Barry Graham: Illusory Flowers in an Empty Sky

This post on the blog Nightmares and Boners discusses sexual acts that some consider degrading. The author writes:

In the pub recently a girl turned to me, she was flirting with a guy at the bar, and they were both laughing hard. “You agree right?” I turned to face her, “Giving a blow job is disgusting, something a nice girl should never do.” Holding my drink awkwardly I took a deep breath, but she steam rollered on. “I would never ask a man to put his face in my vagina, that’s fucking revolting.” I nodded slowly at the man, felt his pain, and moved back into the crowd.

When I read this, it was obvious to me that the blogger lives in the U.K.  Sexual taboos vary widely from culture to culture. When I still lived in Scotland, sexual intercourse was something that might well happen on the first date, but oral sex, it seemed, was generally considered more intense or intimate, something to be postponed.

In the U.S. it is quite the opposite. A blow job is generally considered the least intimate sexual act, routinely performed on the first date when the woman doesn’t want to go any further at that point. Anal sex, another U.K. taboo, is popular among American “virgins.” What seems absolute is really only random cultural conditioning.