Some of the weirdest attempts to explain human sexual preferences from an ideological viewpoint are related to oral sex. Here is a set of myths that surround oral sex and transform it into a quasi-feminist issue:
– Men who dislike giving oral sex to women are misogynist jerks.
– Men who love administering oral sex to women cannot possibly be misogynist jerks.
– Women who dislike receiving oral sex do not exist. If they do, they must be oppressed victims of patriarchy.
– Women who enjoy giving oral sex are subservient to men.
– The final destination of sperm during oral sex has ideological connotations.
– A true marker of whether a man is a feminist is how enthusiastically he gives oral sex to a woman and how willing he is not to ask for oral sex to be administered to him.
To me, all these attempts to bring people’s sexual preferences into the arena of ideology sound extremely bizarre. We keep making fun of the sexually repressed folks who say things like, “Of course, I don’t want my wife to have oral sex with me and then go kiss the kids with that same mouth.” But are we any different from them if we keep reading ideological meaning into sex acts?
If you want to figure out how feminist one is, believe me, looking at their oral sex practices is really not the way to do so. The manner in which they do or do not enjoy oral sex only tells you one thing about them: this is how they do or do not enjoy oral sex. Looking for a more profound meaning in these practices is completely and utterly futile.
Clarissa's Blog 
Oral sex is a human issue, why make it a feminist issue?? If a man likes to give oral sex and receive it…ok. If a woman likes to give oral sex but not receive it, ok. If a man likes to give oral sex but not receive it, ok. If they both like to give and receive, oral sex, then that’s ok too. I don’t really see the point here.
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That’s exactly what I think, too.
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Actually, I do think validating female sexuality and sexual pleasure was a crucial contribution of early feminism. It’s not like they invented it, like some feminists claim, but they helped dismantle the patriarchal myth that acknowledged sexuality in a female was either a character flaw or a sin, or even a legally-punishable crime. It was a medical opinion not so long back to cure shrill or ‘hysterical’ female troublemakers by cutting off their clitoris, or, going the other way, to apply enormous steel vibrators to ‘relieve them’ at regular intervals. And since these ideologies were practised in Europe during the colonial era, they could be spread to most parts of the globe very effectively.
Just yesterday, for example, I was reading about a very talented Indian poet, a reprint of whose works were banned by the British in the mid-1700s for obscenity, because she spoke very lyrically and graphically about Radha — Krishna’s uncle’s wife and his most famous lover — seeking and finding great sexual pleasure. When her editor (also a woman) and publishers filed an appeal saying this was a glorious piece of their literary heritage, the court (or the government’s lawyer) opined that a culture that valued open proclamations of female sensuality was perverse, and clearly in dire need of civilising. There were also a few local men who supported this stance, equating the the British’ political power with moral authority. Looking at India post-British colonial rule, no one would ever think it was such a very openly sensual culture once.
So I do think female sexuality is a legitimate part of feminist discourse. The question here is whether any of the mainstream gender discourse today can be called feminist in the way I understand it. A lot of it seems to be insecurity mounted on a frame of Puritan guilt, coupled with a frantic desire to appear an individual in full command of herself and choices, coupled with a hysterical need to be accepted by a demanding and judgemental peer group. In short, not so much feminism as a restricted-access clique. And I’ve no interest in that sort of thing at all.
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So if today somebody sings praises to India as a country that is super-liberated sexually and where everybody is so much more sexually fulfilled than in, say, Great Britain, is this an instance of Orientalism? This is not a hypothetical. I know a group of people who keep talking about this and I never know how to react. To me it smacks of exoticizing and orientalizing, but maybe I’m confused.
As for most of feminism having turned into a limited-access clique, that is very true. The clique also speaks a very weird dialect of its own that no sober person can decipher.
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I don’t understand how the Orientalism aspect comes in — perhaps you’re reading those paragraphs of my differently than I intended them. The point of mentioning the censorship of that poet was that patriarchy in India had evolved slightly differently vis a vis female sexuality. Female sexuality was not only acknowledged, it was mystified, raised to be the level of an almost spiritual experience, and women were supposed to be far more sexual than men. The British found this profoundly objectionable, and a proof that Indians were a backward, uncivilised lot. However, denial of female sexuality in England and acknowledgement of it in India both served the same purpose — othering and controlling women. More importantly, current India is far more Victorian and conservative about sexuality than our ex-colonial masters (certainly more than our own cultural past).
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I’m not saying that your writing is Orientalist, of course. I was referring to people who are now travelling to India because they see it as a haven of sexual liberation.
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The feminist part of things does come up when a man makes receiving oral sex a deal-breaker, but refuses to reciprocate. True, some women don’t like getting it; but some don’t like giving it, either. It all comes down to who feels they have to give in, or do without, the most often. It appears that, systemically, women feel far more pressured to please men by giving oral sex, even if they don’t enjoy it, than men feel pressured to do the same. And this reflects relative power in the relationship, which in turn reflects the relative power of men and women in society. That’s when it turns into a feminist issue.
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But does a guy that wants it but refuses to give it really constitute some illustration of the gender power dynamic or is it just a hypocritical jerk? And I ask this because I wonder if its not a matter of making a mountain out of a mole hill.
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It seems to me that although in theory the issue of giving and receiving oral sex need not be tied to gender politics, in practice in modern Western societies it tends to be so, for the reasons alluded to by Dominique. Girls too young to legally have sex and young women socially pressured to retain the physical evidence of virginity are pressured to give head to get and keep boyfriends, under the pretence that while females can repress their sexuality, the male equivalent must be sated. In the early stages of a relationship, or perhaps in an unplanned hook-up where no contraception is available, a woman gives a man a BJ, almost as a thank you for an enjoyable night out: again the implication is that male sexuality is more important, and more compelling, than female.
Of course, in purely anthropological terms, the opposite is true: the female orgasm is more powerful and longer-lasting than the male, women typically have more orgasms than men, and at certain points in a woman’s cycle she may be much hornier than a man typically becomes. And while unprotected female-on-male oral sex carries significant STD risks – how many straight men would allow an unknown man’s sperm to pass their lips? – the medical risks to a man of going down on a woman are minimal.
So it seems to me that oral sex may indeed be a feminist issue, in that a man who demands it but is reluctant to give probably doesn’t appreciate women or enjoy female sexuality as a man who gets off on going down on the woman he loves.
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“young women socially pressured to retain the physical evidence of virginity”
– In MODERN WESTERN societies? You are not serious, are you? 🙂 In modern Western societies, even 5-year-olds know that “physical evidence of virginity” is a myth.
” In the early stages of a relationship, or perhaps in an unplanned hook-up where no contraception is available, a woman gives a man a BJ, almost as a thank you for an enjoyable night out: again the implication is that male sexuality is more important, and more compelling, than female.”
– Are you writing from Saudi Arabia, by any chance? 🙂
“So it seems to me that oral sex may indeed be a feminist issue, in that a man who demands it ”
– Anybody who “demands” anything in sex should be avoided.
‘that a man who demands it but is reluctant to give probably doesn’t appreciate women or enjoy female sexuality as a man who gets off on going down on the woman he loves”
– Crowds of women do not enjoy being recipients of oral sex. Let’s remember that no woman should be forced to accommodate a man who “gets off on going down”.
“And while unprotected female-on-male oral sex carries significant STD risks – how many straight men would allow an unknown man’s sperm to pass their lips?”
– Very few straight women would allow it, either. A man who doesn’t withdraw and lets his sperm pass the woman’s lips usually gets dumped immediately as a rude, sexually weak creature.
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– Very few straight women would allow it, either. A man who doesn’t withdraw and lets his sperm pass the woman’s lips usually gets dumped immediately as a rude, sexually weak creature.(Clarissa)
Unless of course the woman actually loves it and in that case when he does cum in her mouth she may have found her perfect match and decide to marry him. 😉
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Yes, there are all kinds of fetishes.
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Yes, and it is grand when you find that your partner shares yours. 🙂
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“Sucker,” is a deragatory term for a stupid person. Women need to remember that a man can easily have sex with a woman he is downright contemptuous of. Young, attractive women are in great demand and can command money/marriage for sexual favors. Men who cannot afford them will seek sex from less attractive women while thinking less of them. Girls be warned.
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“Women need to remember that a man can easily have sex with a woman he is downright contemptuous of.”
– And so can a woman.
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You somehow seem believe that there is such a thing as an ideologically neutral act.
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Well, I just stared out of the window for 2 minutes in an entirely ideologically neutral way. And then I ideologically neutrally yawned. So yeah, I do seem to believe.
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