What's so bad about "vanilla" sex?
In the various kink milieus that I slink about in, I constantly hear the term "vanilla sex" used with the same tone commonly associated with describing symptoms of gastro-intestinal ailments. People wrinkle their noses as if someone's changing soiled diapers in sniffing distance. Then they roll their eyes like the most obnoxiously worldly teenager trying to explain FourSquare to some decrepit middle-aged dork. To make matters worse, it'll be delivered dripping in condescension worthy of the meanest popular kid in high school.
At best I simply ignore it. On the worst days it pisses me off at so many levels that I just want to turn my back on all those espousing themselves as lords of kink and hallowed disciples of perviness.
Vanilla is one of nature's epitomes of sensuality.
The vanilla orchid, a chartreuse and golden beauty native to Mexico, is said to have sprouted from the blood of a heavenly princess, trying to flee with her mortal lover, only to be slain and beheaded by her celestial father. Adored by the Aztecs and maddening European botanists, this culinary elixir has been worshipped for its unmistakable flavor as well as purported magical qualities as an aphrodisiac, fever calmer and temper tamer. Can you imagine the devastating grief a French dessert chef would plunge into should vanilla disappear!? Even the name vanilla is erotic, derived from the same Latin ancestor that begat our current word vagina. She is such a fickle lover, that to produce the coveted and expensive bean, she's forced humans into serving as her pollination bitch and botanical sex slave. Every drop of vanilla we consume comes from of painstaking hand-pollination, one flower at a time.
In truth, sex that is vanilla would be exotic, intoxicating, unforgettable and bordering on addictive. It would be lush and pampered, fragrant, fleeting yet unhurried. Vanilla sex would capture, enslave, colonize and be battled over by men willing to die for it. The scent teasingly lingers upon the cusp of innocence and carnality like Nabokov's Lolita.
Perhaps the derogatory term was coined, and then perpetuated, by the culinarily impaired, gastronomically impoverished and sensually ignorant, to whom the notion of vanilla equated with cloying cheap artificial flavor masked by excessive fake sweeteners. Did you know that fake vanilla is made from wood-pulp byproduct or petrochemical derivative? Mmmm yummy sludge shake!
If your vanilla ice cream doesn't contain carrogeenan, carboxymethyl cellulose and Yellow Dye #5 with a dash of guaiacol derived flavoring, you might think twice about sneering at vanilla sex. You wouldn't turn down a Bi-Rite ice cream sundae, would you?
After the offense to the magnificent vanilla bean, we must deal with the offense of misguided superiority. The common use of "vanilla sex" fully describes unaccessorized conventional intercourse that's necessarily boring and pedestrian. It also conveys the implication that the opposite of vanilla sex—I suppose that's kinky sex—is everything but, and never could be boring and pedestrian.
Think again.
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