Scarleteen

Hello my bf and I have been together for 2 years now and we are so in love and very happy he's my best friend and I am his. For about a year now my bf had noticed my negative reactions when it comes to my turn going down on him and I've always denied it, but he would say I look unhappy or I sigh like I want it to be over and he says it makes him feel bad which is not what I want to do. My bf is very giving he always takes care of me first no matter how long it takes and he enjoys it so when he tells me this I feel like a selfish person. So a few months back I decided to do some soul searching to figure out where these negative emotions are coming from and I thought back to my last serious relationship with the guy who was my first love and first everything he really damaged me in a lot of ways when It comes to sex which I often wrote to you guys about during the time we were together but then I thought about how it was like to give him head and I remember it starting out okay I didn't mind doing it but over time that's all he asked of me or told me to do and he would neglect me I often referred to him as a selfish lover he also made me feel degraded giving him head would have been a problem if he didn't make it feel like a chore and if he didn't forget about me sometimes he would get head and go to sleep no sex or head for me in return and this is the first guy I've been with at the time so I've been conditioned horribly. So now I can understand why I react the way I do now towards my current bf when he ask if I can go down on him but it isn't fair to him and I feel bad but I think I have a secret fear about history repeating itself I'm scared that he'll like it so much that he will only request that of me and he will no longer be the generous lover he is now. Then on the other hand I'm kind of being a selfish lover by not giving him head by neglecting his needs and I dnt want to be that gf I want to be just as selfless and generous but I dnt know how to let go of this resentment towards the idea of giving head and the fear I have. I want to have a mutual relationship I dnt want to just take I want to give.

Hi naya,

I have a few thoughts. One is that the next step is to tell your boyfriend what your feeling and what the results of your soul searching were, so that the two of you are on the same page. Something that might help you, if you really want to perform oral sex on him, is to start slow and only have it be a once in a while thing, and be ready to stop if you get uncomfortable while doing it.

It also helps to realize that not wanting to do a specific act, regardless of the reason, does not make you a selfish love. Even of your not mirroring your boyfriend act for act (he goes down on you so you go down on him), odds are you're being a generous or thoughtful lover in other ways. There doesn't have to be perfect reciprocity for a sex life to be happy and balanced. Does that make sense?

It sounds like you could also benefit from a look at this piece: Reciprocity, Reloaded.

Just to hammer in what Sam said, think of sexual reciprocity more like this: let's say you love knitting, and are amazing at it. It's one of your favorite things to do. You also want to show your best friend how you feel about them, so you knit them a sweater.

Does that make your friend owe you a sweater? Nope. Does that mean that in order to show you that they value you, they have to try and make one, despite the fact that they don't like knitting? Nope. They could find a way to reciprocate your feelings and your gesture by doing something for you that they, like you, with knitting, enjoy and feel great at, whether that's making you a beautiful thank you card, writing you a song, or just being with you through a tough time: anything that feels like as much of a fit for them as knitting felt for you.

Or, they don't have to do any of those things: it would be no less gracious for them to simply thank you and appreciate your effort and the gesture.

We don't have to give something just because someone else does, especially since someone else probably isn't giving us something, or doing something for us, to "earn" anything from us: they're likely doing a thing because they want to do a thing as much for themselves as for us, because they like doing that thing, and because they simply are having a moment or time where that thing can be done in a way that also gives us something (remember: your partner doesn't sound like they feel the way about oral sex as you do, so it's not like they're making a sacrifice: when that's something someone likes to do, the person doing it is getting as much from it as the person on the other end). Make sense?