Tag Archives: blow jobs
On whether blow jobs are anti-feminist
Are blow-jobs feminist? Are shoes feminist? Are Cadbury’s Mini-Eggs feminist? Come on, feminists, get your fucking act together. There needs to be a Feminist List of things that are OK to do, and things that aren’t, otherwise we’ll be dithering around forever and will eventually be crushed under the weight of bikini-waxing strips we’re not entirely sure we’re allowed to use.
Every now and then someone publishes an article letting us know whether a particular thing is either feminist or not. We’ve had high heels, no make up selfies, Game of Thrones, any number of things. Basically there’s an idea that says feminism can be defined by a bucket-list of tickboxes, and if you check the right ones in the Buzzfeed-esque “How Feminist Are You?” test then you get a special golden hammer with which to smash the patriarchy.
It’s mostly toss.
I’m not an expert in high heels, or selfies, or any of that bollocks, but I am certainly pretty opinionated when it comes to sex. That’s why, when Any Girl Friday published a very balanced and interesting blog discussing the feminist merits (or demerits) of giving blowjobs, I was all over it like my own lips on cock.
Are blow jobs anti-feminist?
No, they are not. And you can probably tell that I’m not going to take quite such a balanced view as AGF, because I love giving blow jobs, and I am a feminist, so saying that they are an anti-feminist thing would be to brand myself a disgraceful hypocrite.
Blow jobs are ‘feminist’ in the same way as almost any other act: there is no inherent quality of ‘feminism’ that can be applied to a particular thing. I make breakfast every morning, and that breakfast gives me the energy to write angry feminist rants, but the act of making of it isn’t an inherently feminist one.
I think what makes an activity ‘feminist’ is mostly about the context: your motivation, the consequences of the activity, and so on. The act itself plays only a very tiny role. For example:
Susan stands outside 10 Downing Street holding up a placard that says “equal pay for women.” Is this a feminist thing to do? Yeah, probably. But what if I tell you that the reason Susan is holding the sign is because her mate has gone on a toilet break. Actually she’s not that bothered about equal pay for women, she just wants to help out her mate. Suddenly holding the sign isn’t a feminist act at all.
So, let’s apply this to blow jobs. Any Girl Friday says that:
It’s wrong to ignore that potential pitfalls of unequal power distribution involved in the act of giving head… For one, the giver is in a submissive, subservient position. They are often on their knees or in a vulnerable position – this is clearly a situation where trust is paramount. In addition, we have a whole misogynistic nightmare on our hands with regards to the language sometimes used in porn, rap songs, media. I’ve heard men say things like ‘choke on this, bitch’ and ‘I’ll force you down and make you gag.’ … Instead of being a mutually beneficial sexual act, revered alongside giant chocolate buttons and unicorns, it becomes another way of men claiming our bodies and rights to our sexuality.
I’m down with some (although not all) blow jobs having submissive connotations: I’m a sub, and to be honest I’m mostly interested in giving head as a means for my partner to use me in all kinds of horrible, consensual, utterly cunt-drenching ways. But even female submission itself isn’t ‘anti-feminism’ – it only appears so if you strip it of all meaningful context.
Expecting all women to give head like that, to ‘choke on this’ and ‘gag on it, bitch’? That’s pretty anti-feminist. But when you add in the context – that this is something I not only choose to do but that gets me off pretty hard? Then it’s actually pretty anti-feminist to tell me I shouldn’t do it.
A guy once asked me whether my desire for buttsex was letting down the sisterhood, and I’ll repeat what I told him: sex isn’t a University debate, and what you do in the bedroom doesn’t have to impact your life outside it. Just as you can enjoy getting spanked by your girlfriend yet refuse to take shit from your boss, it’s perfectly possible for your dick end to make contact with the back of my throat and for you to still respect my opinions, and live with me in an equal relationship.
Does head have to be reciprocated in order to be feminist?
AGF raises an interesting question about reciprocation: are blow jobs expected in a straight relationship while cunnilingus falls by the wayside? Obviously it depends on the relationship, but she does raise a fair few examples of people claiming that giving head to a woman is more intimate/difficult, thus it isn’t be a cornerstone of regular straight activity in a way that blow jobs are.
That’s a shame, it really is. Because, you know, if your partner likes getting head just as much as you do, and there’s an unequal balance of head-giving in your relationship, then that’s pretty crap for your partner. But likewise if your partner likes you to cook for them and you never bloody do it, that’s pretty crap for your partner too. Whether it’s anti-feminist or not depends on the context – in this case, the ‘why?’
Are you a straight dude who refuses to give head because you believe that blow jobs are more important/significant than female pleasure? Congratulations: you’re a twat. And you’re also not a feminist.
Are you a straight dude who refuses to give head because you just cannot stand the taste/smell/activity, and you’d much rather do something else? That is a sexual choice. And, while it might upset your partner, it is as legitimate a sexual choice as deciding not to do anal, or saying ‘no’ to hand jobs, or any of the other things that it’s totally fine to refuse. If your partner believes that oral sex should be reciprocal, then you might need to suck up the fact that you’re not going to get head if you don’t want to give it, but your partner cannot demand that you reciprocate just so that you don’t come across as a bad feminist. That’s shitty.
There is a huge problem with the way we talk about this stuff – the fact that in casual conversation blow jobs are often seen as a given, something that straight women absolutely must do if they want to be an enlightened, 21st-Century have-it-all kind of girl. I hate the assumption that if you don’t give head enough you’ll ‘lose your man’, the coy giggling way we pressure women to swallow spunk like they’re chugging tequila shots, and above all the occasional vague suggestion that giving head is a crucial part of a woman’s role in a straight relationship.
All of this is anti-feminist. All of this is shit. But it’s not the sexual act that’s shit, it’s the expectation, and the pressure. I don’t want that pressure on women to be replaced with a new, and equally unfair, pressure on men. If you don’t want to get on your knees and lick my chuff like I’m sponsored by Solero, then you never ever have to.
Which sex acts are anti-feminist?
I honestly cannot think of any. No, really. While almost any act, in a particular context, can potentially be good or bad for women, individual sex acts aren’t good or bad in and of themselves. Anal sex isn’t anti-feminist. Blow jobs aren’t anti-feminist. Giving your partner a hand job on the back of the night bus is not anti-feminist. As I’ve said before, sex is not the opposite of feminism.
What is anti-feminist is trying to dictate women’s sexual choices: tell them that they should or shouldn’t desire a particular thing in virtue of the fact that they’re a woman. Telling me I don’t have to give blow jobs if I don’t want to is entirely sensible and decent advice. Telling me I shouldn’t give blow jobs because I’m letting the side down is unnecessarily intrusive and repressive. Which brings me on to my final point.
Should feminists demand more cunnilingus?
In the article, AnyGirlFriday says this:
“I believe that women who give but don’t ask [for pleasure of any kind – not just oral] in return are contributing to a generation of men who believe they are entitled to pleasure.”
Which is a shame. We’ve chatted about it on Twitter and I struggled to explain why this sentence rubbed me up the wrong way. In a few more words, and after a bit more thought, I think I’ve worked it out:
I don’t like getting head – it’s just not as fun for me as a hand-job or a shag, or any one of a million other things I do to get off. If I don’t like getting head, but I do like giving it, then it would seem that I can’t have the sex I like without ‘contributing to a generation of men who believe they are entitled to pleasure.’ I’m promoting sexual inequality with every dick I suck, and every time I pull his face up from between my legs and say “don’t bother, I just want you to fuck me.”
Luckily, though, that’s not the case at all. Because I don’t believe that an unequal distribution of head is anti-feminist, no matter how problematic society’s sexual attitudes may be. My individual sex life is about giving and receiving pleasure without being made to feel guilty about what I do or don’t want. It’s about enthusiastically sucking cock, and enthusiastically receiving hand jobs, and rejecting those things that don’t get me off.
In fact, let’s take this further: faking orgasms isn’t anti-feminist. Not getting much physical pleasure from sex isn’t anti-feminist. Choosing to have sex because your partner wants it even though you could take it or leave it this evening? Not anti-feminist. Again, these are simple acts, which only become feminist or not when given context. I’m never going to tell you that doing any one of these individual things is good, bad or ugly without fully understanding your reasons for doing them. You’re making a choice about what to do with your body. A choice that no one else gets to dictate. Not even feminists.
This blog post written with huge thanks to AnyGirlFriday for kicking off the discussion – please do check out her blog, which I’ve recently discovered. She writes on loads of interesting topics, and I hope she doesn’t mind my hijacking her thoughts to have a rant around the issue.
On the belt fantasy
Belts are fascinating and filthy in a way that makes me genuinely squirm. In my opinion they’re the best of all the hitting devices. Why? Because they are long, meaning they can be used to reach and beat places you might be out of reach for otherwise. They also come in all thicknesses, which means you can exactly graduate the level and type of pain you like, and balance it with other things that are specifically hot. The delicious ‘thud’ sound of a thick one, or the shivery ‘whish’ of a thinner one. Something thick that can be hefted with strength and inflict a dull, spread-out pain, or something lighter that must be used more delicately in case it leaves a trail of narrow red welts.
On intense pain
When I think about pain, there’s one particular guy who comes into my head. Many of the guys I’ve been with have helped me squirm in delicious agony, but there’s one in particular who hurt me more than any other. Exquisitely.
Everything that happens in this story was heavenly. To this day, I still daydream about it when I’m horny and itching and only some hurting will do.
Softly softly
This guy was only a few years older, but light-years ahead of me in maturity. He had a neat haircut, wore suits, was chivalrous in an old-fashioned way that I’d have found adorable in someone less dominant. He had a calm, detached air – the kind that comes from knowing I’ll do exactly what he says. He treated me as if I was utterly fragile, yet still his to break.
I rang the doorbell, having refused his offer to escort me from the tube station: something about the cold walk to his house helped to focus my mind. He opened the door with a courteous smile, and ushered me inside in a way that his curtain-twitching neighbours would have approved of.
Then he closed the door with a controlled ‘click’.
“Take off your boots.”
I took off my boots.
There was silence – one beat, two beats.
I lined them up neatly next to his own shoes by the door.
Three beats. Four beats.
Then he pounced.
Grabbing me by the hair he pushed my face up against the wall, twisting my neck awkwardly so I was poised in a semi-standing crouch. Makeup smeared against the wallpaper, hands pressed against the wall to hold myself steady.
Keeping my hair firmly gripped in his hand, he used his other hand to grope me – to inspect me. His roughness didn’t outweigh his calm, though. Every movement was carefully measured – squeezing one of my tits, sliding slowly down over my waist and hips, carefully pulling up the hem of my skirt so he could run his fingers against the crotch of my knickers.
“You’re wet.”
“Yes.” I was dreading what was coming next. Please don’t make me say ‘sir’, please don’t make me say ‘sir’, please…
One beat, two beats…
“Yes what?”
“Sir.”
A few ‘sirs’ and light slaps later, and he was leading me by the hair into his bedroom. This was essentially what I’d turned up for. It’s all very well being told off in a hallway, but I wanted him to turn his controlling nature to pain.
I’ve never been much of a pain slut – I enjoy being spanked not because I like the feeling of the slaps, but because I love that the guy in question gets off on it: I like that hearing the thwack of belt on skin makes him hard. That I get to feel dirty and bad even as I’m feeling ecstatic.
He didn’t disappoint.
Stripped to the waist, with skirt hiked up around my middle, he pushed me face down on his bed.
“Knickers down.”
I wriggled out of them.
“Hands behind your head.”
Again, I did as I was told.
“Bite down on this.”
He placed a leather strap in my mouth, and I had a nervous three seconds to wonder what he was going to hit me with before he brought a slipper down onto my arse with a solid, painful thump. I twitched, and arched my back slightly for the second blow.
Thud. Ouch. On and on until my eyes watered. Each one in exactly the same place, the stinging heat growing more intense with every stroke. I could feel from the strength and impact that he wasn’t just testing me – he was drawing his arm back and whacking me with full force. Unable to see him, I pictured it in my head – his arm drawn back above his shoulder, hand holding the slipper, face placid and expressionless, then the twitch of a sadistic smile as he whipped it down again. My stomach thumped with arousal.
“Keep your head down,” he said. “Eyes closed.”
I disobeyed him – I wanted to see what he was bringing next. Through semi-open eyelids I watched him stride across the room: no rushing, still oozing calm control. He opened the wardrobe then did one of the hottest things dominant guys can do before a beating: he rolled up his sleeves. At that point I put my head down, revelling in the anticipation of the unknown. I’d told him before I arrived that I wanted him to hit me – hurt me. Push me with pain I didn’t truly like – less thudding and thick slaps, more thin whips and tingling canes. He took me at my word.
The first stroke didn’t hurt for two seconds – I just heard the whish-click as it landed across the top of my thighs. Then the sting came. Red-hot and searing through my skin, cold metal and hot coal and ice and fire and pain.
“Good,” He crooned. “Good-” whip “-girl.” smack.
He used the wire on me a few more times – each time putting a bit more swing into it, bringing it down a bit quicker, harder. I bit down on the strap and let out a muffled cry. He moved around me, no longer standing at the side but directly in front of my face. I could see his dick pushing tight and hard against the crotch of his trousers. I arched my back further and pushed my stinging arse into the air. He leant forward and hit me again – three more times, harder than he had before, until my head was swimming with pain. I dropped the strap from my mouth and groaned.
“Ow.” Once more – whish-click. “OW! Fuck. Please. It hurts too much.”
He dropped the wire and bent forward over me. I felt his hands on my arse, rubbing, kneading, pushing the pain deep into my muscles and away from the raw surface of my skin. His hands were cool, and I wanted him to keep them on me, still and calm, until the pain was over.
But he didn’t.
He stood up, unzipped his trousers, and lifted my head up so he could slide his dick into my mouth. I sucked him, hard, wanting to feel his dick twitch like I’d twitched when he hit me. When his spunk hit the back of my throat it was as warm and welcome as the stinging slaps he’d given me.
On CFNM (clothed female, naked male)
You’re hot when you’re naked. Not quite as hot as when you’re semi-naked, of course – we’ve discussed that before. But there’s something deeply satisfying about your nakedness against my clothes. Me, in jeans and a soft jersey, sneaking into bed and pressing the whole of myself up against your sleeping flesh.
I’ve had a few people ask me to write about CFNM (it stands for Clothed Female Naked Male – presumably there’s also a CMNF, but that might have to wait for another day). For some people it’s a very specific fetish, and they can’t get off without it. For me, it falls into the same category as most fetishes: I’m not obsessed with it, but I can more than understand why other people are.
It’s often a FemDomme thing, a submissive guy bares all but is denied the pleasure of seeing tits in return. I certainly know a few submissive men who like the idea of being stripped bare and used by a clothed, powerful woman who answers only to the name of ‘Mistress’. But I think it’s more than possible to get tingling hot feelings the other way round too. Whether I’m on top, on the bottom, or floating lazily somewhere in between, having a naked guy between my jeans-clad thighs is a very hot thing indeed. I’ll show you what I mean:
CFNM (Submissive girl, dominant guy)
If you’re naked and I’m not none of the usual things occur. You can’t squeeze my tits or bite my nipples as you call me a dirty girl and ask what I’m hoping you’ll do to me. There are fewer words. Naked and needing release, the only thing for you to do is push me down onto my knees, hold my hair and smile as I suck a fresh erection into your waiting dick.
If you’re naked and I’m not then as I wet the tip of your cock I’ll spread my legs wider, letting the seam of my jeans push tightly against my clit. I’ll hold my hands behind my back so that my tits stretch out my top. And I’ll feel the wetness soaking into the crotch of my knickers.
If you’re naked and I’m not I’ll feel dirtier than I would naked. Because I can’t shower off whatever you cover me in.
I’ll feel the wetness in my knickers, and feel ashamed. If you hold my head still and fuck my face, the spit will run down my chin, my neck, and onto the front of my shirt. And I’ll cross my fingers and will you to call me a messy girl again.
Other way round (Dominant girl, submissive guy)
I like to curl up behind you in the morning, when you’re still asleep and I’m awake and dressed, and fit my body neatly behind yours, my thighs touching the back of yours, my tits squashing against you through my t-shirt. It’s CFNM, but with a different tone to that above.
I like, as you stir ever so slightly, to slip one of my arms under your head and around your neck so that I can pinch your nipples and stroke your chest, the reverse of what you do for me when we go to sleep.
I enjoy the moment as you wake up, roll over and see me there – wide awake and eager for you.
When you’re naked and I’m not I have more of the power. I like being able to look at you exposed and cold, and take my time to run my palms over all of you. I like taking your flaccid cock in my hand and squeezing gently until you’re semi-hard.
But best of all I like to keep my knickers on – sliding them just far enough to one side that I can sit slickly down onto your dick while you place your hands behind your head and wait for me to come.
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On what is about to happen
I’m sitting on the sofa next to a boy who is playing Halo 4 on the Xbox. This is almost the best way to spend a Sunday. I write, he stares in deep concentration at the TV, running his fingers quickly over the controls, occasionally murmuring ‘shit’ or ‘motherfucker.’ It’s fantastic -relaxing and horny at the same time. But it’s not quite as good as what’s about to happen.