I’ve been seeing a wonderful man for about a year and a half and I feel like I’ve finally found someone I could spend the rest of my life with.
Here’s the problem: He isn’t a very sexual person and won’t perform oral sex on me. He says he never has on any of his previous girlfriends and they never asked for it.
He says he’s actually sickened by going down there orally.
I’m clean, healthy, well-groomed and a very sexual person. I go down on him all the time and enjoy it. He feels bad that he can’t do this for me and I feel bad asking him to do something that makes him feel gross.
We have very traditional sex and it’s satisfying — we both come — but I always want more. I’ve begged him for anal and he tried it and didn’t like it.
In the past I’ve had great sex with jerks I want no future with. And then I have boring sex with nice people who want long-term. I don’t want to throw away our relationship because of one thing, but I’m afraid I’ll end up resenting him. He’s against an open relationship. Any advice?
I’d be split about this lackluster labia-licking situation if I were you, too. In fact, without being able to sit and talk to you both, I’ve been pretty lickety split about how to advise you.
I want to tell you to stop eating his banana split if he won’t eat your sundae.
On the flip side, I hate yogurt. This isn’t a sexual metaphor — I seriously despise yogurt. I gag at the sight of it. If my boyfriend told me that my eating yogurt was the only way he would feel sexually fulfilled, I know I couldn’t do it.
The question is: Is your boyfriend’s aversion to licking your ice cream a socialized issue or truly a personal preference? Does he devalue female pleasure or is cunnilingus to him as yogurt is to me?
From American national landmarks to Budweiser billboards it’s easy to see: The phallic erection is super important to the U.S. sexual psyche. Eating banana splits is easily skewed as something that “needs to happen” in a hetero sexual interaction because erections “need to happen” so that “sex can happen.”
Erections don’t need to happen for sex to happen. Your sexual pleasure does.
Negotiating sexual boundaries and desires is something we all do with our partners — kinky/vanilla, monogamous/non-monogamous, yogurt-loving/yogurt-gagging. And sometimes these conversations are relationship-enders.
LS, it definitely seems like you’ve got a very different sexual appetite than your partner: highly sexual/non sexual, anally adventurous/anally over it, exploratory/traditional.
But when it comes to this dude’s sundae-eating politics, I smell something fishy and it certainly isn’t your hoo-ha, LS. He calls himself non-sexual, but it seems like he’s plenty sexual when he’s receiving all those blow-jobs you’re so happy to give him, doesn’t it? He says that his other girlfriends haven’t desired cunnilingus enough to ask for it, but it seems like he’s mastered the art of the “vaginas are gross” cunnilingus shut-down.
You say you don’t want to throw away this relationship because of this “one thing.” But sex is a huge thing. Don’t diminish sex’s importance as he has diminished your vagina, LS. Don’t settle for one scoop (nice guy) when you can have all the scoops you crave (nice guy, great sex, and cunnilingus with kink sprinkles and an anal sex cherry on top).
LS, don’t let anyone stick his banana in your sundae if he says your ice cream is sickening to touch with other parts of his body. Especially if it’s in a way that oh-SO-conveniently doesn’t give him direct sexual pleasure.
No, I wouldn’t eat yogurt for my boyfriend, LS. But I wouldn’t call my boyfriend’s body gross whilst I rub yogurt all over myself, either.•
