The erection is the site of the greatest volume of vaso-congestion in the human body. Within the quite confined space of the penile tissues, the volume of blood in the erect penis increases approximately eleven-fold. This explains the quite remarkable change in the organ’s size and rigidity.
At this stage the erect penis presents quite an aggressive and determined sexual statement. But, as the feminist writer Naomi Wolf has pointed out, the erection is also lost very easily. Slight distractions such as a sudden noise, especially by children who might be about to threaten privacy, can rapidly subdue a male erection. (Women’s response to distraction, surprisingly in the light of their greater susceptibility earlier in pre-coitus to ‘losing the mood’, is less sensitive now, according to Wolf; women will tend to be the more resolute in trying circumstances to see an orgasm through to fruition.)
Erection unrelated to orgasm is common in men; a variety of Internet sources (‘Jenn Even’, an American e-zine sex advisor on www.sagazette.com is just one) suggest that the average Western man has eleven imagination-stimulated erections a day, and it would be reasonable to suppose that something like that applied to early man. But blood engorgement pre-intercourse also starts to affect less obvious, but equally indicative, extremities of erectile or semi-erectile tissue in the body. The facial lips of both men and women also become swollen and red; lipstick, along with rouge, is a socially acceptable mimicking of these pre-sexual changes.
The walls of the vagina also become engorged with blood, often at an early, flirtatious stage of a sexual encounter. This onrush of blood quickly – as with the penis, within seconds sometimes – stimulates lubrication of the vaginal tube. There is an accompanying lengthening and expansion by up to four inches of the inner parts of the vagina as the female enters the phase of high sexual excitement. Her blood, too, is now pouring into the vessels of the pelvic and genital area and expanding the nerve bundles throughout. Muscles around the clitoris, the opening of the vagina and the anus swell.
The clitoris also becomes enlarged, sensitive and protuberant, although its distension is obscured from view by more general swelling of the labial hood. The clitoris will not, when penetrative intercourse finally proceeds, be directly stimulated by the penis. In some women (but not all) it will retract entirely as orgasm approaches. But, so long as the penis has a reasonably broad diameter, it will in theory stretch the outer third of the vagina and tug down on the labial hood with the rhythmic pressure of the male’s thrusting movements, thus providing, albeit by a far less than mechanically satisfactory means, the friction for easier orgasm, or for the beginnings of easier orgasm. Spongy sacs inside the external female genitals also swell noticeably in preparation for penetration, the outer labia reaching two to three times their normal size. The inner labia, while turning a bright red, expand to a similar degree, by as much as a hundred per cent, to the point where they sometimes extend beyond the outer labia.
Blood pressure, pulse rate and respiration all increase dramatically as copulation approaches. Glands have continued to secrete in even greater amounts the mucoid fluids flowing from the walls of the vulva and facilitating entry of the penis. (These are the same lubricants necessary in childbirth to ease the passage of the baby through the vaginal canal.) The female’s breasts have also by now swollen by anything up to 25 per cent of their normal dimensions, becoming firmer and more rounded as they grow, while the testicles have, in some men, nearly doubled in size to try to keep in proportion with the shaft of the penis.
Even with all the ingredients of this sexual banquet nicely simmering and ready to be served, copulation proper may still be delayed by another tempting course – of oral stimulation. Oral sex, even if it is still technically illegal in some US States and taboo in many other cultures and subcultures, is apparently more widely acceptable and practised than it has ever been in the recorded past. Both homosexual and heterosexual lovers like to use it as a means of expressing deep, intimate feelings.
Oral sex need not be considered a decadent indulgence. It has been used very successfully over the generations as a method of sexual interaction when a male has difficulty attaining an erection, or when intercourse is painful for either partner. Oral sex has also been an emotional and physical lifeline for people with disabilities such as spinal cord injuries. Heterosexual couples, additionally, have found it an unexpected delight in cases where conception must be avoided, or in late pregnancy, or after childbirth when intercourse proper might be dangerous or painful.
Starting with kissing on the mouth, which is both oral and sexual, use of the lips and tongue for sexual purposes soon extends, predominally for the male, to the breasts and nipples of the female. (From there, it is only a navigational matter of inches to the more contentious business of each sex using the mouth to fellate the genitals of the other.)
Cunnilingus, the stimulation of female genitals by lips and tongue (from the Latin cunnus [vulva], lingere [to lick]), is performed by either a man or another woman. The partner gently separates the outer and inner labia with the fingers or tongue, then licks, sucks and teases the clitoris, sometimes rapidly flicking the sides of the clitoris shaft. Some women enjoy a slow, steady rhythm, moving backward and forward to the vaginal opening, sometimes with deep insertion of the tongue just before orgasm. Manual stimulation may be employed simultaneously. Very light biting, sucking or nibbling actions usually occur. Some women enjoy having their partner blow a little air into the vagina, but too much can be dangerous, causing infection or even embolism.
Even the sexually neglected nose may come into play in oral sex. As a partner’s tongue plays with the vagina’s inner and outer labia, the nose is perfectly placed to be simultaneously stimulating the clitoris. It may only be modesty that prevents male fashion from highlighting nose size in men to match the blatant display of sexuality seen in women’s lipstick. There again, it cannot be entirely his singing and personality that make Barry Manilow the sex symbol that he is; could it be that, inter alia, his millions of adoring female fans dream idly of what Manilow might be able to achieve with that outsize proboscis?
Men can have mixed feelings about cunnilingus. With visual stimulation so important for them, most become sexually excited by the intimate view of the genitals and the intriguing sight of the vagina opening like a flower. The taste of the vaginal secretions may also be extremely stimulating. Other men feel slightly obligated to perform cunnilingus, with hygiene, religious, intimacy and other reasons holding them back from actually enjoying it. Research by US sexologists Drs Jennifer and Laura Berman suggests that men who perform cunnilingus are more goal-oriented and do it primarily as ‘warming up’ pre-intercourse tactic rather than as an end in itself. In Thailand, many men believe they can suffer choak suay – bad luck – by engaging in cunnilingus. This might seem a rather novel excuse, but squeamishness does not explain why Thai men also feel it is unlucky to walk under laundry containing women’s skirts or underwear. Other cultures have dressed cunnilingus up as a near art-form; on Ponape, in South Pacific Micronesia, some men like to place a fish in a lover’s vulva and slowly lick it out.
Cunnilingus is also, it should be remembered, a primary method for reaching orgasm for most lesbians. Women who perform cunnilingus tend to be more effective in giving pleasure to another woman, knowing as they are bound to what feels good. They are inclined to approach the activity less hastily than men do, and to prolong it for its own sake.
Fellatio (from the Latin fellatus, past participle of fellare, to suck) is the oral stimulation of the male genitals, primarily the penis, by a woman or another man. The penis may be inserted into the mouth to a depth of a few centimetres, or practically to the base of the shaft. The sensitive corona, or tip, of the penis is the most common focus of fellatio, although the shaft, frenulum, perineum, scrotum, and sometimes the anus or immediate surrounds can also be involved. All these areas are sucked, licked or tenderly nibbled. The term ‘blow-job’ appears singularly inappropriate because no ‘blowing’
is performed, but it most probably derives from the more understandable term ‘below’ job.
Until AIDS, at least, fellatio was the most common sexual activity practised by homosexual men. It is certainly the most requested act by prostitutes’ ‘punters’ – as well as being their own preferred method since it is easy, quick and portable, requiring as it does neither premises nor preamble. As in the case of empathetic women performing cunnilingus, men are often better at it than members of the opposite sex. Some men who consider themselves heterosexual are happy to be fellated by another man because they do not feel as if they are performing a homosexual act, as they would with anal intercourse.
According to a psychologist specialising in sexual studies, Dr William R. Stayton of Widener University in Pennsylvania, most homosexual men giving fellatio swallow the semen, which adds to the erotic pleasure for the recipient, whereas most women do not, citing the taste (fishy for some, salty for others, bitter for others still and pleasantly spicy for a handful of real enthusiasts), worry about gagging on such a large object in the mouth and a common belief that semen is fattening – it actually contains only about 5 to 15 calories per ejaculation. At an average time of four minutes from the height of the pre-orgasmic state through to the end of orgasm, we can typically expect to burn 25.6 calories per coition, meaning even with a healthy helping of semen on the side, sex is still a reasonably slimming activity.
Just as the taste of vaginal secretions varies from woman to woman, so does the taste of semen vary from individual to individual. Diet is a factor; asparagus, in particular, gives semen a strong, bitter flavour; dairy products are almost as bad because of their inherent bacterial putrefaction. The gag reflex, which may also be stimulated by ejaculation in the mouth, may be overcome for some fellators by grasping the base of the penis with a hand and thereby feeling in control of the depth of penetration. Some skilled ‘deep throat’ fellators manage to learn to recondition their gag reflex by a process of slowly taking the penis deeper into the throat.
The attitudes of women to fellatio range from the idea that it is perverted and unhygienic to the view that it is normal and pleasurable, and even a preferable method of sexual activity because it is free from the risk of pregnancy. Most men love being fellated by a woman, but some worry that if they ejaculate in her mouth, they will choke her.
Is oral sex as applied to the genitals a natural, if optional, part of the pre-copulatory sexual routine, or a contrived, add-on behaviour calculated to provoke orgasm where none has previously occurred, or alternatively to repeat orgasm in a refreshingly different way after copulation? And is it possible, while we consider this, that our distant ancestors ever discovered fellatio and cunnilingus?
To the first question, the answer is ‘either’; oral sex is ingenious, but cannot be said to tax the intellect or imagination too much. The sensitivities of the more primitive American States notwithstanding, it may not be unreasonable to describe it as a fairly ‘natural’ practice. What is interesting about oral sex from the point of view of the history of the orgasm is that it is a further example of the non-reproductive but pleasure-seeking complexities that have evolved with human sex. Masturbation and, more importantly, contraception, both of which we will examine later, are further variations on a behaviour that, it is easy to forget, is essentially reproductive.
Along with contraception in particular, oral sex, despite having only recently become mentionable in polite society, is one of the boldest statements of the primacy of orgasm in human life. Not only is it the most stark example of reproduction-free sexual pleasure, but it could even be said to act as a mild contraceptive if practised before copulation proper, by allowing the bulk of the male’s sperm a non-productive nemesis, ensuring that the next body of semen he produces during the same sexual encounter will have a lower sperm content.
Oral sex has, surely, to merit a special position in the panoply of human sexual behaviour. A British writer, Paul Ableman, put up a sturdy case for its essential humanity in 1969 in The Mouth and Oral Sex – the last book in Britain, interestingly, to be the subject of an obscenity trial when it was published.
‘One can imply, by performing oral/genital contortion, that nothing about the loved one is offensive,’ Ableman wrote. ‘… the proximity of the excretory apparatus to the genitalia can be conceived of as a chivalrous challenge, the acceptance of which expresses some such sentiment as: “See how much I love you – if I am prepared to do this.” Putting one’s mouth to the genital regions, breaching the hygiene taboos and conventions of decency, is in fact a gesture of intimacy that transcends coitus itself.’
Whatever the position was in past eras, in cultures where the taboos against it have withered or died, oral sex is extremely popular. Modern research cited by William R. Stayton indicates that in Western societies some 80 percent of single men and women between the ages of 25-34, and 90 percent of those unmarried and under 25 years of age, participate in oral sex. Stayton notes that from the 1950s onwards studies strongly suggest that the practice is more prevalent among better-educated and younger people.
This willingness among the better educated to engage in oral sex has come about, one would imagine, as a result of a modern intellectual rejection of what are seen as overly strict hygiene obsessions. Progressive twentieth-century thinkers on sex from D.H. Lawrence to Dr Alex Comfort have despised hygiene at the expense of sexual rapture as suburban and petit bourgeois. As for prehistoric humans and their take on oral sex, there is obviously a dearth of evidence in the form of cave paintings or artefacts, but informed guesswork rather suggests that both Mr and Mrs Ug will have discovered it one way or another, in the absence of any hygiene hang-ups over bringing the excretory organs into close proximity to the organs of breathing and eating. It is probably only when religion began poking its snout into human groins that taboos against oral sex took root.
There may have been isolated taboos concerning wastage of sperm, but this again is improbable since it is not likely that prehistoric people were aware that sexual intercourse and child production were connected. Surviving primitive peoples often still do not acknowledge any relationship between the two.
Above all, prehistoric humans will have had time in abundance to discover oral sex. Prehistoric nights were long and dark, and there is no reason to suppose that couples did not sleep in a huddle together, if only for warmth. It is beyond contention, surely, that at some stage man realised that the mouth on a face bears a distinct similarity to the mouth of a vagina, and then had a hunch that it might be interesting for woman to apply her mouth to his penis, and vice versa.
It has been suggested that proximity to animals, if nothing else, will have prompted a curiosity about oral sex in early man. Paul Ableman postulated that: ‘a relatively common way in which children discover the possibility of pleasurable contact between mouth and genitalia, is through accidental contacts with animals. This form of initiation is much more common to girls than boys, the obvious reasons being that a dog or cat may perform cunnilingus spontaneously but not fellatio.’
A less obvious form of orgasmic pleasure via oral sex occasioned by the proximity of animals was the subject of a slightly shocking speech in the British House of Lords one June evening in 2003. Lord Lucas of Crudwell and Dingwall, a conservative peer, proposing an amendment to a new Sexual Offences Bill brought their Lordships’ attention to an old agricultural practice he knew of called avisodomy. This is sex in which a chicken’s anus is employed as a makeshift receptacle, or the still nastier practice of using a decapitated chicken’s throat. His description, as chronicled by Hansard is something of a collector’s item. Avisodomy, he told the hushed benches, is ‘the practice of breaking a hen’s neck at the moment before penetration so that you benefit from the spasms that the animal undergoes afterwards.’ Lord Lucas professed himself against avisodomy, but was concerned that it might avoid being outlawed because the chicken was clinically dead at the time its conspirator was enjoying his orgasm.
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sp; The probability of prehistoric cunnilingus having existed or not might be more problematic. Cunnilingus would not seem to be an obviously instinctive behaviour, and neither is it as immediate an option as fellatio. But knowing as we do that the prehistoric female probably owned a working clitoris, we can assume that she discovered how manipulating it can be highly pleasurable. Transmitting that information to men will not have stretched rudimentary communication skills too far (even if it does for some couples today). And the non-existence of knowledge about either hygiene or conception will, arguably, have made it still more likely that men and women would ultimately have put two and two together.
Whether the pleasurable diversion of oral sex is followed or bypassed, most sexual encounters ultimately result in penetrative intercourse. Yet just as orgasm, the apex of the sexual pyramid, is far briefer and more acute than its preamble, the penetrative phase of sex is, today, generally much shorter than the pre-sex, wooing and foreplay phase. Did prehistoric humans spend time on foreplay? Although we can have no evidence one way or the other, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that the whole copulatory sequence today is much longer than it was for our most distant ancestors.
But what will almost certainly have been the same then as now is that the length in time of the consummatory phase of intercourse will have been dictated, as it is today, by the amount of thrusting movement it takes before the male reaches orgasm. This can vary from a matter of a few seconds to an hour or more, the latter in the case of highly controlled males using deliberate and quite intellectually demanding delaying strategies; it is usually difficult for penetrative intercourse to proceed immediately after male orgasm, although a degree of tumescence may persist, enabling the male to continue, albeit with some effort and discomfort to him.
At the moment of the male orgasm (which we will deal with first for the very good reason that it often occurs first unless measures are taken to avoid it) the vital functions reach some of their highest peaks outside those attained in moments of extreme danger. Heart rate at the sexual climax can accelerate to 180 and blood pressure a bottom (diastolic) figure as high as 250. Extra heart beats and skipped beats are not uncommon, especially in people who are not in good physical condition. Respiratory rate may increase to 40 per minute. There is facial grimacing and breathing becomes a desperate gasping for air, with a rhythmic moaning or groaning as a counterpoint. The testes withdraw upwards to their maximum elevation.
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