I have a confession to make: I’m afraid of giving blowjobs.
I feel like a failure of a sex columnist; how can I properly talk about sex things on campus when there’s stuff I just don’t do? And yet…
My only real experience with giving oral occurred while I was a bit too inebriated. It was incredibly sloppy and ended almost immediately, as my partner quickly realized that I was too drunk to properly make decisions and put me to bed.
There have been other forays (shall we say) into the realm of blowjobs that all ended in my stopping just short of the actual deed and making a hasty bid for a condom instead—though, as a sidenote, we should all be using condoms for oral too, which seems logistically complicated, but I wouldn’t really know.
My fears about the act are rooted in a number of things: the aggressive nature of the penis getting all up in your grill, the very real concern that I’ll be really bad at and/or hurt my partner, and the changing relations of dominance involved. All of these have somehow conspired to create a major mental block for me where blowjobs are concerned.
Beyond this, there’s the intimacy factor. Most people I’ve talked to agree that oral is more intimate than other kinds of sex. It’s a very selfless act.
I’ve always been very confused as to why giving head is apparently lower than penetrative sex on the familiar hierarchy of sexual acts.
“Down there” bits seem meant to mix together, no matter what mixture you’ve got going on.
Adding mouths to the equation seems like it should be adding another layer, and therefore be more intimate, not less.
If you have trouble conceiving the intimacy of giving, consider receiving, especially if you’re a girl who’s had heterosexual encounters.
While blowjobs are a seemingly normal part of pop culture, going down on girls has been reviled by the media. There’s a reason “Blue Valentine” initially got slapped with an NC-17 rating, while other films depicting oral on dudes immediately get rated R.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have done my fair share of getting, and yes, I do feel a little guilty about not reciprocating.
That’s my personal issue though. The wider problem lies in friends’ reactions to this fact.
Many of them are far more comfortable with giving than getting. It’s not that they enjoy one more than the other, but that while they either enjoy or don’t mind performing oral on guys, they are fundamentally uncomfortable with boyfriends, hookups and returning the favor.
“What if they think it’s gross?” “I’m just too self-conscious about it.” “Why would they ever really want to go down there?” This rhetoric is a huge problem!
I can’t personally explain the urge to go down on someone, but I can say that whatever reasons you have for giving headto someone are probably very similar to their reasons for returning the favor. It might seem gross, but isn’t all sex kind of gross when you think about it? Bodies are weird mechanisms, but none should be considered more “weird” or “embarrassing” than others.
It’s possible there are even guys out there protesting that they feel uncomfortable with being the recipients of oral.
To those dudes: you shouldn’t be ashamed either. All of this applies to you as well.
But I’m addressing female shame surrounding sexy bits because that’s a cultural constant.
Women’s bodies are policed to a major extent, and that often gets internalized and manifests itself as extreme discomfort over appearance and self-worth.
If that statement sounds like it could apply to things outside of the bedroom, good. It should. It does. The thing about vagina shame (copyright pending) is that we don’t talk about it, even though it can really negatively affect our sex lives and level of comfort with ourselves in general.
Returning to oral, I’m not saying you have to enjoy either giving or getting, just that it’s time to stop being ashamed of our bodies. If your partner wants to do something and the only thing stopping you is anxiety over how they’ll react to your body, try to push that aside and let them do it.
They’re with you for a reason, and I can almost guarantee they will like your body—all parts of it—no matter what.