Doozy of an event at a panel discussion following the New York premier of “Inside Deep Throat.” Depending on how things shake out people could still be talking about it a week from now.
Here’s what caused the commotion:
[Panel moderator and film reviewer Elvis] Mitchel looked on helplessly as [pornography critic and first-generation feminist icon Catherine] MacKinnon did her thing, claiming that the film we had just watched was promoting the acceptance of rape. At one point, however, her righteous zeal became unhinged when she claimed that it was not possible to do deep throat safely, that it was a dangerous act that could only be done under hypnosis. “What’s so funny?” she snapped as the audience rippled with mirth. Todd Graff’s hand shot up – “I can do it,” he said, and the room echoed with a chorus of gay men going “me too!”
link: WorldOfWonder.com
For the record I can testify that MacKinnon is wrong and Graf and others are right. Last Fall I bought a fairly large dildo (double-ended, translucent purple, embedded sparkles) and, with advice from an article on Sexuality.org I fairly quickly managed to get the foolish-looking thing way farther down my throat than my natural materials would go down someone else’s.
My decision to try, by the way, was based on the belief that my partner might be more willing to try it on me if I showed her I was (technically, anyway) able to do it too.
The point being that if a cranky old zero-on-the-Kinsey-scale heterosexual man like me can learn how then probably anyone else could too.
A couple of obvious rejoinders may spring to mind.
1) A dildo, no matter how large, is still way more easily managed than the real thing attached to 150-250 pounds of distractedly excitable humanity. I’d have to take your word for it but it seems reasonable enough. Still that has no bearing on the technical assertion that human throats can’t accommodate penis-sized objects without injury.
A second argument would be that just because it’s a skill that can be learned doesn’t mean it can’t be done wrong, or that if done wrong it isn’t possible to cause pain or injury. Trust me, having successfully figured it out it’s a lot easier to imagine what could go wrong.
Still and all, the fact remains that, at least when it comes to the informed, consensual versions MacKinnon is wrong. Deep throat fellatio is perfectly possible.
Further reading: – Catallarchy’s Deep Throat Rape and Radical Feminism” — A fascinating, semi-sympathetic exploration of related issues from a non-sex blogger. – Sexuality.org’s Performing Fellatio — a comprehensive primer – Original article found via Reason Magazines’s Hit & Run
Update: Server hicoughs last night left me with four extra versions of this post. I’ve deleted all but this one.
