They Stoop to Conquer: A Brief History of Oral Sex by David Depierre

Author:David Depierre [Depierre, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw, pdf
Published: 2016-02-14T23:00:00+00:00

Figure 46. Cupid at the Fountain by Francesco Boneri

One of the English writers most influenced by the works of the ancients was Ben Johnson. He frequently attempted to model his writings off of the Roman poets and playwrights, and nowhere was this more evident than his own marginal notes in a copy of Martial. Despite his own bitingly satirical poems and lines though, Johnson refrained from adopting any reference, comedic or otherwise, in his works to oral sex. Indeed his marginal notes consisted of almost an ashamed, indexing of sexual practices. To Martial’s epigram 1.94 he simply wrote fellatrix while next to 6.6 he scribbled cuneling. Though a man as well-read in the classics as Johnson certainly understood the negative Roman view towards the practices, he could not bring himself to copy Martial’s use of fellatio and cunnilingus in attacks upon his enemies.

Shortly after the time of Ben Johnson, John Milton wrote his monumental work, Paradise Lost. Covering as it did both Biblical accounts of original sin and fantastical accounts of demonology, the book is rife with allusions both intended and perhaps unintended to oral sex. Several commentators have pointed out clear differences in Milton’s language concerning pre and post lapsarian sex between Adam and Eve.[145] The clearest evidence for this emerges in Book IX in which Milton portrays the event which led to the Fall.

“So said he, and forbore not glance or toy

Of amorous intent, well understood

Of Eve, whose Eye darted contagious Fire.

Her hand he seis'd, and to a shadie bank,

Thick overhead with verdant roof imbowr'd

He led her nothing loath; Flours were the Couch,

Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel,

And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest lap.

There they thir fill of Love and Loves disport

Took largely, of thir mutual guilt the Seale,

The solace of thir sin, till dewie sleep

Oppress'd them, wearied with thir amorous play.

Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit,

That with exhilerating vapour bland

About thir spirits had plaid, and inmost powers

Made erre, was now exhal'd, and grosser sleep

Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams

Encumberd, now had left them, up they rose

As from unrest, and each the other viewing,

Soon found thir Eyes how op'nd, and thir minds

How dark'nd; innocence, that as a veile

Had shadow'd them from knowing ill, was gon,

Just confidence, and native righteousness

And honour from about them, naked left

To guiltie shame hee cover'd, but his Robe

Uncover'd more, so rose the Danite strong

Herculean Samson from the Harlot-lap

Of Philistean Dalilah, and wak'd

Shorn of his strength.”

The inclusion of “fallacious Fruit” bears clear reference to classical Latin “fellatio”. Milton is building upon the version of the Fall which blames the discovery of non-productive sex by Adam and Eve. Alternatively, by consuming the Fruit of Knowledge, Adam and Eve resorted to oral sex as their first act of rebellion against God. Milton’s inclusion of the allegory of Samson is also interesting. The classical idea of the once powerful prophet losing his strength is recast as another scene of perverted love. In lines 1059-1062 of the text Milton writes that Samson, “rose…from the Harlot-lap…shorn of his strength.”

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