Healthy straight male here. The problem is twofold: my girlfriend doesn’t like come in her mouth, and she feels that doggy-style is objectifying to women. Therefore, we don’t do either. She says she wants to get more comfortable and try these things. But they never seem to happen—and when I bring them up, it turns into a touchy discussion. These are number one and number two, respectively, on my list of favourite things to do in the bedroom, and I’m not okay with not doing them indefinitely. The sex is otherwise great, but I do think there’s a double standard at work here. She had an ex who refused to go down on her. When I said, “He needed to man up and take one for the team, even if he didn’t like it,” she readily agreed with me. So why can’t she “take one for the team” and swallow my come? I would feel bad if she were doing something she wasn’t comfortable with, but it disappoints me when she takes my dick out of her mouth and points it at my stomach when I start to come. I think she has a double standard.

P.S. We’ve been dating only about three months, so I understand there is plenty of time for her to get more comfortable. I love being with her, I can’t get enough of her, and I can see this becoming a lifelong relationship. But I don’t want to have to miss out on my bedroom favourites for the rest of my life.

> Really Anxious Not Doing Yearnings

The comparison you’re making between your girlfriend and her ex isn’t really fair. Your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend refused to go down on her. Not only does your girlfriend go down on you, RANDY, she’s getting you off. Her blowjobs may not wrap up the way you’d like—with her swallowing your come—but you are getting blowjobs.

Sorry, RANDY, but where you see a double standard on the girlfriend’s part, I see only whining on yours. Swallowing is extra credit. It’s not a course requirement. I say this as someone who gives and receives blowjobs: if someone sucks your dick until you come, you got your damn blowjob. What a blower does with the blowee’s come after the blowjob is over—spit, swallow, spread it on toast—is the blower’s call to make.

And your girlfriend may have a good reason for not swallowing your come, RANDY. Semen contains prostaglandins—“a group of lipid compounds that are derived enzymatically from fatty acids and have important functions in the animal body,” says Wikipedia—and some people experience explosive diarrhea shortly after ingesting the prostaglandins in semen. It’s possible that your girlfriend isn’t swallowing because she doesn’t want to have to run to the bathroom two minutes later and take a noisy shit while her new boyfriend listens in the next room.

Or, hey, maybe your girlfriend just doesn’t like the way semen tastes. Or maybe she’s had boyfriends in the past who “lost control” and shoved their dicks down her throat as they came. Or maybe swallowing turns her off for the same reason that doggy-style does, i.e., she sees it as objectifying and/or degrading. And maybe if you’re patient, RANDY, your girlfriend will come around and your number one and number two favourite sex things will enter into regular rotation.

Of course, it’s possible that your girlfriend is lying to you. People have been known to make vague and insincere promises about all the blowjobs, three-ways, and kinks they’ll get into once they “feel more comfortable” with a new partner. Your girlfriend, like so many other girlfriends and boyfriends before her, may be trying to run out the clock. She may hope that by the time you realize she’s never going to do your bedroom favourites, you’ll be too emotionally invested in the relationship to dump her.

I’m a female in my mid-20s who loves to give head. The problem is, I think I’m giving head too soon and guys don’t see me as relationship material. I’ve been in only one relationship that was longer than a casual hookup, and that particular ex was a she-comes-first/worship-the-pussy kinda guy. (I didn’t get to touch his dick until we were about a month in!) Most of the straight girls I hang out with believe that a guy needs to earn getting his dick sucked. My gay friends don’t see the problem. My straight guy friends chuckle and say “depends” when I ask if I’m blowing a guy too soon. I really enjoy sucking dick, so once I’m horny, it’s so hard to resist the impulse. How soon is too soon? Do you think that I would actually benefit by stopping this pattern?

> Blowing Losers Or What?

Generally, BLOW, I believe a person should do what she likes—and if you like giving head, give head. And if getting head scares a boy off, well, he was the wrong boy for you. (I’m having a hard time picturing a guy who wouldn’t want to date a woman who enjoys giving head—are there many guys like that out there?) But there’s a simple way to find out if the guys you’re meeting make date/dump distinctions between girls who blow ’em right away and girls who make ’em wait: stop sucking guys off on the first date and see if they stick around longer.

I had to write after reading your response to Wanted Toys Too, the aunt who wanted to buy her niece a dildo. I was once a teenage girl whose older cousin tried to “help me out” this way, and I was mortified. WTT wants to get her niece a sex toy, she said, because WTT experimented with a plastic banana when she was a girl because she didn’t want “a penis to be the first thing of substance put in [her] vagina.” Guess what? That is exactly what I wanted, so I had no need for a dildo, and I had access to plenty of good sex advice! Advice that I asked for! This aunt is projecting her crap on her niece! She should back off and mind her own business.

> MYOB About Sex

You goofed in your reply to WTT. Instead of getting information from sex-shop owners, why didn’t you get information from a mental-health expert? We’re talking about a 14-year-old who is emotionally fragile as she struggles through the years of defining self and understanding her own sexuality! Here’s what you should’ve told WTT: “Back off. See a therapist. Get a boyfriend. Get a hobby. MYOB, Auntie.”

> EE, LMSW

In fairness to WTT, MYOBAS and EELMSW, WTT had her niece’s mother’s permission to get her daughter a sex toy. My mother encouraged her kids to talk with one of her sisters about any sexual issues we weren’t comfortable discussing with our parents, so… It’s possible that WTT’s niece has expressed an interest in having a sex toy of her very own. It’s also possible that 1) WTT’s niece hasn’t expressed an interest in a sex toy and would be mortified by the offer, and 2) my response to WTT was coloured by my own relationship with my sex-question-answering aunt. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, to say nothing of a file full of angry emails, I’ll amend my advice to WTT with this: if your niece hasn’t asked for help, info, or a sex toy, better to MYOB.

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