I am a 44-year-old male—very hetero I am a ...

I am a 44-year-old male?very hetero. I have had several sexual partners, but have had monogamous relationships at times. I've always enjoyed good sex and believe that an important aspect of lovemaking is empathy for one's partner. It doesn't work if your partner is selfish, which brings me to my problem.

I met her at a Buster Keaton revival. She was an I'll-call-you type who refused to give me her phone number. She took mine, eventually called, and we started dating. She'd been married twice before and said her second husband had turned her on to the joys of oral sex, which she loved receiving. One night, after a few dates, our kissing became passionate, and we proceeded into her bedroom. After some initial resistance, she allowed me to undress her, but said she felt it was too early in our relationship for intercourse. I brought her off with my hand, but she didn't reciprocate. I decided to give her another chance on our next date when she asked me to give her head, which she would only refer to as "oral sex." (She had a cold attitude about verbal expression and asked me to use only clinical terms like "penis" and "vagina.")

After a few minutes of eating her out I got very excited and wanted to fuck. She wanted me to stop, so I asked her how I was going to get off. "Use your hand," was her cold reply.

She was very irritable the next morning, and so I left without saying goodbye. When she called a few days later, she seemed surprised that I had been annoyed. She wants to go out again! I told her no, but she doesn't seem to understand what she did wrong. I'm not crazy, am I?

?Bill

No, you are not crazy?she's a selfish bitch with problems. Screen your calls.   My pal Beau had a very similar experience recently. A couple weeks ago, he told me about a great girl he'd met. She was pretty, smart, funny, and though she was a bit too must-see-tv for his taste, she seemed like a go. We were optimistic that he'd found, if not the next Mrs. Beau, at least someone to roll around naked with. And roll around naked they did. Being a wholesome type, Beau has trouble with the idea of actual intercourse on the first date, so instead he went down on Ms. Thing. (Confidential to Beau: How is burying your face in someone's snatch less intimate than sticking your dick in her?) After 30 minutes of administering oral pleasures, he looked up and politely asked when he might expect his. "I don't give head?that's disgusting," she snapped.

Remarkably, my friend Denise informed me that she was having the same problem with her boyfriend (except in reverse). Suddenly I was residing in a world gone mad! Denise's young studmonkey informed her that blowjobs were one thing (and a very good thing at that), but venturing below 14th St.?when who-knows-whose penis had been in there before him?was a no-go.

I've been lucky. Very few men in my life have been reluctant to dive the muff. The first was the Mick Jones lookalike (the Clash, not Foreigner) over whom I obsessed throughout high school. As an older man of 23, he didn't give me a second glance until I'd left my teen years. (Come to think of it, that in itself is kind of weird.) Once I was safely in my twenties, we got together one enchanted evening. I couldn't believe it?my teen dream was finally coming true! And dream it was?until he made it clear that he'd no intention of fucking me because he wasn't in love with me (freak!) and that he fully expected me to clean his pipes, though he had no intention of returning the favor. I figured this out before I liplocked him, and gave it a pass.

So, mostly, I've been lucky, at least in that way. It's wrong-headed enough to think that oral-genital contact is somehow sick, depraved or fucked up, but it's even worse when you have no qualms about letting your partner go where you're unwilling. In fact, it is clearly stated on page 69 of the Great Sex Rulebook that if you expect to receive it, you should be willing to perform it.

Erm, okay, except for rimming. I leapt about a foot in the air the first time a guy jammed his tongue up my pooper. I can't say it wasn't pleasurable, but my anxiety at what he might be tasting back there over-rode any fun I might've been having. And I'm an oft-showered girl! As far as reciprocating that goes, I've seen the skivvies of some of the hygienically challenged boys I've dated. This girl ain't going there.