It's ofcourse a multi-faceted thing, the breaking of taboos. One of the strengths of it is that a taboo is a threshold. Liminality and all that comes into play.
Breaking a taboo is stepping over a threshold, which is a "cheap" and dirty way of engaging in that liminality to juice yourself up. This is why ceremoniggers love that shit so much. They can't achieve said states on their own so they resort to techniques. Same as achieving "trance" states through drug use.
Since we are on thresholds, firsts are a good trove of "potent" thresholds.
It is however not hard to "manufacture" thresholds. Consider that taboos are mutable for the most part and are man-made and group consensus