In 2022, it’s not shocking to see advertisements for the morning after pill or to have celebrities like Lily Allen and Cara Delevingne launch their own sex-toy brands. Sure, slut-shaming still exists, but women have never been more empowered to own their sexuality publicly and advocate for their own pleasure in bed. Still, if popular media is to be believed, we’re meant to be surprised that women might actually enjoy performing one particular act: blowjobs.
Think of The Bold Type, where protagonist Jane Sloan’s boyfriend video-calls her from a long trip, telling her that she needs to “give him something.” Or, on the first season of Netflix’s Sex Education, Aimee Gibbs performing like a porn star for her cis male partners without any idea what feels good for her. We’re no strangers to seeing on-screen sex presented as an obligation, as something straight cis women releuctantly do “for” men.
The latest example to generate discussion on social media comes from the eighth episode of And Just Like That, where Charlotte’s daughter accidentally catches her mother on her knees, about to give her husband Harry a blowjob. When Charlotte asks her friends for advice about how to talk to her kid about the awkward encounter, the friends get fixated on a different question: “You still blow Harry?” As if it were a chore.
The implication is that there’s no way that Charlotte, a happily married woman in her 50s, could actually enjoy giving her husband oral sex. We’re supposed to believe that there’s no chance that she would “still” be up for the task—let alone take pleasure in it. Blowjobs, the show tells us in this scene, are something that straight cis women don’t enjoy, but are supposed to do anyway.
“The way our culture frames sex—which of course it assumes is heterosexual sex—is something that men are active participants in. Men seek and that they want, whereas sex is something that women are objects of,” explains Liz Powell, a licensed psychologist specializing in queer and non-monogamous relationships. We’re sold the idea that cis women “receive” sex—it’s done to them, and they allow it, but it’s not something that they seek out, desire or initiate.
Of course, in reality, sex is something many people initiate regardless of gender—and that includes the giving and receiving of oral sex. Inara, a 27-year-old bisexual woman from the United Kingdom, says she is the one who initiates sex most often in her relationship. She says she’s frustrated with the way that blowjobs are often portrayed as being something that are done “for” a partner—to her, they can be about mutual enjoyment. “I like being able to give my partner pleasure. I like that I am in control and have that power to give or pause the pleasure, and that sometimes the position makes me consensually ‘subservient.’”
Queer and trans people of all genders routinely flip the script on blowjobs altogether: because the cisheteronormative ideas of what sex should look like were never going to work for them, there’s more space to tear up the scripts and work out what actually feels good.
For lots of trans folks, dysphoria can make penetrative sex complicated and uncomfortable. Oral sex—including blowjobs—may actually be preferable. A partner blowing someone’s strap-on can be incredibly affirming, for example, while for others taking penetration off the table expands their definition of what sex looks like.
Luka, a non-binary woman from New Mexico, says she enjoys oral sex because she likes pleasuring her partner in an intimate way and being able to hear and feel their reactions. “Being trans, I’m not a huge fan of my genitals and would rather show my skill and feel sexually gratified in other ways.” She says she sticks to oral sex, and occasionally hand sex, to avoid triggering her dysphoria.
“Blowjobs are fun—at least when the givers get to act as active participants of sex themselves.”
Blowjobs can be a source of pleasure for givers and receivers alike. Givers might enjoy their partners’ reactions or get off on their partners’ enjoyment. They may like teasing their partner, the sensations that come with the act or the trust that comes from someone letting you put their most sensitive parts in your mouth. Blowjobs are fun—at least when the givers get to act as active participants of sex themselves.
They are, of course, much less fun when that agency isn’t involved.
“There are a lot of cis dudes who love to push heads down, who get very aggressive, who do things that they have not negotiated well with their partner in a way that can cause pain and humiliation in non-negotiated and non-consensual ways,” Powell says. If your only experience of blowjobs is your partner expecting you to suck them off whether you like it or not, it’s not a surprise that you might not enjoy them.
Without the expectation of how sex “should” look we have more space to explore what we like and say no to the things we don’t—and that includes approaching oral sex from a place of curiosity and figuring out what feels good to us. Why is it so rare for TV shows to reflect this?
It shouldn’t be shocking that a woman—or any consenting adult, for that matter—enjoys giving head. What should give us pause is someone being pressured into doing any sexual act that they don’t enjoy. For all of society’s increasing openness about sex, people still sometimes feel like they can’t say “no” to what they’re told sex should be—and that is shocking.
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