When I was a wee young teenybopper and either more confused or more open-minded, I went down on a girl. Yes, that’s right, I parted the curtains and went backstage. How was it? Let’s just say, by the end of that performance, we were both very wet.

Fags like to think they’re sexually liberated, but just the mention of a muff can give them a wintry chill. They curl up their noses with as much vehemence as a straight boy rejecting dick. I’m always impressed by the once-married homos who extol the virtues of pussy.

For more than a decade, I’ve prided myself on the fact that I, too wasn’t afraid to revisit the original portal, as it were. Since then, though I’ve been interested, the closest I’ve come to a vagina is the one in my head. Sometimes I’m wearing it, which makes the boys go wild, and sometimes I have a real woman there instead. Now and then, I wonder what I’ve been missing.

Recently, I had the opportunity to find out. At a gig last month, a lezzie friend of a friend was determinedly chasing my skirt. Each time I went backstage to change, M was there, licking her lips and asking what size of strap-on she’d have to wear to lure me into bed. She wasn’t kidding.

What did the sexually adventurous Cookie do? She ran.

As interested as I might be, I can’t imagine how to go about it. Apart from the challenge it would be to my sexual identity, I’ve been blocked imagining a woman going down on me. I could fuck her. I could eat her out. But a woman munching my hotdog has always seemed beyond vulgar. The bad kind of vulgar.

As we waited in the wings of a queer punk show in Olympia last month, the fantastic Sara Seinberg from Sister Spit changed everything. I proudly told her my clitty-licker past, then admitted, try as I might, I couldn’t imagine a woman sword-swallowing me. It was the imbalance in power that irked me no end.

“But Cookie,” she whispered, “when I’ve had sex with a man I’ve never felt more in control than when I was going down on him.”

“Why?” I asked.

She leaned a little closer. “Because I have teeth.”

In a flash, a word spread itself out across the white screen of my brain. “I could submit!” I gasped incredulously.

She smiled, brandishing her pearly whites at me.

I’m not saying I’ve gotten over the hang-up completely, but the seeds are planted. I’ve learned, with a little patience, I can lick anything.