Dear Luv Doc,
I know most people are probably going to think I am making this up, but my boyfriend doesn’t like receiving oral sex. Anytime I try to go down on him he pushes me away and says that he would rather have intercourse. I enjoy performing oral sex and before I met my boyfriend was told that I am good at it, so I don’t think my skills are the problem. He says it just doesn’t do anything for him. The problem is that it is difficult for me to orgasm from intercourse alone, which is mostly what we do sexually. He does go down on me occasionally, but I can tell he’s not that into it and that usually ruins it for me and makes it even harder to orgasm. I really like this guy and we have a great relationship otherwise. I would hate for this to be a deal breaker, but sex has always been very important to me. We have only been dating for a few months, would it be weird to ask him to go to a sex therapist with me?
– Willing
Yeah, probably, but this is Austin, and keeping it weird is what we’re all about – well, at least it used to be until we started advertising it on T-shirts. “No … seriously … goddamn it … keep it weird. You’re ruining it for the other … wait … where did they go?” The correct answer is of course exurban Bastrop, but my point is that keeping it weird has lost its bite. We’re 23 years into the third millennium for fuck’s sake. You can’t just throw on some tie-dye, patchouli, and Vibram Five Fingers and pretend you’re blazing the same trail of weirdness established by Leslie, that naked bicyclist dude, and Motorcycle Michael (may they rest in peace). You’ve got to earn that shit – like Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan.
Now granted, Vibram Five Fingers are an abomination just short of bestiality, polo shirts, and Bieber bangs, but they’re not so much weird as they are awkward. Yes, it’s super awkward when someone values their (I believe Vibram calls it) “maximum ground feel” more than everyone else’s right not to vom a little bit in their mouths, but it’s not weird. That ship sailed back in the Aughts. At this point Vibram Five Fingers are basically just fashion semaphore for someone who doesn’t bathe regularly and has been restoring an old Sprinter van for the last decade. In other words, they’re awkward. They’re like when someone has cheap, disfiguring plastic surgery, an obvious case of pink eye, or a seeping axe wound on their forehead. Yes, you can acknowledge the elephant in the room, but do you really want to? Nope. It’s better to smile, focus squarely on the center of their pupils and unironically deadpan, “That’s going to take a lot of work.” Onward through the awkward, I always say – which, by the way, is the Luv Doc’s personal slogan and 43rd-bestselling T-shirt.
Yes, onward through the awkward, and if you’re planning on plumbing this particular depth of awkwardness, it surely couldn’t hurt to have a licensed professional sex therapist along for the ride. You wouldn’t want to ask your priest. If it’s not located on the Corpus Christi, a priest isn’t going to be much help finding it. A professional sex therapist on the other hand, will probably have a pile of instructional materials that would make the Pope blush, plus, one assumes, a well-thought-out, sensitive approach to uncovering the causes of your boyfriend’s apprehension. There could be any number of reasons why he is unenthusiastic about oral, and perhaps with a few thousand dollars’ worth of therapy, you can get to the bottom of it (zing!).
What you definitely don’t want to do is to languish for years sexually unsatisfied just to avoid a few hours (days?) (months?) of awkward therapy with your boyfriend. That is the kind of thing that will bite you on the ass, even if your boyfriend won’t. Let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with your boyfriend expressing his apathy about oral gratification, and there is nothing wrong with you expressing your desire for it. Therapist or no, you get to say what you want, and he gets to say what he wants. That’s how it works, right up until it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, it probably wasn’t going to anyway.
This article appears in July 7 • 2023.
