The Nine P's of Great Cunnilingus
By Suzi Bite
Copyright 1991 Utopia Publications
There is a natural tendency
for people to assume that whatever their own attitudes are, others must
feel the same way. You socialize with people with whom you share values
and beliefs and thus you project that the rest of the world is a mirror
of your own little circle. Although I realize that this is faulty logic,
I too have to remind myself from time to time that no, other places are
not like San Francisco, and no, other social scenes are not like the one
you (sic) find yourself in.
The one that I find myself
in is filled with people who love to talk about sex. Next to sex itself,
talking about sex is one of the most fun activities I can think of. However,
a lot of people in the world - the vast majority, I imagine – are
in the school that sex is a dirty little thing that belongs in the bedroom
and is best left undiscussed. Even relatively hip folks, who intellectually
realize that there is nothing negative about the subject, may feel awkward
or uncomfortable about discussing it. It’s not very hard to understand
why. Almost all of us have been raised inside of a culture and households
in which the subject was verbally taboo. It’s kind of a double-whammy:
first of all, you don’t talk about sex because it’s a nasty
subject connected to morally reprehensible activity, and second of all,
you don’t talk about sex because talking about it supposedly ruins
it. It makes it too common, too indelicate, too apparent … the mystery,
after all, is what makes it so good.
Why Talk
About It?
To me the second argument is
as phony as the first. No matter what you do, you are still going to be
left with the fact that the pleasures associated with sexual intimacy
cannot be fully explained and will continue to intrigue us, long after
the scientific studies have made all the measurements and observations
that they can. Not only does talking about sex release us from the outdated
prohibitions, it actually enhances the experience itself. This is also
easy to understand. When you hear people talk about sex, you learn a lot.
Most of us probably got our first information about the birds and the
bees on the playground, out of the mouths of other kids, rather than from
parents or teachers, and I’m sure that we hung on every word we heard.
Conversations about sex among adults can be far more enlightening, thanks
to a much more solid grounding in the facts of the matter. They provide
a means of discovering the things that can make it work for you –
make it possible to come, for instance, or help your partner(s) to do
so too. Aside from finding out more about the mechanics of sex, talking
about it can help you re-shape your attitudes about it, allowing you to
relate to people more righteously and to feel better about yourself. Besides
all of this, talking about sex is a great source of humor, and it is now
clinically established that laughter is good medicine.
To Come or
Not to Come
What I want to talk about today
is cunnilingus. Oral sex, where the genitals on the receiving end are
those of a female, and the body part on the doing end is a mouth. The
mouth could belong to a person of either sex, depending on your preference;
either way, it’s still cunnilingus. Some people are good at it and
some aren’t, but I really believe it is a skill that can be learned.
What I mean by a person being
good at it is, she/he does it in such a way that her/his partner can have
an orgasm as the end result. Now, I have run into a lot of people over
the years who do not think that coming is the point of sex, and should
not be emphasized. This is debatable. I agree that there are other purposes
for doing it: general sensual gratification and drawing closer to the
person you are doing it with, for example. Still, to use these as a basis
to negate the significance of the orgasm is silly. My evaluation of human
nature is that everybody wants to come. Coming is fantastic. It’s
just amazing how a few short moments of uncontrollable, spasmodic muscle
action can feel so good. Sex without coming can be wonderful and intense,
but why not come if you can?
What these people object to,
I think, is the type of sexual interaction in which the relationship between
the people is depersonalized, and one or both parties are more concerned
with their own orgasm than in having a holistically sensitive, mutually
satisfying experience. If you could study all the sexual interludes that
have ever taken place throughout human history, I’m sure you’d
find that an awful lot of them have been in that desensitized category.
And most still are, but that’s besides the point. The point is, why
allow the jerky behavior of some insensitive clods to interfere with your
own feelings about coming?
The Varieties
of Sexual Dysfunction
The second, and I think bigger,
reason why some people object to viewing orgasms as important is because
of sexual dysfunction. You can tell that sexual dysfunction is a really
big deal because of its spelling. Why else would the “dys” have
a “y” in it instead of an “i” in it? Seriously though,
sexual dysfunction can really freak a person out if she/he is not prepared
with the right mental attitudes. Men deal with the number of types of
sexual dysfunction: primary impotence (inability to get it up), secondary
impotence (it gets up but doesn’t stay hard), premature ejaculation
(coming very quickly), retarded ejaculation (it takes a really long time
to come – my favorite kind of sexual dysfunction) and the inability
to come (the erection doesn’t go away, but an hour or two later the
guy still can’t climax, so he just decides to stop). The last kind
doesn’t have a formal name that I’ve ever run across; I’ll
have to think of one. For women it’s not so complicated, sexual dysfunction
just means you can’t come, although actually that could be further
broken down between those who don’t get aroused and can’t come
and those who do but still can’t come.
Many women who can’t come
feel like it’s their fault when actually, whenever they fuck, their
boyfriends have premature ejaculation, or simply don’t know how to
do it the way they like it. There are a lot of reasons why people don’t
come, besides the ones just mentioned for women, including being too tired,
or preoccupied with something. A certain amount of sexual dysfunction,
male or female, however, isn’t explainable; it just occurs. When
it does, you have to have the good sense to keep it in perspective and
not allow it to worry you. Some people, though, go the other way: instead
of becoming depressed and upset about it, or keeping it in a rational
perspective, they insist that it doesn’t matter anyway, so there.
I even knew a woman once who had never come, and claimed that orgasms
were a myth invented by men to make women feel bad. It’s really something,
what the mind can concoct when properly motivated.
When someone insists the coming
really doesn’t matter at all, it’s a symptom of being inordinately
preoccupied with sex and coming, the same way a person who is virulently
alienated from her/his parents really has them in her/his head in a big
way. If you can’t come for whatever reason, it’s no reason to
lose self-esteem and sleep, but don’t make the mistake of turning
into an anhedonic person, a sourpuss who begrudges others their fun. The
right approach is to do what you can to learn what works best for you,
and cultivate sexual relationships with people who are sensitive to your
particular needs and desires.
It’s
Easier When You Do It Right.
This brings us back to cunnilingus,
which some women find to be a better orgasm-inducer than intercourse.
There is a big range in what different women find effective. The sorry
truth of the matter is, though, that no matter easy a comer a woman is,
coming is a much bigger schtick to accomplish for women than for men.
Every now and then you’ll find a guy who has a hard time coming and
has to have everything done just “so” for it to happen, but
most boys can pop it off inside of minutes any time they want to, whereas
I have only known a very few females who could claim that. For most of
us, it’s a question of trial and error, until we found out exactly
the right balance of factors that does the trick, and get our partners
to learn the score. From my talks with many women, it seems that for some,
you could say of them, as The Cars do in their song, “She says that
it’s easy/When you do it right,” although for most it remains
a constant challenge. Even though I do come almost every time I fuck,
I almost perpetually worry that it won’t work while I’m doing
it. (In spite of this I manage to enjoy myself).
Cunnilingus is a very exacting
science or art, depending on how you want to see it. If anything, it’s
even more precise than intercourse with respects to the “do it right”
concept. Not to say that any time you have a lover going down on you,
you should necessarily be looking to come by it. Cunnilingus before, between
and/or after fucking, where the orgasm happens during the fuck, is also
a wonderful thing. After a large number of hours spent contemplating the
subject, I have boiled it down to the essential variables that make up
the mix. Each one has to be done right - which of course may be totally
the opposite way from woman to woman - in order to elicit the desired
outcome. I call these points “The Nine P’s of Cunnilingus.”
The
Nine “P’s”
OK, let’s
get down to it.
1. Perseverance. The
truth is, getting a girl (All of the words ‘boys’ and ‘girls’
in this article are meant to refer to adults over 18, not minors) to come
this way can take a long, long time. We’re talking anything from
a few minutes (in rare cases) to an hour. A lot of jaws cannot sustain
for this length of time, and you really can’t blame the poor sucker
for wanting to stop short of such a stint (or for thinking of Richard
Pryor’s line “Yo pussy dead, honey!”). On the other hand,
you really appreciate those who can. The ability to shield teeth with
lips becomes a prized skill.
2. Patience. This has
more to do with attitude than mere perseverance through time, although
they’re closely related. Without a relaxed, patient attitude about
the pastime, the person doing the licking is not likely to keep at it
for a long run. Patience should be seen as applying not only to a given
session of cunnilingus, but to the shared experience on cunnilingus in
the context of an ongoing relationship. In other words, it might take
months or even years for a partner to perfect her/his cunnilinguism and
develop those techniques to the point of being able to get a woman to
come on a regular basis. I’ve even had the experience of it taking
as long as ten years. If the cunnilinguist loses patience after some time
has gone by and concludes that it’s impossible, who knows, the breakthrough
could’ve only been days away!
3. Precision. This speaks
for itself, pretty much. The tongue has to be able to concentrate its
efforts on just the right spots, and there is certain amount of delicacy
involved. Going all over the place at random may be fun and feel generally
good to both people, but it usually doesn’t work.
4. Pressure. I don’t
think a lot of people realize what an important thing pressure is in female
orgasms of all varieties. Providing a lot of pressure with one’s
head and tongue is another sexual feat worthy of silent appreciation by
the recipients thereof. Light flicks of the tongue may not make it. Too
much of a grind might not either, but it’s gotta be there.
5. Position. Some like
it on their backs, some from behind, legs apart, legs together, up, down,
etc. Some women can come from being eaten out in numerous positions, exotic
or otherwise; for most of us there is one easiest (or only) way to go.
6. Penetration. This
has to do with fingers. The woman willprobably have a preference for having
or not having a finger or two (or more) up her cunt while being blown.
Most whom I’ve discussed it with do prefer one or more in there,
as against none. Then there is the question of how far up, if they should
be bent and pressing the G-spot and whether they should be still or moving,
and if moving in and out, how fast, which carries us over to,
7. Pace. Pace refers
to how fast the hand should be moving if it’s in there, as well as
how fast the tongue should be laying down it’s lashes, and any other
incidental rhythmic action the team may get going. The pace may even have
to be vary through the course of the interlude, from fast to medium to
slow.
8. Persistence. This
isn’t really quite the right word, but it’s as close as I’ve
been able to come in the “P” family. What I mean is steadiness
of pace, in fact steadiness and consistency of all the above-listed factors;
keeping them going without flagging or abrupt changes. One of the worst
things to do during sex of all types, especially sex once it gets going
nicely, is for the guy (speaking for hetero women) to pull a sudden switch
– speed up, slow down, remove fingers, whatever. Just when the rhythm
is starting to kick in and rev up the right motors, and you’re getting
the idea that you are in fact very possibly going to come this time, or
even later, once it is all humming and you are thinking, yes, you really
are going to come soon, a change like that can set you all back to zero,
start from scratch. Frustration city. These things can’t all be intuitively
interpreted by your partner, though. A certain amount of nonverbal communication
will succeed, but some things are best expressed with words. You may not
feel like giving your partner a lecture on what to do right in the midst
of sex (I do believe in there being the right timing for such dialogues)
but sooner or later you ought to let her/him know what’s what if
she/he doesn’t pick right up on it. Probably sooner rather than later.
9. Playfulness. This
kind of thing goes without saying and isn’t just a point that applies
to cunnilingus. It could be said about most things you do with people,
but it definitely has to be there during oral sex. There’s something
innately amusing about having a guy down there messing around with my
pussy with his mouth. I’m not sure why it’s funny. Maybe because
it has always seemed so unlikely to me that anyone would want to do that,
let alone do it with gusto. I mean, the smell, the wetness, the whole
deal. Vaginas are messy things, but most men I know don’t seem to
mind, so why complain? In fact, most of them don’t even have an aversion
to what I call “vampire sex”, which is cunnilingus while you
have your period. These men are motivated. I don’t know where they
get it from. Hallelujah for guys like this. They’re a big part of
what makes life worth living.
The thing about sex is, even
people who don’t talk about it think about it., and I think you think
about it less productively when it’s not a candid, relaxed issue
than when it is. When it’s an issue filled with fear, negative intrigue,
insecurity, or just plain embarrassment, it can be much more pre-occupying,
even at levels that are not immediately apparent upon conscious introspection.
What’s going on here, however, is not really talking about sex. This
is me writing about sex, and you reading about sex. Can you actually talk
about it? Like about what’s in this article, and what you think about
it personally? If you can’t, it’s a good thing for you to learn
about yourself. If you can, but not to your sexual partner(s), that’s
another interesting thing for you to be aware of in your life. If you
could and would like to, but don’t have anyone you’re that informal
with, it’s high time you looked for some of those people. You’re
missing out on something great.