The Philosophy of Oral Sex

 It has to do with loneliness and self-disgust when we begin as babies in this world. If we are lucky, everything about us is acceptable and adorable, from our toes to our temples. Then gradually we grow up and become ashamed of our nakedness and guilty about so much, it becomes a taboo to touch or be touched. We have no choice but to keep a minimum of 60, or even better, 90cm distance between us and others at all times. But deep inside, we never quite forget the needs with which we were born, to be accepted as we truly are, in every area; hence the significance of oral sex.

It sounds disgusting when we think of doing it with an “inappropriate” person, and that is point: Nothing is erotic that isn’t also, with the wrong person, revolting but with the right person at the precise juncture where disgust could be at its height, we feel only acceptance, welcoming permission.

The privilege nature of a relationship is sealed by an act which with someone would’ve been sickening. Oral sex is interesting and exciting because it’s about closeness. Normal life continually requires us to be polite so much of the time, we have to repress all that is ostensibly bad within us; our lust and our desires.

We can’t both be accepted by society and reveal who we really are. Hence the erotic ecstasy – which is more accurately, really, just emotional relief when oral sex permits our secrets self with all its bad and dirty sides, to be witnessed and enthusiastically endorsed by someone else. The bond of loyalty between a couple, grows stronger with every increase in explicitness; the more unacceptable our behavior would be to the larger world, the more we feel as if we’re building a heaven of mutual acceptance.

Sex liberates us for a time, and that punishing dichotomy between dirty and clean. It literally purifies us by engaging the most apparently polluted sides of ourselves in its games. We can press our mouths - the most public and respectable aspect of our faces, eagerly to the most contaminated parts of the other. Thereby symbolizing a total psychological approval. Much as a priest would accept a penitent, guilty of many transgressions back in the fold of the church with a light kiss on the head.

The pleasure of oral sex is deeply rich and significant. It isn’t primarily about a pleasant physiological sensation at all. It is about psychology, acceptance, and a promise of an end to loneliness.