First, I must apologize. I ramble when I'm nervous and I'm quite nervous, as I'm a big fan of yours, and my girlfriend—the lady I'm writing about—is too, but maybe her seeing this will help.

So, I've had a pretty weird sex life. I'm a repeated male victim of rape, and as a fat guy who grew up very poor and surrounded by rich kids, I viewed pretty much every good, consenting sexual encounter as probably the last one I'd ever have unless I rocked at it. So I'd always been all about my partner's pleasure, no matter what it takes—if they like, it maybe they'll come back.

It worked for a long time. My late teens and early 20s were full of loving relationships and a great sex life. Then, when I turned 22, my longtime girlfriend sort of lost her mind. Not in the way guys talk about women being crazy, but actually beating me with objects and raping me when I couldn't resist anymore—that degree of crazy. When I managed to get free, I left, but my sex drive died. I didn't date. I didn't flirt (which is hard for me to not do, as to this day I'm still fat and poor, but I pride myself on being charming). I didn't even masturbate for a few years. When I decided to get back into dating, I was unemployed, living with my mother, in the worst shape of my life, and in therapy for trying to get used to being touched again.

I went the online route, through gaming and dating sites, and through three disastrous online relationships (including one where the 22-year-old girl ended up being a 34-year-old married man), I finally ended up with a woman I'd call the love of my life. I moved across the country for her and don't regret it—things are mostly pretty great!

But there's the bedroom.

She's a good lover. I love the intimacy and I love, well, being with someone I love. It's much better than being with a willing body. There are snafus and struggles here and there, but the issue comes down to the title of this e-mail: I will be 30 years old in eight months. Between serving my lovers and being raped, I have no idea what a blowjob feels like. I don't know if she finds them gross—I'm not circumcised and I figured that was the issue, but I'm very, very clean, and she says she doesn't care, but she just doesn't want to do them. She's cited a sensitive gag reflex as one of the main reasons, but, well, I'm not exactly John Holmes. Or even remotely close. Frankly, I've seen her eat corn dogs that put me to shame. We've spoken to a couple's therapist, who, on the side, encouraged me to stray to find out what it was like because "every man deserves good head at some point," despite us telling her that we are monogamous. Upon telling that to my girlfriend, well, let's just say we only talk to the therapist together now.

I basically am just trying to find someone's advice. The relationship is monogamous, and I love her to death, but she's said, flatly, no blowjobs ever, and I don't know if I'm putting an overemphasis on how good/important they are, but I'd also like to know for myself at least one time. What should I do?

Basic Longing Or What

My response after the jump...

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There were a lot of distressing/depressing details in your letter, BLOW, but this was the detail that really blew my mind: Your girlfriend was willing to keep seeing the couple's therapist who advised you to cheat on her.

Wow.

Okay: Let's just set aside your traumatic history (good on you for getting help), your economic situation (props to your parents for letting you live with them), and your weight (love yourself, dude). Set all that aside and what are we left with? A classic "price of admission" conflict: You would like to have at least one blowjob before you die—one measly blowjob—but the girl with whom you want to spend the rest of your life refuses to blow you. And cheating is out of the question. So one of you will have to pay the price of admission, BLOW. You'll have to go without ever experiencing great head in order to keep her (your POA) or she'll have to either blow you (and I promise you that won't be great head) or give you permission to get blown elsewhere (the odds of that head being better are higher, of course, but I still can't promise you that the head will be great).

There's no compromise position here, no middle ground, no half-a-loafjob. You've issued dueling ultimatums and one of you is going to pay the price of admission, aka "lose."

You mentioned that your girlfriend is a fan, BLOW, which means you were probably hoping I would fix this for you by ordering your girlfriend to blow you. But I'm not going to do that. Because that would be wrong—if blowjobs aren't something your girlfriend wants to do, BLOW, your options are to accept that fact or break up with her (enlisting a strange gay man to order her to blow you isn't an option)—and because the head she would give you under duress/under orders would be so far from great head that it wouldn't solve your problem.

UPDATE: I want to second what avast2006 had to say in the comment thread:

On the other hand, you have to balance that with the fact that you might discover, after having dumped her in order to obtain the freedom to experiment, that blowjobs might not even be your thing. Some people don't find them all that wonderful, regardless of the skill of the person giving it. If she is really fabulous in bed in all sorts of other ways, this might turn out to be a really bad bargain. Be advised accordingly.

Blowjobs are way overhyped, in my opinion, and not all guys love head—not even when the person giving 'em head possesses mad skills, as the kids say/said.