Irrumation

The tertia poena (third punishment) referred to in Epigram 12 on page 42 is irrumation or coition with the mouth. The patient (fellator or sucker) provokes the orgasm by the manipulation of his (or her) lips and tongue on the agent's member. Galienus calls it lesbiari (Greek lesbiázein), as the Lesbian women were supposed to have been the introducers of this practice. Lampridius says: 'Libidinosus, ore quoque pollutus et constupratus fuit' (That lecherous man, whose mouth even is defiled and dishonest) and Minutius Felix: 'Qui medios viros lambunt, libidinoso ore inguinibus inhaerescunt' (They who lick men's middles, cleave to their inguina with lustful mouth).

In old Latin it was called offendere buccam, to offend the cheek. Suetonius calls the vice illudere ori--to sport with the mouth. Ausonius says that the Campanians were addicted to the practice, and calls it capitalis luxus--the debauchery of the head.[1] Arnobius uses the expression stuprum oris--the defilement of the mouth. Other terms used are: to corrupt the mouth; to attack the head; to defy to one's face; not to spare the head; to split the mouth; to gain the heights; to strike higher; to compress the tongue; complacently lending the mouth; the labour of the mouth; to lick men's middles; to lick and to make silent. Suetonius relates that Parrhasius bequeathed to Tiberius a picture which he had painted, representing Atalanta kneeling before Meleager

[1. Martial says:

Corve salutator, quare fellator baberis,
In caput intravit mentula nulla tamen?

O greetings raven, how is it thou art considered a sucker,
though no mentule has ever entered thy mouth?

He refers to the ancient belief that the raven ejected the semen in coition from its beak into the female. Aristotle refutes this belief.]

and caressing him with her mouth.[1] This picture Tiberius caused to be hung in his bedchamber. The Romans regarded irrumation as a far more shameful vice than sodomy. Martial, Petronius and other writers mention the latter with indifference, but Catullus in speaking of the abandoned profligacy of Gellius alludes to irrumation as an act of the greatest turpitude. Martial directs many epigrams against fellators, whose presence at the dinner-table was regarded by the other guests with consternation; a thing not to be surprised at when we recollect that the salute amongst the Romans was a kiss on the mouth. The Phoenicians used to redden their lips to imitate better the appearance of the vulva; on the other hand the Lesbians who were devoted to this practice whitened their lips as though with semen. In the Kama Sutra or Aphorisms on Love of Vatsyayana. (a Sanscrit treatise on venery), a chapter is devoted to 'The Auparishtaka or Mouth Congress', in which the process is divided into eight stages:

1 The nominal congress
2 Biting the sides
3 Pressing outside
4 Pressing inside
5 Kissing
6 Rubbing
7 Sucking a mango fruit and
8 Swallowing up.

That this practice is of very ancient date appears from the fact of its mention in an Indian medical work, the Shushruta, some three thousand years old. Sculptures in temples to Shiva in Orissa, built about the period of the eighth century, also represent this custom.

[1. Martial writes:

I enjoyed a buxom lass all night with me,
Which none could overcome in venery.
Thousand ways tried, I asked that childish thing,
Which she did grant at the first motioning,
Blushing and laughing I a worse besought,
Which she most loose vouchsafed as quick as thought.
Yet she was pure, but if she deal with you
She'll not be so, and thou shalt pay dear too.
- Fletcher's Martial]