Robert Sampson - Guide to Oral Adultery

DIAGNOSIS:

Margo reacted so strongly against her very brief fling because it was the only one in her life and thus it loomed much larger than it deserved. I assured her that this one moment of oral passion didn't make her an evil woman and that she should stop punishing herself. She is a very moral person who feels that every sin would be punished. When she fellated a man she felt that somehow she should pay for it. Since the incident happened six months before she came to see me this meant that she had carried her burden of guilt around all that time. Six months of living with an agonized conscience is more than enough punishment for her very short journey into oral sex.

Sidney Furst, in his book, “Psychic Trauma", maintains that some people can indulge in all forms of sexual expression and not feel guilty while others spend years brooding over a minor slip into vice. It all depends on one's conditioning, Mr. Furst says. Margo, who had been brought up to believe that the family was the most important thing in a woman's life and that her husband was supposed to be her only man, went into agonies because, at the age of forty-five, she had her first sexual relationship outside of marriage.

As much as she desired Vernon, she couldn't not make the affair one of genital to genital intercourse. In her mind this was a major sin… adultery. She looked upon oral sex, however, as a minor sin, but this did not stop her from loading the burden of guilt upon herself.

It took several sessions before the woman no longer felt guilty about fellating a man she met on vacation. I doubt that she will ever again have an adulterous relationship, oral or otherwise. Margo is the kind of person who is unable to sleep at nights if she feels guilty about something. I was glad to have helped her of her six month bout of insomnia.