RECENTLY, I WAS IN BED with a guy whose
sheets I'd wanted to get tangled up in for a while. It was our third date, but
I was hoping for a thousand more, and we were having the kind of intense and
passionate sex that makes you believe that might be possible. I felt so close
to him with our eyes locked and our bodies bendy from red wine. But suddenly he
pulled away and disappeared beneath the covers, diving headfirst between my
thighs. "I could do this forever," he said, his voice muffled by the
blanket. All I could think was, Please don't.
Let me be clear: It's
not that I hate oral sex. A tongue feels good anywhere it roams, and I'm not
bothered by the fact that bodies don't exactly taste like cherry soda all the
time. But oral sex demands total surrender to the moment and the person you're
with. Unfortunately, I am often stuck in my own head. Instead of being lost in
ecstasy, when a guy goes down on me, I'm worrying about loose hairs, whether or
not his jaw is getting exhausted, and how I look down there. Or my mind wanders
to things that have absolutely nothing to do with sex: I fret that I'm late with
the cable bill or that I left the iron on. I worry that I will never reach
orgasm, which usually ensures that I won't, because nothing detracts from
erotic abandon like performance anxiety. All too often, receiving oral sex
spirits me away from a universe of pleasure and into the troublesome territory
of overeager den mother: Are you sure you're OK down
there? Do you need anything to drink? Would anyone like cookies?
It's too bad I feel this
way because the men I date seem happier than ever to go down on me. I figure
it's a power thing. Decades of feminism and accessible porn have made women
more comfortable with their bodies and more sexually aggressive, and guys may
find it thrilling to make a woman vulnerable, to have her thighs trembling on
either side of their face. It must be a huge rush to transform your partner
into a puddle of id which I completely understand because that's how I feel
when I go down on a guy. Don't get me wrong: Many women adore oral sex, and I
consider it a sign of sexual progress that a man's oral skills now give him
bragging rights.
However, I'm not the
only woman I know who feels ambivalence toward oral sex. When I asked female
friends for their opinions, many gave less than stellar reviews: It takes too
long. Guys don't know what they're doing. It requires a shower. One friend was
obsessed with the notion that bits of mealy toilet paper could be stuck down
there. Another simply said, "Meh." And pop culture reflects our
ambivalence. When television shows and books portray a woman receiving oral sex
(and it's a rare occurrence), it's often clumsy and unfulfilled. Take the
much-talked-about scene in the HBO show Girls, in which a
sexually inexperienced character squirms while a guy goes down on her. I can
relate to that full-body cringe. Meanwhile, the heroine in Fifty Shades of Grey is so out of touch with her
body that she doesn't masturbate, and the whole book reads like wish fulfilment
for women unable to articulate what turns them on.
In the end, the real
trick to enjoying any sexual act is to know what you want and how to ask for
it. So here is what I need: a dark room. Occasional giggles. Occasional quiet.
A finger in the right spot helps. A vibrator can be fun. I've found that oral
sex is not casual for me, which means that I'm sorry, sailor, you can't show up
at midnight, jump under the sheets, and expect to blow my mind. What I need
more than anything is someone I trust and am comfortable with. Maybe that just
won't happen by date number three. Till then, I'd prefer if my lovers kept their heads above the covers.
