I do a lot of things with this mouth. I kiss my mother with it. I ingest valuable nutrients with it. I answer questions in class, communicate with friends and stand up for myself with it. So it’s not outrageous to say that I like to be selective with my mouth, especially concerning the things I put in it. This includes penises.

As a non-penis-touting specimen myself, I somewhat lament the fact that I will never know what it’s like to receive a blowjob. I’m told it’s basically like taking a little side trip to heaven, where you can practically hear the pearl gates clanging open and little dopamine angels are singing sweet, harmonious sonatas in your brain.

I’m sure it’s great. And it’s not that I ever want to deny someone that kind of pleasure, or because I hate penises (see: all previous columns), but I am just a generally unenthusiastic blowjob giver. As far as I can tell, no one I’ve ever met has ever been like, “Yeah, putting a penis in my mouth while kneeling on dirty tiles/propping myself up until my wrists threaten to snap is the greatest!”

I think blowjobs are just frighteningly intimate, take hard work and make you think, the entire time, about better things you could be putting in your mouth, like tacos.

Part of my natural aversion to giving a blowjob (besides, you know, the whole placing someone’s genitals into the same organ you talk to your parents with), I think, stems from my first experience with one.

I was in this guy’s bed after a party. We were drunk and horny. But I was A) on my period and B) still a virgin, and so any move toward a 2-foot radius around my abdomen was off limits. So this guy, who I’d been texting for a week and mildly liked, suggested that I give him a blowjob. I said, ‘Nah.’ And then he pleaded. I said, ‘Nah,’ again. And then he wheedled. I became silent.

I was feeling more uncomfortable by the minute as he pointed out in some twisted you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours-but-I-don’t-mean-back way that he wanted to give me head first but couldn’t because of Aunt Flo. He said he liked me and that he wasn’t going to stop liking me after I gave him a blowjob. He said he knew I was inexperienced and that he wanted to help me “figure it all out.”

I think a lot about that night sometimes. Had he been trying to simply be persuasive, or had he been hellbent on not taking “no” for an answer? Had he been manipulating me, or had he just been trying to make me not freak out as much? _Had I said no a third time, would he have dropped it?_ I’ll never know the answers to that. Did analyzing this situation, even years later, make me a paranoid little girl who wanted to rationalize away her uncomfortableness? _No._ That is what I do know. Something else I know: No one is ever allowed to make me feel that uncomfortable, ever again.
In the end, I decided to do it. I wanted to make him feel good, and I also figured that I probably needed to learn how to give a blowjob at some point, anyway. The whole experience was clumsy and awkward, and I learned pretty quickly what “gag reflex” meant. I was terrified about being terrible. I wanted water. I was mildly worried about getting an oral STI. I thought a lot about tacos.
I never saw the guy again after that night, and, for a long time, I carried that anxiety about blowjobs with me. It wasn’t until I was in my first relationship and realized I could care about someone so much that the thought of allowing another’s body part near my mouth didn’t gross me out. My first boyfriend was patient and kind and the complete opposite of the wheedling type, and he let me decide when I was comfortable enough to do it.
And then blowjobs became great, not because anything inherently changed about the physical logistics of a blowjob, but because they were a very simple way that I could make someone I cared about feel amazing. To hell with rude assholes who don’t understand basic principles of consent. Making someone special feel good, dear readers, is the _only_ reason you, or I, or any of us should ever _ever_ deign to let anyone else do anything to our own bodies.

Love,
Edna