The Political Philosophy of Acts of Oral Intimacy (Part I)

The intersectionality of Oral Sex and Neoliberalism

Oral sex was taboo throughout much of Western History for cultural and religious reasons, as sex was considered to be purely about reproduction. Not to mention that bathing was not widespread for much of history. In his 2000 study, The Social Organization of Sexuality, sexual behaviorist E. O. Laumann assessed that there was a big jump in oral sex right around the time when the Baby Boomers started hooking up. However, Laumann also theorized that oral sex became more popular in the 1920s. Regardless, oral sex was not commonly referenced in cinema until the 90s, with even 80s movies having to rely upon innuendo.

Oral sex is spiritually neoliberal because it is hierarchical yet transactional, and a non-reproductive Malthusian ritual, in which sex is totally detached from reproduction. Plus oral sex was first normalized amongst the LGBTQ and sex workers. Under neoliberalism everything is about consumption and transactions rather than creation, and oral sex fits in with that, just with bodily fluids. The Clintonian approach to oral sex (that it was not actually sex) was the late 90s catchphrase, and reflected the neoliberal 90s zeitgeist, epitomizing nihilism and hedonism. Today oral sex can be a metaphor for the gig economy, as well as OnlyFans, and online grifters. The online slang term, “bl-wjob kings,” describes those who expect your subscriptions and engagements, but there is zero reciprocation and their substance is nothing but metaphorical goo.  

The euphemisms of “kissing ass” or “giving head” are used to describe how one gets ahead in capitalist American society. Causal oral sex created a value system that was both transactional and hierarchical and became a way for young women to gain access to status. Either access to the popular crowd, early on, or access to fame and career advancements later on, but at the expense of their dignity. A report by Catania, Kegeles, & Coates; health belief model, Janz & Becker) found that “Adolescents may also associate oral sex with specific social benefits in the peer context, such as high status and popularity among peers. The belief that engagement in oral sex may help maintain or elevate an individual's level of status among peers may be one factor that influences adolescents' decisions to engage in this behavior.”

While oral sex was normalized under social liberalization, the irony is that it is a hierarchical act in contrast with the more egalitarian missionary position, associated with outdated 1950s monogamy. However, MeeToo feminism and a new liberal puritanism have canceled Hollywood BJ kings and pushed back against the hedonistic free for all. Though perhaps only concealing hierarchy and erasing the meaning behind sex while still being ok with degeneracy from a traditional moral standpoint. Radfems will criticize liberal feminists for helping to normalize hook up culture, which they denounce as exploitative of young women. However, that has not held back the push from the cultural left to normalize polyamory and depraved porn inspired fetishes. Acts that are extremely anti-egalitarian yet ok if sanctioned by liberalism.

Source: @feministevee Twitter

In a Time Magazine article, Fifty Shades of Grey and How One Sex Act Went Mainstream, KATRINA GULLIVER stated that “Indeed, fellatio is often seen in pop culture as the act of a desperate supplicant begging for favor (see: every single joke ever about a woman earning a promotion on her knees), a source of homophobic innuendo or simply as some kind of punishment.” Sex negative feminists are actually correct that fellatio is inherently hierarchical with the female taking on the subservient role, and that there is a misogynist angle to extreme oral acts in porn. Regardless, Porn is the one aspect of neoliberalism that does not conceal hierarchy and power dynamics, showing the grotesque hidden side of human nature in its more base form.  

Source: @ask_aubry Twitter

There is a feminist cause for equal opportunity oral sex between the genders. For instance, the feminist blog, Feministing, declared that hating oral sex is the new misogyny toward a more feminist sex life, and a Yahoo News article complained that men are still using patriarchy to deny oral sex to women. A much more extreme example is Canadian feminist, Liz Plank, declaring that “Cunnilingus isn’t optional, it’s political. No equality in the streets if there isn’t equality in the sheets.” An article in Cosmo protested that women in college are giving way more oral sex than they’re receiving. In-depth interviews with 43 college women on cunnilingus and hookup culture found that “the sexual scripts available to contemporary American college students assume cunnilingus in relationships, but not in hookups, where the incorporation of the practice is more contested”

Sex researcher, Aella, had a survey ranking all oral acts by how popular they were amongst her female followers. Aella found that kissing and cunnilingus were extremely popular with women, followed by performing fellatio, ejaculation in mouth, and receiving anilingus from a male in the middle. She found that ejaculation on face and performing anilingus on a male were extremely unpopular with women.  

Source: Aella’s Substack

In regards to the adolescent oral sex hysteria, in 2007 Caitlin Flanagan argued in The Atlantic Monthly that “it is predominately and indiscriminately the girls servicing the boys and not vice versa.” Another article on the oral sex hysteria from 2003, said that “One thing is for certain, no matter why girls are giving boys bl-w j-bs, they’re not getting much in return.” “Although girls say they do it, they don’t say they actually like it,” says Barbara Victor,” And boys are reportedly not so obliging.” The article quoted a student as saying “I think there’s more stigma for guys going down on girls. The girl always does it because guys say it’s gross but for a girl to do it it’s cool. Also, it’s not considered macho for a guy to do it. Girls also don’t like to get it because they’re insecure about their bodies, it’s always girls doing it to guys.” However, the article also points out that “some observers speculate that this very lack of mutuality may be what’s appealing to girls,” which vindicates manosphere arguments about dominance and hypergamy.

However, an article titled, Is Fellatio Finished, references an informal survey by British author, Geoff Dyer, reporting that 80% of his male friends “preferred cunnilingus to fellatio–that is, they preferred going down on their female partners to having oral sex performed on them.” Comparative data from an Australian survey found that while female Year 12 students in 2018 were more likely to perform than receive oral sex, they were “10% more likely to have received oral sex than a female student who graduated in 2002.” However, there was no change in the rate of females performing oral sex between 2002 and 2018. A survey from the sexual health and wellness practice, Bespoke Surgical, on findings on the state of sex in the late pandemic era, found that Genz are much more orally egalitarian, with 60% of Gen Z reporting that they would rather give than receive oral sex. 

Source: @realwow_mao Twitter

This shift towards “oral equity” amongst zoomers could reflect the “nu-male,” who is in touch with his sensitive side and more egalitarian minded. Though I remember journalist, Ray Sawhill, commenting that men in the Hippie counter-culture were obsessed with cunnilingus to the point of going down on their girlfriends for prolonged periods of time. This could also reflect incel and manosphere complaints that the sexual marketplace has shifted in women’s favor. However, this contradicts the manosphere’s assumption that more dominant males are gaining the most from the changing sexual marketplace. While many men view cunnilingus as a subordination of male power, a counterpoint is that the rise in fellatio over the last 40 years or so, has undermined masculinity, by depriving the penis of its primary purpose.

Source: @bronzeagemantis Twitter

The stereotype that Whites are more into oral sex than Blacks and Hispanics is backed up by research on college undergraduates by David Knox, at East Carolina University, and Marty E. Zusman at Indiana University Northwest. The survey found that “75% of white college women reported in 2001 having done it at least once, according to a 2001 study called “Race, gender, and class in sexual scripts,” but only 56% of Latina and 34% of African American college women say they have. Of these groups, only 55%, 46%, and 25%, respectively, described performing fellatio as appealing. A national survey in 2002-2003 of women ages 15 to 44, found that “84.3% of white women had engaged in fellatio at least once, while only 60% of Hispanic women, and 57.4% of black women had.” “Follow-up studies comparing black and white young adults have indicated that oral and anal sexual behaviors are less frequent among blacks than whites and that blacks have been found to initiate oral sex at a later age than whites despite having initiated vaginal sex at an earlier age” (Source: National Library of Medicine).

White People Love Oral Sex

Source: Zach Goldberg

White liberal men are stereotypically more likely to perform cunnilingus, while men of color, as well as conservative men have hangups about it. The stereotype that the rightwing hates oral sex is backed up by a Republican candidate for Virginia Attorney General wanting to outlaw oral sex. However, the distinction is between religious conservatives who oppose all oral acts, and more secular, but masculinity centric conservatives, who are pro-fellatio but anti-cunnilingus. A study on sex and politics found that people who give or receive oral sex tend to be more socially liberal (for example, supporting gay rights) but more conservative on out-group punishment attitudes (anti-immigration and pro-death penalty). This basically sounds like centrist middle class White people who are neither woke nor religious or socially conservative.

There is speculation that higher income women receive more oral sex, and the defunct feminist website, Jezebel, went as far as to make the case that cunnilingus is another benefit to increased female earning power. The maligned, affluent liberal White woman probably gets the most head of any female demographic. One study on sex and cognitive ability found that “people in the highest cognitive ability group had lower odds of experiencing vaginal sex, but not oral or anal sex, compared to the average group.” 

While oral sex had long been considered far more intimate than intercourse, with a large subset of millennials, coming of age after Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, oral sex was normalized even before intercourse, say a 2-4 year span. This had long lasting impacts on psychosocial development with young women who performed a lot of oral sex earlier on, likely ending up having intimacy issues later on in life. A Columbia University newspaper article wrote about alleged oral sex parties that “ Popular conception is that there need be no eye contact, no foreplay or preliminary kissing, no sense of emotional relationship between man and woman.”

In the late 90s and aughts, there was a mass hysteria about adolescents engaging in oral sex, including urban legends like rainbow parties and oral sex bracelets. The media hype was very sensationalist, such as Oprah talking about rainbow parties to shock her audience for views, while pretending to be morally concerned, exploiting the fears of Boomer parents. However, a New York Times article referenced a 2004 NBC people survey that found an abysmal, less than half of a percent, of adolescents (ages 13 to 16) had attended these types of parities. The survey found that 12% had engaged in oral sex, which is still lower than what many assumed. 

While these hysterias were overly sensationalized, and perhaps fabricated, they were probably based on some truth. During the 00s, there was a rise in oral sex while teen pregnancies declined. Not to mention the 00s teen raunch culture that is quite different from today’s Zoomer youth culture. In contrast with the stereotype of today’s emasculated young males, “(The oral-sex hysteria has attributed to American boys not only superhuman virility but also wanton emotional cruelty,” according to Caitlyn Flanagan in the Atlantic in 2006.

The speculation about the adolescent oral sex hysteria is often linked to the White upper class, and the archetype of a person who has lots of oral sex before intercourse is stereotypically from a White suburban background. There was a sensationalist piece in Philly Mag from 2006 about what goes on at exclusive private schools, which heavily emphasizes points about class and social privilege. One article references affluent suburban communities like Oyster Bay, Long Island and Arlington, Virginia, and another article from the Jewish feminist blog, Lillith, talks specifically about affluent Jewish adolescents. A New York Times article from 1997, reported on a top high school on Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side, providing "mint-flavored condoms with no spermicide, labeled ''ONLY for oral sex,'' with the school nurse reporting that “The mint condoms are now being taken at a faster clip than the regular ones.”

A Washington Post article from 1999 emphasized that “The girls in this crowd were no slouchers, pulling A's and B's at a school of about 1,000 students where test scores are consistently among Virginia's highest. Both boys and girls sang in the chorus; several played basketball and soccer or ran track.” The emphasis is that those engaged are popular and high status but also far from juvenile delinquents. A New York Times article from 2005 stated that “The reported prevalence of oral sex among affluent American teenagers would also seem to illustrate price theory: because of the possibility of disease or pregnancy, intercourse is expensive -- and it has come to be seen by some teenagers as an unwanted and costly pledge of commitment.”

Perhaps certain upper middle class parents encouraged oral sex to avoid pregnancies, which is a very utilitarian morality of harm avoidance over protecting purity. This demographic has better impulse control, thus can handle and self-regulate degeneracy and hedonism better, and overall thrives in life. Though there is an almost sociopathic quality to this. Noncoital activities as a substitute or delay mechanism fits in with managerial values against both moral conservatism and the spontaneity of chaotic degeneracy. In contrast, the proletariat are much more instinctual and destroy themselves with their degeneracy. The other angle is that those with the best genes are expected to delay reproduction which is dysgenic.  

The rich and popular matter the most to society, and how the youth of the upper class are brought up, shapes every facet of society. This perversion of courtship is how neoliberal elites are shaped and formed in the way that the practices of the Ancient Spartans and Victorian British boarding schools shaped the elites of those respective eras. A guy who receives a lot of oral in his formative years, will likely become much more confident and economically successful later in life, while also more likely to use people, both in romantic and platonic relationships, as well as in the business world. It also reflects how the upper class are exploitative in conditioning their offspring to use others as a commodity. Though it is notable that these activities are generally within the same social and economic class, despite hypergamy.

Historically degeneracy was the most common amongst the upper and lower classes while the middle class were prudes. However, the demographic that is the most envied being viewed as the most morally debauched can often be a coping mechanism. For instance, urban legends about privileged, rich, popular, suburban, White adolescents, on the part of older people, nerds, or the leftwing and people of color. It is often the clean-cut, upper middle class WASPY suburbanites, whose sons are star athletes, who are depicted as truly depraved, rather than ultra wealthy types like the Weinsteins and Epsteins. For the woke, Whites of privileged are selfish and want to be serviced. Regardless of how much truth these rumors are based in, those who can never be part of this clique invent the most grotesque urban legends, much like a Jordan Peele movie.

To be continued