The Guide to Getting It On (43 page)

Ground Zero

Perhaps you are a total pro at giving oral sex, or maybe you know more about the dark side of the moon than going down on a woman. Regardless of your experience, what follows is a blueprint for giving really good oral sex—as long as you get reliable feedback from the woman you are doing it with.

• Oral sex tends to make your salivary glands sing. Instead of swallowing or letting it pool in your mouth, let your slobber flow wherever gravity wants to take it. That way, if your partner doesn’t shave, you won’t have to worry as much about pubic hairs wrapping themselves around your tonsils each time you try to swallow. Putting a towel under her rear will help to keep the mattress from turning into a lagoon, and some women will appreciate it if you push an edge of the towel against the area that’s just below their vulva so the saliva doesn’t trickle down their butt crack.
  
• When a woman flexes her legs, her pelvis arches forward. This will provide access to give good oral sex. A lot of women will do this themselves by putting their legs over your shoulders, or by planting one or both feet on your shoulders. Some pull their legs up to their chest. The guy can also wrap his arms around the back of the woman’s thighs and push them forward.
  
• As a woman becomes more aroused, she might want to change leg position or flex her thighs more. This could limit your access to her vulva, but if it’s what does the trick, so be it.
  
• Some women provide all the oral access a man needs by simply spreading their legs. Or you may want to separate the outer labia with your fingers. This gives your mouth better access to the inner lips, and can sometimes feel like the difference between kissing a woman whose mouth is open versus one whose lips are closed. Some women will offer a helping hand by separating the lips themselves.
  
• Lavish the outer lips with licks and kisses. Then try running the tip of your tongue up and down the furrows between the outer and inner lips of your lover’s vulva.
  
• The mons pubis is the little mound of flesh that sits directly above the labia. It is where the bulk of the pubic hair grows. Some women enjoy it if you rub the mons in a circular pattern. Also, pushing or pulling up the mons while doing oral sex can heighten the intensity for some women.
  
• Some women who don’t shave will enjoy it if you run your fingertips through their pubic hair, and some will particularly enjoy it if you tug lightly on it or nibble gently on the mons.
  
• The inner lips of women’s genitals tend to be longer around the vaginal opening. Some are prominent enough to clasp between your fingers and tug upon gently. When a woman is highly aroused, she may enjoy this tremendously. Be sure to ask.
  

Her Clitoris

“Don’t immediately dive into the clitoris and stay there. Warm up by licking all of the vaginal area. Suck on the labia. Then turn your attention to the clitoris. I like my clitoris to be licked, flicked and sucked. Sometimes I get off faster if my partner licks lower on the clitoris, rather than at the top of the hood. It makes for a different kind of orgasm.”
female age 25

No matter how small your penis is, nobody’s going to have trouble finding it. Not so with the clitoris. Some are in clear view, others play hide ‘n’ seek.

After you kiss and caress the other parts of the vulva, some women will appreciate it if you focus your oral efforts in the vicinity of the clitoris. “Vicinity” might mean in the neighborhood, or it might mean knocking on the front door. Sometimes all it takes to expose the tip of the clitoris is a single finger to pull the hood up. Other times it takes both hands and a litany of prayer.

To find the tip with your tongue, separate the outer lips with your fingers. Make sure your tongue has plenty of saliva on it for lubrication. Take a long slow lick from the bottom to the top of the vulva where the big lips meet. Somewhere along the way you will most likely feel a small knob or slight protuberance. Find out from your partner if this is the tip of her clitoris. Have her explain to you exactly how she likes it licked, if she like it licked.

As your partner becomes aroused, it is likely that the tip of her clitoris will swell. Some swell predictably; others don’t. This process can be challenging until you become more familiar with the way her clitoris changes. You might learn to lick on a specific spot or location rather than being able to find her actual clitoris with your tongue. You simply go on faith and past experience.

“Gentle teasing brings me to an orgasm. I like him to start off gently, with light licks and kisses all over my vulva. I can’t take too much pressure on my clitoris, though, and sometimes that ruins it for me.”
female age 23

You would think that the surest way to arouse a woman would be to start at the tip of the clitoris, since that’s where so much of the sensitivity seems to be. But this is not the way it usually works. For most women, you don’t approach the clitoris until you have planted plenty of kisses in the surrounding area. With some women, you never touch the tip at all, while others might want you to start by throwing a liplock on the tip of her clitoris. It all depends on whether your partner has a clitoris that’s super sensitive at the start, or one that needs a lot of contact.

Some women enjoy it if you kiss their vulva in the same way that you do their mouth. Some crave a gentle nursing action on the clitoris. Some like it if you flick the tip of your tongue over the clitoris in a sideways direction; others prefer an up-and-down motion as though you were rapidly turning a light switch on and off, and some enjoy a circular motion. These different motions may seem awkward at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. Also, some women will want you to speed up or change locations as their arousal grows, while others prefer a constant motion from start to finish.

Regardless of what type of stimulation she wants, when it comes to the clitoris, less is sometimes more. Stay simple and steady unless she advises to the contrary. Your partner might have a favorite side of her clitoris where she wants you to lick. To help improve access to the favored side, she might try flexing one leg while the other lies flat and a bit to the side. Other women have an ambidexterous clitoris that welcomes an approach from either side.

The clitoris sometimes disappears soon before orgasm. No one knows why. With input from your partner you will learn how to respond; in the meantime, when a clitoris disappears, you might try giving a little suck to pull it back out.

After learning more about your partner’s responses, you might experiment by puckering your lips around her clitoris and making a light vacuum. You can then push the clitoris in and out of your mouth either with your tongue or by reversing the suction every couple of seconds. Tricks like this can be found in Ray Stubbs’s book
The Clitoral Kiss,
Secret Garden Press.

Your partner’s clitoris or the area around it may begin to pulse once she is highly aroused. This is probably an indication to stay your course without changing the speed, tempo or rhythm. Problems start when you assume that if she’s pulsing at this speed, she’ll love it even more if you double the tempo or do it harder. This is a mistake.

The contractions of orgasm are said to happen less than once a second. Some people say the best way to stimulate a woman’s clitoris is to use strokes that are in synchrony with the contractions. Good luck making that one work.

Some women prefer to receive different kinds of stimulation depending on the time of the month. At one point in her menstrual cycle you might avoid the tip or glans, but two weeks later you can lick the tip silly. It’s nothing you’re going to learn in a one-night stand.

The Clit Requires More Precision and Focus Than the Rest of the Vulva

If you’re focusing on other parts of the vulva besides your partner’s clit, or if you have most of her vulva in your mouth, you don’t need to be as careful with your movements. But when you’re mostly focused on your partner’s clit, precision and focus can be key. As Nina Hartley says, “With women, millimeters mean everything.”

Landscape Mode vs. Portrait Mode

Rapid up-and-down flicking will often bring out your tongue’s inner spaz. Most men can do side-to-side flicking longer and better than they can do up and down flicking. So if rapid up-and-down flicking is what your partner wants, you might experiment with turning your head to the side, eg from portrait mode to landscape mode. She might experience your side-to-side flicking as up-and-down flicking, assuming you can make that position work.

One Change at a Time

Once you’ve isolated her clitoris and know it’s really her clitoris, you’ll want to go slow and easy. If you make changes, try only one new thing at a time. Wait for your partner’s reaction before making further changes.

For instance, if you want to speed up, don’t speed up and change direction at the same time. Otherwise, you won’t know what worked. What if speeding up was what she needed, but when you changed direction your tongue lost contact with an important bundle of nerves? There’s no way you’ll know which change worked and which set you back if you attempt more than one at a time.

Passive Sucking While Your Partner Controls the Movement

With some women, it works well to only apply pressure or to pull a light vacuum with your mouth but nothing more. Let her move her hips back and forth or up and down. All it takes is less than an inch up and down or side to side for her to achieve a very pleasing effect.

This can work especially well if you aren’t sure what to do, or if the two of you aren’t able to get into a good rhythm. Let her provide the movement.

The Urinary Meatus

Using terms like “urinary meatus” or “the area around her peehole” can cause an aesthetic flat tire. However, the part of a woman’s vulva between her clitoris and vagina which contains the urinary meatus is definitely worth exploring with the tip of your tongue. For some women its stimulation might be the difference between good oral sex and great oral sex. If you have aesthetic problems with this notion, think about what your lover dips the tip of her tongue into when she is sucking on the head of your penis. Also keep in mind that urine and the urinary passageway are more sanitary than the human mouth. Kissing her down here is usually more hygienic than kissing her on the mouth.

Her Vagina

The opening of the vagina is in the lower half of a woman’s vulva. A man might occasionally feel compelled to stick his tongue far into his lover’s vagina. But reaching far inside a woman’s vagina can cause your tongue to get a nasty cramp, and she’s not likely to notice because the nerves that register touch only go in as far as the first inch.

Some women may treasure a finger or two inside the vagina during oral sex, but usually not until they have reached higher levels of arousal. Some might like a thumb pushing down on the floor of the vagina. As for what to do with your fingers once they are inside, some women like them to stay perfectly still while others will enjoy it if you twist, jiggle or thrust your fingers in and out. Also, there might be special spots in her vagina that your partner enjoys having stimulated.

The inner part of a woman’s vagina often balloons open when sexually aroused. Some women enjoy having this filled up. A silicone dildo works well for this, and some couples find that inserting a dildo during oral sex can be a turn-on. Also, a woman might fantasize about having one man’s penis inside her vagina at the same time that another man is licking her clitoris. Using a dildo while receiving oral sex can help satisfy this fantasy unless a threesome is in play and a second lover is handy. (There are even oral sex dildos that strap on a guy’s chin if you want to explore that.)

All of Her in Your Mouth

One mouth maneuver is to open your mouth wide, put your top lip on your partner’s mons pubis or just above her clitoris, and your bottom lip at the lower end of her vulva. Then push your face into her crotch and slowly begin to suck all of her into your mouth. Ease up on the suction a few seconds later, then keep repeating. The emphasis is on gentle suction, unless she wants you to amp it up.

If She Starts Bucking

It’s not unusual for some women who are receiving oral sex to start bucking their hips with pleasure when they are having an orgasm. This kind of motion can knock a guy off her mound.