Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t normally take sex advice from Greek life-inspired websites.
So last month, when Total Frat Move and Total Sorority Move had a back-and-forth argument over oral sex, I didn’t really pay it much mind.
But just like with most things, you don’t pay attention to it until it’s gone.
Which is why when I started hooking up with someone new and oral sex wasn’t involved, I cared a lot more about TFM’s “Why Guys Should Not Be Required To Go Down On Girls” article.
To be fair, the TSM rebuttal article had it right by saying, “No one should be required to do anything, sexually.”
It’s not a requirement, but fellatio and cunnilingus are on equal footing — mouthing? — with “good morning” texts or home-cooked meals as far as sending the, “You’re a great person, and I care about you,” message.
And while a “Congratulations on passing your organic chemistry final” blowjob is great, oral sex shouldn’t be reserved for celebrations, nor should it be consistently one-sided.
I’m a big believer in the “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” principle. Except in this case, replace “scratch” with “lick” and “back” with “genitals.”
You already learned this in different words in kindergarten, and it can be applied to oral sex, too. Let me remind you of the golden rule — treat others as you would like to be treated.
We’re talking about oral, however, so by the transitive property, the golden rule of sex would be, “Go down on others like you would like to be gone down upon.”
If your partner goes down on you and spends however many minutes solely focusing on getting you off, it’s polite to do the same.
It doesn’t have to be at the same time, or even the same night — or morning, or afternoon, or whenever you’re getting lucky — but one partner shouldn’t be the one to always give.
If you don’t normally go down, at least put the offer on the table. If your partner isn’t interested in your offer to head south, but he or she does on a regular basis, consider repaying him or her with another method of stimulation — try digital sex, or indulge a fantasy of theirs.
Because, to be fair, giving head isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, nor is it for every couple.
I get it, I really do. Nothing is more personal than oral sex. And that’s saying something because you know what regular sex is, right?
But really, oral sex is 10 times more intimate. You literally have your face all up in your partner’s nether region.
Despite being a base before home run, oral ranks way higher on the list of “things I don’t want to do with someone I don’t know all that well.”
I asked a male friend what his policy for what TFM calls “muff munching” — add it to your vocabulary as you see fit — and he said that he doesn’t like to do it because of sexually transmitted diseases.
More specifically, he said he’d eat a girl out by date five, but not for a one-night stand.
That makes sense, which is why this goes out specifically to consistent hook ups, friends with benefits, people who can actually make a relationship work or whomever may be in a trusting relationship.
While there’s no scientific study to back me up on this, it’s almost guaranteed that your partner will appreciate your oral efforts. That appreciation goes a long way in getting you better sex. If you go down on your partner for so long that he or she cannot remember his or her own name, you’re going to get some Grade-A sex later on.
And really, you should want to please your partner, anyway. If you’re not in a relationship where you can cede your own pleasure for a few minutes in order to use your mouth to make your partner’s eyes roll back and toes curl, maybe you’re not sleeping with the right person.
[Robyn Smith is a UF journalism junior. Her columns appear on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 7/22/2014 under the headline "Mouthing off to oral sex stereotypes"]
