is not without precedent

Sadly, DJ Khaled’s squeamishness around heterosexual cunnilingus is not without precedent. Freud theorised men are terrified of the vulva because they subconsciously fear it will castrate them (it won’t). His castration theories have been repeatedly challenged, but throughout much of Western history (pre-Dwayne Johnson, at least) men giving oral sex to women has been regarded as an emasculating act.

‘Pussy was not only celebrated, it was a superfood. Take that, kale crisps’

Attitudes in non-Western cultures have been very different. For example, in ancient China, Taoism taught ingesting vaginal secretions would strengthen the Yang (male) essence. Therefore, pussy was not only celebrated, it was a superfood. Take that, kale crisps. An ancient Sumerian love song, dating to 2000 BC, also celebrates the taste of the vulva: “Like her mouth her vulva is sweet, like her vulva her mouth is sweet.”

The Kama Sutra’s advice

Surprisingly, the Indian ‘Kama Sutra’, composed sometime around the 3rd century AD, isn’t a fan of either fellatio or cunnilingus (unless it’s a man getting head from a male sex worker). But, the ‘Kama Sutra’ is crystal clear in its instruction that men should give women orgasms, and plenty of them. And if that isn’t enough to convince you, in Sanskrit, the language of the ‘Kama Sutra’, one of the words for the clitoris is ‘smara-chattra’, which literally translates to ‘umbrella of the god of love’.

When cunnilingus is spoken about in Hellenistic literature things are not so rosy. Growling at the badger was generally regarded as something repugnant, used only by lesbians, and weak men whose erection had failed them. The fear that the penis is being replaced, or is not ‘enough’, is palpable. So, much so that many Ancient Greek insults involve accusing someone of rug munching – in much the same way as today we might call someone a ‘pussy’ to mean a weak person.

Jokes that the vulva is dirty have a long history

Greek playwrights, Aristophanes (c.446-386 BC) mentions cunnilingus several times to point to a character’s immoral and effeminate nature. His character Ariphrades appears in several plays as the ‘inventor’ of cunnilingus: ‘he gloats in vice, is not merely a dissolute man and utterly debauched- but he actually invented a new form of vice; for he pollutes his tongue with abominable pleasures’. First century Greek poet Nicarchus referred to cunnilingus as ‘sleeping in Phoenicia’, which sounds quite lovely but is actually a reference to the deep red dye made in the region, and an allusion to menstrual blood. Jokes that the vulva is dirty, bloody, polluted, etc. have a very long history indeed. And jokes often tap into much deeper fears.

The Romans went one better and actually considered the word clitoris (landīca) an obscenity, in much the same way as ‘cunt’ is obscene today. It was regarded as so naughty, it really only appears in street graffiti; ‘Fulviae landicam peto’ (‘Seek the clitoris of Fulvia’), and ‘Eupla laxa landicosa’ (Eupla, a loose, large clitoris’). Of course, none of this means that cunnilingus didn’t happen, in fact the brothel frescoes at Pompeii show it was a service on offer – and an expensive one at that. But, it does mean sneezing in the cabbage was something of a taboo.

Cunnilingus continued to be viewed as an unclean, emasculating, but nevertheless popular pastime well into the Middle Ages. Even the church got involved. The ninth-century ‘Old Irish Penitential’ contains the following advice for priests doling out penances; ‘Anyone who performs the fornication of the lips penance for four years if it is their first time, but if it is usually their custom seven’. The ‘lips’ referred to here are generally understood as being the labia.

In Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’ (1387), a young wife sticks her ‘naked ers’ (arse) out a window, where a simpering suitor kisses ‘her hole’, believing it to be her mouth. He then jumps back having ‘felte a thyng al rough and long’ and begins to shout that ‘womman hath no berd’ (beard). Humiliated at forced cunnilingus, he flees and plots his revenge.

It has even been suggested that John Milton’s (1608-1674) description of the biblical Samson as losing all his ‘strength in the lascivious lap of a deceitful Concubine’, is a metaphor for how diving for pearls is unmanly.

Interestingly, in the records of the Early Modern witch trials, many poor women accused were tortured into confessing acts of demonic cunnilingus. In 1619, Margaret Flowers confessed to having a black rat that sucked upon the teat on her ‘inward parts of her secrets’. In 1645, Margaret Moone was found to have ‘long teats or bigges in her secret parts, which seemed to have been lately sucked’ by her familiar. In Bury-St-Edmunds, 1665, Elderly widow Rose Cullender was found to have three teats in her vulva that she confessed had ‘lately been sucked, and upon the straining of it there issued out white milkie matter’.

‘Cunnilingus has long been caught up in gendered power struggles’

I could keep going but suffice to say that cunnilingus has long been caught up in gendered power struggles. In the deeply patriarchal world of yesteryear, the penis reigned supreme and any challenge to that power was viewed with suspicion. Little wonder, then, that a sex act that pleasures only the vulva and does not require a penis (or even a man), has come in for particular censor. But, what we say publicly is usually very different from what we enjoy in private, and people have been pleasuring each other orally for as long as there have been tits and tongues.

Why do we do oral sex?

But, rather than asking why someone wouldn’t give head, a far more interesting question, anthropologically speaking, is why do any of us do it? Oral sex has been observed throughout the animal kingdom, but humans indulge in this behaviour more than any other animal on the planet. From an evolutionally perspective, oral sex serves no procreative function and there have been many theories as to what is driving this behaviour. In 2013, Michael N. Pham theorised humans perform oral sex on each other to secure mating privileges and to try and detect infidelity. He suggested when a man goes down on a woman he is subconsciously on the hunt for another man’s sperm. Yum. Other studies have argued that we instinctively use oral sex to check the health, virility and cleanliness of a partner.

According to a 2016 survey by Planned Parenthood, as many as 80% of women have difficulty with orgasm from vaginal intercourse alone, and between 5 and 10% of women never experience an orgasm. Ever. Whatever the evolutionary function, cunnilingus is very important, and despite the opinions of DJ pussy-phobe, most of us now understand this. We are finally in a place where women can not only ask for pleasure, but where men are keen to give it. So fellas, whether you’re subconsciously hunting for sperm, carrying out a quick fanny physical, or just looking for your ‘I’ve been a brave boy’ sticker, please do get stuck in. Because if you aren’t prepared to give as well as to receive, you’re not the King – you’re just bad in bed.

Sadly, as Khaled has proved, fears that eating your partner out will somehow make you less of a man are still around today.