I'll go on record as being strongly in favor of pussy-eating, both as a receiver and as a giver. But unless I'm the guest speaker at a Cunnilinguists Anonymous meeting, I'd prefer to go the rest of my life without ever having a strange man begin an acquaintance with me by saying, "Hi, I'm [name], and I can eat pussy for hours."

You'd think this would be a modest request. Sadly, I've heard that exact pickup line far too often, and I have every expectation that I'll hear it again. Somewhere in the world, some guy is probably saying it to a woman right now. Or perhaps just staring at her and flicking his tongue wildly at the junction of his index and middle finger.

I've never heard any lesbians—the traditional champions of muff-diving—use this as a come-on. The oral prowess of lesbians is referenced, however, in the usual follow-up line, "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body," which is such an obnoxious cliché that, like the ironic-yet-not trucker hat, it's achieved high-camp status.

Since this line shows no signs of dying, let's dissect it. First of all: Come on—hours? Literally? I know how to eat cherry pie, but no way could I do it, straight on, for hours. I'd have to see some scientifically controlled endurance trials of that claim to believe it. And no, I am not volunteering to do them.

Second: I don't even want you to do it for hours. If you have any skill at all, 5 to 10 minutes is plenty. After that, I want to either do something else with you or just lie there in an exhausted heap and pant.

But maybe that's just me. So I took an unscientific poll of a dozen of my female pals: How long would you want your pussy eaten without stopping? (My patient friends are accustomed to my unusual party chitchat.) Survey says: 15 to 20 minutes, absolute max. "Five, at most," said one woman, and a few others echoed my preference for 5 to 10 minutes, then do something else, and maybe come back to it later for another round. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, two women said, "I'm not very into it at all." And everyone thought it was a dopey line.

Some male friends overhearing this conversation claimed they'd been with women who demanded hours of oral. But all the stories were about "oh, this woman I used to date, no one you know," which made the marathon-pussy-eating stories seem a little—dare I say it?—fishy.

Seriously, though: I know guys who say this actually mean, "If you get naked with me, I'll strive to create a good sexual experience for you." That's an idea I endorse. But please, save the tongue wagging until I show you something to eat, all right? recommended