I’m a freakish weirdo when it comes to foreplay, I think. I’ve spoken before about how I don’t really like getting head. A good fingering is nice every now and again, but I’m a bit impatient. Just as I’m the first in the pub at 5 pm on Friday, itching to start the weekend, when the chance for a shag comes around I’m the one speeding things up in anticipation of what I see as the ‘main’ event, pulling down my knickers and mumbling “just put it in me – now – please.”

But recently I spoke to the rather lovely @EasilyTempted on Twitter, who talked so lovingly about foreplay (or rather – those myriad aspects of sex that don’t involve putting a dick into a vagina) that it might have tempted me to spend a bit more time doing it.

Here’s what she said:

EasilyTempted – on foreplay

This week my husband and I had a beautiful and lengthy 69. I came on his face, more than once, and he came in my mouth. And then I fucked about on Twitter, while he cooked me scrambled eggs. Possibly a perfect evening.

But.

‘Officially’ we didn’t have even have sex. It got me thinking about the word ‘foreplay’ and how misleading and flawed it is as a concept. Foreplay traditionally describes something which is the precursor to sex. But what is sex?

Personally I think of sex in terms of sexual satisfaction with a partner (or partners ~ I’ve read this blog). In this model I would see it as something that involves an orgasm. But what if you can be sexually satisfied without an orgasm? (I have heard such people exist). And do both people have to have an orgasm or just one?

I have no answers.

Given access to each other, my husband and I probably have sex around five times a week and we have been fucking for 12 years. This adds up to a fair amount of sex. But actual penetration – classic penis in vagina stuff – plenty of what we do involves or concludes that way and a great deal doesn’t.

I don’t orgasm from penetration alone, so perhaps that is why fucking is an element of my sex life but not the focus. My husband is also not interested in isolated penetration – if we have limited time he will almost certainly choose abstinence over a simple fuck. So in that sense foreplay is everything to us, which is why I don’t like the implications that it is ‘just’ the starter.

We are both oral-centric. Kissing, licking, sucking – we live in a grown up sexy lollipop shop.

If he kisses and bites me all over for so long that when he puts his fingers on my clitoris I come immediately, is that foreplay?

If I fuck him with my strap-on, is that foreplay?

If he straps me down, spanks me, and fucks my arse with a dildo, is that foreplay?

These are all things we have done this week, and yet we only had penetrative sex once. Include the 69 and that is only one in four.

Blowjobs seem to be in the middle of the Venn Sex Diagram for a lot of people. You have penetration on one side and foreplay on the other but for a lot of people a blowjob means both – this is all down to Bill Clinton, everyone had that discussion.

But somehow, the feminist in me rails against the idea that if just the man has an orgasm it’s sex but if just the woman has an orgasm it is foreplay. Because this would mean the male orgasm trumps the female.

What I don’t like about the expression is that it gives virgins, new lovers, or even bad lovers the idea that anything before the penetration is merely a waiting room for the main event.

There is a lot more to sex than in and out.

If you don’t already follow @EasilyTempted, you definitely should. She also has an incredibly sexy Tumblr where she collects pictures of people doing the good stuff.

Heresy though it is – I don’t really like it.

I don’t actively dislike it, and if you want me to sit on your face I will no doubt have quite a pleasant time. Ultimately what you’re doing is tonguing my clit, which is better than a kick in the teeth. But there’s something missing – your cock.

It sounds a bit dull, but my actual fetish (in the strictest sense of ‘can’t properly get off without it’) is your cock. I want it to be hard, and in me – I don’t care where. My mouth, my ass, my cunt – plunge it into one of my armpits and hump till you’re spent for all I care. But for me to have a good time it has to be hard and more or less in me.

And so getting head is usually a bit frustrating. It’s pleasant, it ticks most of the boxes and stimulates the nerve endings that matter, but there’s just something missing. In a contest between two otherwise equal guys, one of whom was offering to tongue me until I saw stars, and the other who was offering to fuck my mouth and then push me out of a window, I’d go for the latter, no question.

Getting head just doesn’t, as a rule, do it for me.

The bit that contradicts that bit I’ve just written

I feel like this would fall a bit flat if I didn’t give you some sort of detail – it’s quite a dull opinion, after all – so I’ll admit that there was one guy who gave head that made me drool. OK, not just drool – writhe and moan and whimper and squirm and sigh and come.

I had no idea why – at the time I couldn’t work out what the hell it was that made his mouth so much more worth having there than anyone else’s. Having had time to reflect on it I’d hazard that part of the reason was that he made a point of it. It wasn’t a cursory thing. He wasn’t bending down and licking as a short prelude to sex, a ‘do I have to do this?’ reciprocation of the head I’d given him – he lay between my legs, he got comfy, and most importantly (I think) he settled the fuck down.

That definitely made me relax and enjoy it more, but it still didn’t really explain why what he was doing felt so different. I enjoyed it partly because I knew he was in it for the long haul, but partly because I was genuinely enjoying the sensation.

I’m so ineloquent on this subject. I’m stumped. I have no idea what a boy can do with his mouth that makes a girl go crazy – I have no idea what, specifically, he was doing that made me so happy. But that’s OK – I don’t know everything. Luckily, there’s always the option to draft in the experts.

If you’ve never emailed an ex to say “hey, you did this thing that was fucking spectacular and I have no idea why or how, would you mind writing about it so I can publish it on (oh by the way I write) a sex blog?” then you definitely should. It wields spectacular results.

Ladies and gents, I give you Number 10:

I give my best head when I’m really turned on, and it’s largely intuitive/instinctual at that point. In order to stay at that maximum-hardness level of turned on for a decent length of time I need some sort of stimulation to my cock. Sixty-nine-ing or her having a hand free are obviously good (although if I’m doing it properly she won’t be coherent enough to stay focused on what she’s doing) but if I want her to be able to just relax and enjoy it I find lying face down with my weight on my cock suffices.

Here’s my theory on why it works, though I could be wrong. I thought before that it had something to do with equivalence of nerve endings – that you can see the connection between a guy’s cock and a girl’s clit, and imagine that one is the other – I don’t think that was quite right. I now think it’s more to do with being able to tap into the rhythm and intensity drives associated with being fully erect and stimulated. I’d guess what I’m doing with my tongue is following the same tempo as my cock would be, if it were there.

So there you go. But don’t take my word for it – or indeed his. Everyone’s different, which is what makes the world such a fascinating and disgusting and horrifying and excellent place. You might do it differently and have your ladyfriend squirming with the unrestrained delight of a kid in a Christmas-themed sweetshop. You might be a girl who can’t come without at least 45 minutes of good, solid, selfless head.

I just happen to be one of those who, barring extremely specific circumstances, can probably take it or leave it. But you know what? That’s OK.

It means that if you like it we can do it and have fun, and if you don’t like it you can sit back and recline while I take your dick right to the back of my throat, safe in the knowledge that you won’t have to reciprocate with anything more than a pat on the ass and a ‘good girl’ when I’m done.