I received this question yesterday from our anonymous Have A Question page:
My wife and I have been married for over 20 years. I tried to give her oral sex once when we were first married and she stopped me before I could actually preform the act. This is something I would love to do for her but after that I was so embarrassed I have never brought it up again. How do I try again after 20 years? How can I make her feel comfortable? We shower before we have sex almost every time so being clean is not her issue. How can I proceed?
Many new wives reject oral sex the first time, and it’s not surprising, because many of them (perhaps even most of them) grow up with this idea that their genitals are dirty, that they shouldn’t be touched, and are either explicitly taught that oral sex is wrong, or this teaching that their sexual organs are dirty leads them to the inevitable belief that they shouldn’t be kissed.
So, it doesn’t surprise me at all that your wife (20 years ago) stopped you. Depending on how she’s grown in her beliefs about sex, her mindset might have changed dramatically from then. But still, it’s been 20 years. That’s a long time to be courting this feeling of embarrassment. No easy thing to get over for you. On the other hand, at least you didn’t hound her about it, causing her to build up a habit of saying “no” to your advances.
How do you proceed? Well, it depends on the wife. Of course, these can just as easily be applied to husbands, though a husband who will reject oral sex is a much smaller percentage of the population. But, for the purpose of this post, I’ll be writing about wives, just because that’s what the question was about, and it’s easier to keep my gender pronouns straight when I have one to work with. Making things gender neutral can be quite difficult, and honestly, I’m too tired this morning to attempt it.
Some wives need to be acclimatized
I’m going to get in trouble for this one, but it’s a bit like breaking a horse. Of course, that metaphor won’t mean as much to many in our culture, so let me explain. When breaking a new horse (which is the process of getting a horse ready for riding), my understanding is that you go very slowly. I’ve never done this, but I’ve read of the process a few times. I might have my steps mixed up, but the concept is solid. First, you simply walk up to the horse and pet it. The next day you might place you hand on it’s back, where it can’t see you, and keep doing that until it’s comfortable. The next you’d put a blanket on it’s back, until it grows comfortable with that. Another day you would place a saddle on it, undone, just so it gets used to the weight. When it gets used to that, then tie the saddle. And so on, until the saddle, bridle, reins and everything are in place. Then, finally, you get on. It’s a process that can take days or weeks with a stubborn horse.
Now, a wife is obviously not a horse to be “trained” in this manner, but some women respond well to these types of introductions. Start with kisses on the mouth. Then train down the neck. Then to the breasts. Then the stomach. Then the waist. Then restart at the feet and move up. Basically, kiss everywhere but your target. Let them get used to the idea, without pushing the boundary too hard. Then one day, just, sort of in passing, place a kiss on her labia, then go back to something else. And keep slowly proceeding like that. It might take days, or weeks, even months (because most of us don’t have sex daily), but, if it’s not a hard boundary for her, then you might reach your goal.
Some wives need to talk about it
If you have a marriage where you can talk about sex (and if you don’t, you should work towards that), then you can start a conversation asking her what her thoughts are on oral sex. Express your desire to perform this activity on her, and ask her thoughts. She may need time to think about it, to process her feelings and beliefs, but if you can have an adult conversation about it, then that’s a great way to go. Now, it may be that during your conversation you realize you need to take it very slow, in baby steps, like the method above, and that’s okay. But, at least then you know what to expect, and she’ll be open and willing to allow it, knowing what’s coming and focusing on being receptive and relaxed.
Some wives prefer to be submissive
Lastly, and here’s another one I’ll likely get in trouble for, some wives don’t want to be responsible for it. Or they just prefer to be lead, or they just like to be surprised. This can be because of a lot of things. In some cases, there is a disconnect between what they want to believe and what belief has been ingrained in them. In some cases, the marriage has built up a trust, and they are willing to try anything their husband desires, at least once or twice (within the obvious moral boundaries). In other cases, they simply prefer to be the submissive partner in bed, and have things done to them, or requested of them.
Those in the first case, of having a juxtaposition of belief and teaching, often they don’t want responsibility for deciding. If you just start, they’ll accept, especially if it feels like they don’t have a choice, they just have to go along with it. I’m not talking about forcing it on your spouse, but for some, blindfolding while trying new things can be very liberating. They get to pretend like they aren’t giving explicit consent while still enjoying the pleasure of a new activity. I’ve discussed this a few times in posts like my post on bondage, and about why your wife can’t tell you what she wants.
Those in the second case, of trusting their husband to make wise choices, it’s simply that. If you have a 20 year track record of trying new things and generally improving your sexual relationship as a result, then it’s likely your wife will simply trust you yet again as you introduce another activity.
The last case, regarding sexually submissive wives, part of the excitement of sex is that feeling of being dominated (in a good way), by their husband. For those wives, going slow might be too slow, and talking about it would ruin the effect. But simply jumping into it would be exciting and new and very sexy.
The problem is, I can’t tell you which your wife is. Wisdom is in knowing that for yourself. But, I hope I’ve given enough hints that you can sort out which fits your marriage. If you’re absolutely guessing, I would lean towards the first two, because the third … well, there’s certainly more risk there.
So, I hope that answers the question and perhaps helps some others in similar situations.
I didn’t always enjoy oral sex. I felt very vulnerable and embarrassed whenever he would do it, and I would also be tense and anxious so I couldn’t enjoy it. I think the key is to get her into it first…lots of foreplay. Inhibitions drop when she’s turned on! If she tries to stop you, tell her you really want to do it (in whatever words fit the mood!) Some women think men don’t like it, which I find to be the opposite, at least with my husband. Once I realized he really enjoyed doing it for me, I didn’t mind, and actually started to enjoy it.
Thank you! I had meant to include a point about making sure she’s aroused first, but I forgot. Thanks for bringing it up.
I think that some women have a problem with it because of cleanliness or the awkwardness of how things smell down there…whether it is odors from her bottom or her vagina. Even if you are clean, it is still hard to get over it sometimes. It can make you feel very self conscious to have your spouse burying his face in that area. I think that if a man tries to give his wife oral, and she rejects, then after they are done with their love making session, he should talk with her about it. I have to “prepare” myself in a few ways before I’m letting my husband get on me. So, before we had actual conversations about it, he would just test the waters, and I would reject him. It was best for us to really have a conversation so that I could share that I needed to do certain things to feel comfortable with it. I can really enjoy this now, but it took a lot of intentionality for me to get there.
My husband tried oral sex on me on our honeymoon and I thought it felt gross so we had not done it since. We’ve been married almost 10 years now and only in the past year have we tried again. He kept dropping subtle hints that he would like to try again, but he never pushed. He just expressed his desire. I definitely had it ingrained in my head that I am gross down there. I needed a lot of help from him to convince me otherwise. We also brainstormed what I could do to get over some of my hangups, so now I wash, I trim, and I apply coconut oil just to make sure because I still struggle with worrying that he is grossed out or hates it, and I don’t exactly have an easy time becoming aroused if I am thinking about his discomfort. It helped a lot that he explained how much he wanted to try it because he wanted to be able to bring me to orgasm on his own without my help. He wanted the pleasure of pleasuring me. Only when I saw it as a gift for him did I become more open to it.
After that, it took a lot of patience. I still hated it and was grossed out by it at first, but we tried to go slightly longer each time so I could try to push past that. It was also tricky because I was trying to get over my hangups at the same time he was trying to learn how to do it, and frankly he was terrible at it at first (understandably), which actually caused more setbacks because I just didn’t like the way it felt. I ended up studying up on it on my own and little by little began to ask him to “try this,” and we were able to figure out what worked. So I highly suggest that any guy that wants to do it read up on it so you have an idea where to start, and please remember to be very gentle, especially starting out. Doing it poorly or too roughly might actually make it harder for her to want to try again. And above all, make sure she knows how much you LOVED it, or if you didn’t love it because it is still too new, at least let her know how much you cannot wait to try again and get better at it. His continued interest and desire helped convince me that it couldn’t be that gross if he keeps wanting to do it.
I am happy to say he is very good at it now. 😉 And I really enjoy it. I am glad he didn’t let the subject drop but expressed continued interest, but he never crossed the line into begging/nagging. It was a communication thing. If he had just tried to dive right in, I would have shut him down every time. I needed to prepare, physically but especially mentally.
I was starting to do it to my wife but one day she said to me she is uncomfortable with it and so I stopped. I felt I had to honour her wishes.
What has helped me to let it go is that a couple of teachers I highly respect disapprove of oral sex. I suppose I thought supposing they are right? Anyway I have settled on this now and I was only doing it for her enjoyment not mine.
I am curious how they justified that stance, that oral sex is wrong.
Sorry just saw this. I don’t get replies in my e mail. Not sure how to get them even though I tick that I want to get follow up posts in my e mail.
I have noticed that these kinds of ministers are also into deliverance ministry. I don’t know if they have experienced something that I don’t know about. They will know a lot about different types of spirits but cannot prove anything.
And some women, like myself, just don’t like it. Period. The same way some men don’t like certain things. I think we have to honor our spouses wishes. We are told to consider others as better than ourselves. We just have to accept it. I don’t like lima beans. I can’t tell you why. It’s not an alergy, it’s not that they make me gag, it’s not really anything that I can put my finger on. It’s just that I don’t like them and never will. I am so thankful that my husband would never nag at me to do something that he knows I don’t like.
For my wife and I, we didn’t even try oral sex for the first 15 years of our marriage because it just never occurred to me to ask her. Then one night she said she had a surprise for me while the lights were out and we had candle lit but that I had to close my eyes and keep them shut until she said otherwise. Boy was I surprised LOL… Later I asked her what made her decide to do that, she told me that a few years earlier in a marriage small group we were in, some of the other women talked about things their husbands really liked (it was the sex talk night) and she at first thought it was kinda gross, but after letting it float around in her head for quite awhile she decided to give it an honest try. Since then we’ve enjoyed it, but she doesn’t like receiving unfortunately, only giving which bothered me for a long time, but I eventually I excepted that it made her happy to give it to me since she knows I like it. Maybe one day she’ll change her mind and let me reciprocate, but until then I’ll respect her wishes in this area.
And some wives just say, “Ewww! why would I ever want to do that?!”. End of conversation! 🙁
Yes, they certainly exist. But, then, there are some husbands who have much the same attitude.