Photo via Wikimedia Commons

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy I'm a 31-year-old, married, heterosexual man and I don't like to eat pussy. It's something that I don't do and that I have always tried to avoid in the past. When I was asked to write this piece, I felt like a kind of rare bird – though I'm sure I'm actually not. I am also not afraid of being called a jerk by women who will get personally offended by this article or will be quick to judge that I don't like vaginas.

That is not true, and it is also not true of all the other straight men who, like me, do not perform oral sex. I love vaginas – I just don't like licking them. I know a lot of guys who don't take pleasure in that act either, but of course there are also a lot of guys who think I'm an asshole. Then there are those who do not enjoy it, but still do it out of gratitude or a sense of obligation.

Unlike the girl who doesn't like to give blowjobs, there are no moral principles behind my choice. The reasons that push me to steer clear of cunnilingus have nothing to do with trauma, latent homosexuality or a need to assert my masculinity. Take any porn content aggregator. At the moment, I have RedTube open in front of me. Doing a quick search, I find 5,542 videos in the "Blowjobs" category and only 1,547 in the "Licking Pussy" category – most of which feature girls who appear moved by mutual feelings of affection towards each other. Obviously a search of this kind does not have great statistical value and cannot be representative of the sexual activities of all heterosexual males. But it certainly has some significance: If you're looking for something to masturbate, you watch a simple blowjob. Why? Because it is decisively better.

I've tried to enjoy going down on someone and occasionally I still try it to see if something has changed over time – maybe, I think, it's like when you've spent your whole life not eating a certain thing and then you suddenly realise you like it. This has just not been the case with me and pussy.

The first time I did it was obviously a disaster. She was unjustly better looking than I was and the first girl whose clothes I managed to take off. For fear she would stop me or change her mind, I limited myself to shifting her knickers to one side. I had watched enough porn to be convinced I knew how to do it and threw myself in with enthusiasm. It tasted slightly rusty (and I remember thinking that exact word) and, after I spent some time trying, unable to hold my breath any longer, I gave up.

I don't want to get too deep into the phallocentric philosophy that lies at the foundations of our sexual education, but I need to add that my decision to avoid oral sex was never an insurmountable problem: Apart from the initial disappointment, once I made the girl come in some other way, things seemed absolutely fine. Like most humans, I too have a sense of smell and that's he first drawback. I never liked the smell, regardless of the level of hygiene a girl possessed. Additionally, performing oral sex on a woman also forces you into an awkward position. An uncomfortable one, to be precise. "If I don't have my neck at the right angle I get neck pain", someone explains on Reddit. "There's no real comfortable position".

The situation, as far as I'm concerned, does not improve from an anatomical point of view. The female body is a combination of marvellous features: the curves, the breasts, the softness of the hips, the smooth skin... but the vulva is not so great. It is a wound in an otherwise perfect whole.

And if it weren't already hard enough to have it splattered against your face – with your nose pointing directly to the centre of the stench – the vagina is also a nightmare to handle with your mouth. While with your hands you can be more reactive, when your head is squashed between someone's thighs it is impossible to really control what's going on and your partner's reactions – managing to do both at the same time is superhuman.

Most importantly, however, women are absurdly demanding when it comes to oral sex. The penis is a simple thing – it's hard to get things completely wrong. On the other hand, each woman has her own unique way of receiving and appreciating oral sex, as well as very specific requests.

It is practically impossible to get over a bad session of oral sex. Do not even try to say things like "I appreciate the effort". Any man who's failed at satisfying a woman orally knows that means you're instantly out of the game. So I just prefer to avoid the area of potential disappointment altogether and receive blowjobs instead. Yes, to me blowjobs are a fundamental part of the sexual intercourse game.

You might be thinking I am lazy or ungrateful. I like to think that I am simply averse to letting women down. Going down on a woman requires a combination of talents that I do not posses, and so I have decided to dedicate myself to other things. To rounder and perfumed parts, suitable to being penetrated by protuberances other than the tongue.