Approaching sex, particularly oral sex, for the first time can be a distressing event for some. Traditional sex is a team sport, as it fosters a “we’re all in this together” sort of camaraderie that takes some of the pressure off each individual participant. However, when giving oral sex all eyes are completely on you. In most cases, if someone isn’t nutting it’s pretty easy to find who’s to blame.

Personally, tackling my first dick seemed like a daunting task. So, I approached the situation with the intensity that my type-A personality demands and decided to hit the books. This came in the form of an in-depth tutorial from one of my close friends.

She sat me down and demonstrated the proper positioning, motions, etc. on a hairbrush handle. In my case, not knowing what exactly to expect was what was causing the majority of my anxiety. After receiving explicit instructions, I felt better prepared to explore this unknown territory. I realized that I wasn’t nervous about the actual act of giving a blowjob per se, but more that I couldn’t imagine how the events might unfold in my head because I had absolutely no concept of what was going to happen.

I felt lucky that I had a friend I trusted who was willing to educate me on the subject. I don’t think I would have found the courage to give my first blowjob without the encouragement from this important learning experience. Finding friends who are willing to talk so openly about their penis experiences are rare, and it has made me wonder about other girls’ first experiences and whether or not they felt prepared when taming their first dick.

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I decided to broach the subject with some of my college friends and received some interesting feedback. I found out that many girls did not receive the thorough education I thought was necessary for success. Most girls simply repeated the golden rule: no teeth. But other than that, most advice was to “just kinda go for it.” When they reflected on their experiences, the consensus seemed to be that they didn’t believe this lack of education hindered their ability to perform or caused them any more anxiety than normal during their first experience. Personally, I think hindsight blurs the anxiety they felt preceding the act.

I continued the conversation with my blowjob virgin friends, who all agreed that receiving a thorough how-to walkthrough would significantly decrease their anxiety. Most of these girls told me that they had gleaned what little knowledge they had from brief conversations with friends, or from articles in Cosmopolitan and the like. We discussed the merits of these articles and they told me how they didn’t feel like they could trust the information between the glossy pages of a national magazine when performing such an intimate act.

Traditional sex is a team sport, as it fosters a “we’re all in this together” sort of camaraderie that takes some of the pressure off each individual participant. However, when giving oral sex all eyes are completely on you.

All this talk about blowjobs and education got me thinking about how our society approaches sexual education. Sex is such a popular topic in our culture; it’s used in advertisements to sell products, it’s shown in movies and music videos, it’s discussed in the media, news and politics. But amidst all this, there’s so little discussion about sex that occurs outside of heterosexual penetrative acts — particularly about the details of oral sex, or sex that falls outside of the heterosexual binary.

Is this lack of information fueling a culture which shames these acts? After considering all of the knowledge gained from examining my own experiences, discussing the experiences of others, and pondering how our society educates the masses on this topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that the fear women feel in performing oral sex comes from a culture of embarrassment.

I think women should be proud of their ability to please their partner. Maybe by owning the power we wield in our positions as blowjob-givers, women will be better able to share their confidence and knowledge with those coming next. *wink wink*

Jackie Offerman thinks women should share their experiences to create a new generation of epic blowjob givers.