 |
| Today, Ed Wood wants to discuss oral sex with you. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media 2021).
The article: "Head—Heaven and Hell." Publication data unknown. Listed on Ed Wood's resume as having been written in 1973. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt: "Oh, the pleasures of it all . . . the dynamic thrills that builds in the scrotum and travels along the shaft to that final explosion and a willing partner gobbling it all down. It is the pleasure of all pleasures, and it isn't only the young who practice such affairs . . . prostitutes have been professionals at both fellatio and cunnilingus for centuries. Many specialize in the art."
 |
| "When I said I wanted a little head..." |
Reflections: There's a little game I play whenever I'm reviewing an article from When the Topic is Sex. It's called Let's Guess How Drunk Ed Wood Was When He Wrote This Thing. Answers can range from "not drunk at all" to "completely bombed out of his mind." In the case of 1973's "Head—Heaven and Hell," my guess is "pretty goddamned drunk." Why? Because this article captures Eddie at his Eddie-est, flitting from topic to topic in a rambling, florid, stream-of-consciousness style rife with his trademark ellipses. It reads like the transcript of someone else's dream. There are days when Ed does not write as much as babble onto the page. This is such a day.
At the basic molecular level, "Head—Heaven and Hell" is Ed Wood's essay about the pleasures of oral sex. He says he'll discuss both fellatio and cunnilingus, but the former gets more attention since Eddie's audience was overwhelmingly male. Wood seems at first to want to detail the history of this practice, mentioning the popularity of oral sex in Ancient Rome. But then he goes off on a weird tangent about how paintings from that era tend to depict "the elite of society" rather than "the rabble," probably because the latter had no money with which to pay the artists. He then adds:
But is it this way today? Not by the tail feathers of a cockatoo. The entire situation is in reverse. The elite have gone into hiding and the masses have come to the foreground . . . to have their pictures taken, painted and whatever . . . and fellatio and cunnilingus stands well out in the foreground.
See what Ed just did there? He remembered that this article was supposed to be about oral sex, so he somehow managed to steer himself back onto the main road. I'm not complaining, mind you. I like when Eddie takes the scenic route, especially if it means we'll get phrases like "not by the tail feathers of a cockatoo." This is not a common English idiom, by the way, but Ed uses it as if it were.
At several points throughout When the Topic is Sex, Ed Wood has discussed whether or not oral sex is normal and healthy. It seems that, half a century ago, this common practice was more controversial and less accepted than it is today. "Head—Heaven and Hell" repeats most of Ed's main talking points on the subject. As usual, Eddie assures us that "the psychiatrists and men of science" have given it their approval, no matter what the moralists might say. And, yet again, the author takes this opportunity to disparage the old-fashioned missionary position, comparing it unfavorably to oral intercourse.
With all these side trips, it takes a while for Ed to arrive at his thesis statement: "Fellatio and cunnilingus can actually send a person to Heaven or Hell, as the case may be." As what case may be, Ed? What the hell are you talking about?
The paragraphs that immediately follow offer little in the way of explanation or illumination. Ed says that oral sex is convenient for those couples who want to get romantic at movie theaters or parks without getting caught. He also says that fellatio is commonly offered to customers at "health spas and massage parlors," leading to some recent police raids. Then, he switches gears dramatically and starts describing "fleabag whores" giving blowjobs in dank alleyways. Okay, at least now we're back on familiar ground. Many of Ed's short stories in Blood Splatters Quickly and Angora Fever deal with hookers, alleys, or both.
But we still haven't gotten to why oral sex can be heaven or hell. Ed finally addresses this burning issue near the end of the article. You see, fellatio and cunnilingus can cause people to experience tremendous pleasure. That's the "heaven" part. But there's a downside. Remember those "fleabag whores" we talked about? Many of their clients, according to this article, have "dropped dead on the spot." And if you think that's an undignified way to go, Ed offers a final anecdote about a "young fellow" and his girlfriend who decided to have a little oral fun during a car trip. To say the least, they ended up regretting it.
Next: "A Look at the Nymphomaniac" (1972)