Is It Wrong to Cheat on a Man that Doesn’t Go Down On You?

Obviously not, right?

Hey, I know how this sounds. Everybody hates cheaters. I just want to ask the question: how is a person in a monogamous relationship supposed to deal with her partner’s lack of interest in her pleasure?

As a feminist I feel a great amount of pressure to have an egalitarian sex life. But when you live in a patriarchal society, things get complicated. It’s not as simple as demanding that your man eat you out, because what if he genuinely doesn’t like it? Besides the fact that it’s his body and his choice, I take no pleasure in unenthusiastic and disinterested oral sex. I don’t get off, as some people do, at making someone do something they don’t want to for my benefit alone. And, besides, just because he doesn’t go eat at the Y, doesn’t mean he isn’t worth being with. There is so much that goes into a good relationship, and so much that goes into good sex, for that matter. Sure, he doesn’t go down on you, but you enjoy what he does do.

Or, at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

I am a woman that grew up as a Low Value Female, groomed since childhood to deny my needs and wants for a man’s ego and pleasure, convinced that I was never worth the trouble of being pleased. When I did try to speak up, I would lose my nerve at any push back from my male partners. It was just easier to relinquish any personal preferences and I found the habit stuck for many years. And men were all too happy to take advantage of my conditioning, further entrenching it. To this day, after so much work on my traumas and emotional scarring, I still find I lose my words at the slightest bit of perceived resistance.

So is it so strange that the temptation to go outside the relationship, to find something that will make up for the lack, hounds me? It breaks my heart that I have used cheating in the past as a perverse way of saving my relationships. The sad combination of not wanting to be a bother to the person I love and respect, and not wanting to be denied something that is, realistically, not unreasonable to ask for. Obviously, it always ended with losing the relationship I was trying to keep.

Determined to not repeat my mistakes, I sought answers as to why men don’t culturally care about their female partner’s pleasure. I wasn’t satisfied with “men are pigs” or “they are just more selfish naturally” explanations, because I love men and have seen how capable they are of empathy and attentiveness, even the ones that ignore women’s sexual satisfaction!

And I think I got it. If you’ve heard my podcast you know how much I have studied men’s sexuality, so let me lay it out for you now:

I realize that not all women give blow jobs, but I’m going to bet that more women know how to suck a cock well than men who know how to eat pussy well. Because if she doesn’t know how to give great blow jobs, there is hardly a man out there that isn’t eager to show her exactly how to do it. It is only “natural” for a woman to be inexperienced; in fact, it’s preferable that she is sexually ignorant. A woman’s lack of knowledge further eases a manly man’s performance anxiety.

Men are conditioned to not ask when laying pipe “Am I doing this right?” or “Do you like that?” or “How can I make it better?”; and that’s not their fault. We demand that men be sure of themselves even when they really, really shouldn’t be. The “natural authority of manhood” is sold to them, promising that all that anxiety, all those feelings of inadequacy, of not measuring up, will be eased and eventually completely go away if they just pretend that they are ‘naturally’ more competent. They frame it as a birthright, that because you were blessed with a dick, you have the right to lead. Even if you don’t have a good head on your shoulders.

If a man doesn’t know how to please a woman, he probably isn’t going to ask a woman. That would be showing too much vulnerability. And, let’s be honest, too many women have also bought into the “natural authority of manhood”. The idea that he would be unsure and looking for guidance threatens the girly girl’s sense of order, and he is punished. (Just another example of how the patriarchy hurts men, right?)

But is it my responsibility to sit quietly in horny isolation because they were raised to fear the learning from women? Especially when I give great blow jobs. I fully embrace my duty and obligation to inform and educate, yet I can only lead a horse to water, I can’t make him lap it up with real enthusiasm. A man needs to go in good faith to the body of knowledge and allow himself to be shown where the good spots are. If he doesn’t rise to the occasion, then the throne of masculinity the man sits on becomes just a bench that they won’t get up off of.

As a feminist I believe my worth is equal to a man's, and just as I want my trauma to be tenderly considered and my bad habits forgiven, so too must I do the same to my male partner. Nothing can be healed if I choose to selfishly avoid difficult problems.

So, no, it isn’t ok to cheat, even when it’s challenging. Sometimes you have to keep communicating even when it inflames the scars left by thoughtless, unworthy idiots. And, if they show you that they aren’t willing or able to heal, sometimes it’s better to walk away than to destroy a person’s trust in you.

If they’re worth it, they’ll come around. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself.