Now, I understand that cunnilingus is not the simplest of tasks. There are nuances to be learned, and they differ from person to person, which means that even in lesbian sex, where you “know what you’re working with,” you still have to figure out what works best for your partner. (But as a general rule, lick lightly. Jeez.) I’ve had my own oral difficulties in the past. I once slept with a girl who had the sort of vagina that isn’t so easily navigated—her clit was sort of hidden under a bunch of other stuff. While down there, I said, “Tell me where it feels good,” thinking she would direct my tongue. Instead, she just looked down at me with disdain, rolled her eyes and responded, “On my clit, duh.” Insulted, I put my head back down and resorted to the trial-and-error strategy, taking cues from her moans on where to steer my tongue—a less efficient method, but it worked. Still, her condescension didn’t do wonders for my sexual ego.

Men seem to think that blow jobs are easy—that you just suck and try to keep your teeth out of the way. Samantha once famously broke it down for a lover in Sex and the City: the teeth placement, jaw stress, suction, gag reflex, head bobbing, moaning, and breathing through the nose. “Easy?” Samantha says. “Honey, they don’t call it a job for nothing.” Well said. Not to mention that BJs often result in a mouthful of bodily fluids—that’s way more intense than anything cunnilingus has to offer, even if the girl goes full bush. And for the record, it is possible to give a bad blow job. I once made the mistake of eating a kale salad twenty minutes before deep throating. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it my proudest BJ moment. Google “bad blow job” and you’ll find endless tales from men about women botching the job.

One of my favorite videos from the Desire Project—an evolving online documentary where women share stories about desire—is of a girl named Amy talking about how she used to hate receiving oral sex. She says, “I thought good oral sex was a myth. . .  I was like, ‘This is always just going to be meh . . . but I need to pretend like I like it, because I want you to stop, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.’ I just figured that when people talk about guys going down on girls, that it’s just more of a courtesy thing, and not actually enjoyable.” She goes on to talk about meeting the magical guy who blew her mind, made her cum in record time, and proved her theory wrong. While Amy’s story is funny and relatable, I also recognized a fault in her sexual conduct that I, too, am guilty of: She wasn’t happy with the sex she was having, but she didn’t do anything to change it.

We all get vulnerable when we’re naked. Sexual egos are fragile, probably especially in men, who are expected to be sexually competent. We don’t want to criticize our partners’ performance in bed, for fear of hurting their feelings or making them not like us. But perpetuating negative or ineffective sexual behavior is bad for everyone involved. As Dan Savage always says, women have to enable their own pleasure—we have to be our own best advocate in bed, and be as aggressive and entitled as men are. We can’t just whine about our partners being lazy and inept and not do anything to make the situation better. Whenever I encounter a guy who’s bad at giving head, I always think, God, what girl let you think that that was acceptable?! But then I remember that I, too, have been that girl.

Curated by Lesley
Original Article