agonyaunt | How to Do It: "I Keep Getting Called a “Bad Feminist” Because I Won’t Do One Thing in Bed"

Dear How To Do It,

I’m a bisexual woman in my late 20s. I’ve dated about the same number of women and men. I hate performing oral sex on women (for what it’s worth, I don’t particularly enjoy receiving it either). There’s something about the smell and taste that really, really grosses me out. I don’t think it’s just a one (or two) time thing because I’ve gone down on around 15 women, and it’s gross every time.

I don’t mind performing oral sex on men (I’ve only encountered one gross-smelling dick before), and most guys are thrilled not to have to go down on me, but women react very differently. I’ve been called a “pillow princess,” a fake bisexual, a bad feminist, etc. when I mention I don’t really like oral sex. I now exclusively date bi women, and they’re less judgmental than lesbians, but some are still put off. My ideal night with a woman involves making out, boobs, and fingering/mutual masturbation (I don’t like strap-ons, either!) to finish the night, but most women don’t want anything besides oral.

Is there some way I can learn to at least tolerate performing oral sex? I can do it for about two minutes before getting grossed out and needing to brush my teeth or get a stick of gum.

—How Many Licks

Dear How Many Licks,

Are you familiar with dental dams? They’re a nonporous sheet of material that you can place over internal genitalia (vulvas and anuses) and are usually found in a safer sex context. I think they may be useful for you. If they can prevent the spread of infectious bacteria, they can prevent your taste buds from coming into contact with vaginal secretions, which may solve your issue.

Part of the difficulty and negative reaction you’re encountering may have something to do with your phrasing. “Gross” is hard to hear. I hope you’re choosing different words when you’re speaking to current or prospective sexual partners. Of course, people are still going to have their opinions on the genuineness of your sexual identity—identity policing isn’t going away anytime soon—but you can do your best to help them remain receptive by using phrases like “I prefer to give and receive digital stimulation” or “I’m generally not into giving or receiving oral.”

Try to remember that dating is a process of sorting through mismatch after mismatch until we find the person, or people, who click with us. When someone calls you a pillow princess as a pejorative, questions your bisexuality, or judges you for your open disinterest in oral, that’s a signal that it’s time to move along.

There very well may be a woman out there who you find attractive and who will be thrilled to never engage in oral sex again. Put your energy into locating her. If you’re going the online dating route, this may mean listing your preference in your bio to keep things efficient. If you’re dating in the wild, I’d be upfront as soon as the subject of sex comes up. Good luck.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My take as a dude with a vagina who has done things with people of different genders:

Vaginas aren't gross. Probably LW would do better to just say "oral isn't my thing" and leave the "gross" part out of it. (I, for example, do not like receiving oral because it intensifies my dysphoria in ways that penetration does not. There is a way to refuse and still be polite.)

That being said, nobody should feel obligated to perform any sex act on anybody. People are allowed to feel uncomfortable with any sex act for any reason and say no to giving it or receiving it. "Just use a dental dam" isn't necessarily going to help, as there may be issues there besides the taste (while I'm not saying LW shouldn't try it either; that's up to LW).

I also feel like people need to stop with this identity policing shit and stop saying someone is a "fake" whatever because of certain unwritten rules about gender/sexual orientation performativity. For fuck's sake. We get enough judgmental crap from non-LGBT people, this thing we have with eating our own (hurr) needs to fucking stop already. Nobody is a "fake" bisexual because they don't like performing/receiving Sexual Activity X, you shallow, judgmental fucks. (Not "you" directed at anyone here.) If someone wants to call me a "fake" such-and-such because I don't like doing Thing X or Thing Y, there are issues there well beyond sexual compatibility and I ain't got time for that, bye.

Edited 2020-08-19 16:46 (UTC)

nobody should feel obligated to perform any sex act on anybody

Absolutely. I hope it was clear from my response that this absolutely truth underpins it.

I also feel like people need to stop with this identity policing shit and stop saying someone is a "fake" whatever because of certain unwritten rules about gender/sexual orientation performativity. For fuck's sake. We get enough judgmental crap from non-LGBT people, this thing we have with eating our own (hurr) needs to fucking stop already.

A-fucking-men.

Yeah, your response was fine. :) I just needed to throw in my rant because I have So Many Feelings about this subject.

An ex of mine was a cis bi dude who stopped dating men because he got so much pressure to receive anal and was basically told that he wasn't bi if he didn't want to bottom in that sense.

He was perfectly attracted sexually and romantically to men, and was willing to do pretty much everything else in bed, but that was a hard limit (he had his reasons), and he got so tired of his identity being questioned and his boundaries pushed.

I haaaaate identity-policing, speaking as a bi woman who got an incredible amount of shit as a baby queer because I dated men (even though I was just as interested in women and did have relationships with women, as well.)

I HEAR you. I didn't call myself queer till I was in my late 30s because when I was first exploring I got so much crap for being bi. I felt like I didn't qualify since I'm bi. Ergh.

I feel like bi people get policed *so much* and it's incredibly frustrating. We get shit from hets AND gay/lesbian people. No matter what we do, or don't do, we're doing it wrong!

Then on top of that I deal with the Trans Police; some of the worst gatekeepers are fellow trans people.

It's bad enough that I have to be in the closet out here in MAGA country, but the way a lot of the LGBTQ+ community itself behaves towards its own just makes me want to live under a damn rock, y'know?

Oh my stars and garters that sounds HORRIBLE. Ugh, I fucking hate gatekeeping. Stay safe out there and I really hope queer people can stop eating our own, as you well put it. (heh, considering the post this appended to.)

How to Do It: "I Keep Getting Called a “Bad Feminist” Because I Won’t Do One Thing in Bed"

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