I Came Out of Blow Job Retirement

What if I ... like them now?!

Many years ago, I swore off blow jobs.

I’ve never liked giving them. For a long time, I blamed my aversion on an unpleasant experience in my teen years, but I realize now that that was just an easy excuse. I never liked giving blow jobs because they so perfectly illustrated the typical power dynamic between men and women in bed, and, well, in life. They were, to me, a clear manifestation of patriarchy.

Whenever the underwear came off, there was always that sense of male entitlement. You’re going to go down on me, right? It was irrelevant that their penis might make me gag, or that I might dislike the unexpected gustatory flood of warm salty semen. I was always, still, expected to do it. And I was expected to do it exactly the way they wanted. If I didn’t, they pushed my head down, controlling my body to maximize their pleasure.

We do it to ourselves, too. In a 2017 Ask Emily column in Glamour, titled “How to Make Giving Blow Jobs Way More Fun,” a 22-year-old woman wrote that she hated giving blow jobs due to her sensitive gag reflex and the abhorrent taste of semen. (I recently read a Men’s Health article that said that 72 percent of college women do not find giving blowjobs “very pleasurable.”)

What ever could she do, this young woman asked?

I was reading, waiting for Dr. Emily — a doctor of human sexuality, apparently — to inform this woman that actually, guess what, she didn’t have to give blow jobs if she didn’t want to. Instead? Dr. Emily’s advice was to “train your throat and fix that pesky gag reflex…to get you blowing like a pro.”

Here’s an excerpt of Dr. Emily’s excruciatingly detailed blow-job improvement plan:

Start off by using a clean finger and placing it towards the back of your throat until you’re at the point that usually makes you gag. Relax your throat and breathe through your nose, holding for 10 seconds, and then pulling back….It may take awhile, but eventually, your throat will be ready for more.

Yes, yes. This sounds “way more fun.”

Why, Dr. Emily? Why are you telling women to not only ignore their sexual preferences, but to actually train their bodies to override safety reflexes in order to give men even more pleasure?

No wonder I came to associate blow jobs with feelings of obligation and degradation. And with misogyny and patriarchy. Once I matured enough to recognize that I could say no — that men weren’t actually entitled to their sense of blow job entitlement — I stopped giving them. It was one of the few ways I felt I could claim power for myself, so I did.

Then, a few months ago, everything changed.

I got divorced. And I realized I could have sex and relationships entirely on my own terms. I didn’t need to present myself a certain way to secure a husband. I didn’t have to woo men by caring for them or cooking for them or maximizing their pleasure. This realization freed me of so many patriarchal expectations I didn’t even realize I had been catering to. Yes, I’d said no to blow jobs a long time ago, but I hadn’t said no to all sorts of other insidious shit. And now, finally, I was. Now, when I brought men into my bed, I was doing it because I wanted to — never out of a sense of obligation.

That freedom transformed what I enjoyed. Suddenly, in bed with my A/C repairman, I actually wanted to give a blow job. I wanted to experience his body responding to my mouth and my tongue. I wanted to watch, feel, hear, and taste him as he got increasingly turned on — because that would turn me on. It no longer felt like an obligation; it felt like a potential new source of pleasure. For me. And if it was my choice, and my desire, then I was the one in control — not him.

At first, I gave him blow jobs just for foreplay. I explicitly told him not to come in my mouth. It had been decades since I’d swallowed, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to. Until, suddenly, I did. We were having sex in my bed one night a few weeks ago and I felt this incredible desire to have him finish in my mouth. I told him to stop and explained what I wanted.

Of course, he obliged — and if I’m honest, I hardly even noticed the taste. Okay, maybe it was a little bitter. But it was sweet, too, to claim something for myself that had always, until now, existed only for the men.