In order to demonstrate this, Newby turned to her tap-panted compadre, put her “penis” into her mouth, and did a series of twists, rotations, and finger gymnastics in addition to the sucking that redefined the term multitasking.
I went to take notes and realized that my mouth had dropped open.
I also realized that I wasn’t sure what sort of notes I could’ve written beyond Do a bunch of stuff.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t clear in her instruction. She was. My brain just needed a moment to bridge the gap between live sex show and class. Don’t get me wrong—she was totally professional, as was her demonstration partner. It was by far the least lurid blow job I’d ever seen. But it was still jarring to see a woman enthusiastically sucking another woman’s dick and then breaking down each of the choices she’d made into digestible tidbits.
Part of me wanted to look around at my classmates to see if they’d acclimated yet, but the other part of me never wanted to look my classmates in the eyes. Like, ever.
It took a while, but finally, about twenty minutes in, as I was taking notes on ball work, my shoulders dropped down almost to shoulder height and I was able to focus.
The next section on penis basics made me wish I’d paid a lot more attention in health class.
After Newby deep-throated the dildo as she faux-fingered the perineum and I put on my best no-big-whoop face, she dropped some seriously important schlong knowledge on us.
“A lot of people think deep-throating is really important,” she said. “But men don’t have a lot of feeling at the bottom of the shaft. The majority of the nerve endings in the penis, about eighty percent of them, are in the head and the frenulum—the bit of skin on the underside that connects the shaft to the head.”
This didn’t make any sense to me. In my (not extensive) experience, deep-throating someone was a sort of blow-job denouement move—a great, dramatic moment that pulls everything together. Done properly, it generally garners a gasp or two. So how can it be that it’s not the most physically pleasurable thing you can do for a man?
But then I thought about the enthusiasm required to do it and realized the gasp probably wasn’t a response to the sensation so much as to the degree of sexual pluck it took to perform it. This proves that old adage that the most important sexual organ is the brain. (Right after the penis or clitoris.)
I don’t want to give away her whole class (you can purchase a PDF of the key points online), but she did give us one more piece of information that I found sort of mind-blowing: If you have the aforementioned sexual pluck but your hair-trigger gag reflex has precluded deep-throating, you’re in luck. Turns out you can desensitize your gag reflex over time if you’re motivated enough. So if you gag at the dentist or when you’re brushing your tongue or when you get too close to your boyfriend’s balls after he’s had a tough workout, you can remedy the first two over time simply by practicing. (The third can be remedied with a shower and a boyfriend sensitive enough to never let you near dirty balls.)
You shouldn’t practice on your partner—this would take too long and might start a fight if he claims you’re not “applying yourself.” The easiest way is to use your toothbrush for ten seconds a night, going farther back each time you get comfortable with a new area. Eventually, your tongue will be bacteria-free, and your boyfriend will lie there knob-smacked by your new skill.
It truly is a relationship résumé builder.
After this revelation, Newby took us through the rest of the syllabus with a combination of professionalism and much-needed humor, demonstrating every technique on her assistant, including a finale wherein she ran through about ten techniques in quick succession. I felt like giving her a standing ovation when it was over, but the giant dildo in my lap prevented it.
All the skills were great, but I have to say my favorite moments were less about the mechanics and more about communication.
Newby told a surprisingly heartwarming story about testing her gag reflex with a partner. She’d been going at it for a while, and at one point she went a bit too far, barely avoiding throwing up on his penis but not avoiding throwing up in her mouth a little before running out of the room.
She returned minty fresh, embarrassed, and apologetic, saying, “Sorry. That’s so not sexy.” Her partner smiled sweetly and replied, “Well, I guess we’ve discovered something one of us doesn’t find sexy.”
The message being: People make a lot of assumptions around what’s “normal” in the bedroom. You think you know what your partner thinks is sexy, which positions you look hottest in, the exact right amount of time it should take to have an orgasm. And when those things don’t quite work out (and they inevitably don’t), you think your partner is probably disappointed. You’re probably wrong. In this case, her partner didn’t necessarily find vomit hot (although some people do—more power to you, emetophiliacs!), but he did find it hot that his girlfriend would suck his dick with so much gusto as to almost lose her lunch in his lap.
I once had a friend whose boyfriend liked her to throw pies at his genitals, so that should be more than enough proof that you never, ever know what someone’s going to find sexy. (To answer your question, no, I never asked what kind of pies or whether she needed to bake them herself or if something from Safeway would suffice. I’ll always regret not asking her, because those are the only two questions people ask when I tell that story. I did once ask her what it was like to date someone with a pie fetish, and she answered, “It’s okay, but, y’know…just once I’d like to have sex without putting down a tarp.”)
By the end of class, my brain was full and my ass was gloriously happy to get out of that metal chair. I stood up with my classmates and we all filed out, smiling sheepishly as we held our dildos on our way to return them.
“It must be fun washing all these after a class,” I said to Newby when I reached her.
“Oh, I just throw them all in the dishwasher,” she replied.
I imagined that load—a multicolored garden of dildos sprouting up in rows on the top rack. Mine was definitely a lower-rack item, though.
Even after ninety minutes, I still couldn’t totally shake the self-consciousness of being there, like my very presence in the room was an overshare. These are the situations where I have to remind myself that no one is paying attention to me. I know it doesn’t sound like a self-care technique, but it is. At certain moments, No one gives a shit is one of the nicest things you can say to yourself.
I walked away from the class feeling like I had acquired some good, solid strategies for moving up in the highly competitive world of fellating, and I was eager to try out my skills on some of my partners.
In the months following the class, I didn’t see a huge difference in the responses I was getting, but to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t as if there had previously been a problem. (I recommend all men date women with a bit of junk in their trunk—odds are, those women have an oral fixation, and that can only work to the men’s advantage.) I also hadn’t really studied that hard, so there was only a light peppering of Newby’s techniques in the mix. That didn’t make for a good comparative analysis.
Cut to March: I’d been dating #28 for three months, and I decided it would be fun (and instructive) to apply the scientific method to my fellating. If I paid more attention and stuck to the syllabus, would it make a difference?
So in the spirit of the OFW Project, I mustered up the courage to ask #28 if he would mind being a guinea pig. I told him that I’d try the techniques I’d learned in class on him, and he could tell me whether or not they worked. Additionally, I’d ask him to tell me exactly what he wanted along the way and I’d do whatever he requested.
That sounds horrible, he didn’t say.
We decided he’d come over one Sunday afternoon and we’d go full Kinsey on each other. I was pretty comfortable with him sexually by this point, but even so, I flitted around the house before he arrived, sweating profusely and rearranging pillows he would never notice. I dressed in my
sexiest red satin nightgown. Well, it was my only nightgown—I’d bought it to wear as a dress to an event earlier in the year, because who the fuck wears nightgowns?
I drank a shot of whiskey before he arrived and studied my class notes a little. My mind went blank. I couldn’t remember any of it.
What was that finger-twisting trick she showed us again? This is gonna be a disaster.
I imagined a pornographic version of the I Love Lucy episode in which she and Ethel can’t stop the conveyor belt so they just shove a bunch of penises in their mouths, willy-nilly.
That didn’t help.
When #28 arrived, I offered him a shot as well. He took it.
He seemed fine.
Happy, even.
Jerk.
It was a little strange to just jump right in before the afternoon light had started to fade, but that’s what we did.
I grabbed a pillow and threw it on my bedroom floor. I felt my face flush.
“Okay, then,” I said, standing arms akimbo and disturbed by how much I sounded like Frances McDormand in Fargo.
He grinned, shook his head, and bent down to kiss me.
It was tough to get through the first part, because every move I made, I felt like I was being analyzed, like this was somehow the defense for my sexual dissertation.
Can you tell me why you decided to lick the balls? I imagined him saying.
But after a few minutes of feeling a little like I was doing this for the first time, I was able to jump in wholeheartedly and enjoy it.
What happened next was revelatory for me.
Not because of any skills I learned in class (I frankly forgot to use a lot of them because I was so discombobulated), but because of one simple act: Asking him what he wanted. It wasn’t a thing I normally did—ever, really—but this time, in the interest of science, I did it.
There were at least five things he told me to do that I never would’ve thought of trying. And they worked. Of course they did, because he knew his penis. He’d lived with it for over forty years, and they got along super-well.
I found that once I got past the initial self-consciousness, it was a huge relief to be told what to do. I didn’t have to question whether he was going to like it, because if he didn’t, well, it wasn’t my fault.
Hey—you’re the one who asked me to pull down on the shaft and hold it taut while lightly sucking the top. Everyone knows that’s not one of my signature moves. If you’re not excited, that’s on you.
Once he had permission to ask for what he wanted, he couldn’t seem to stop, and because revealing sexual needs makes a person feel insanely vulnerable, I felt closer to him with every new filthy act he requested. It was the most intimate and dirty sexual encounter we’d had to date.
You’d think that after that experience, I’d be all about telling my partner every one of my sexual needs. It worked so well! I learned so much!
But if the Okay Fine Whatever Project had taught me anything, it was that learning a new skill or engaging in a new activity didn’t magically turn me into a person who would use that skill or engage in that activity. I was still me; I just knew more.
So even though I loved being told what to do sexually, I had trouble imagining that my partners felt the same way. I don’t have any problem telling someone my fantasies when I’m asked, but I’ve always avoided giving my partners directions during the act for fear of seeming bossy or killing the mood.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. Asking for what we want sexually is really difficult, especially for women, because I think many of us fear that men will feel emasculated if they’re not the ones in control.
Sex is also unique in that there isn’t another human interaction wherein each of us believes that the other person should inherently know how to please us.
Imagine if your hairdresser asked what you’d like and you responded, “I could tell you that, but if I did, I’m afraid you’d lose your sense of power as a stylist, and it would take all the fun out of the haircut for me. What I’d like for you to do is start cutting my hair and then attempt to deduce the haircut I want by reading subtle verbal and physical cues that might lead you in the right direction. This may be a slight change in my breathing or an infinitesimal head shift toward your hand. And, just to warn you, I might periodically grab your wrist in frustration if you attempt to use hair products or give me a perm, which, if you’re the right hairdresser for me, you should have known I hated without my ever having to say a word.”
We recognize that would be ridiculous and illogical, but that’s exactly what people do with sex. You tell yourself that in an ideal world, your partner will just naturally want to do what you like—that he or she will be satisfied if you’re satisfied. If you have to ask for it, you think, Oh, he’s just doing this now because I asked for it, like a sexual honey-do list,5 and so all the romance is gone.
But that’s a dumb thing to think.
Because if my partner is a loving, giving person, the thing that gets him off most is getting me off, whatever that entails. And what I learned from this surprisingly hot blow-job primer with #28 was that he can’t know what that is unless I tell him.
Perhaps you don’t find it romantic to flat-out ask what your partner wants, but for me, working up the courage to ask my boyfriend an embarrassing question and then having him work through the embarrassment of answering it was incredibly intimate. And romantic. And filthy in the best way.
When it was over, I felt proud of myself for pushing through the weirdness to get to the good part. Normally, when I’m first with someone, I do everything I can to avoid weirdness. Weirdness is bad. It’s uncomfortable. It’s proof that not every moment between us is going to be perfect. But once you’ve broken through it, you can get to more and better weirdness.
Which we did.
I still had trouble integrating the lesson I learned about the benefits of being a sexual boss, but I found I could be more sexually open via text and during casual conversation over cocktails. In the ensuing couple of weeks, #28 became very good about banking those learnings for later use.
As for the fellatio (or cunnilingus) class, if you want to improve your oral game, I highly recommend taking one, because even if your technique doesn’t improve that much, just taking the class is an act of affection for your partner(s).
Can’t afford a class, or think sitting in a room with strangers holding a giant dildo doesn’t sound appealing?
Just ask your partner what they want.
And then tell them what you want.
I will if you will.
1 Who needs a lube docent? Turns out we all do. Here’s what I learned in my five-minute conversation: Use water-based lubes with condoms (not oil-based!), but if you’re playing in water, use a silicone-based lube, which is the longest lasting, but not if you’re using a silicone toy because it’ll bond with the surface and make it gummy—in that case, use an oil-based lube, but only if you’re not using condoms later. It felt like the most complex if/then statement we’d never learned in high school.
2 Metal folding chairs do not have a sweet spot.
3 I realize it would be impossible for the Jolly Green Giant and Gumby to have a child who bears both their DNA because they’re both male. Also, they’re imaginary.
4 Evidently, Newby had used her male partner as a model for some of her classes early on, but since the class was an hour and a half long, you can imagine how that might be difficult to…sustain.
5 I cannot tell you how much I hate the term honey-do list. Sure, we all need a list of tasks, but making it adorable doesn’t change how much cleaning the toilet blows.
Adventures in Intimacy
Wherein I Test the Boundaries of Affection and My Bladder
By April, I’d been seeing #28 for three months.
Because of that, many of my other adventures started to quiet down.
No speed-dating or polyamorous married guys with kids’ toys on the guest bed to shove away, and, sad to say, signif
icantly fewer naked people dangling from ropes in sex clubs.1
But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t still exploring new territory.
Between December and April, I grabbed my wrench, strapped on my waders, and began plumbing the depths of emotional intimacy.
Since I had handled things poorly in the past, I decided to do some research on relationships. What makes them work? How do you keep from losing yourself? How many times can you tell someone to suck it when he suggests watching Daredevil on Netflix before you seem inflexible? These were important questions I needed answered.
During my how-to-relationship travels, I stumbled on one of those ubiquitous listicles. You know, the kind that breaks everything down to just a few steps or truths, like “The 10 Things Your Facebook Friends Are Doing That Make Them Actual Adults, Loser” or “3,765 Easy Steps to Finding Love.” This one was on a site called Mastering Relationships, which was what I wanted to do.
According to the Relationship Masters, there were seven levels of intimacy in a relationship.
Sharing clichés and superficialities
Sharing facts
Sharing ideas and opinions
Sharing hopes and dreams
Sharing feelings
Sharing weaknesses and fears
Sharing needs
The list made me laugh out loud.
As this book clearly illustrates, I am a bit of an oversharer, so I usually leaped from “sharing clichés and superficialities” to “sharing my darkest and most unnerving confessions” during the first date.
Someone could make a lot of money selling shock collars to daters. You could program in a certain phrase, like heroin overdose, short prison stay, or mashed-potato codependency, and as soon as the first couple of syllables came out of your mouth, you’d get a shock.
Get on it, science!
Okay Fine Whatever Page 21