“The problem I have with blowjobs,” a friend once confided, “is that guys expect to get them.”

There’s no introductions, no attempt at seduction, no “would you like to try this?” at all. One moment you’re making out in the back seat of his dad’s Subaru, and the next he’s holding his dick expectantly straight with one hand, and the other’s propelling your face down to meet it. And, if you shake your head free and bob back up to eye level, he’s looking at you with such surprise, like he can’t believe you spurned him like that.

I’m not so sure that I would use the word “expect,” though. We expect to wake up in the morning. We expect to get gouged at the gas pump. We expect the doctor to ask if we’ve cut down on smoking, and remind us that there are some very good cessation programs we could try. Life is full of inevitabilities, and those are the things we expect.

Do men regard blowjobs as an inevitability? Or is it more of an overwhelming hopefulness which they will try to fulfill at every available opportunity, while deep down expecting to be disappointed again?

Are we the ones who take the next seemingly logical step? Is that sense of expectation bred in our own minds, not men's?

I love surveys. I love thinking of questions that I’ve never had answered, and then cornering friends with my ruthless demands. I love tabulating their answers, to see what comes out. And, the answer to that question, my (admittedly smaller than I hoped for) polling reveals is, “no they don’t,” and “yes we do.”

The next question is, why?

We’ll skip over the first half of the equation. Why do you think? The second half is trickier, though. Growing up female, we learn a lot about expectations. We watch mom go about her daily routine, and those things sink into our minds as a glimpse into our own future. We watch other people’s moms on television, and ditto. We find role models on prime time, in movies and books, and it all falls into place. School added its own reinforcements (why did the guys never have to take domestic science classes?), and of course magazines would be stuffed with all the helpful advice a girl could require as she begins her journey towards womanhood.

Still, I don’t remember reading or hearing a single word in any of that about having to suck a guy’s cock.

Dating raises its head - first in your head and then, very tentatively, in reality. Giggling in the bathroom about all the things we’ve done (or, at least, that we want our friends to think we’ve done). “Hands like an octopus... he kisses like a dream... his parents are away this weekend... first base, second base... I love him [so] much, I’d do anything for him.”

Anything?

Because now you’re back in the Subaru, and that hand is on your head....

Well, almost anything.

I wasn’t surprised the first time it happened, and I must admit I wasn’t exactly reluctant, either. Somewhere down the line, somewhere in those whispered conversations with girlfriends, you hear about most of the things “that boys like." And, while a lot of it is simply hearsay, you file it away with the heart-pounding hope that your boy will like it, too.

Boys like to touch your breasts.

Boys like to put their hand between your legs.

Boys like hickies.

All of which is fine, because girls like those things, as well. Half of what we talked about in the bathrooms involved breasts, hands, and hickies, and if we were lucky enough to give a guy one, we’d make sure it was in the most prominent place we could reach, so that everyone else could see it.

However, then the conversation turns to other things that boys like. Now someone will say “ewwww,” someone will say “never,” and someone else will say “the problem I have is...,” and we’re back to the beginning of this article, only now we are seeing things in a different light. I hope. “The problem I have with blowjobs is that girls thinkguys expect them.”

Why do they think that? Because all those other things, those other bases, are ones that we’ve absorbed through all our other “researches.” We’ve seen our parents kiss, and people do it on television all the time. We’ve read in teenage romances of “the tingling delight as his hand cupped my breast.” Also, hickies are just a badge of ownership, like writing your name on your CDs in a thick black Sharpie, or “if lost, please return to...” on the front page of your journal.

Blowjobs, though, are one of those things that you only really discover when you’re out in the wild -- away from mom’s stumbling explanation of the birds and the bees, and [italics|name your favorite teenaged magazine]’s breathless “he looked into my eyes and it felt like a kiss.” Adrift from the heaving bosoms and warm caresses of the paperback series you took out of the library. Separate even from the thing that you know condoms are for, because they, at least, have been referenced in your more mature reading.

Blowjobs are reality, however grim.

Boys, on the other hand... boys know about these things way before we do, and I hope that sometime soon, a male SexIs contributor will set down precisely how they find out. I do remember, still at High School, borrowing a horror novel from a friend’s brother. I think it was by James Herbert; I think it involved some kind of primal, evil monster rampaging through a tiny town, and killing two teens in a movie house.

What I do remember, clear as day, is the autopsy scene that followed the slaughter, as the coroner inspected the contents of the dead girl’s stomach and announced (for no medical reason that I can think of) that she had recently given her boyfriend the greatest gift a girl could give a man. Why do I remember this? (A) Because I didn’t know what it meant, and (b) because the book’s owner had highlighted it in neon yellow. This suggested that not only did he know what it meant, but also that the idea so intrigued him that he needed to create a permanent reminder of it.

The greatest gift? Now, what could a girl possibly offer her boyfriend in the dark of the movie house that would then be detectable in the contents of her stomach?

Ah. I figured it out. And the clouds begin to part. Especially if that’s how all guys think, which I believe it probably is. “The greatest gift.” She might do one thing, she might do another... but when she does that, that’s when you know she’s serious.

We are more practical. We think of the mechanics, and all that’s involved, and - at least until we know what we’re doing - there’s a reason why they’re called blowjobs. For him, though, if we want to get a little more poetic than the average young man is likely to, it’s not about expectation. It’s about togetherness, for what could be more intimate than that? It’s about security, for what says “I love you” louder than a gulp? And it’s about being horny and having something to masturbate over for weeks to come, but that’s beside the point. Remember that Meatloaf song, “I’ll Do Anything For Love, But I Won’t Do That”? Never sing it to your boyfriend in the back seat of a car.

That’s how guys look at it, and, seriously, what man (or woman, for that matter) wouldn’t want to experience a moment of such unconditional communion? At every possible opportunity? But, if he’s too polite to ask (and let’s be honest, grunting “blow me” really doesn’t fall into the same poetic arena), then a gentle gesture will have to suffice.

The hand on the back of your head. The cock held expectantly straight. While you’re poised, staring at it, with one question in your mind.

Gift? Or gross?

It all depends upon what you’re expecting....