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Are blowjobs really about power?

  
  

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iconoplast
04:00 / 01.07.04
Friend brought up something interesting tonight:

She said she thinks blowjobs are about power - the reciever exercising power over the performer.

We agreed that the dynamic of 'eating out' puts the power in the hands of the doer, but she was fairly certain that the relationship is reversed in fellatio - that it's the doee who's got the power.

She didn't buy any claims of the faith and trust involved in bringing fleshy bits of identity-forming flesh in close contact with teeth, either.

And, you know... I'm sort of curious, now. I think she might be right.
 
 
Tom Coates
06:25 / 01.07.04
This is a really interesting question which gets close to a whole range of issues with regards to the role of power in sex and attraction and role-playing and gender issues, and certainly there performing a blow-job can be a satisfyingly 'submissive' thing to do, but to be honest with you I'm really not sure it has to be that way. I mean - I can imagine a dominatrix with a chained up lover controlling the head that they are given - pushing their partner where their attentions are most required, and I think it would be fairly hard to argue that the cunnilinguer was 'dominant' in such an arrangement. Similarly I can imagine a situation where a man is basically thrown on his back, has his legs thrown over someone else's shoulders, exposing other parts of the body for invasive or stimulation by hand or whatever, where the person performing the act would very clearly be in control. Part of me wonders whether the sexual dynamics between a man and a woman often fall into dominant and submissive patterns because of societal structures, implicit biology or the imposition of meaning on the situation or because that's just somehow for a large number of people where the abandon and the fire is. What I'm saying, I guess, is that it could be more of a function of gender roles than anything directly mapped onto the act itself.
 
 
Papess
18:16 / 01.07.04
I certainly agree with you Tom. The power issue in fellatio does seem to be about gender roles, stereotypical gender roles, of course.

If a woman is givng a blow job, then it is (sometimes) assumed she had to be coerced, or forced into it, or that she isn't very bright. The imagery has that "On your knees bitch" mentallity. Women, of course, are not suppose to enjoy this, and that perpetuates these notions. If women were perceived to actually enjoy giving head as much as a man enjoys receiving it, weeell...that might mess with the gender roles and power dynamics too much for comfort.

Where as, if one man gives another man oral, it seems to be more of an equal exchange. They are both equally enjoying it (it is assumed) and no one had to be coerced or manipulated, or gotten drunk. They just had to take a walk in a park and mutually engage in fellatio. Of course, this could not _always_ be the case.

Another point on fellatio and power dynamic would naturally seem to be the swallowing and/or the "coming on her face" scenes. In my perception, the act of swallowing holds a lot of power for the one who does it. You are taking in a piece of your partner into you. Not that it takes away from the partner who is releasing, (although, there is some vampiric implication here that could create a powerful role for the one swallowing) but it could be seen as a surrendering to the one who is giving the pleasure.

As for the "come on the face" thing, I find it is just degrading. Maybe with the right two people, or the right time, whatever, it wouldn't seem that way. But, as this act is usually portrayed, in porn for example, it really doesn't feel like it is meant to empower the women.
 
 
statisticalpurposes
21:25 / 01.07.04
Part of me wonders whether the sexual dynamics between a man and a woman often fall into dominant and submissive patterns because of societal structures, implicit biology or the imposition of meaning on the situation or because that's just somehow for a large number of people where the abandon and the fire is. What I'm saying, I guess, is that it could be more of a function of gender roles than anything directly mapped onto the act itself.

I agree that there’s no inherent power dynamic in male or female oral sex. I also think its possible that there is no pre-determined or fixed power relation in conventional heterosexual sex either. Other than the fact that men tend to be stronger and bigger (partly biology, partly culture), I think that our conception of men as active sexual beings and women as passive is a social construction. If that’s the case, then oral sex must work the same way: who holds the power is based on cultural values, not the act itself.

I think the more interesting question might be why sex seems so tied to power. Since the question of who holds the power in oral sex seems so reasonable, is it so rare for power to remain constantly equal in sexual encounters? Sex seldom seems to be an activity of cooperation between two people, like cuddling or baking cookies.

So why must sex be a negotiation of power? The best answers that come to mind are far too Freudian for my liking, such as the surrender of control as infantile and therefore pleasurable. Insights, anyone? Did Foucault say why sex and power were so related, or did he just think everything was about power without worrying about the why?

I keep getting this image of a nature documentary where two monkeys are fucking and the voiceover is explaining that of the two males, one is a more dominant monkey who is asserting his power over the lesser-ranked monkey. Oh yeah, and jail-related soap-dropping.

It’s clear to me that heterosexual sex need not always be about a male dominating a female, but can it ever not involve power at all?

Lastly, why is the cum-on-face thing so prevalent and so universally considered degrading? I know a woman who likes cum all over herself, and thus would not be degraded at all by it. Why is she such an anomaly?
 
 
grant
01:46 / 02.07.04
Why degrading? Semen is a viscous bodily fluid. That's a category that screams "icky".

Why power? Because orgasm represents a loss of control, I think, a moment of biological vulnerability, and so all these negotiations sprout up around it.
 
 
No star here laces
03:45 / 02.07.04
Maybe it's a glib cop-out, but if blow-jobs are about power, then you're not doing them right.

I don't think it's an accident that conflating the two words "blowjob" and "power" brings to mind pornography, prison sex and rape - three examples where it clearly is about power, but three examples that are not really characteristic of blowjobs in general and are overtly negative in nature.

I would imagine that the most frequent experience of blowjobs (certainly in my case) is as a mutually consensual part of a loving or lustful relationship. The key word being "mutual" i.e. not involving coercion or persuasion - who actually says "blow me" or "suck it" in real life? Unless they are deliberately role-playing, that is.

But anyway, it seems like most people on the thread are in agreement that there is no necessary power dynamic involved in blow jobs, but that there maybe is a perceived power dynamic, which I personally feel is more due to the media portrayal of blowjobs than their common practice.

The media has a vested interest in sexual degradation, because sexual degradation in the media sublimates those urges and sells a lot of product. So the blowjob gets shown as a degrading act in order to titillate.

I suppose you could come up with all sorts of waffle about the swallowing thing being an inversion of breast-feeding with the adult female being forced into a child-like suckling of the powerful male essence. But that would be a load of, er, cock.
 
 
Cat Chant
08:35 / 02.07.04
One partner puts an extremely vulnerable and sensitive part of their body between the other person's teeth and they're in control?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
10:48 / 02.07.04
well yes, my first thought exactly.

And i'd hugely disagree that performing oral sex on a woman is neccessarily a submissive position.

eg as per Deva's formation:

I am writhing and screaming and crying and utterly defencessless and utterly off the planet, and someone else has induced that/can decide how/when I get what i want.

Who's the dominant power here?

I think perhaps it's working angling in BDSM here, as if that's a part of one's sexuality, there's a vocabulary/examination of power-roles implicit therein. (not that BDSM can't be utterly conservative/hidebound, mind)

But I'm too rushed, to do it, will come back. v. interesting question.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:10 / 02.07.04
Since the question of who holds the power in oral sex seems so reasonable, is it so rare for power to remain constantly equal in sexual encounters?

No, I think that the power in consensual sex is often equal, I can quite happily say that I've never felt powerless but I have created the myth of a lack of power. That's the point, isn't it? You can be dominant or submissive or neither in practically everything you do... well, if you can manage to get your perception in the right place.

The media has a vested interest in sexual degradation, because sexual degradation in the media sublimates those urges and sells a lot of product.

I think that there's a possibility that we could really dig in to the media for something that isn't the fault of our magazines and newspapers etc. They're only perpetuating a myth that runs right through our society- it's really christianity that's to blame, I mean seriously, holy pregnancy!!??

So sex is wicked, the wicked degrade themselves, you can't blame consumer society for taking advantage of something that's already culturally inherent. You can only label various parts of the media as misogynistic and if you're going to do that than I'd rather you sorted it out so I have the possibility of equal pay should I become a business woman in the City (hahaha).
 
 
Papess
15:03 / 02.07.04
Lastly, why is the cum-on-face thing so prevalent and so universally considered degrading? I know a woman who likes cum all over herself, and thus would not be degraded at all by it. Why is she such an anomaly?

There must be a reason why it is considered as being degrading by so many.

As has been said about just every sexual act, it is not degrading if it is consentual, but there is something terribly wrong about the way this is portrayed in porn. Maybe because it is done strictly for the camera and the women who receive this are not really into it, and it looks obvious. That is my guess.

Any sex act that is not completely conscentual is degrading, IMO. (Unless of course, that is what they really, really want)
 
 
statisticalpurposes
17:47 / 02.07.04
No, I think that the power in consensual sex is often equal, I can quite happily say that I've never felt powerless but I have created the myth of a lack of power.

Yes, I agree. I think that the actual balance of power is equal -- otherwise the sex wouldn't be consensual. It is this myth of a lack of power or of having power that fascinates me. I don't think the roles are determined by gender, or even stable within one sexual encounter, but exist nonetheless. It still seems to me that sex consistently involves games of power however subtle and innocuous and consensual, and I continue to wonder why.

Perhaps the answer is that I'm just conceiving of sex in terms of acting out a power dynamic, when really something else entirely is going on... But there's just something about the common utterance "fuck me! fuck me!" (from either partner), that suggests a willing, consensual, pleasurable surrender of power and control at that moment.
 
 
Papess
18:04 / 02.07.04
It seems the confusion is in equating active/passive roles with dominant/submissive roles. These lines are not always as cut and dry when observing oral sex practice.

If one partner is servicing the other partner, the servicer might appear as a submissive, even though they are (at that moment) the active partner. On the flipside, the passive recipient of oral servicing may seem in control, but then finds themselves surrendering to the pleasure and to their partner.

It seems like a power dichotomy is the dynamic.

PS: An apology for being a spelling-boob earlier.
 
 
Horatio Hellpop
22:36 / 02.07.04
maybe the confusion of power roles is something central to the sexual experience (and pleasure in general).
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:22 / 05.07.04
Hmm well I think I am going to explain this really badly, but I think the problem, if it is a problem, has to do with the trope of mutuality in straight sex. Like, I know straight people who are really into coming at the same time - which seems to me like the most ridiculous and perverse fetish imaginable. But in general, there's this vague concept that what sex is, or should be, is something egalitarian in which there's a strict equivalence or complementarity between the partners - and the image of this is intercourse, in which (at least in theory) both partners are joined at the genitals and in a similar state of (loss of) control. So where sex acts don't match this idealised model of mutuality, they get conflated with issues of power or control - which is a way of mapping dissymetry to power relations. I think you can see this in the way nobody here can agree about where the power is in oral sex - the doer, the done, etc. Its a confusion of dissymetry with power, and the attribution of power to one or other party is secondary to that basic dynamic.

I think that in our ideologies about heterosexuality, sex is either mutual or about power - those are the only real alternatives, and they are seen to be somehow at odds or opposed. Like when Jefe denied blowjobs were about power he argued they were actually about mutuality, or a couple of people have insisted that power in consensual sex is 'equal'. What does that mean? It seems a radically reductive way of understanding sex and pleasure, not to mention power.
 
 
Papess
13:21 / 05.07.04
Dead Crunchy Pirate, with all due respect, I have to disagree, (and maybe I am understanding as badly as you feel you explained it), but equality in sex has not been inherent in hetrosexuality, historically. Perhaps mutuality, but that does not imply an balance of power between a man and a woman.

To use your example of mutual orgasm: If, at the point of near climax, one partner (it doesn't matter which) commands the other to, "Come for me, NOW!", then the power has indeed shifted, even though the act of mutual orgasm was reached. I would say a true display of power is more about the "how", than the "what".

Perhaps, the percieved equality in hetrosexual sex is a symptom being dragged into the bedroom from the social issues regarding equality between men and women. The present, mutuality (between the sexes) and acceptance of the equal power of men and women in the workplace, social gatherings, educational institutes and on the domestic front, has also found it way into the sexual pairing between a men and a women, practically negating any power at all in either partner, and therefore, (it would seem), in the act itself.
 
 
40%
16:40 / 05.07.04
Interesting someone should start this thread, I've been thinking about this one lately.

On the subject of how oral sex is portrayed in porn, an interesting thing is the "Oh I love having your cock in my mouth big boy" syndrome, which is clearly supposed to be arousing for men, since it's designed for their consumption. However, this falls down for the following reasons:

1. It's implausible that she should be doing it primarily for her own pleasure.
2. This negates any sense of the man having power, since it suggests the act may even have been initiated by the woman. [And presumably the power is supposed to be part of the turn-on]
3. It also negates any possibility that it may be done for the sake of giving the man pleasure.

So in this scenario, the man neither has the benefit of feeling that the woman wants to give him pleasure, or the benefit of feeling that he has the power to obtain it by his own decision.

Furthermore, I find it quite insulting towards men that they/we are considered to be so egocentric that the desirability of our own cocks is the thing we are likely to find most arousing.

But then most porn is bollocks mainly because of its complete lack of understanding of human psychology.
 
 
40%
16:47 / 05.07.04
One partner puts an extremely vulnerable and sensitive part of their body between the other person's teeth and they're in control?

Good point well made. I think this perception of the man having power is based on an idea of women as being so passive and compliant (and as has been said already, thick) that it would never occur to them to consider the powerful position that they are in, much less take advantage of it.

(Sigh....)
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
19:34 / 05.07.04
Crunchy, I've read that over a couple of times, and I don't think I understand you.

Are you saying that straight (and are you using straight specifically rather than het?) sex has a fetishisation of positioning that non-straight sex doesn't?

And are you saying that this is about the history/tropes of sex between differently-gendered people, ie a way of understanding with the notion of sexusl contact with bodies different to one's own?
 
 
Jackie Susann
23:51 / 05.07.04
Okay, let me try this again.

I think the idea of heterosexuality is structured around a putative binary opposition between sex which is mutual, and hence good, and sex which involves power, and is hence either bad or perverse.

I think that a number of examples in this thread, not to mention common sense, indicate that this is neither a productive nor a descriptively accurate way to understand the various things people are doing when they have sex.

I am not suggesting that this is how it's been historically, but how it is now - I think, without having studied it or anything, that this is largely a consequence of the 60s sexual revolution blah blah fishcakes Sex in the City trajectory. I am not suggesting it means most heterosexuals have sex in a way that is meaningfully mutual or egalitarian. I am not suggesting it has anything in particular to do with position, but that concepts of position and the distinction between the sexual and the nonsexual rest on this structure. (Like, I think there are plenty of straight people who don't think of blowjobs as sex - and I would suggest this is tied to the concept of sex as a mutual act, presumptively connected to the genitals. I think in contrast, it is relatively rare for gay men to not think of oral sex as sex.)

Would suggest that, generally, power condenses around even the most 'mutual' sex, in numerous ways and forms, as tensed possibility or constraint or enabling condition; that (roughly as per Foucault) it is hugely reductive to think of power as something one either has or doesn't, that one exercises over someone else, rather than as a kind of relation which is inherently unstable, dynamic, productive, and prone to mutation.
 
 
Ex
07:49 / 06.07.04
I think the idea of heterosexuality is structured around a putative binary opposition between sex which is mutual, and hence good, and sex which involves power, and is hence either bad or perverse.

I'm interested but not sure. I think you're spot on with the power thing, but there's a whole part of heterosex which seems to me based in differing roles - from the chat-up and initiating sex through to sexual acts, and you can see it dissected in romance fiction and film.

While I think that you're right that sex that explicitly and overtly involves power is seen as bad, I think that sex in which He charms the pants off Her and She swoons to receive His gentle education just slips under the radar of what lots of people think of as power dynamics. While a lot of people find SM icky, I don't see that transferring back to a thorough examination of the power roles implicit in standard ideas of het sex (which makes me anggry). And I'm not sure that oral sex is therefore unpopular in terms of power or a lack of mutuality.

And I think you're right also that poking tab A in slot B is the position that is meant to sybolise a mutual coming together in perfect harmony. But I don't think that the commitment to mutuality/equal power really extends far outwards.

Where it might have come from historically - the extreme mutuality sounds like the accusations that get chucked at lesbian feminist girl-girl sex - power is seen as bad so nobody gets to be on top, there's no bad objectification of body parts, blah blah. I don't know if anyone was actually having sex like that, but it's something that gets kicked against post-mid-eighties by butch and femme women, kinky women - in fact, any women who didn't like lying on their sides a lot.

There's also the concentration on women's orgasms from magazine culture in the eighties - I know what you mean about fetishising mutual simultaneous orgasms...

I think there's also something going on with the presumption that men like sex and women don't as much - so that being present and naked is the main thing expected of women in a het model. But I haven't thought that through yet, so will return to it.
 
 
cusm
20:20 / 06.07.04
Well, any time I've given a blowjob, it was because I was enjoying the act of it, not for any sort of power issue. Its much as how I enjoy cunnilingus, there's a lot of sensual pleasure in it. Like kissing, only illegal in most states under the age of 18.

Though there are cases where it may be seen as a power play. Certainly, the typical suburban high school culture case of a guy insisting on a blowjob cause the girl isn't having sex yet, and similar bullshit cases that are entirely too common. Though there is a notable difference between this sort of thing and consenting adults.

Otherwise, power can be such an important factor in sex. Its so easy for sex to become about power. So much of kink is really about just that when you break it down. So much so that any aspect of sex can become about power if looked at a different way. But that doesn't mean it is at the time. Intent is everything.
 
 
darknes23
20:37 / 19.07.04
This was an interesting conversation, and it appears to have ended rather abruptly. Does anyone know of a site where such back-and-forths stand a decent chance of progressing, specifically sex-and culture related(I'm looking for new domaqins to haunt)? (I will add something to this topic soon...just a frustrated lurker who enjoyed this thread more than any I've seen on here in at least 6 months...probably speaking out of turn, espc. since I have yet to add anything of substance here)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:40 / 19.07.04
Hi Darknes23 - look forward to hearing from you on blow jobs (and how often do you get to say *that* as the first thing you say to someone?).

As for other boards, might I suggest a thread in the Conversation? It will probably be read by and responded to by more people. If you are specifically interested in culture and theory, then a new thread in the Head Shop?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:41 / 20.07.04
Darknes23, why don't you push this discussion forward a bit instead of giving up on it? These threads never really have to die.
 
 
charrellz
15:21 / 30.07.04
Something I just thought of in response to the porn conundrum brought up by 7 beats to the bar. Perhaps the idea of these acts being pleasing to both parties is meant for the guys who are worried about satisfying women. Probably not the intention, but perhaps it is the result.

In my experience, blowjobs have never been about power. There are the occasional moments where one party will sort of take control by doing little things like putting a hand on the head of the giver to guide and control them, or the giver toying with the recipient, but usually neither party is truly controlling the other person or even the situation.

All in all, I think the general rule with these things is that an act is not about power or degradation unless intended as such.
 
 
darknes23
15:43 / 30.07.04
OK, I'm back to comment, sorry for taking so long after being critical, but, well, I guess I've been letting this ferment and now it's ready...

To me, the questions of "power" and "control" is precisely what makes sex such an interesting activity and arena for identity exploration, both personal and cultural...meaning that a healthy sex life can affect how one particpates in "culture"...

I was going to attempt to address this discussion sort of academically, but I think I'm going to stick with personal experience, it just feels safer. As I have matured, I have developed a sense of the massive importance of and need for mutuality... In my teens and early 20's, I was fascinated by the thought of going down on girlfriends, but I was equally repulseed, and unconcerned with the greater issues of my partners' satisfaction. As I have gotten older, the knowledge and appreciation of my partner's pleasure has, in some ways, overcome the quest for my own. Knowing how I'm making my partner feel, because I love and respect them, is a powerful feeling; to control their achievement of orgasm, or to prolong that tension, to know that I am pushing the buttons...bliss. She retains power too, through imaginatively recasting herself as a queen or goddess being worshipped by someone who blows her mind as well as rocks her world. That intellectual connection-the recognition of being involved in something AWEsome with someone who awes you, is the key for me and I will accept nothing less (I don't have casual sex, in other words).

To state that in fellatio one person has power over the other is difficult for me to swallow (I know, hardehar, but it fits); culturally, the receiver seems to be sort of getting "desert" with out having to do anything, but the giver has the power to withhold satisfaction...the goal can be achieved quickly, or (if you're lucky and have a skillful lover) withheld and pleasure, build up and delicious tension prolonged. There is definitely a feeling of primal power in uttering any sentence-whether a command, offhand comment, or weeping entreaty- that includes the phrase "my dick in your mouth", but that power comes, in my experience, only when you know that the person you're saying it to wants to explore that space, where you are both letting go and up for discovering something about yourselves and each other. In that type of relationship, one of acceptance and a desire for pushing the limits and boundaries of pleasure and acceptability, the issue of respect is already resolved, an important prerequisite when you're discussing some of the more, well, questionably tasteful practices discussed here, like the whole porn-inspired cum on the face thing. If you feel "safe" with your partner, moments like that are the extreme definition of intimate, and in their transgression, unifying. You and this one person are in a sealed, shared space, having experiences that may never be shared or even spoken of with anyone else...moments like that are the backbone of MY individulity and of my awareness of the nature of and reliability of my relationships. To squirt jizz on a partner is to bathe them in your essential essence-is anything more romantic, or close, other than giving birth?


More later, as I'm at work at the mo...definitely more if this sparks other comments...

I am interested in exploring the fact that very few of the people involved in this thread-me included-seem able to step outside of their own experiences and speak, as I said up top, academically to the issue. Any ideas?

Another interesting point/question...I've read a couple of times over the last 6 months about humanity's essential inability to "remember" sexual encounters with any degree of specificity...can you remember positions, order, etc.? If not, why do you think that is? It seems that, like the effects of drugs or alcohol, or tragedy and stress, sex has an amnesiac effect that drives us to do it again and again...is there a biological basis for this? Or just coincidence since it's so damn much fun?
 
 
cusm
15:07 / 09.08.04
Aah, I can always count on Barbelith for such gems as to see "squirt jizz" and ecstatic romance in the same breath.

On the remembering of positions part, I will have to disagree with that most emphaticly.
 
 
darknes23
17:19 / 09.08.04
Just expressing myself cusm. At 28, I'm still getting my head around this whole sex and love thing.
So, your other comment would indicate that you remember EVERY position you've ever been in? Every move from top to bottom? Explain...if you don't mind.
 
 
cusm
19:14 / 09.08.04
Not every, surely, simply for the sheer volume of it all over the years. But I remember a lot. If I think on a specific encounter, I remember most of what was done, which definitely includes positions. But its no different than remembering any other experience. I have a pretty good visual memory, and sex is an emotionally charged experience. So, its not suprising that I can recall the details pretty easily of who put what where when. Granted, there's a stretch of married dulldrom where repetition of the same patterns sort of blurs together, though I recall times when the patterns were broken and different positions were used vividly. Just as I don't recall the specifics of how I drive to work every day, though I can tell you the route and all the alternate routes I take, and specific details of times where exciting things happened on the way home. Memory is memory, its no different for sex. And this is quite drifting OT.
 
 
darknes23
19:56 / 09.08.04
Well, back to the blowjobs then...

re: your comment about the reasoining behind high school blow jobs...I always thought taht it was the GIRL offering oral sex as a way to put off having to commit to having full intercourse. Are you suggesting that, in high school, all boys want to fuck and all blow job-giving girls were coerced into it?

And not sure of your tone in your first reply to my long post...is there demonstrably not a connection between "squirting jizz" and ecstatic love? I have a hard time seperating sexandlove, so to me, those two (perhaps disparate) sentiments fit well in the same breath. What was the motivation for your comment? Is "squirting jizz" too accurate a descriptive?
 
 
cusm
20:43 / 09.08.04
Just amusingly graphic is all

As for the high-school bit, one can never say "all X" for any situation for purposes of discussions on human behavior, just that X happens.

In this case, its the specific varient of the situation where the girl not wanting to go "all the way", but the guy pressuring the blow job as a compromise. That might be seen as a power situation, due to the element of pressure, in line with the original thesis of this thread. Or at least from what window into the lives of high school girls I was given to see a fairly common one.
 
 
darknes23
19:54 / 29.09.04
This is a recent Village Voice article (actually a reprint of an older story) that speaks directly to the issues in this thread. I happen to really like what the author is saying...

An excerpt (from near the end)

"The other day, during an interview with another well-known adult film star (let's call her Blondie), the subject turned to fellatio, and she told me this anecdote: "I just love giving head, I get so into it, and I think men appreciate it when you are having a good time. But on the set of a movie, I started going down on this guy, and he said, 'Don't suck my dick like you like it so much. Suck my dick like a porn star.' I was totally confused, but it was obvious that what I was doing was not working for him. What do you think he meant by that?" This real-life story (well, as real as stories from pornland can be) illustrates my phallic philosophy beautifully. Blondie loves giving head and it shows: She is enthusiastic, and her eyes beam as her lips get shiny with spit. But her leading man wanted an altogether different approach, one perhaps with a stiff upper lip, where Blondie looks a little uncomfortable, makes it obvious that she's working hard, or appears slightly violated. One where she isn't having a rockin' good time, but is doing it for him and only him. Her desire to please was absolutely there, but she didn't express it in a way that got him off. He couldn't articulate how he wanted her to be; he just knew she wasn't right for him. And people say guys aren't particular about their blowjobs!"

Blowjob Story
 
 
eddie thirteen
20:38 / 29.09.04
I think that anecdote covers a lot of ground, actually. The power thing isn't implicit in any sex act, or anyway I don't think so; it's just that some people get off on the mild sadism implied by a partner doing something she doesn't seem to fully enjoy, for the sake of the man -- and vice versa. It's not to say that a woman wouldn't *necessarily* enjoy performing oral sex on a man, or a man wouldn't necessarily enjoy performing oral sex on a woman, or whatever. It's just that some people are sadistic (including some women), some people are masochistic and submissive (including some men), and a whole lot of people just aren't into anything but getting laid, and that's fine, too. I really don't think this is a complex issue.
 
 
Mr Ed
23:14 / 04.11.04
I don't think there is any inherent power dynamic in any consensual sex act. Oral pleasure is given and received for a variety of reasons.

For me, it's the satisfaction of a satisfied partner. Others may be making up for percieved lack of talent or skill in their lovemaking. Others might simply like the taste.

You bring to the dinner table your own issues. If the Sub/Dom thing is important to you, it becomes part of the act. But at it's root, sex is just sex.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:08 / 05.11.04
If the Sub/Dom thing is important to you, it becomes part of the act. But at it's root, sex is just sex.

Yes, but at its root, sex doesn't involve oral sex at all. For *me*, sex at its root is the act of a man putting his bits in a lady's bits for the purpose of creating life. Anything else is frankly perversion.

Sex hasn't been just sex since language was developed. I'd suggest as a thought experiment looking at it the other way - that in pretty much everything we do involving two or more people interacting there is a power dynamic, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, sometimes comparatively entrenched, sometimes hghly fluid. Why should sex be any different? That doesn't mean that blow jobs are "really about power", because apart from anything else "really about" is a really dodgy formulation, but it does mean that "blow jobs are really about blow jobs" is nto a terribly useful statement. Possibly "sex, including blow jobs, can mean very different things to different people, even people who are indulging in it together" might be a place to start...
 
  

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