Oral Arguments

I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble for what I'm about to write. Many of my fellow men are going to be none too pleased with me for this. But my conscience compels me, consequences be damned.

'Cause, guys, let's face it, we've gotten a free ride on this deal for some time now. But fair is fair.

Girls -- eyes up here. Stop texting your friends, what I'm about to tell you is important.

Ladies, whoever it was that convinced you that a blowjob was some kind of compromise, that it was some kind of way to dodge a bullet and not have to have sex... whoever told you that PULLED ONE OVER ON YOUR ASSES.

Think about it for a second -- we've got a Mexican standoff. I want to have sex. You don't. So how 'bout this, we'll meet in the middle and you'll put my penis in your mouth!?

How, exactly, is that a compromise?

I don't know who your representatives were at the summit meeting where this was decided; I don't know whose signature is affixed to the bottom of the "Blowjob Accords," but whoever it was let you down. These were not good-faith negotiations.

Now, don't get me wrong, we men are pretty happy with the way this turned out. I dare say the notion that a blowjob is viewed as a compromise when we want to have sex and you don't is quite possibly the greatest thing Man has ever created.

But enough is enough.

Despite the image you may have of me based on some of my jokes, I actually am a feminist. I believe in equality of the sexes. I have nothing but respect and admiration for you silly bitches.

Oh, come on! I'm just kidding!

I don't respect you. I want to, but how can I when you were gullible enough to fall for this premise?

Okay, so now that I've shined a light on this issue, let me get to the part that's gonna get me in real trouble. Guys, you know where I'm going with this. I can see some of you out there, shaking your heads, "Don't do it, man!" But don't you see, we're all living a lie.

What I'm about to type is the biggest dirty little secret in the entirety of the gender wars. Pay attention, ladies, because I'm about to give you the plans to the Death Star.

Not only is the blowjob-in-lieu-of-having-sex scheme a lousy compromise, I submit that it's not actually a compromise at all!!

That's right, and here's why: In every situation, every time it's come up, every guy in the history of guys would rather get a blowjob than have sex. Always. Without question. Hands down.

(Now, usually, when I talk about "all guys," I'm using it as shorthand to refer to straight guys. But in this particular case, I actually mean ALL guys. Even gay guys. Especially gay guys. Isn't inclusion wonderful?)

The best thing that can happen at the end of a date -- the absolute best case scenario -- is as follows:

GIRL: Wow, I really like you. I don't wanna move too fast, though. I'm just not there yet... but maybe this will hold you over.

*UN-ZZZZZZIIIIP*

*GULP!*

That's a touchdown with a two-point conversion, that right there.

Now, girls, if you ask your boyfriend about this, he'll probably deny it. But don't be fooled; he's only trying to preserve this sham for his own benefit.

The reasons a blowjob is better than sex are many.

In terms of how they feel, it's basically a push -- EXCEPT that most of you ladies aren't insisting on the condom for the blowjob (and who can blame you), so the edge in this category goes to the blowjob.

Doing battle with a condom might be the single worst part of being sexually active. There's all of the common anxieties:

"Did I put it on right?"
"Is it gonna slip or break?"
"Is it gonna choke the life out of my poor erection?"

But it gets so much worse. Guys, have you ever, when rolling a condom on, accidentally gotten some hair caught up your sheathing? And now it's pinned there, tugging excruciatingly every time you attempt to move. If our brave soldiers used this method to extract information from terror suspects, it would be universally decried as a violation of human rights.

And, ladies, in most cases, you may notice, the condom is lubricated on the outside. "For her pleasure." But inside? That's rubber-on-skin, baby! Every time I go to have sex, I have to weigh how badly I want to get laid against how little I want to endure a balloon burn on my wang.

The chance of procreation is another way in which the blowjob is better than sex. No man has ever been sued for child support for fathering "mouth babies."

(Just sayin'.)

The next way the blowjob is far superior to sex is performance pressure. Now, you girls can repeat all day long how these things don't matter to you, that it's pressure we put on ourselves... Well, that's all fine and good, but it doesn't make it any less real. And any guy who's ever put his penis inside a woman has wondered, at LEAST once, about his size and how long he was going to last.

So you see, once again, the blowjob reigns supreme. In fact, if a chick is going down on you, and you're slightly smaller than average, and bust your nut in under three minutes, you've actually done her a solid. She'll thank you for it.

Sex has a better publicist, to be sure. But for all its hype, sex is often complicated. And frustrating. And annoying. There are so many things that can go haywire, so many ways to be incompatible with someone. Will we be into the same things? Will we like the same positions? Will our bodies fit together well?

I remember this one girl, the first time we had sex, we were in the missionary position, which was appropriate since that's how we met -- I was bringing the Word of Christ to her people. So there I am, on top of her, basically perched in a push-up, and the second I enter her, she coos in my ear, "Play with me."

WHAT!? I just stopped for a second, looking at my hands, trying to figure out how I was supposed to make this happen. Surely I had misheard her. She didn't really expect me to do the Jack Palance. (If you don't get that reference, YouTube it, you'll laugh.)

"Play with me," she repeated. No, I had heard her correctly. And apparently she thought this was a reasonable request. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to manage this, so I froze.

She sensed the awkwardness, and attempted to defuse it. "Or no. Or no? Or... no."

Great! Now she was disappointed. Awesome.

But the more I thought about it, it pissed me off. Play with you? Play with YOURSELF! What are your hands doing!? I felt like I was carrying heavy boxes up the stairs, and she was asking me to tie her shoes. Tie your own fucking shoes! I'm busy here!

So she's having disappointed sex, and I'm having angry sex. Mercifully, it didn't last very long.

Then there was this other girl, the first time we had sex, as soon as I entered her, her hands shot up and latched onto my nipples. Hard, like jumper cables. Now, I'm not really into nipple play. Worse than that, I don't like it. I find it irritating, and not at all pleasurable.

But because this was her first move, she must have thought this was perfectly normal. The way I looked at it, one of three things was taking place:

1) Maybe she had some kind of nipple fetish, and was pretending she was milking me, or something.

2) Through sheer random chance, she'd been with a string of guys who were all into having their nipples assaulted.

3) One of the advice columnists at Cosmo thought it would be hilarious to write something like, "One thing that drives all men wild is when you try to peel their nipples off, like a sticker from a piece of fruit."

But what could I do? Say something, and make her self-conscious, ruining the session for both of us? Forever be the pussy she tells stories about who didn't want his nipples touched!? No, I just sucked it up, and had a lousy time.

And then there was the girl who wanted to constantly change positions. I'm not talking about slight variations, like legs up for a while, then legs down. I'm talking about fully disengaging, totally reorienting, and plugging back in.

"Oh, now do me like this!"
"Now let me get on top!"
"Over here, against the grandfather clock!"

It was like she thought she was competing on a reality show. "Now, for a $250,000, perform the entire Kama Sutra in under three minutes! Go!"

Make no mistake, I admired her enthusiasm. And I'm not saying I expect to just get to lay there like a tranqued-up lion. But I have to be allowed to settle into some kind of a groove. Little Arik will only put up with so many false starts before he's like, "You know what, guys? I think I'm gonna call it a night."

Now, I'm not complaining just for my sake in any of these scenarios. All three of these girls would have had a better time being with someone who was into the same things they were. But it's like Forrest Gump said: "Sex is like a box of chocolates. You never know when a girl is going to try and remove your nipples."

There's no way to know until you're there. But all of this awkwardness, you see, could have been avoided with a good ol' trusty blowjob.

With sex, there are just too many things that can go wrong. Too many factors have to line up, too many things have to go just right, or you're better off scrapping the entire launch, lest someone get seriously hurt.

I guess that's my ultimate point: For as complicated as it is, having sex is a lot like trying to launch the space shuttle.

Whereas, by contrast, getting a blowjob is a lot like sitting back and having someone suck on your dick.