Ask Debby Herbenick | Why do some women drool over blow jobs while others can't stand them?

Q I had sex for the first time with a new guy and for some insane reason I lasted an hour without ejaculating. A few times in the past I have lasted for 15 or 20 minutes, but never an hour—until now. Afterward we were both talking about how it was one of the best fucks of our lives. My question: I want to hook up with this guy again, but what if I come fast the next time? I can pretty much guarantee I will not be able to go an hour. What can I do so that he doesn’t think sex with me sucks?

A A major benefit of having a same-sex partner is that they often understand same-sex bodies: Men get men’s bodies in ways that we women can only imagine; and women get women’s bodies in unique ways, too. In all likelihood, your new guy has probably had his own ups and downs with ejaculatory control, and can probably empathize with the joys of lasting as long as is wanted, and the frustrations with coming more quickly than you’d hoped. If you’re worried that he’ll have unrealistic expectations next time, put your cards on the table. This doesn’t have to be a soul-searching conversation; you can simply make a random comment about how you don’t want any unfair expectations because last time may have been a fluke. A supercool fluke, yes, but a fluke nevertheless. That’s okay. It doesn’t make you less manly; it makes you real. The fact that he thought the sex was the best ever also means that something about it was out of the ordinary for him, too, and maybe now he’s also worried about not living up to your expectations. It’s kind of like in Scrabulous when you start off a game with a new opponent and score 40 points on your first word. You know you can’t keep up that streak, but will your opponent laugh at you when you return to your normal 15-pointers? With Scrabulous, as in life (and ejaculation), most people return to average performance after a stellar run. Embrace your penis with all of its ejaculatory wonderment, don’t stress about it or put pressure on yourself (which can only get in the way of sex) and do enjoy your next romp with your new guy.

Q What makes some girls into oral sex (giving and receiving) and others not? I’m in my early 30s and love getting blow jobs where the girl swallows, and I enjoy giving oral to women. Some of my ex-girlfriends have told me their mouths would water when they thought about giving me a BJ, because they loved the taste and smell of my cum. I have also dated some girls who weren’t into giving BJs at all. My current girlfriend of two years prefers me to finger her or use a dildo while we kiss on the lips during foreplay and doesn’t really get turned on if I use my tongue on her. Much to my disappointment, she does not enjoy giving me BJs and I practically have to beg her to suck my dick a little before we have intercourse. Very rarely (once every couple of months) she gives me a full BJ, but pulls my dick out of her mouth before I cum. We are very open with each other and have talked about our differences. I told her one of my fantasies would be to cum in her mouth and she said she is not ready to take our relationship to that level. As a result of her distaste for giving BJs, I have found myself secretly watching hard-core oral porn to satisfy my fantasies, and I know this can’t be good for our relationship. Part of me (not only my dick, but also my brain) thinks that if a woman is attracted to the smell and taste of a man’s cum, there may be some animal magnetism that would make them good mates, while if a girl is afraid of or avoids a man’s cum, then maybe it’s not meant to be. What do you think?

A Many things can influence the extent to which a woman likes going down on her partner, including: the way that she was raised, such as whether she was taught that genitals were icky or clean; family or religious values that might predispose her to either celebrating or feeling shameful about having sex (including oral sex); her partner’s approach (coercive or not); your overall relationship; her own sensitivities to taste and smell; your own hygiene and eating practices that may affect your genital taste and smell; and her earlier experiences of performing oral sex (e.g., if she had bad experiences prior to you, like with guys who forced it on her or held her head down in ways similar to how middle-school boys dunk each others’ heads in toilet bowls). In other words, it’s complicated. Some women will never enjoy getting up close and personal with your penis, but that doesn’t mean that they are not “meant to be” in a relationship. If blow-job enjoyment is your criteria for a Relationship of Destiny, then good luck to you—but it may not be a fair assessment of a human being. Consider something sexual that you don’t like down deep in your gut—whether that’s having your nipples yanked, extended cuddling, or anal rimming. If someone judged your relationship potential as not “meant to be” simply because you didn’t like this certain part of sex, then you might feel like you weren’t given a fair shake. All that said, just because I’m not into your “meant to be” line of thinking doesn’t mean that this may not be a problem for you two. It might. This incompatibility may, in fact, make it difficult for your relationship to survive and not because either of you is in the wrong. Rather, if you value blow jobs so much that you feel like you’re going to explode (yum), and your girlfriend does not want to give them, then you may need to a) accept her boundaries; b) patiently learn to help her enjoy them, at least occasionally; or c) end the relationship. As for your secret porn habits, I would be surprised if it were really problematic unless you are lying to your girlfriend about it—in which case lying is the issue. Maybe she would even consider watching the porn with you, or kissing you while you masturbate to the blow-job porn? In that way, you might be able to include her in the blow-job play without her having to actually do it.

Q With all the hoopla over Spitzer’s escort spending, I have to know: What exactly do you get for thousands of dollars? I’m what many people would consider a 10, and I have been offered lots of money to have sex (not that I would accept it) but never this much. The dollar figures I’ve seen just seem out of the ballpark to me.

AOnce you get to a certain level of spending, extra expense rarely purchases a more attractive or more sexually skilled woman. In many cases, one is paying for what they perceive to be a service that provides them with the type of privacy, confidentiality and convenience that they feel they need. In other words, they are paying for the way that the business is set up, which may be a corporate identity, seemingly protected bank accounts and discreet methods of money management. Men who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on a sex worker are also often men who have a lot to lose if their dalliances were found out about by spouses, children, friends or, uh, voters.