So asks Esquire. Now, if I were a sensible person, I’d just say “no” and take the rest of the day off to watch My Little Pony, but I’m clearly not, so now we are going to have to explain a few facts of life to the Esquire person!
For instance, ten of your friends is not a simple random sample. For instance, I just asked four of my vagina-possessing friends, and three of them agreed that blowjobs are much more fun to give than cunnilingus is to receive, because cunnilingus does not result in orgasms for us. (The fourth has never had sex and thus refused to answer.) Does this mean that all people with vaginas hate cunnilingus and can’t orgasm from it (and that a quarter of American vagina-owners are virgins)? Nope. It means that people are different and a couple of your friends is a crap sample– but apparently enough to build an Esquire trend piece around.
People are different. People’s sexualities are different. I love sucking cock; someone else gags. Cunnilingus leaves me cold; it brings someone else to multiple orgasms. That’s okay! I don’t think any sex act is going to “die,” because if there are people who get off on sex with cars, then there are CERTAINLY people who get off on blowing a dude. I also find it an… interesting… omission that the only people who don’t get to opine about whether the blowjob is dead are people with vaginas.
Nevertheless, I do think Esquire Dude has a tiny bit of a point: in American culture, the Sensitive Man Who Makes A Good Partner is someone who likes giving oral more than receiving it. To the point that I feel bad about mentioning to people that neither of my male partners eat me out because they hate the taste and I don’t enjoy it. Because… for some reason people have to engage in a sex act neither of them wants to get the Feminist Stamp of Approval.
My Academic-Feminist Boyfriend Michael Kimmel actually has a really interesting post exploring the possible reasons behind the cultural shift from the Blowjobs Are Where The Money Is model to the I’m A Good Boyfriend, I Eat Ladies Out model:
In fact, sexuality research suggests that what we might call the phenomenology of oral sex–the meaning of the act from the point of view of the actor–is not in the least symmetrical. When straight men describe their experiences with oral sex, they talk about power. This holds whether receiving fellatio: “I feel so powerful when I see her kneeling in front of me,” or performing cunnilingus: “Being able to get her off with my tongue makes me feel so powerful.” Heterosexual men tend to experience the giving and receiving of oral sex as an expression of their power. By contrast, straight women perceive both giving and receiving oral sex from the position of powerlessness–not necessarily because they are forced into these acts, but because “it makes him happy” to receive oral sex and to perform it. So oral sex, like intercourse, allows him to feel “like a man,” regardless of who does what to whom.
First of all, a caveat: this paragraph (and the rest of this post) is about cultural tendencies, not universal truths. People are different, and there are lots of women who perceive oral as a source of power and men who perceive it as a source of powerlessness. The “hegemonic heterosexuality” model of how sex works is how the culture believes sex is supposed to work, but that doesn’t mean that any given person’s bedroom (or, in fact, that the majority of bedrooms) work that way.
That said: according to hegemonic heterosexuality, sex is supposed to be a victory of men over women. He’s supposed to conquer, she’s supposed to surrender. He’s supposed to give, she’s supposed to get. He’s supposed to be active, she’s supposed to be passive. He’s the initiator, she’s the gatekeeper. If he has sex, he has more status, and she has less (since she’s headed closer to the dreaded status of “slut”).
A while ago, fellatio fit that model perfectly: the man had power over the woman because she was sucking him off, and if he didn’t have to return the favor, more power to him. But then women started demanding reciprocation and, worse, expressing their enjoyment of blowjobs! Sex might be about pleasure and not just about a complicated and non-negotiated power game! What now?
Hegemonic heterosexuality, however, is a tricksy beast and quickly overcame this obstacle. You see, while THOSE hegemonically heterosexual men over there don’t like eating girls out, because they are selfish pigs only concerned with their own pleasure, WE like eating girls out. And we get to show how much power we have over women via our ability to give them So Much Pleasure OMG. Hegemonic heterosexuality can propitiate those silly “feminists” and their “mutual pleasure,” and still keep its incredibly sexist and sex-negative view of sex intact.
…Can I just point out that non-negotiated and universalizing power dynamics make for shit sex? We’re only going to have good sex when people can choose to have the sex that gets them off– whether that happens to be oral, grinding, manual, anal, PIV intercourse, BDSM, footjobs, or whatever. It’s one thing to authentically like giving oral more than receiving it: lots of people do. It’s quite another to have “fads” in sex acts that are rooted in misogynistic, misandric, sex-negative conceptions of how sex should be.
ninecarpals said:
I get that you’re talking about trends and not about individuals, but I have never heard the cunnilingus-as-male-power thing in my life. The impression that I – a man – was raised with was that it was my duty to prioritize the pleasure of my partner over mine, not so I could feel good about myself, but so I could avoid being a scumbag. It’s still a giving dynamic, but it’s giving in the sense of subservience.
(Amusingly, I enjoy giving fellatio but not cunnilingus, because having fluids spread all over my face grosses me out.)
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wireheadwannabe said:
I don’t know, I kind of feel like the disapproval of face-sitting might be evidence that there is a dominance thing involved here. It’s exactly the same act, but it gives power and control to the woman rather than the man.
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Pseudonymous Platypus said:
I didn’t click any of the links—are you referring to something specific or do you just think a lot of men disapprove of this? I can only speak for myself but I love it when my S.O. sits on my face.
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wireheadwannabe said:
I’m just describing a feeling I get from the way my male friends talk about it. “Disapproval” maybe isn’t the best word to describe the tone, but I do feel like there’s some connotation of dominance/conquest by the woman.
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ninecarpals said:
I’m not sure I can engage with this given that I’ve never known someone who disapproved of face sitting. The first I heard that someone might was the recent stink in the UK; before that, it was just an act of dominance like face-fucking with a penis, which someone who enjoyed dominance play would get off to and others wouldn’t.
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Pseudonymous Platypus said:
Sorta realted: http://www.salon.com/2015/02/02/ass_is_the_new_pssy_why_anilingus_is_on_the_rise_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
I’d be interested to hear Ozy’s thoughts on this one. Personally, I’m very skeptical of some of the claims made in the article, specifically this:
…but I find it very hard to read Salon charitably because the publication itself instantly sets of my bullshit meter after the CJ Werleman fiasco.
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Dread Lord von Kalifornen said:
Is there suddenly some large sector of the population that no longer is bound by sanitation or its associated superstitions?
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ninecarpals said:
Dunno if it’s that or a large segment of the population realized that showers solve the problem.
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Dread Lord von Kalifornen said:
I shall refrain from empirical testing that.
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ninecarpals said:
Testing the numbers, or testing the cleanliness? Washing will fix most issues, except for things like pinworms (which I’ve gotten through anilingus before). A clean butt doesn’t taste any different than other skin.
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Maxim Kovalev said:
““I feel so powerful when I see her kneeling in front of me,” or performing cunnilingus: “Being able to get her off with my tongue makes me feel so powerful”” – are we sure we’re not conflating two nearly non-intersecting cultures here? The former sounds like a concept from macho culture, where the model of sexuality is “everything you stick your penis into is dominated by you,” and the latter is more like reddit culture, where the model of sexuality is “guys, you won’t believe how cool cunnilingus and pegging are.” It seems like the prerequisite to the feeling of power over the female partner’s orgasm is to care about her pleasure, or at least believe that women enjoy sex, both of which aren’t necessarily agreed upon in highly sexist cultures.
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thirqual said:
This article by Mistress Matisse (The Politics of Blowjobs) makes for an interesting complement to this post (with the sampling of a non-representative pool of guys).
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JME said:
For what it’s worth, it seems to me that a lot of women feel a sense of power from fellating someone too. (I don’t know how many gay dudes get off on the power aspect either way.) I’ve seen it described (roughly) along the lines of “him willingly putting his cock between my teeth is the ultimate display of trust and vulnerability, and gives me a huge feeling of power.”
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ninecarpals said:
Bi dude here, with the corresponding single data point. What I get out of sucking dick really varies based on the circumstances. I love getting face-fucked because of the loss of power I feel; however, I also just plain like sucking dick to satisfy a partner, and because I like the taste/feel. Me feeling a sense of power almost never enters into it.
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roe said:
I appreciate the nod to both misogyny *and* misandry in this silliness, but I’m not sure I buy Kimmel’s explanation.
If anything, my now-resolved but used-to-be conflicting feelings about receiving a blowjob were a mix of feeling *selfish*, and typical-mind fallacy (I didn’t particularly like the idea of sucking a dick myself, so why would she?).
OTH, I was quite proud of my willingness to go down on a woman- so progressive! So *nice*!
I think it’s just men who have over-internalized cultural messages of shame for sexual selfishness.
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Lambert said:
Wait, can we just make this prolem go away with 69?
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veronica d said:
+1
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osberend said:
In theory, and sometimes in practice. Other times, making the angles work can be quite tricky (particularly if one has tight . . . tendons? maybe? I’m not really sure what it is that determines how far one can comfortably depress an erect penis, but whatever it is, it doesn’t always like to play nice. Also, some people apparently find one or both of giving and receiving oral to be too much of a distraction from the other.
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nydwracu said:
I’m 6’5″, so no.
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Nita said:
I’d like to propose a third model of sex, in addition to Kimmel’s Power model and Ozy’s Pleasure model — the Performance model.
In this model, the man is like a musical performer, and the woman is both the instrument and the audience. Every sex session is a test, and the result can either crush or affirm the musician’s confidence in his skills, which are a core part of his identity (the “better” you are at sex, the more of a “man” you are).
This model explains some men’s preference of cunnilingus over fellatio, women faking orgasms and men bragging about “lasting” for hours. I don’t think it’s inherently oppressive, but it can have unhealthy effects:
– men neglecting their own pleasure,
– women feeling pressured to orgasm, feeling “defective” if they can’t,
– virgin men worrying that no one could want them,
– women failing to learn what they like, waiting for a “skillful” man instead,
– women being denied the chance to actively please their partners (seriously, guys — if I just wanted to orgasm, I’d be masturbating, not having sex).
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Aby said:
I really, really like this model. It feels like it describes what goes on very well.
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jossedley said:
This model rings true for me. To take a less loaded example, I do a lot of cooking for my family and guests.
– Most of the time, I want to please the people I am cooking for, and I feel a little sad when I don’t.
– On the other hand, I want to know when I haven’t gotten it right, so that I can do better next time.
– So there are a bunch of emotional dynamics, but we get through them with communication and sensitivity.
– Also, once in a great while, I think “F- it, I am going to cook something I want to cook and or eat, and if it’s not to my family’s taste, they can eat more salad/rice/whatever.”
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nydwracu said:
Are there actually people who care about ~sex trends~ or let magazines influence their sex lives or any of that? Hoooooly shit this world is worse than I thought. It’s bad enough that people think of their friends while they’re having sex, but thinking of Esquire…
To say that the problem with fads in sex acts is that they’re rooted in something or other is to say that the problem with getting hit by a car is that the car might be a Volkswagen and those were first designed by the Nazis and so you might get Nazi cooties. The largest problem with media-manufactured sex act fads is the eistence of media-manufactured sex act fads.
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Loe said:
“Sorry babe, but a blowjob? Really? Those are so fucking passe. Just jerk me off.”
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Drew said:
(Epistemic status: mild contrarianism)
Fads — even sex fads — get a bad rap. There’s the assumption that fad-based enjoyment of things is less legitimate than enjoyment that exists in a vacuum.
I disagree. Fads add an extra dimension to our choices.
The fad for ‘cunnilingus-as-feminist-symbol’ is giving the Esquire guys an opportunity to play with social norms. People can eroticize the feeling of being transgressive.
Without cultural-connotations on sex acts, we’d lose a lot of that. It’d be harder for a couple to feel (safely) daring without some kinds of social boundaries to push against.
Fads also create opportunities for exploration and expression. As acts wax or wane in popularity people get chances to expand their repertoire or signal that their tastes are independent of the current fashions.
Like anything, social pressures around fads can be taken too far. But removing them entirely would rob people of their ability to play against social norms.
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Bugmaster said:
That may be true, but IMO the answer to “is sex act X finished ?” is “no, you dummy”, for any value of X.
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nydwracu said:
Can we at least pick up some machetes and get the media to walk back the insane “ass-eating” thing they’ve been pushing for the last year or two?
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Alita Bernard said:
I think Ozy’s point about not wanting to mention that neither of their male partners eat them out is very significant. This policing of what sex is ‘good sex’ is still constructed as though sex preferences are homogenous and, rather than make various sex preferences acceptable, it just creates new taboos.
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petealexharris said:
If you don’t know when fellatio is finished, you’re not doing it right 🙂
(joke! any way or duration both participants are enjoying is fine, obviously)
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Alan Bostick said:
That Esquire article is, like, three years old. Why exhume it to mock it now, when there are so many targets deserving mockery alive and active?
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ozymandias said:
My blog was in reruns at the time and this post is also three years old.
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