For a vegan, the thought of 40-600 million of those bad boys sliding down their throat might not be a turn on.

Yenta,

I am newly a dedicated Vegan. I loved, I mean LOVED, giving head, but suddenly feel a new gag reflex coming on when I think about it. Can I swallow the products of a human body without morally violating my vegan code?

Sincerely,

Milk-Free

Dear Milk-Free,

First, a definition. Vegan, according to Vegan.org: “A vegan (pronounced VEE-gun) is someone who, for various reasons, chooses to avoid using or consuming animal products. While vegetarians choose not to use flesh foods, vegans also avoid dairy and eggs, as well as fur, leather, wool, down, and cosmetics or chemical products tested on animals.” Why? They say it is because it is an integral component of a cruelty-free lifestyle.

There is a forum on Chuck Palahniuk’s website asking “Do Vegans Swallow Semen?” One guy says, “This is more like…I don’t know…licking the spoon after mixing cake batter? It is, after all, human milk.” One vegan writes, “I look at it the same way as eggs, cheese, milk, butter, and so on and so forth. If you eat those then semen shouldn’t be wrong, otherwise it is. Vegans don’t eat animal byproducts either, semen is produced from men as all those are made from cows.” And still a third, “the guy is giving his semen (I assume) WILLINGLY whereas most vegetarians/vegans would agree that the cows sure as heck aren’t.”

Ok! So when it comes to veganism and semen consumption, it boils down to the vegan’s intention. If you are adhering to this food law based on a desire not to consume any product of human or animal, then yes, giving head is newly un-kosher. This, however, also bans kissing. I.e., saliva and semen are no different in terms of both being human (animal) fluids.

But it is my understanding that most vegans choose the lifestyle based on a desire to bypass animal cruelty. For example, as said in the Washington Post segment, “Modern Meat, A Brutal Harvest,” “hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned.”

So. A few scenarios: Because giving head is not, in most cases, an act of cruelty, (unless, perhaps, scalding water is involved) and because no life is harmed in the act, then the product of a blow job should be vegan. Now, if your lover suddenly starts eating large quantities of pork, squid, veal, etc and then you go down on them, the content of their body no longer aligns with vegan law. I.e., if those pigs were put in captivity and raised as bacon, it don’t float with the vegans.

You are, in this case, what you eat. As one slightly gruesome person wrote in to an online discussion of vegan semen, “I would say NO because they would not put the (meat) in their mouth it the first place.” Another person argued that humans swallow their own “spittle” all the time, so would that make us cannibals?

Now, if you give head to people to torture them, or going down is an act of rape, then the ejaculate is no longer vegan. I.e., that is in violation of the preservation of life/no-cruelty to animals bit. Consent alters the morality of semen consumption.

A note on the content of semen: Semen contains citric acid, free amino acids, fructose, enzymes, phosphorylcholine, prostaglandin, potassium, and zinc. One amount of ejaculate may contain between 40 million to 600 million sperm depending on the volume and the length of time stored before ejaculating. Now, that means that 40-600 million live organisms go swimming down your throat. That being said, regardless of the high protein and zinc in semen, in lieu of veganism, that is consuming, like, a whole lot of itty-bitty lives.

All in all, this is what it boils down to:

1) No semen for a vegan who doesn’t eat animal products for the sake of not eating animal products.
2) No semen for a vegan if the semen-producer is a meat/animal-product eater.
3) No semen for a vegan if the semen is a product of rape.

And finally, in the words of Tom Regan, PhD, as quoted in VeganOutreach.org’s “Why Vegan, Boycott Cruelty!” pamphlet, “I think everybody has that capacity to stop and think and say, ‘If I knew you, I wouldn’t eat you.’”

Happy frolicking.

Addendum: This just in via Facebook: “a single cell protein ….. means NOT vegan! So sorry … I love giving head as well! Not Vegan! Sucks.” Thank you, Ma’am.

Merissa Nathan Gerson is a fan of

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