“It’s their way of opening to the Great One, of surrendering open and taking the Great One so deep they are lost in worship, gone in the giving of themselves, gone in their love of cock – not of a man as a character, as a husband or boyfriend, but gone in the love of cock itself.”
— David Deida, Wild Nights

In the realm of BDSM, body worship is the sub’s adoration of their partner’s body parts. This includes muscles, feet, vagina or penis. The sub is usually in an erotically demeaning position, such as on their knees. The receiver either accepts the worship passively, like a higher being who is used to centuries of being adored and has grown bored of it. Or, they engage and encourage the worship with spanks or even worship back. The interesting thing about body worship is that it bleeds out of the BDSM world and into more standard bedrooms as a form of foreplay. In fact, Christians tend to tie worship into sex, claiming God is most pleased with different forms of unions (marriage and sex), and a couple that worships each other’s bodies is also worshipping God.

As a woman who grew up in a deeply Christian household, I spent a lot of time contemplating all kinds of worship. People worship God, celebrities, and sexual partners. And to bring those concepts even closer, there’s cock worship.

“There is no creation but that which is created by Phallus. On your knees and worship Cock.”
– Temple Priapus

Some people worship penises so much, they’ve created a religion around it. Take the St. Priapus Church as an example. While they’re a nonprofit that serves as a food dispensary for people living with HIV and AIDS, they mainly worship penises. Semen is revered. Acts of worship include group masturbation, semen consumption and fellatio.

Shrines that are centuries old. Annual parades. Buildings. In the United States, we have the Washington Monument and the Ypsilanti Water Tower erected and serving as constant phallic reminders. From the patriarchy’s influence on societal attitudes down to concrete structures, the world loves to worship cock. But what does that worship mean when it comes down to the sexual act?

First off, Cock Worship and blowjobs are not the same thing.

Blowjob. Blow. Job. The labor of blowing. Who wants to kneel down after a long day of work to work some more? Who can enjoy that, outside of the receiver? Blowjobs are solely about the person attached to the cock. Their moans. Their toes curling. Their heads rolling back.

Worship, however, isn’t a job. Worship is for the worshipper. It’s something you do for the pleasure of your soul. Worship is slow, delicate, ritualistic in its manner and importance. It’s the sacred work of handling a penis and, occasionally, the person attached to said penis.

Cock Worship is about being fully grounded and centered in the moment. Worshippers enjoy the feel of it in their hands. Sturdy, like a sacred tool. And like something sacred, they want to be engulfed by it. Feel it on their face, neck, chest and everywhere else.

You have to love penises in order to fully engage in Cock Worship. This doesn’t apply to everyone. The handling and sucking of a penis is usually a transaction. I do this for you and you do that to me. Less cynical people say they enjoy their partner’s reactions when they unleash a handful of skills with their tongues and throat, but that’s still just a blowjob. It’s the agnostic version of Cock Worship, where the act of worship may be performed for the sake of tradition and symbolism, but it’s inconsequential to the worshipper’s soul or pleasure.

Not to say that blowjobs are inadequate if the giver is not worshipping. The differences are purely directional. Who gets more out of it? Blowjobs are all about the person receiving. Cock Worship, like the worship of any body part, religion or celebrity, is about the worshipper.

Gem Blackthorn is QMT's Sex Columnist, and the author/curator of Lust Thrust Thursdays. Send her your submissions and questions at sexsexsex [at] queenmobs.com