I Did It for Science: Fellatio School

Hypothesis:
State your hypothesis in the form of a prediction that can be verified by the results of the experiment.

Upon graduating from art school, I promised myself that I would never again grace the halls of academia. I broke this rule only once, to take a class on Tolkien at The Learning Annex. But when a fellow Hooksexup contributor e-mailed me an E-vite for a class on how to give better blowjobs, I knew it was time to strap on my thinking cap, dust off the Trapper Keeper and bust out the kneepads. I got my B.F.A. in sculpture, so my continued education will be in a far more useful field. Sucking dick is a skill that can be employed time andtime again to great effect. But does the perfect blowjob exist, and can such skills be taught in a class? Can a small-mouthed woman like myself achieve such greatness? Will I become the Zamfir of the skin flute, or will I fail to make beautiful music on my lover’s organ?

Materials:
Please list all the materials required for this experiment (including, if applicable, how they were obtained).

– Ten dollars
– Notebook and pen
– MetroCard
– Willing blowjob recipient

Method:
In this portion of your report, you must describe, step-by-step, what you did in your lab. It should be specific enough that someone who has not seen the lab can follow the directions and recreate the same lab.

Like the surfers searching for the perfect wave in Endless Summer, my quest for perfection would take me far from home. The seminar was being held on the Upper West Side, a good ten subway stops from my apartment. Hesitantly, I approached the building, which purportedly housed something called “the Sexy Spirits Lecture Room.” I had expected a scholarly, stone palace bespeaking secret orders, but this looked more like an apartment complex.
    Inside, a mustachioed man greeted me and requested that I remove my shoes before entering the space. A handful of women hovered in the doorway, slipping off their heels and glancing around furtively. I shared a nervous glance with a professional-looking woman. “I’m just gonna stay out here and wait for my friend,” she said. Suddenly I felt like a loser for being there alone. It was high school all over again! I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one had taped a “Kick me, I’m an art fag!” sign onto my back.
    The lecture room screamed New Age aesthetics. Billowy wall hangings depicted Hindu goddesses while a trippy, fractal video played to the rhythm of chanting Eastern music. A warm fireplace roared in the corner.

    I introduced myself to Moxie, the evening’s educator. “Hi, I’m Jen, the writer from Hooksexup who contacted you,” I said, shaking her hand.
   “So, what kind of stuff do you write about?” she asked.
   “I’m writing the ‘I Did It for Science’ column that Grant Stoddard used to write. This is only my second installment.”
   “Oh, I looooved his column,” she gushed.
    To make a Three’s Company analogy, sometimes I feel like Grant was the Suzanne Somers of Hooksexup. This would make me the Jenilee Harrison of Hooksexup, which is a very tough thing to be, especially because most people don’t even remember who Jenilee Harrison is.
    Settling onto a rattan stool, I gazed at my new professor. An attractive brunette dressed modestly in black slacks and a blouse, she seemed to be in her mid-thirties. Nothing about her shouted “Blowjob Queen.” The way she moved was tomboyish, like a much hotter version of my high school field hockey coach. (I, too, am a tomboy, but I’m more of a tomboy/drag queen.) I checked out Moxie’s lips; they were larger than mine. She looked like a regular woman, yet apparently she held the key to pussy-whipping the male species.
    When she’s not teaching, she’s the owner of the national interactive singles event service MoxieintheCity.net and writer of the popular blog “Sex and Moxie.”
    Who is the typical blowjob student? I wondered, surveying the crowd. The average female student seemed to be in her thirties. When I told my friend Bruce this, he suggested that many of these women were probably looking to “make a baby” and therefore felt they needed to acquire certain skills that would make a man consider filling their hot ovens of ovum. For whatever reason, thirtysomething women are most interested in giving great head. (Men, mull this over the next time you drool over Reagan-era hotties.)
    The male students seemed a bit older, probably in their forties. Most were wearing suits, and all gave off a distinct air of awkward straightness. Why would straight men attend a class on fellatio? Maybe to be in a room full of women who not only give blowjobs but want to improve their blowjobs, too.
    With the exception of a hippie girl sitting on the floor and me, most students looked like they’d come from work on Wall Street.
    Two suit-clad men sat down next to me. “What brings you here?” one of them asked me.
   “I’m a sex columnist,” I replied, regretting the words the second they came out of my mouth. The term “sex columnist” would seem to imply that I am some sort of expert on sex, which I’m not, so I added, “But I give horrible head.”
   “How does one become a sex columnist? I mean, that’s not really something you plan to do when you’re seven.”
   “When I was seven, I wanted to be Miss America,” I said, “but then I realized all of the Miss Americas had big boobs, and that didn’t work out so well.”
    Another dude sat down next to me. I could hear him breathing in a manner I found irritating. “Should be an interesting night,” he chortled.
    Once almost thirty people had taken seats, Moxie introduced a tan fellow named Anton. He owns the Sexy Spirits Lecture Room, where seminars are held almost every night. Anton described Sexy Spirits as "a sex-positive education center specializing in the raising of consciousness through Tantric and Taoist sexual practices." (You can see a picture of Anton and check out the class descriptions at sexyspirits.com.) At the end of his spiel, he yielded the floor to Moxie.
   “Anyone here go to Catholic school?” she asked. A few hands shot up. Moxie explained that she was the daughter of an extremely traditional Sicilian Catholic father who taught her one thing about sex: it was for marriage and procreation only. I could not relate. Even though my parents never talked about sex, I discovered their hidden copy of Joy of Sex and often replicated the positions assumed by the bearded man and full-bushed woman with my Barbie dolls. Because I only had one Ken, there was a lot of wild lesbian activity rocking the Dream House.
   “I never knew how to flirt,” Moxie shared. “I never knew that it was okay to talk about sex.” Until one fateful day, when she went off to college and started dating “Robert,” the campus stud, who asked her, “Do you know what the perfect blowjob is?” This Yoda of fellatio then taught Moxie how to properly handle his lightsaber, and when she was done, he announced, “That’s the best blowjob I’ve ever had," instilling his pupil with a sense of confidence and power.
    "Sexual confidence is about power," Moxie told us. "Not dominance, but the power to express your needs and desires." I’m confident that I’m good at some things, like swimming or making ribbon barrettes. But sexual confidence eludes me. The many years I spent being called “Sweathog” and “Fat-Head” by my older brothers dealt a horrible blow to my confidence, as did the fact that I looked like the singer Meat Loaf for the first six years of my life.
    Moxie asked the class to shout out qualities they thought were sexy. Curvy, stylish, smart, funny and creative were among the

responses. “Sexy is not an aesthetic," she said. "It’s an aura." I’d never really thought about that, but it totally explains why male models don’t do it for me, yet I have recurring dreams about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. (Not the Led Zeppelin of yesteryear; Robert Plant and Jimmy Page as they are today.)
    Now that the class had been invited to shout things out, the “interrupters” began their running commentary. Every class, staff meeting or rehearsal has at least one interrupter. These people won’t let the teacher get a word in edgewise as they spout off nonsense that they imagine is somehow useful to the student body. These people will drive you insane. First the hippie girl on the floor began. Soon thereafter, the “breather” next to me was interjecting. I wrote in my notebook, For the love of God, zip it and let’s get on with the bj techniques.
   “We’re getting off subject,” Moxie said calmly. “Let’s get back on track. How many people came here to learn oral sex techniques?”
    Ninety percent of the women’s hands shot up. Moxie pulled out a Sharpie and wrote on a dry-erase board: Don’t do it if you don’t wanna. This first step seemed easy enough. If I’m attracted to someone I’ll want to blow him, unless I have a sore throat or they have a wretched case of ball-sac odor.
    Step two was also relatively simple: Always lubricate the shaft, as men chafe easily and you won’t want to blow him if his penis is covered in flaking scabs of dry skin. Moxie professed that flavored lube is her fave. The male interrupter — who I was now convinced was actually a virgin — interjected, “Lube is too sticky,” as if the entire class were planning on blowing him after the lecture.
    We moved on to the subject of teasing. “Don’t go right into it,” Moxie suggested. “Tease him. Trail your hair along his inner thighs. Look into his eyes. Take the time to turn him on.” So the idea is not to just drop to your knees and start munching on his cock, although sometimes that’s called for if you’re in a bar bathroom. However, I’d like to publicly state that I have a small bladder, and I think bar bathrooms should be used for three things: peeing, puking if necessary, and for writing flattering graffiti about me.
   “Now it’s time to get to work,” Moxie declared. “But if you love doing it, it won’t feel like work.” Because I’ve reviewed several books on the subject of lovemaking, I already knew which “parts” supposedly produce a wellspring of love mayonnaise when properly handled. She suggested making a ring with one’s hand and placing it around the shaft while you move your lips in order to cover more ground area.
   “And, while you’re doing it, don’t forget to breathe!” she exclaimed. Apparently, breathing makes it easier not only to stay alive but to suck dick as well!
   “Don’t forget the boys!” Moxie advised." But again, do it gently." The idea is not to bite into his chewy center, but to lick the salty coating.
   “Change your pace. Don’t let him come right away,” she offered. “But when you get there, ladies, you have to tell him if you don’t want him to come in your mouth.”
    So how do you know he’s ready to shoot his load if he doesn’t scream, “I’m going to come”? Most likely his breathing will get quicker and harder and his testicles will turn to walnuts, at which point it’s time to make the big decision: to spit or to swallow? My feeling is that if you like someone enough to take their penis into your mouth for a prolonged period of time while also licking their balls and maybe even sticking a finger or a butt-plug up their ass, and you know that this person is disease-free, you might as well swallow. It’s a great way to get some protein if you’re a vegetarian. However, if the person you are blowing is a bad person, quickly move your head out of the way and see where his jizz lands. Then hand him a roll of Bounty and leave the room.
    “Do you know why men prefer women to swallow?” Moxie asked. A handful of responses echoed throughout the classroom.
    “They don’t wanna make a mess and have to clean it up.”
    “My boyfriend tells me he feels abandoned if I don’t.”
    “Because it feels good for him.”

    Moxie told us that it was all of these reasons and more: the physical aspects, the mental aspects and the laziness.
    “I hate it,” one woman exclaimed. “It’s like the texture of egg yolks!”
    Others offered reasons why they either liked drinking semen or didn’t. I felt like I was at a wine tasting.
    “My test for any man,” said a gorgeous Latina, “is whether or not he’ll give me an open-mouthed kiss afterward. If he won’t — goodbye.”
    “You’re gonna lose a lot of guys that way,” forewarned the breather. He then delivered a monologue wherein he theorized that homophobia made men afraid to kiss women who’ve just swallowed their jizz.
    “But if men could blow themselves, they would, all day long,” I told the interrupter. “And they would swallow.”
    “Civilization would die out if men could blow themselves,” a man in the corner offered.
    Chaos ensued as the class discussed a mythical world in which men could blow themselves.
    “Okay, I have a question for the ladies,” the male interrupter declared.
    “As long as it’s appropriate and respectful,” Moxie stated, and I could feel a collective female eye-roll travel around the room like fans doing the wave at a Yankees game.
   “If a woman goes down on you, does she always want reciprocation?”
   “It’s safe to say,” I began, “that most women like cunnilingus, and that most women want to have orgasms. The answer to that question is yes. I have given hundreds of blowjobs,” I declared. This is true. Considering I’ve been giving them for fifteen years, at roughly one a week, that totals 788 blowjobs. "And the amount of times I’ve been orally pleased is nowhere near that number.” Now I was getting angry. “I once asked one of my lovers why he didn’t go down on me as often as I went down on him, and he said it’s because I DIDN’T ASK!” At this, the women were horrified, on the verge of rioting. "Communication is important in sex, but a woman shouldn’t have to ask to have her pussy eaten every time, especially when it’s already been determined that she likes it."
    The class agreed. Reciprocation is humane.
   “Does anyone have any questions?” Moxie asked.
   “How do you feel about props like Altoids and honey?” I inquired. The men in the room quickly debunked the Altoid theory, explaining that an Altoid-coated tongue can often cause a tingling that is too intense. But an inventive class member shared that when she only used a sliver of an Altoid and some ice, her lover went crazy for it. Most of the class members seemed to think that honey was too messy and that anything you need a tarp for should be avoided.
    After answering a few more questions, Moxie wished us luck in our cocksucking endeavors. Some of the student body mingled, but I thanked Moxie and shot out the door, anxious to put pen to paper.
    The following day, I sat down to write my column and realized that I wouldn’t know if my studies had been a success until I actually blew someone. After all, you don’t know if a driving class worked until you get behind the wheel. I would now have to suck someone’s penis. The question was whose.
   “A blowjob really is a gift when you think about it,” my friend Bruce suggested. “You should only blow someone nice.”
    Sex should never be considered a commodity, but Bruce was right. Only nice people deserve blowjobs.
    Fortunately, I’d made plans for Friday to hang out with two extremely promiscuous, bisexual bandmates named Orion and Erin. The sole members of the self-professed “shittiest band ever” had been sending me indecipherable, filthy email for the past month.
    When “Fridate” rolled around, the duo arrived at my love pad carrying a bag of beer and the board game Girl Talk: The Game of Truth or Dare, which is intended for tweens, but can also be played by adventurous adults. Girl Talk consists of a small wheel that can be spun, Price is Right-style, to reveal questions and dares. An example of a dare would be, “Call the operator and ask for the President’s phone number.” A

truth might be, “Did you ever cheat on a test?”
    When Girl Talk is combined with alcohol, it can lead to some pretty heated situations. When Orion received a dare that requested he “borrow some clothing from an adult and wear it for the rest of the game,” I lent him a negligee. When I was told to “do whatever the player to your left tells you to,” Orion had me make out with both him and Erin. Soon I noticed that the Girl Talk wheel was being manipulated in order to create pornographic situations.
    Seven hours, two pitcher-sized margaritas, one six-pack of Budweiser, two forties of Coors and two tallboys of Bud later, we engaged in a raucous game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. As Erin passed out on the couch, Orion and I went way over the allotted seven minutes. “We’re totally breaking the rules,” I said, dropping to my knees and preparing to put what I’d learned to the test.
    At first, I tried to concentrate on the various steps, announcing them as I went along. “Now I’m teasing you,” I said, trailing my hair across his chest.
    But my running commentary ended as I got to work licking, flicking my tongue and sucking, whereupon Orion elicited several extremely grateful moans which would have made my alma mater proud.
    “Oh God, I want to fuck you,” he pleaded. I, too, desperately wanted the main course, but I remembered the assignment at hand and kept going, torturing both of us. I was so wet that I had to masturbate while blowing him, which prevented me from fully using my hands — probably a technical no-no. This, coupled with my intoxication, made for a blowjob that didn’t reflect my recent education.
    As four a.m. crept up and I was still going to town, sleep-deprivation-induced madness and fatigue took hold. To be honest, I have no idea how long I spent on my knees. We were in a time warp, and I was delirious. Orion was clearly deriving pleasure from the skills I’d learned. But I felt like Frodo right before he tossed the ring into the Cracks of Doom. My mind and body had been ravaged by exhaustion and debauchery, and I just couldn’t go on. If I hadn’t grown lazy and stopped, my techniques might have resulted in a protein shake for breakfast.

Conclusion:
Summarize your findings. Don’t forget to attempt to identify possible variables that could result in different findings for others trying to recreate your test results.

Succeeding in any field of study is a big commitment. At four in the morning, my commitment had waned. Had I not been inebriated, exhausted and worried about breaking the rules of Seven Minutes in Heaven, I might have achieved greatness in the field of cocksucking. Instead, I failed in almost every capacity.
    Even though I showed up for class on time and took abundant notes, it wasn’t enough. My own personal lethargy was the biggest variable in the experiment and prevented me from finishing what I started. This was as if, in painting “Woman With a Water Jug,” Vermeer had only painted the water jug. According to the feedback I got from Orion the following day, the skills I acquired in class were apparent, but the dedication to excellence wasn’t.
   Because the blowjob recipient is yet another variable, the lab would have been more thorough had I blown several men and reported their feedback, but I don’t want to reduce myself to the role of human jizz-rag, even in the name of science.
    Another variable was alcohol. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a champion NASCAR driver, but if he showed up at the track drunk, he probably wouldn’t take home any trophies. Sex is one of the few occasions in life when I prefer to be sober. Drunken sex is sloppy sex, and a sloppy blowjob won’t win any honors.
    If one is performing a blowjob as the main event rather than as foreplay, I suppose the goal would be to make its recipient spew forth a fountainhead of spooge while also experiencing one’s own orgasm akin to a religious experience. This particular blowjob did not accomplish that. However, perseverance is an important component of education. Because I’ve only blown one individual since taking my class, there’s no telling what accomplishments the future holds.
    As so many cheesy classroom posters have pointed out, “A good attitude makes a great difference.” The tips and techniques I learned in class were helpful, but in my postgraduate studies, what I’m going to work on is my attitude.

"I Did It for Science" appears monthly.