A Brief History of Oral Sex





Peter Baltensperger





Nobody knows exactly when and how or why oral sex became

an integral part of the sexual repertoire of the human race.

What we do know is that cave dwellers some 15,000 years ago

or more already engaged in recreational rather than

procreative sex, including oral activities. Some cave paintings

from that time period depict couples in various innovative

positions and activities, indicating that our earliest ancestors

evolved into sexually active and aware people the way we are

now long before most people had ever thought they did.



The birth of civilization and the beginning of recorded history

bear witness to the fact that oral sex was practiced by many

people a long time ago. The Sumerians, the first literate people

living around 5,000 BCE engaged in explicitly sexual rituals.

The Phoenicians, living from approximately 1,500 - 300 BCE,

indulged in oral sex, as did the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.



In Greece, only some women performed fellatio on their

husbands and called it "playing of the flute"; most men went to

prostitutes for that bit of extramarital excitement afforded them

by fellatio. The great Cleopatra (69 - 30 BCE) was well known

for her love of fellatio. In ancient Egypt, prostitutes were the

first to wear lipstick to advertise their special talents. Oral sex

was also quite popular in ancient China. In Taoism, cunnilingus

was revered as a spiritually fulfilling practice believed to

enhance longevity.



One of the empresses of the T'ang Dynasty (700 - 900 CE)

created a special custom for herself to elevate the females and

humble the males. She issued a royal decree that required

government officials and visiting dignitaries to pay homage to

her by performing cunnilingus while she stood on a dais with

her skirts hiked up and her legs spread wide for all to see.



Ancient Rome and India as well as Christianity considered oral

sex profoundly taboo. Genitals were considered to be unclean,

therefore oral sex was shameful and humiliating and in itself

unclean. This attitude has prevailed in many societies and

among many people to this very day.



The great Indian classic of the techniques and art of love and

sex, The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana from the first centuries

CE, does devote a whole chapter to "Auparishtaka, or Mouth

Congress". Yet although the book is very explicit and very

sex-positive, the chapter on oral sex makes it very clear that it

is mostly eunuchs, disguised either as females or as males,

who perform fellatio on paying customers. The only women

engaged in this act are "unchaste and wanton women, female

attendants and serving maids". The author also makes it clear

that fellatio should not be practiced because it is opposed to

the moral code.



Later editions of the Kama Sutra have, however, a whole

chapter added, "The Congress of the Crow", which contains

detailed and explicit descriptions of oral sex, referred to as

"sucking the mango". These additions are most likely from

contemporary or at least modern editors, not from any ancient

writers who would have whole-heartedly agreed with the author

and his condemnation of the practice.



In the Christian bible, there's an interesting passage in The

Song of Solomon. Chapter 7 contains a detailed description by

the author of his lover's body. Verse 2 has been translated as,

"Your navel is a round goblet that never lacks blended wine."

This translation doesn't make much sense in the sentence

itself or in the context of the poem, since the navel can hardly

be considered to be a goblet nor does it contain any wine. The

word should really be translated as vulva (or something to that

effect), rather than as navel, indicating that the author of the

Song of Songs was well aware of and fond of cunnilingus.



In more recent times, the Moche culture of northern Peru (100

- 800 CE) is known for depicting fellatio in their ceramics. In the

contemporary Baruya culture of Papua New Guinea, the

women engage in fellatio and swallow the semen when they

require physical strength for one reason or another. This

practice still exists now.



Today, fellatio and cunnilingus are, of course, widespread and

widely accepted practices that enhance the sex lives of

countless lovers around the world as a most enjoyable and

titillating variation of sexual activity. Yet even now, large

portions of the population, especially older people, strict

conservatives, and religious fundamentalists but countless

others as well, still abhor the practice as unclean and

unnatural and would never even dream of availing themselves

of the opportunity to experience something as wonderful as

oral sex. Of course, they also don't know what they're missing.



In several American states, oral sex is still now an indictable

offense punishable, in some cases, by prison terms of up to 20

years. In Canadian law, oral sex was bunched together with

many other so-called offenses under the rather vague and

undefined label of "unnatural sex practices". Nobody knew for

sure exactly what these practices were, and it was pretty much

up to the judge to decide what was and what was not.

Surprisingly enough, these laws were in existence until very

recently, but they were eventually abolished in the early 1960s,

especially after then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau

coined the phrase, "The government has no place in the

nation's bedrooms."



Thank goodness for that. But there are, as has been

demonstrated, more than enough documented examples of

people, cultures, and nations openly condoning and

thoroughly enjoying the art of oral sex. Besides, every sex

manual, every book on sexuality, every erotic magazine and

website talks about oral sex and elevates it to one of the most

pleasurable of sexual activities known to humankind since the

very beginning of our race. We can leave the complaining to

the puritans and continue to do what our most distant

ancestors already knew to be a wonderful, highly stimulating,

erotic variation on the age-old theme of sexual conduct and

physical as well as emotional and mental pleasure.





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