`Going Down': Oral Sex, Imaginary Bodies and HIV

In Search of (Better) Sexual Pleasure: Female Genital ‘Cosmetic’ Surgery

“…The inclusion of such concepts fits with Frank's (2003) observation of an 'inflation of the language of pain' around medicine to include such psychological concepts. 7 In my data, this negative psychological response to appearance often resulted, via other psychological responses like anxiety or self-consciousness, in an inability to 'receive' oral sex from a male partner, an account which fits with women's reports of various genital anxieties, particularly around oral sex (Braun and Wilkinson, 2003;Reinholtz and Muehlenhard, 1995;Roberts et al, 1996). Women's reports of genital anxiety reflect a range of negative sociocultural representations of women's genitalia (Braun and Wilkinson, 2001), and it seems some women 'live these [negative] cultural meanings in their embodiment' (Roberts et al, 1996: 119).…”

Oral Sex, Young People, and Gendered Narratives of Reciprocity

“…In interviews with young women and men at two U.S. universities, they found male students framed orgasms for their girlfriends as "important" and a "responsibility," but they did not emphasize this for hookups. Similar distinctions were made by male university students in an earlier Australian study (Roberts et al, 1996) where oral-vulva contact with "steady girlfriends" was framed to some extent as "a required part of 'modern' and 'enlightened' sexual experience" (though with little mention of pleasure), but such a "duty" was not necessary with "casual partners" (p. 110).…”

“…'outside' yourself, it has to be constructed as 'dirt'" (p. 177). While distaste about using one's mouth characterizes both men's and women's accounts of giving oral sex (Burns, Futch, & Tolman, 2011;Duncombe & Marsden, 1996;Roberts et al, 1996), the particular emphasis on contamination in men's accounts may relate to popular constructions of women's bodies as leaky, uncontained, and "abject" (Kristeva, 1982), and vulvas, vaginal secretions, and menstrual blood as associated with filth and disease (Roberts et al, 1996). The pervasive negativity about vulvas may also contribute to some women's ambivalence about receiving oral sex (Braun & Kitzinger, 2001).…”

Stability and Change in Sexual Practices among First-Year Australian University Students (1990–1999)

“…The very fact that we we were able to ask about it could be seen as evidence for its greater acceptability in recent years, as earlier studies were not explicit about what practices were covered by terms such as "petting." However, Roberts, Kippax, Spongberg, & Crawford (1996), after interviewing 73 university students in depth about sexual practice, found considerable ambivalence about cunnilingus: "although giving oral sex to women was seen by the university students . .…”