This writer has an interesting take on oral sex! 

I once dated a guy who refused to go down on me. “I just don’t like the way it tastes,” was his excuse. As if his dick tasted like an ice cream cone. I joke about it now, but at the time I didn’t find it very funny. My boyfriend’s aversion to oral sex made me newly insecure about that part of my body, and the few times I did convince him to go down on me, I was too in my own head to enjoy it, constantly worrying that he was grossed out or just doing it out of obligation. Friends I confided in at the time suggested I stop giving him blow jobs, to give him a taste of his own medicine. But since I enjoy giving pleasure, no BJs felt like double the punishment.

I realize that I’m being, shall we say, candid. But I find that it’s next to impossible to talk about sex without getting specific. And how else does one get what one wants out of sex than by talking about it? So I’ll go first: I don’t understand why so many men act like, by giving head, they’re doing you a favor. I half expect them to say “You’re welcome” afterward. I recently met a guy who, while flirting with me at a party, said, “Just so you know, I’m the kind of guy who cares about making a girl cum.” He then stared at me in anticipation, as if waiting for me to faint, or for celebratory balloons to fall from the ceiling. Not to mention that when you meet the rare guy who’s up for going down, he’s often remarkably bad at it. All that spitting and sucking and vagina slapping: What is going on there? To my knowledge, I don’t have an abnormally sensitive vagina, but if someone slaps it, or slurps at it like it’s a trough, any subsequent screaming will be out of pain, not pleasure. Oral sex isn’t rocket science, so why, if you’re a straight girl, is head so often either terrible or nonexistent?

It’s now widely discussed that, due to a lack of sex ed in school, young people are learning about sex from porn. Heterosexual porn scenes usually go something like this: Girl gets naked; girl shows off her body for a while; girl gives guy a blow job; girl and guy have intercourse; the end. Rarely in this scenario does the guy reciprocate oral sex. Well, porn imitates life imitates porn, as they say. Which means that, often, real-life sex doesn’t include head for the woman, either. Of course, there are exceptions. Some guys are very generous and adept in the oral department, and some porn does emphasize pleasure for the woman. But the fact is, almost all mainstream porn is made by men, for men, and it shows—the aim of the scenes is always to get the man off. As a result, in the real world, many girls and guys think that the aim of sex is to get the man off. And honestly, many of my hook-ups with men have felt driven by that singular goal. As someone who also sleeps with women, I feel I have a good counterpoint. My female partners have been unanimously more giving and considerate, and certainly more likely to give me head.

Cindy Gallop, the woman behind Make Love Not Porn, says she’s “pro-porn, pro-sex, and pro knowing the difference.” I completely agree with her. Don’t get me wrong: I love porn and watch it often—probably too often—but I also know that it’s artificial entertainment. Porn is great for many things, but learning how to genuinely please a woman is not one of them.