Have a question? Email erin@nerve.com. Letters may be edited for length, content and clarity.
Dear Miss Information,
I'm twenty and have been with my boyfriend for more than a year. We are deeply committed to one another and have a great deal of mutual respect. We have a lot of sex and I come regularly. But physically, I'm not his type. He's into tall blondes, and I'm a short brunette. This manifests itself in passionless sex: my body doesn't turn him on, and, in turn, I don't get turned on. Is this a dealbreaker? Or should I get over this hang-up and surrender myself to this otherwise flawless relationship? — Chococat |
Dear Chococat,
You've been with this guy for more than a year, having sex that consistently results in orgasms. "Deeply committed" and "great deal of mutual respect" are the phrases you use to describe the relationship. Yet you've somehow decided your boyfriend thinks you're a hideous troll. Given the opportunity, he'd throw you over for a leggy blonde stranger and leave you crying into your cellphone. A few inches of height and your hair pigment are just that important.
That's a pretty weird conclusion, Chococat. I'm wondering how you arrived at it. Did you take a few fair-haired exes, some random snippets of conversation, and a preponderance of Blonde On Blonde On Blonde tapes in his porno collection and use them to cobble together this neurosis? Or has your guy said flat out that he doesn't find you attractive, or implied it through a series of digs and critical remarks?
If it's the first scenario, you need to chill. Few of us are matched with our exact physical ideal. It doesn't mean we're miserable. The source of the passionless sex might be you. Not because you're petite and brunette, but because your insecurities are affecting your performance. You go through the motions (kiss, pet, oral, penetrate, repeat) but don't throw in any extras (quickies, anal, costumes, dirty talk, cup holder). Half because you feel a little angry and rejected — "Why does this asshole deserve it? He doesn't even want me" — half because you don't feel confident, a prerequisite for heavy-duty, extra-strength awesome fucking.
If it's the second scenario, he needs to chill. It's fine to share with your partner what you find sexy. But it needs to be done in a general context. Blaming your lack of interest on something your partner can't control is totally unconstructive. What are you supposed to do? Get one of those leg-lengthening operations they're showing on the Discovery Channel? Actually, maybe he's the one who needs the operation. A lobotomy to remove the part of his brain that says it's okay to have a very specific standard of beauty but still pursue relationships with women who don't meet it.
The following recommendations apply to either scenario: 1. Tell him to shut up about his blonde fetish. You don't want to hear it. 2. Put it out of your thoughts. Keep a rubber band on your wrist or a picture of Charo on your screensaver to remind yourself that you're re-training. 3. When you have sex, focus on the other senses. There's more than just the visual, and how you look is only a very small part.
Dear Miss Information,
I'm in my late twenties, and I'm seeing a guy in his early twenties. He's in the military, into bodybuilding and heavy metal. I'm the opposite of all those things: against the war (but support the troops), can't remember the last time I jogged and listen to Bread. I can't imagine a sex life without oral pleasure, and my guy is under some macho assumption that giving oral to a girl is gross. But he's happy to receive. I have told him that I consider oral sex essential but he doesn't seem open to the idea. We've had sex twice, and I can't tell if he's completely selfish in bed or just inexperienced/unadventurous. What can I do to convince him to go down on me? Or this is a lost cause? — Tricked Twice |
Dear Tricked Twice,
Assuming he's a potential keeper, you might want to give it some time and see if he gets more into it. Some people consider oral sex more intimate than penetrative sex and will happily give head — you just have to wait for it. Like you said, it's too early to tell whether he's not into eating pussy or doesn't know what he's doing and is using the "I don't like it" excuse as a cover-up.
On your seventh or eighth fuck and still no action? Start asking questions. Is it a smell thing? A taste thing? Has he done it to anyone before? Did he like it? Not like it? Does he like watching it in porn movies? Is there some kooky sexual shit in his past? Do his buddies not do it for their girlfriends? His reasons, and your feelings regarding their validity, will help you make that call on whether or not you want to consider sleeping with him.
I do want to warn you against making a snap judgment. Sex is free form, Tricked Twice. It's not transactional or symmetrical. Just because you go down on him doesn't mean he has to give you oral. Most people usually get oral in that kind of situation, but both parties have to want it. Just because he finds something unappealing doesn't mean he's a selfish prick. It just means you're not going to get oral. And it's totally up to you to say, "Hey. You're nice and all with your cute little uniform and huge biceps, but I need to date a guy with a hearty appetite for vagina."
If you do stay, you must be willing to accept that he does not — and might not ever — like oral. You can try to overcome any obstacles raised during your Q&A period, but after that? No bitching. Which sucks. It might help ease some of your angst if he found other ways to show his appreciation for your vagina. Naughty Polaroids, extensive compliments, prolonged finger banging, a heavy-metal haiku on your pillow. There are also compromises. Kisses on the thighs and exterior surface area. Kisses and hot breaths blown through a thin pair of cotton or silk panties. He just may get caught up in the heat of battle and go for it after all.
©2007 Erin Bradley and Nerve.com
|
Commentarium (26 Comments)
Dear Miss Information,
I read your answer to Tricked Twice about her guy's aversion to him giving her oral sex. You are probably right as usual although for the record I must relate to you about a partner I had who wasn't exactly Massengill-fresh every time I went down on her. I hid the truth from her as best as I could but after we'd have sex sometimes her stench was so bad, I'd have to sleep on the couch and wash the sheet the next day. Eventually with the advice of MANY friends (mostly female), I tried to gently address the "issue." She had a hard time handling it and within a month we were done. What was I to do?
I get the feeling Mr. Macho is thinking, "Ew, gross, she wants me to lick the spot she pees from!" Or he might think he won't be very good at it and doesn't want to admit it. The way to get past this at first is to start by being extremely clean, like starting in the shower, so he knows there's nothing really gross down there. You might also consider something flavored, in a game of, "I want you to lick wherever I pour this," and gradually get him to the right area. (Avoid things with sugar in them unless you want a yeast infection, though.)
you know, i've been in the same sort of situation as chococat for the last three years. i love my guy- my guy loves me but i am not the type of girl that he's been fantasizing about since puberty. i'm a willowy burnette with virtually no chest- he likes blond athletic girls with big busts who are very manicured. i just try to handle it with grace and when things tend to get a little static or on the rare occasion that he vocalizes some under appreciation of me or some over appreciation of someone else I just think of that guy that fucked me with his eyes in line at the bank, or whatever. i may like my body more than my guy does but that's not going to keep me from being stimulated.
Sorry Erin, guys who won't go down deserve to stay single. Either that or he has to find a woman who, for whatever reason, doesn't WANT oral sex. No one should have to "Put up" with a lack of oral sex in a relationship if they want oral sex. My advice is DTMFA.
"On your seventh or eighth fuck and still no action?"
Go away now, those things never change. Or learn to live with it. Sorry to be brash, but I am talking from experience.
Terrible advice to "Tricked Twice". Not recpricating oral sex is a definite qualification as a deal-breaker. Preforming oral sex on a guy is way harder than preforming oral sex on a girl, and this guy is selfish and rude for not even trying. This girl should've written to Dan Savage.
Dear Chococat,
Passionless sex is a deal-breaker. Get out of there. You CAN have it all. Complacency is the number 2 problem in the world today. (The number 1 problem being ignorance.) This guy sounds like he might make a great best friend.
Dear Tricked Twice: Get out of there! You said it yourself - you two have totally dissimilar interests. Go find someone that you've got something in common with that'll eat your pussy like there's no tomorrow. End of story.
Hey, what's up. Miss Info here. RE: The oral sex question. I just want to ask you guys one thing - Do you think the reaction would be the same if the person refusing to perform oral sex were female? I don't know. I get the feeling people would be more like "If she doesn't want to, you can't make her, ya oaf!" or "Maybe she's traumatized, asshole. Give it up." I 100% agree that it sucks not to get oral and I personally would not want to be with a guy unwilling to do it. HOWEVER, refusing to perform a specific sex act does not make you any less of a woman/man or an automatic asshole. Anyway, end of diatribe. Hooray for cunt-licking and its defenders!
Okay, just a question, Miss Info, bc I am curious: do you make these stories up? or are these real people writing to you? I would write too if I'd know you'll answer, bc I am real big fan.
Dear Tricked Twice,
If receiving oral sex is really important to you, I say find a guy that's into it. My ex boyfriend told me that he didn't like going down in the beginning of our relationship. I said, "see ya" but then he promised to go down on me so I stayed with him for over two years. During that time he slowly but surely undermined my positive feelings about my body. He started telling me that my pussy was dirty and I had "stuff coming out". He got me to the point that I was paranoid that I had some sort of infection. I went to the gynecologist and she reassured me that the stuff coming out was perfectly normal and that I had a 100% healthy pussy. I only realized the damage he'd done to me after I'd broken up and taken on a new lover. The new guy went down on me with such gusto that I regretted not leaving my ex earlier. Don't make the same mistake I did. If he starts doing oral on you just to keep you from leaving, he'll act out passive aggressively and start making excuses why he can't go down on you.
Miss Info -- well, I think you're right (that most people wouldn't say "No blowjobs? Dump her!"). I think that ties into a couple of things, one of which is the common idea that men should feel "lucky" when they get laid, like someone just did them a favor, which is total bullshit. OTOH I think that blowjobs may be harder work than eating pussy (though I haven't done a first-hand comparison). Some people of course argue that cock is just inherently invasive, though I think that's reductive at best, self-serving at worst. Anyway, I agree that it's OK to break up with someone if they won't do oral, whatever the genders are. Life's too short to spend with someone whose desire to make you feel good -- and pleasure in what you do together -- doesn't trump his/her squeamishness, issues, or whatever.
DeAR MISS TRICKED TWICE,
MY ADVICE ON THE SITUATION, sit back,relax and think to yourself, 'next!'
You're in your twenties! Don't waste the great sex of your twenties on someone who isn't down with that (no pun intended). There is nothing quite like the experience of being able to bring a woman to orgasm. If he likes you giving him head, wait until he feels the passion of number 69! Tell your weight lifting man that it's like head on steroids!
I agree with you in 'Theory' that going down VS. not going down shouldn't be the be all, end all in deciding whether to stay with someone. Howevah! In 'Reality'- I say drop the mofo already! Life, is way too short to deny yourself something you truly enjoy for the sake of another! Especially when it's a perfectly natural & sexy way of showing affection; Both ways! As they say: What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander! Furthermore, I think if this young lady stays with this guy, his attitude may negatively rub off on her, changing her current positive perceptions of oral sex to negative ones. And no bed has room for that!
This guy says he doesn't like to give oral sex? Drop him like a rock! Everything he does is opposite to your likes. If you ever become permanently attached there is a good chance this will turn into even more pain for you. Sounds like you like sex. Find some guy that has the same likes as you. My take is that he is very selfish.
WNL - WTF?
Chococat-- and all the girls in similar situations-- needs to get out of that relationship and find someone who likes tiny brunettes. I'm a shortish, thin, flat-chested redhead, and something of an acquired taste. My former boyfriend wasn't that into me; my current boyfriend is. And I'm much, much happier now.
the girl in Tricked Twice doesn't work out, the guy is into bodybuilding. Read through the lines - he's hot, she's not. I'm sure he would eat a hot chick's pussy. Its not that he deserves to stay single, as one commentator said, its that he deserves a hotter chick.
Also, women, consider one other thing. If a guy eats your pussy enough times, he's likely to come across it one day when its nasty and that it could turn him off to you forever. That's why I believe cunnilingus is counterproductive to long-term relationships - if that baby ain't fresh and he has to do that, he's not going to want to stick around.
Miss Information states with regard to Chocolat "maybe he's the one who needs the operation. A lobotomy to remove the part of his brain that says it's okay to have a very specific standard of beauty but still pursue relationships with women who don't meet it."
Of course, this ignores that 21st century reality of dating world where almost no women will date a guy that's truly into her and where almost all broads only want the guys who seem smooth and cool due to the very fact that they aren't into you. So, in today's realities, if a guy likes blondes, blondes sense this so he has to date brunettes. If he likes short women, they will blow him off so his only chances are with the tall. If he sincerely likes black women, black women pick up on this and won't date him so he's has to date whites, latinas, and Asians, and if he likes fat women and asks them out, the fat broads think he's desperate so he has to date thin ones. So, if a guy wants to date at all these days, unless his name is something like Timberlake or Jeter or Clooney, he pretty much is stuck choosing among whoever he really just isn't into.
Women have made the bed we all have to sleep in now, a landscape in which virtually no guy is into his girl and, if he ever gets to the alter, has to be dragged to it, more often than not after conception and after calculating marriage is cheaper than child support. I guess if you're a short brunette with a "boyfriend" or husband who likes tall blondes, you can take solace in this - most guys with tall blonde girlfriends probably prefer that they were with you, and you blew a lot of them off on your way to being the partner that loves the other one more.
Its not the boyfriend in Chocolat who needs the lobotomy - rather, who really needs the lobotomy is the vast majority of the female sex who choose guys that aren't into them and them almost uniformly complain that they are unloved and mistreated.
Holy shite. Again, the feedback section is almost a scarier morass of seething dysfunctions and twisted rationalizations than the questions are. Wow.
"As you can see, this is one bunch of fucked-up monkeys."
MW, If you're talking about my comments to Tricked Twice, let me ask you this - if you get married, now matter how hot she is now, are you planning to one-day become obligated to regularly eat your wife's urine-smelling 60, 70, or 80 year old pussy? I didn't think so. So, then, when are you going to stop and how are you going to break the news? There's no good answer to that, either. So, maybe now, not doing it a lot at the start, in combination with leaving the job to one or more persons who aren't in it for the long run (as in leaving the eating to third parties), is the most honest and sustainable approach. Plus, it'll get her to want to swing more.
Think about it.
Sure, why not, do the sensitive thing and talk frankly about it to your prospective fellow. His attitude could be a sign of inexperience, or arrested development (AD). Inexperience may be overcome if the student is capable and desires to please you. If he's more worried about what his "buds" think, it's a case of AD. Even though he's a soldier, and is subject to the incompetent (some might say evil) decisions of our commander-in-chief & co., it's not your job to raise this child. You deserve a man, baby!
This is for both of the ladies. As a man, I find it difficult to comprehend WHY this dude would tell his current girlfriend that he "prefers tall blondes"!!! What was he thinking. I know for a fact that my buds and I are not so "switched off" that we forget that you HAVE TO make a woman feel special or at least try like hell, and telling the woman that you're with that you prefer the opposite of what see looks like is insensative and "F"ed Up! She needs to let him find this "tall blonde", because in case you haven't noticed that are just as many (if not more) men who adore "short brunettes".
As for "Mr. Pussy Spooked", dude give me a break. Since when do guys not like going down on a woman?!?! Maybe being a military guy means we talk about relationships more. Get a grip dude and give the girl what she needs. C-ya
Since oral sex produces orgasms much easily for women than penetration, a guy who doesn't want to do it is a pathological case. There is just something seriously wrong with a guy who doesn't want to give his lady what is perhaps the greatest gift (and at a bargain price). Giving head to a woman is really easy. The taste and smell is not a problem for guys who are not assholes--why do people think this is a coincidence? Even if it was, a shower more than takes care of any hygiene issue. Why would you want an intimate partner with a pathological attitude toward your vagina? There are plenty of mentally healthy guys who give great head that would love a chance to prove these pussy-hating fucks dead wrong.
the good news about having a boyfriend who's such an ass that he tells you he doesn't find you attractive and acts uninterested in bed -- he will probably cheat on you very soon or otherwise sabotage the relationship -- so you probably won't have to suffer long!
Now you say something