Despertar

five takes on fellatio

Get this thing started off right, shall we.

I feel a lot of responsibility for this thing. I thought about this for like forty-five minutes, in the shower, running down the list of contestants in my head, wondering whether any would be offended by my entry's title itself, much less the intended content. It's a strange feeling, wanting to have fun with this, but feeling slightly more invested in everyone else's having fun. I don't deserve this much power, this much responsibility, but, that's the joy of a Leading day.

I'm taking my chances, anyway. I warned you all in the rules section, and like i said, I want to start this thing off right.

*

My baby cousin (who isn't a baby at all, really; she's thirteen--ohmygodhwere does the time go) IMs me periodically with Life Questions. Our online interactions were a lot less stresful two or three years ago, when all she wanted was my advice on when to start shaving her legs or what color Uggs she should buy. Now, she has questions about overseas travel, middle-school race relations, things I'm not especially qualified to illuminate for her.

Most recently, she messaged to ask what I thought about oral sex. Two of her classmates had gotten busted for experimenting on the backseat of the bus during some field trip, and she, my cousin, was looking for my adult confirmation that that sort of thing is really disgusting, that only a huge slut would think of putting her mouth on a boy. Right? Because kissing is okay, maybe, and maybe even making out, like in high school, but any term that includes the word sex has to stand for something really awful, right? Right?

I feel for anyone who has the misfortune of still having most of puberty to look forward to. I can't imagine anything more confusing than being so sure of something, running it by a trusted older cousin and receiving, by way of response, a muddle of maybes and sometimeses, a lot of equivocation without any context. The thing is, I just realized, like two months ago, that you don't know ANYTHING at first, and that every single thing that ever happens to you, every day you survive, brings you closer to understanding what you didn't the day before.

Which is to say, I don't want to be the reason she considers herself learned in that area, and never bothers to revise her developing Fellatio Theory.

*

I will be twenty-three on the tenth. It's incredible; I've never been so old. And it took me this long to learn that lesson, that today's Certainty is tomorrow's Disproven Folklore.

*

I completely freaked out the first time I was asked to perform fellatio. I apologized at least a dozen times, in advance, for what I was sure would be a failure, and I panicked and hated my life throughout the whole thing. It was kind of like public speaking, but exponentially more personal and with more tremendous stakes.

It worked out, the guy orgasmed and everything, of course, but I was aware, even at the moment of success, that there were a thousand things to learn about it. Tricks and stuff. Guidelines for where to put my hands, how often to surface, was that grimace on his face one of pleasure or pain, et cetera. Thinking I sucked at giving head (ha!!), I vowed not to, ever again. My momentary Certainty was that the pitfalls of fellatio--its pressure, its grossness--weren't worth the nonexistent payoff.

Of course, at the time, I was also Certain I wouldn't ever love anyone else, ever again. Just him.

*

I was wrong. I love someone else now. And in his honor, I have developed a new Fellatio Theory of my own.

There's nothing more powerful than realizing you have the capacity to grow, to learn, to expand your skill set. (I'm good at it now. Maybe even amazing. No more shyness, you can leave the lights on, thank you, and if I take a pause to make eye contact, to revel in that look on your face, you can be sure it's perfectly timed and won't interfere with the overall experience.)

Actually, not true: there's one thing more powerful, and that's realizing there are infinite ways to bring joy to someone you love.

And that there's nothing dirty about choosing that one, sometimes.