Ok, fine, that bad experience I had in college wasn’t typical. I get it. Sheesh.
…
The reference to Charlie Chaplin’s habits upthread led me to discover that California was one state where oral sex was technically illegal in the 1920’s. The US Supreme Court didn’t strike down sodomy laws until 2003. Yes, I understand that the application of these laws was mainly focused on homosexuals, and that married people especially could be expected to be left alone. But it is still interesting that there was considerable moral opprobrium about the practice for much of American history sufficient that many laws applied to heterosexual activities as well. There has undeniably been a change in acceptability over time.
Yeah, that’s a real knee-slapper.
Right? This is what we get with open borders.
I’m not trying to be snarky, but would a soldier come back from the war and go to his wife and say, "Gee Honey, you know what those French whores I banged after the liberation of Paris did? They did something called a “blow job.” Can you try that some time?
If you’re not trying to be snarky, why would you phrase your question in such a ridiculous way? Postulating an absurd scenario doesn’t negate the fact that US soldiers might have been exposed to practices that were less common back home. Obviously they could have encouraged their partners to do so in a more subtle way.
Some bats have been doing it forever, it seems. Here is the Wikipedia quote:
Many species of flying fox are polygynandrous, meaning that each individual will mate with several other individuals. The Samoa flying fox is a notable exception because it is monogamous. Flying fox sexual behaviors include oral sex in addition to intercourse, with fellatio and cunnilingus observed between opposite sexes, as well as homosexual fellatio in at least one species, the Bonin flying fox. Opposite-sex oral sex is associated with increased duration of intercourse, while same-sex fellatio is hypothesized to encourage colony formation of otherwise-antagonistic males in colder climates.
Cool, is it not?
ecg, I’m not so sure that the ancient Greeks didn’t have a notion of homosexuality. In Plato’s Symposium, one of the guests tells a fable of how humans were once double-people, some with both halves male, some with both halves female, and some with one half each. But then they got split up into single people as punishment for something-or-other, and ever since, the resulting single people have been trying to find their other half. The implication is that some people inherently have an “other half” of the opposite sex, and some people inherently have an “other half” of the same sex.
Whether something is technically illegal is not a good guide to whether there’s moral opprobrium against it. It’s illegal to buy a regular DVD, then play it for anyone other friends and family or outside of a private room, but there’s no general moral opprobium about a teacher showing a movie to a class, or a meetup group watching their movie in a restaurant room, or someone offering an open invite to watch a movie at their house. Copying (including torrenting, where you share it while downloading it) a movie is illegal, but most people don’t react with disgust when they find someone who torrents movies. Prior to 1992 it was illegal to record music off the radio onto a cassette or copy music from cassette to cassette, but making mix tapes and copying records to tape were actually really common.
If someone follows the logic you used above, though, they’d have to conclude that these activities were clearly completely unacceptable. That people in the 1980s considered creating mix tapes an activity worthy of condemnation, and that people today would react with horror to discover that a friend of theirs issued an open invite to watch movies. But we all know that’s not actually the case.
And there was a general sexual liberation after WWI, as I said above, that is almost universally connected to the doughboys’ newly-acquired cosmopolitan awareness of other cultures. Could anyone really think that if a million young men were exposed to a great new sexual experience overseas (even if they only heard others talking about it) they wouldn’t try to introduce it at home?
Sodomy was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Homosexuality was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Miscegenation was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Cousin marriage was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Prostitution was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Alcohol was illegal because of moral opprobrium. Marijuana was illegal because of moral opprobrium. (All in some places and times, if not necessarily universally.)
Offenses that involved bodily pleasures became illegal for one reason and one reason only: moral opprobrium. You cannot compare them to impersonal crimes.
In 1982 the Mormon church sent a letter to the bishops and (leaders of the local congregations) other local leaders condemning oral sex, even among married couples, explicitly stating that anyone participating in oral sex would be barred from the temple until they “repented and discontinued” this practice. It was considered in the handbook of instructions as an “unnatural, impure or unholy practice.” Under pressure from members, they church relented to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” status, but this policy was not removed, modified or replaced. I have no idea if it’s still in effect now.
I just need to point out that in looking at the main page of GQ, I see this thread with 69 replies.
Google translate seems to butcher them.
I think his point is that things can remain illegal long after moral opprobrium has subsided. But you have a valid point regarding the comparison to mix tapes and movie watching. That’s not a fair comparison.
Martial 4.43:
¹cinadeus, ie passive male sexual partner
²ie, may I be poisoned
³ie, may I be castrated (?)
Martial 3.88:
(trans. Susan McLean)
I pointed out that the same evidence that was cited cited to show continuing moral opprobrium against sodomy existed or exists for making mix tapes in the 80s or showing dvds to a class today. If you’re arguing that the illegality of acts does not show the existence of moral opprobrium, then the earlier claim is invalidated. Also, the argument for copyright laws is generally based on ‘that would be stealing’, and laws against stealing are based on… moral opprobrium, so your claim that they are based on something completely different doesn’t really hold up.
This is especially noteworthy for sodomy laws, since while the laws technically outlawed all sodomy, they were almost always only prosecuted either for situations involving either same-sex contact or what would be classed as sexual assault under laws today. If the opprobrium was really against the acts, you’d expect to see it applied more generally.
Thievery has long been regarded by every culture as a crime. In England, it once warranted capital punishment. Yet back then it was inequitably applied, and mostly against lower classes. (And so it is today. Who’d athunkit.) You could probably make an argument that every crime in the books has been throughout history inequitably applied against less favored groups. It’s a meaningless argument.
I responded to one particular line in your post:
So what. Moral opprobrium is exactly a guide in this case. That’s what the entire thread is about. Whatever your point is escapes me.
" When did oral sex become a common part of sex?"
Could it be connected with sexual ignorance? It was not such a long time ago that people used to grow up with next to no sexual education. Books and magazines were banned and censorship laws were widely applied. Sex outside marriage was a taboo and pregnancy outside marriage could result in someone being socially ostracised and punished.
My father told me how it was in the 1950s. Sex was something depicted in curious ‘Health and Efficiency’ magazines that had young women on the cover playing volley ball in the nude. Their modesty protected by the ball, a tree branch of some other object. The rumour was that the magazines contained more revealing pictures of the female form inside. The shop window was reinforced to prevent sexually frustrated men from smashing the glass and stealing this semi obscene material…I have heard that those mail order catalogues were one of the few places a fellow could see pictures of women in their underwear. There was a profound level of ignorance regarding the human body and sex. It must have led to a lot of frustration and some disappointing honeymoons.
This situation famously changed in 1962 with the introduction of the contraceptive pill, which removed the fear of pregnancy. It was also a time of social mobility, and the post war baby boomers reaching sexual maturity. It was quite a remarkable change in short space of time.
I would suggest, the technology of printing magazines made it economic to produce and distribute affordable pornography. In fact if we consider each of the advances in printed and motion picture technology, the pornographers were very quick to take advantage of the changes. Super 8, VHS, Betamax, DVDs, Satelliite TV…then Video on Demand and streaming over the Internet. Then from TV, to Desktop PC, to tablets and smartphones: all allowing progressively more private and personal media consumption.
These days you can find pretty much anything with a few searches, hopefully without anyone looking over your shoulder.
I would suggest oral sex became a common part of sex when teens acquired the ability to watch porn and share rude pictures and movies with each other. This certainly happened in the days of the porn magazines, later when they had access to video player or PC. But obviously became increasingly common when the Internet got going in the mid 90s and again with the rise of social media in the last ten years.
Sexual mores have certainly changed because people are simply no longer living in a state of ignorance. Whether they are better educated about sex is another matter. It is easy to get the impression from a casual look at easily to find websites that all kinds of bizarre sexual practices are common. Somewhat similar to the way politics has changed, where every sort of loony tune can broadcast their nonsense to the world and some people imagine it is normal.
Ignorance was bad enough, but now we have to deal with all the unhealthy things that fly out of this Pandora’s Box.
To answer the question, I suspect it was when teens got an internet connected computer they could watch in private. That would be about 20 years ago. Obviously with the rise of social media, it would have taken off when they became cheap enough, around 10 years ago.
I would not be surprised if this were not a popular subject for study and articles were published in the learned journals of social scientists.
I’m not an expert in ancient civilizations and oral sex therein, but I can say with confidence that oral sex was common more than 20 years ago.
You’ve got the timing wrong. Based on personal experience, it was already common by the late 1960s and 1970s, although perhaps not quite as standard as it is today. I also gave a cite that by the 1970s 90% of married women had experienced oral sex. Deep Throat came out in 1972. Oral sex became common two decades before the Internet got going.
Labia minora aren’t, but labia majora are, and there is hair within licking distance of other parts of the vulva as well.
Powers &8^]
I’d agree that filmstar-en’s timing is too late.
I’d suggest, based on comments from people of my parents generation, that a major influence was the Kinsey Reports, in 1948 (Male) and 1953 (Female). These caused a huge stir in American society, were read by a great many people, and a lot more heard about them.
Among other startling statistics, these reports showed that, despite the supposed ‘moral opprobrium’ against oral sex, people were actually doing it a lot. And that knowledge led to a lot more people wanting it, and doing it.