Content Warning/Editors’ Note: This article contains graphic and possibly triggering sexual content. It is published anonymously in accordance with The Phoenix’s policy relating to Features articles about sex.
“Easy? Honey, they don’t call it a job for nothing.”– Samantha Jones
The first time I held a penis in my mouth, I realized that the owner, the man, could not have cared less about who I was. I could’ve been replaced by any other woman, and I doubt he would have minded. I mean, I guess that should’ve been obvious? Like, “Oh, random hook up, no shit, he doesn’t care about who you are as a person.” But I had no clue. I mean, it feels counterintuitive: to trust the sharpest part of a woman’s body with the most sensitive part of yours and to not care about her hopes or dreams or aspirations? Or at the very least, her name, maybe? But then there I was, his hands on my head, my access to air restricted, and between the monotony and complete lack of sensuality, all I could think was I am not a person to him, kill me now, kill me now.
Just think about it: hand job. Fingering. Blow job. Eating out. Tit job. Ok, no equivalent there.
You get my point. It’s all work. It’s all labor. But what wages are the “workers” receiving? What gain does a woman get from sucking a man off — besides, perhaps, cum down her throat or splattered across her face? If she’s lucky, maybe, just maybe, he’ll eat her out (and whether she finishes or not is a different question). But that treatment is special. Blow jobs are expected. There’s no female equivalent, in a heterosexual relationship, to the term “eater.”
The first time I held a penis in my mouth, after he finished (and so sensually asked whether he could finish in my mouth or if I wanted “a facial”), he fingered me clumsily, and I faked an orgasm so it would end. After I was dressed and (attempting to) make conversation, all my charm and humor ceased to affect him. The laughter dissipated once I left his bed. For so long, I’d been desperate to be seen as beautiful rather than just funny, and the first time I’d had physical proof that a man wanted my body, I would’ve done anything to be funny again.
“It alienates from man his own body, nature exterior to him, and his intellectual being, his human essence.” Yes, that sentence totally is something I could’ve written because I’m so smart and wonderful, but it was actually Marx. I felt a similar sentiment nonetheless. I was nothing besides my physical form. All my charm, everything that distinguished me from a high-tech sex doll was gone.Maybe if I were a feminist worth her salt, I’d tell you that I will never ever, ever, EVER suck off a man again in my life. But I’m not. I don’t respect myself enough to deny another pleasure when it comes at my own expense. You all don’t know what I look like, but I can tell you how I feel: hideous. Maybe if I thought better of myself, I wouldn’t feel so desperate to receive male validation. Here is how I rationalize it to myself: if a member of the visual working class — a 5/10 on the best of days — wishes to succeed in the sexual marketplace, what choice does she have besides performing demeaning, soul-crushing sexual labor? They don’t call it a job for nothing.
