In an impassioned response to our post, “Your Call: She Doesn’t Like Going Down,” reader Sara doesn’t pull any punches when discussing those who prioritize sex acts over actual people. She really gets going in the fourth paragraph!:
You know what makes it easier to like something? Being able to choose freely whether to do it (or have it done to you). That means being pressured is not helpful. Whether it is “but everyone else loves it” peer pressure, some jackass saying you owe them, or some well-meaning person telling you to try try again.
I found this thread seriously f*cked up. The amount of guilt tripping and the suggestion to the OP that there’s something wrong with her, she needs to get over it, that she’s being “unfair” – what the actual FUCK?
Do you people realise that coercing someone into a sex act they are not willing to do is a form of rape? That people are different and some people just don’t like certain things, and it’s not your right to tell them they are abnormal because they’re different to you? Threatening to find sex elsewhere or leave someone if they don’t give you oral sex is emotional manipulation of the most insidious, despicable kind. My man doesn’t like giving oral sex much and even if I loved it (I don’t) I would NEVER coerce him into it because it’s sick to make someone you’re supposed to love do something sexually that they are not willing to do.
I don’t like giving blow jobs and there is NOTHING wrong with me. There are a lot of unpleasant things about having a dick in your mouth. Even freshly washed, it doesn’t taste or smell great. Seeing as my tongue happens to be covered in taste buds and my nose full of olfactory receptors, there is little I can do to block this out. Putting food of any kind on genitalia makes it even more gross. Getting your gag reflex stimulated is massively unpleasant too – it can be painful if it’s violent, my eyes water, and I don’t feel very sexy with tears streaming down my face. After about 2 minutes my jaw aches unbearably. I find the idea of bodily fluids hitting the back of my throat disgusting, and every time I’ve ever swallowed I’ve felt sick and mildly traumatised for a couple of hours afterwards, and if you think there’s something wrong with me for that how about you take a swig of your girlfriend’s period blood and see how it makes you feel. Most people can’t even handle the idea of drinking human breast milk and that’s actually supposed to be food, so why am I supposed to enjoy the salty bitter slime that comes out of a man’s penis?
Couples can have great sex that both partners enjoy without throwing their toys out of the pram when they don’t get everything they want. I like anal but I also recognise that it’s not for everyone, and I’d never accuse another girl of being weird or uptight or somehow at fault for not enjoying it. Similarly my man has no interest in being penetrated anally by me, and though I’d quite like to do it it would be messed up to coerce him into something he’s clearly not comfortable with, and even more messed up to suggest that him not being comfortable with something I want is some sort of personal failing.
There should be more to a relationship than getting pleasured. If you care more about getting your dick sucked than you do about the girl who’s doing it, then you probably don’t deserve a relationship anyway. Fuck… this thread has seriously depressed me.
Except for the opening paragraphs about rape, Sara’s was the Unreasonable Comment of the Week. Derek’s follow-up was better. Everyone has boxes they’re trying to check when looking for a mate — similar ideas about sex, drugs, music, family, housing, religion, politics, and pets, for starters. Sara needs a guy who doesn’t want blow jobs and has one. Of course she does. No guy who wants them would choose to be with her. For some guys no blow jobs is a non-starter. C’est la vie.
When my wife, after 14 years of marriage, announced there would no longer be sex on weekends, there were many trips to a marriage counselor. I didn’t think there was enough activity (4-5x/yr) to begin with, and an objective observer was needed to help us work through this significant issue. To Sara’s point I never thought I was the type of guy who would force a partner to do what she doesn’t want to do. However, if she’s deciding when we aren’t going to have sex then I’m going to decide how often we are having sex. I was willing to agree to exclude weekends, but only if the weekday activity increased very significantly. We’re still together 18 months later, but I will interpret any drop in activity to mean she’s simply not interested in this relationship. I can, after all, not have sex just as often if I’m single. I don’t need to be bound by a monogamous agreement in order to not have sex.
Bravo! Very well said.