It's an age old question, just like whether the chicken came before the egg.
Do vegans swallow?
This is not some cheap or novel query, there's a lot going on in this question. Or maybe it is cheap and novel. Maybe everyone swallows, maybe no one does anymore.
It's an important question no doubt worth sussing out with experts, with trained professionals, with vegans who partake or perform in oral sex. If only for the hell of it.
So I turned to author Sarah Gerard, a formerly Tampa Bay-based writer and journalist, for some advice on the subject. Gerard's essays on life, hunger and sex have appeared in the Paris Review, New Yorker Magazine, and the New York Times. Her latest book, Binary Star, comes out January 2015.
Also, she's married and a vegan.
Her book, Things I Told My Mother, chronicles Gerard's topless stroll through New York City on August 25, 2013. It's a commentary on how "we, consciously or not, interact with a woman's self-representation in all aspects of society...the female body under patriarchy."
I spoke with Gerard from her home in Brooklyn around 7 a.m. on the subject of veganism, sex, and why orgasms are radical. She, nor I, claim that this response represents ALL of vegans or really ANY vegans. Just this one.
So, do vegans swallow?
Sarah Gerard: Definitely.
Why?
The thing is, when my husband comes in my mouth, it's consensual.
But rest of "animal" product consumption isn't, right?
When he tells me he wants me to swallow it, I know nobody has forced him to say it, and I know that he's not going to mourn the removal of his come from his body by my mouth.
Because both parties agree to it? That makes sense.
The conditions under which farm animals produce the products we consume every day is horrific, and that's the reason I abstain from them.
Have you ever met a vegan that was morally opposed to swallowing for reasons related to their beliefs about food?
I've never met one, honestly. But I'm not a purist.
So, really, the consensual part is what it's all about. If cows were like, "I give up, please eat my body," it'd be different.
Exactly.
But obviously that isn't happening.
If I order something in a restaurant and I've been careful ordering, but it comes with cheese on it, I'll regretfully eat it instead of sending it back. It's wasteful to send it back. And the damage has already been done. In a Capitalist economy, the only real impact I have is the one I can make with my money. If I don't spend money on it, I'm not participating. And if I order a meal in a restaurant, and the restaurant prepares it, that money has been spent whether I pay for it in the end or not. It's too late.
But consensual sex is always radical.
And anything involving jizz and females.
Yes, especially female orgasm. When I'm making love, I'm making art. I'm very intentionally not causing harm. I'm not listening to rules. Not spending money. Not consuming. So, arguably, swallowing my husband's come is the most radical thing I do in a day. Also, I'm married. I mean, I have this one man forever. Might as well make things easy and fun from the start. If we do, they'll only get better. For the next...40 years? Wow, that's a long time. Sex is the most amazing form of human collaboration. Which is also why it's economically dangerous, or can be.
I never thought of it that way.
Because if we can feel free to eschew all those bullshit proscriptions about what's "acceptable" in sex, we'll realize that our bodies and our desires are beautiful and important, and that we like working together, and that (regardless of what media tells us) we aren't so different, aren't enemies. When I swallow David's come, it makes him feel good. That's the whole reason I do it. That should be the only reason we do anything.
