“You cocksucker.”

Wow. I don’t think there’s any term more vehement than that. “Motherfucker,” maybe, and a few anatomical terms perhaps. But if you really want to express contempt, really want to show a person how low you think they are, “cocksucker" hits home every time.

“That blows, you cocksucker. That really sucks.”

It’s strange isn’t it, how so many of our most popular forms of abuse are derived from sexual acts, and most of them are drawn from what we might consider esoteric, if not downright morally repugnant activities. Motherfucker falls in that latter category, and such faithful Brit standbys as “sod” (for sodomy) and “bugger” (ditto, really) once dwelt in that area as well, and for many folk are still considered borderline.

“Cocksucker” though, that’s an interesting one. Because, assuming a roughly 50-50 balance between male and female visitors to this page, and for the sake of argument, agreeing that the number of exclusively gay males is balanced by the number of exclusive gay females, probably half of the people reading this now are, in every literal meaning of the phrase, cocksuckers.

What’s more, we love it. And so, to judge from their response, do the cocks that we suck.

Why then is it such a pejorative term?

A few years ago, I was contacted by a publisher who had read what I might describe as a particularly fellatio-fixated story I’d contributed to an anthology. I missed his call, so I rang back later...and was mortified as the guy who answered the phone boomed out, “hey [whatever his name was], it’s for you. It’s the girl who likes sucking cocks.”

I hung up. Not because I objected to the description of myself...I think we’ve already established that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But because of the scorn in the guy’s voice as he broadcast it across the room, because he made it sound like I should be.

Okay, the mechanics. Guy gets an erection, girl takes it in her mouth. There’s a bit of bobbing and grinding around, a few sweeps of tongue, a fair shot of friction, and then she starts exerting the pressure; her eyes are closed, her cheeks sink in...

Wow, that really sucks.

Yes it does. Thank you for noticing.

Fifty years ago, blowjobs were considered dirty. Worse than that, they were abominable. A crime against nature. Elsewhere on Eden Fantasys, in a book review I recently wrote, I mentioned reading a 1950's FBI report about a stag film that had just been busted, that described a few minutes of fellatio as “a deviant act.”

But I also read, in one of those Marilyn Monroe confessionals that come around every so often, that the greatest screen goddess of the 20th century rated giving head as her favorite sexual act. Now extrapolate that to incorporate the litany of lovers and husbands that Monroe collected, a list that includes one apiece of the greatest writers, actors, sportsmen and presidents this country has ever produced.

Who’s the deviant now? The guy who (take your pick) wrote “Death of A Salesman,” had a fifty-six game hitting streak, and edged the world back from the brink of nuclear war? Or the anonymous spook who...no, I was going to say “who had never called his wife a cocksucker, because the chances are she never was one,” but let’s not speculate on the details of his sex life. As late as 1962 - that is, the year in which Monroe died - blowjobs were illegal in forty-nine of the fifty states. Seriously illegal, as in thirty years in the slammer in Connecticut, sixty in North Carolina. And life imprisonment in Nevada. Life imprisonment for sucking cock. Imagine what they’d add on if you swallowed.

So that was the attitude that oral sex once had to contend with. That fellatio had to deal with. I don’t hear “pussylicker” being bandied about as an insult. Nor “Snatch muncher.” Nor even “cunt sucker” which, when you think about it, should be way ahead in the user stakes, simply for the combination of terms. Nope, cocksucking it is, and cocksucking we are stuck with.

Things have changed a little, in as much as the law no longer cares what you suck, so long as you do it in private and consensually. Bill and Monica legitimized it to an extent, as well, and they destigmatized it a little. After all, if it’s good enough for the President...

But there is still a sizable number of people, male and female, practitioners and abstainers, who regard fellatio as somehow demeaning for the woman, whether she feels demeaned or not, as an act of sacrifice, submission or worse. Bowing down to her Lord and Master.

Which is really weird, because who actually has the power in that situation? The guy? Yeah, he can thrust and hold her head down, and maybe try to choke her, but it’s the girl who has the teeth, and there’s another thing as well. No guy has ever asked me to put up a bookshelf after I’ve sucked him off. And I’ve never thought of offering to, but that spice rack hanging in my kitchen didn’t put itself up on the wall by itself, and I was too busy getting a stain out of my blouse.

Maybe that’s what some people, “certain” people, object to. The realization that even if only for a few delicious minutes, they placed their very manhood at the mercy of a female, to do with as she wished.

Or maybe that’s too deep. Maybe it’s a homophobic thing; “I wouldn’t put a cock in my mouth, I can’t believe that she would.” Another reason why “cunt sucker” will never, ever take off. Even the densest Neanderthal will admit that he enjoys eating pussy. And there’s a word we can run with for a moment. “Admits.” I can’t remember what the actual statistics were, but I saw a poll not so long ago that stated far more men than not have fantasized about going down on another guy. And another that made a similar observation about the number of men in the Second Life virtual world who spend their online time being women. I’m an SL junkie and believe me, they can’t all be lesbians. Or celibate.

So is that what lies behind our cocksucker conundrum? A little bit of guilt, a little bit of embarrassment, and a dash of the old-time insistence that “nice girls don’t do it” - with a race memory of a long ago law to back it up? My God, if she’ll risk twenty years just to munch on some meat, what else is the woman capable of? Look out, everyone, it’s the Ma Barker of Blowjobs.

We could also, if we are feeling especially cynical, add a soupcon of puritan righteousness, too; something along the lines of “if God meant man to stick his cock in your mouth, He’d have invented dentures for pussies”? Just three months ago, Virginia Republican Robert Marshall told CNN “sodomy is not a civil right.” I wonder where he stands on facials?

Or, and I really think this is closer to the truth, has the word “cocksucker” now become so engrained in the vernacular that most people who use it don’t even think about what they’re actually saying? That, although it may once have been the case, there is no deep-seated sexual, or even cultural reason why a guy might come home from work to complain about all the cocksuckers with whom he had to deal with today, then encourage his partner to join their number, by soothing his nerves with some executive relief?

Well, maybe it’s time to put a stop to it. “Cocksucker” is one of the foulest terms that you can hurl at someone, yet it ought to be one of the most beautiful compliments. We all like to be complimented on our handiwork, after all, and it’s a lot less of a mouthful (pardon the pun) than a full description of what we’re doing down there...you ball-slurping, dick-licking, cum-draining vixen, you.

So the next time you’re out and your partner explodes, and some miserable specimen of human excrement is termed a stupid cocksucker, just lower your eyes and touch his hand, and let him feel your pain.

“Well, if it upsets you that much,” you say so sincerely, “I promise I won’t do it again.”

Then go find yourself a lover with a more varied vocabulary.