Eleven months of sex with her and still no cunnilingus? How long should I wait for her to come around? Is it okay to abandon your partner because she won’t eat your pussy?
Eleven months of sex with her and still no cunnilingus? How long should I wait for her to come around? Is it okay to abandon your partner because she won’t eat your pussy? Am I a fucked up human being for judging her inability (or her unwillingness) to suck on my moist flower of love? Okay, so maybe “moist flower” is a bad metaphor, but what the fellatio!? What is a dyke to do with these “so-called straight women” who think nothing of swallowing a cupful of gizm from the dripping meat-stick of a cheating boyfriend, but cannot bear the thought of lightly licking a part of me which, routinely, I suck and kiss and nuzzle all night on her selfish body?
I had been chasing her for years. She said she was straight but I didn’t believe her and I knew I could be very convincing. I knew in time she would fall for my charms or my tenacity or her own curiosity. Then one night her boyfriend did something stupid enough for her to want to get back at him. She came over to my apartment furious and hurting. I made tea. I ran a bath. I was on my A-game of lesbian-chasing-straight that night. It was magical. And she needed someone. She didn’t want sex, but she wanted to be close. I held her and read her passages from Toni Morrison’s Sula in bed.
We fooled around for three months before she finally let me “do it” to her. There were soft kisses and heavy breaths; whispered nicknames and wordless grunts. Screams. Nails. Teeth. Orgasms. When she came, it was in waves and waves and waves. She sobbed and told me she was in love with me. We cried and we cuddled. All night I waited for her to pull me toward her and tug at the waist of my steamy wet panties. Close to dawn, I wiggled out of them and offered myself to her. I saw the look of horror and told her not to worry about this being her first time. I knew she would be fine. I guided her hand to my clitoris. She rubbed it a little and stopped. I told her that it was easy. All she had to do was mimic the things I did to her and I would be happy with the result. She, of course, buried her face in my neck and told me that she was too new to the game of lesbian sex to take the plunge inside me, but she loved me very much and she just needed me to be patient. I thought her reticence adorable. I kissed her forehead and held her for 20 minutes before I flipped her over and fucked her again.
Eight months later, I was still the designated doer. From time to time she would stick a finger or two inside me, but she would never kiss me “down there.” I got the feeling that she thought my cunt a dungeon into which she might fall and drown. So palpable was her consternation and fear. Ever the optimist, I bought her books. I talked about my needs, my feelings and calmly outlined my frustrations. I begged her to try. When she said no and no and no again, I got angry. Then I apologized for being impatient. I pouted. I threatened to stop fucking her. I bitched to my friends. I complained to my exes. I made up games to encourage her to experiment. I explained to her that though there were lesbians who did not want to be pressed against a wall and fucked senseless in the world, that I was not one of them. I like to take it as hard as I give. I explained to her that this sacred path of the cunnilingus in my bed was a two-way street. I cried. She held my sobbing frame for an hour, after which she kissed my forehead and said no, she couldn’t do it. It was too — fishy. The folds were too soft. The texture was just hard for her.
What is it with us dykes? Why are we such suckers for straight women?
Is our patience so long-suffering and our inclinations so masochistic that we can’t seem to think sensibly when we are enamored with “the woman from the other side?” Do we think so little of ourselves and, in turn, place too much value on the straight woman, that we don’t know when it’s time to pick up our dildos and walk? Is the straight vagina lined with gold? Does it taste better?
And, Jesus Mary Mother of God! How long should we wait for her to come around? A year? Six months? I know a dyke who spent five years in a relationship with a straight woman who only allowed touching at Christmas. After I heard that horror story, I decided that it was time to take my own tongue elsewhere. When I told her, she begged me to reconsider. She sobbed. I held her for an hour. After which I kissed her forehead and told her no. She asked me why? Why? Why? I explained to her that an integral part of any relationship was an open and free two-way exchange of touch. What I wanted to say was that her vagina had become too fishy and that the texture of fucking her had become too hard for me. But I am a feminist, and it was not my intention to undo her with my leaving.
Years later, my rule of thumb is that any woman I am going to fuck, must have in her past, a healthy plethora of punanis on which she has sucked, nibbled, licked and willingly kissed. I don’t want my pussy to have to participate in another bad execution of Lesbian Sex 101. That shit is bad for the self-esteem. Plus, sex with the straight woman in over-rated. Give me a woman who knows she loves fucking women and I will show you a woman who knows how to make me crawl like a spider across the surface of my Brooklyn bed.
(Staceyann Chin is the author of The Other side of Paradise: A Memoir.)