AM I ODD? A BRIEF LOOK AT SOME MORE UNUSUAL ASPECTS OF SEX
Unbelievable though it might seem to many people, there are individuals, lots of them, who believe that any form of sexual expression other than putting the penis into the vagina is a perversion, and for some women, to enjoy sex simply for the pleasure it gives them is near perverse.
Such notions still underlie our cultural heritage. Unconsciously, many people, including those who think of themselves as sexually liberated, believe that any indulgence in sexual pleasure is likely to bring punishment from God, perhaps in the form of mental illness or disease. Our laws and customs also reflect the view that sex is sinful and harmful.
Our sexualities work against this suppression imposed in childhood and adulthood. But the desires and instincts that are blocked may have to find an outlet in some closely related form and this, by definition, is a deviation. However, our sexualities are as various as our personalities, so some people all of the time and all of us some of the time are going to be attracted to activities, either as a prelude to intercourse or as a substitute for it, which do not conform to the basic cultural norms of copulation. Because there is often so much shame attached to the desire it may not be admitted to the individual’s partner. Even if it is, some partners cannot cope with the request for what to them is very odd behaviour and sometimes use a deviation like this as a reason for divorce.
Because the whole subject is so shrouded in secrecy the public’s knowledge of what ‘normal’ people do or would like to do sexually is poor and it is easy to denounce the sexual behavior of others as abnormal, deviant or perverse. Such condemnation used to be very prevalent, but many activities that used to be thought of as unusual or perverted are now known to be widespread and well within the range of acceptable and ‘normal’ behaviour. Oral sex (fellatio and cunnilingus) is an example and is dealt with in the chapter on foreplay.
Today the topic of oral sex has been so widely discussed that it has become a positive fashion. Most couples use it simply as a sexual enhancer before actual intercourse and so long as it remains a form of foreplay to arouse or an occasional change from vaginal intercourse it is acceptably normal but a person who can have only orgasms as a result of oral sex probably needs professional help.
Cunnilingus is probably increasing and the main explanation other than the fact that inhibited women can often succeed in having an orgasm only with oral sex, may be that the male population collectively is losing its self-confidence with regard to penile performance and is increasingly depending on the more reliable tongue, which does not lose its erection or come too quickly. In the end, though, we are mammals and mammals suckle their young. So our first physical pleasure in life is oral and this involves sucking another person. It would be surprising if orality were not important in our sexuality – it certainly is in some other mammals. Its practice in the past has been denounced as a perversion simply because it seemed to lead to: ‘pleasure sex’ rather than furthering copulation as a reproductive duty.
What we have said about oral sex can be used as a model to discuss almost any sexual activity other than basic and unadorned copulation. Nearly all the activities involved can be used as a part of foreplay (as a sexual enhancer), as an occasional alternative to penis-in-vagina sex, or as a more or less perpetual substitute for it.
In foreplay we tend to re-enact not only our psychosexual development but also the stages through which most young people progress from first sexually kissing a member of the opposite sex to first having intercourse. So foreplay usually contains elements of pre-genital behaviour (oral, anal and phallic) and to this extent could be (wrongly) regarded as perverse. Good foreplay also contains an element of courtship too. Everyone, or nearly everyone, unless they repress them into the unconscious, has sexual fantasies which they, or others, would think of as perverse. Foreplay can be the way in which couples, especially younger ones, both express and contain their perverse thoughts and fantasies. This explains why young couples tend to experiment more sexually and this is good because they should in this way slowly evolve a pattern of sexual behaviour which suits them both. In general, a sensible rule is that anything which helps one’s partner to greater arousal and better quality orgasms and satisfaction is not only permissible but welcome. So voyeuristic, exhibitionist, oral and even minor sadistic and masochistic acts as well as bondage could well be involved.
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