Is It True That Most Men Don’t Like Eating Pussy?
- Hermes Solenzol
- 4 days ago
- 12 min read
What science says about the taste for oral sex of men and women
This writing was inspired by an article in Medium claiming that a majority of men don’t like eating pussy. It goes on to blame men for being entitled and treating women unfairly when having sex. And, if you disagree, this just proves that you are guilty of it — what it’s called a Kafka trap. This is part of a nasty habit in online discussions: turning a conversation about a general topic into an inquisition about the personal behavior of one of the speakers. Please, let’s try to avoid that.
I think it is important to address this issue because it is part of a belief popular these days: that men are selfish and malicious at sex.
Because of these ethical implications, it’s important to compare men’s attitudes towards oral sex with how much women like receiving and giving oral sex. To avoid confounds like the frequency of having sex, I will compare preferences for oral sex with preferences for penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse, the most stereotypical sexual act.
The evidence I will examine is from papers by the research group led by Debbie Herbenick, a professor at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, School of Public Health, Indiana University. I consider her one of the top sexologists in the USA. Her research consists mainly of examining sexual attitudes and behaviors, based on surveys.
How many men say that they like eating pussy?
The answer is given in this paper (Herbenick et al., 2017):
Sexual diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men. Herbenick, D., Bowling, J., Fu, T.J., Dodge, B., Guerra-Reyes, L. & Sanders, S. PLoS One. 2017. Issue 7. Pages e0181198.
The hyperlink is to the PDF of the whole paper.
This is a comprehensive study of the sexual preferences of American men (N=975) and women (N=1046). It examined a lot of sexual practices, including things like porn, spanking, threesomes, bondage and using sex toys.
Responders were 91% heterosexual, 2.8% bisexual and 3.6% homosexual. Therefore, the effect on the results of men-on-men and women-on-women oral sex should be small.
The paper has several multi-page tables listing a lot of different sexual practices. Table 5 lists the percentage of men and women that like a particular sexual activity. Two rows are devoted to receiving and giving oral sex, respectively, giving the percentages of men or women who found it very appealing, somewhat appealing, not appealing or not at all appealing.
Men giving oral sex: very appealing 41.3%, somewhat appealing 35.2%, not appealing 10.6%, not at all appealing 12.8%.
Women receiving oral sex: Very appealing 43.3%, somewhat appealing 29.7%, not appealing 10.3%, not at all appealing 16.7%.
Adding up the first and the last two numbers, we get that 76.5% of men like eating pussy, while 23.4% do not like eating pussy. Therefore, more than 3 out 4 men like eating pussy. Only 1 out of 4 do not like eating pussy, far from a majority.
Unexpectedly, the percentages of men who like and do not like giving oral sex closely match the percentages of women who like and do not like receiving it. While 73% of women like cunnilingus, 27% do not like it. This is a substantial number, especially considering that almost 17% do not like it at all!
How about giving and receiving blowjobs?
Men receiving oral sex: very appealing 60.5%, somewhat appealing 24.2%, not appealing 4.8%, not at all appealing 10.6%.
Women giving oral sex: very appealing 21.3%, somewhat appealing 36.6%, not appealing 20.0%, not at all appealing 22.1%.
Here, the differences between the sexes are quite striking. While a whopping 84.7% of men like getting blowjobs, only 57.9% of women like giving them. It’s still a majority of women, but here is where we find a significant mismatch in the sexes between givers and receivers of oral sex.
Let’s compare this with penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse
How much do people like old-fashion fucking?
Men: very appealing 72.8%, somewhat appealing 13.0%, not appealing 2.6%, not at all appealing 11.6%.
Women: very appealing 69.9%, somewhat appealing 19.7%, not appealing 3.5%, not at all appealing 7.0%.
Surprise! Women like PIV intercourse as much as men: 85.8% of men and 89.6% of women like it. The only difference is that men tend to like it more, while women tend to be a bit less enthusiastic about it. However, the percentage of women who dislike PIV (10.5%) is less than the number of men who dislike it (14.2%).
This is the opposite of what we have been hearing from radical feminists since the 70s: that women have PIV sex just to satisfy men’s desires.
“But wait!” you say. “Very few women orgasm from PIV intercourse!”
Another myth. I debunked it is this article:
It is true, however, that the percentage of women who orgasm from PIV intercourse, which is 54.6% (Herbenick et al., 2018), or 40%-60% of 25-54 years old women (Kontula and Miettinen, 2016), is smaller than the almost 90% of women who say they like it. Apparently, a woman does not need to experience orgasm during intercourse to like it. There is much more about fucking than cumming.
Comparing PIV with oral sex, women like PIV more than having their pussy eaten, 90% versus 73%. Men, however, like receiving blowjobs as much as PIV, 85% versus 86%.
How many men do actually eat pussy?
Okay, so that is what men say. How about what they actually do? Could some of them be lying?
Table 2 of the same paper has the answer. Here the data are more complex, because they are sorted between seven age groups and whether oral sex was practiced in the last month, last year, or in the lifetime. Lest ignore the lifetime data and examine data for the last month, first, and last year, second.
Men who gave oral sex in the last month
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 32.9, 50.7, 41.5, 34.0, 36.8, 21.7, 21.4
Mean = 34.0
Women who received oral sex in the last month
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 35.8, 48.1, 51.3, 34.7, 28.3, 17.0, 8.5.
Mean = 31.8
For men, pussy-eating peaks at 25-29 years and then declines with age. This is logical; people have less sex as they age. Also, older men may have more conservative attitudes towards sex. For this reason, using the mean value may be misleading. A slight majority of men (50.7%) at their sexual peak gave oral sex to women.
As expected, there is a good match between men giving and women receiving. The main discrepancies seem to occur at ages above 60. Older men give more oral sex than older women receive. Perhaps older men give oral sex to younger women?
Admittedly, less than a majority of men gave, and women received, oral sex in the last month.
How about the last year?
Men who gave oral sex in the last year
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 49.5, 69.4, 71.3, 67.9, 57.7, 42.3, 33.7.
Mean = 56.7
Women who received oral sex in the last year
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentage: 59.7, 69.5, 68.7, 54.9, 49.4, 27.7, 16.2.
Mean = 49.2
In this case, a majority of men gave, and women received, oral sex, up to 60 years of age. These are large percentages for people at their sexual peak, between 25 and 40.
Therefore, most men do eat pussy. It’s just that many of them do not do it all that often. However, they say they like doing it. Are they lying? No, I think that many do not have the opportunity to do it as often as they want. As we will see, a similar mismatch occurs between how much men like receiving blowjobs or having PIV intercourse, and how much of that they do get.
Again, there is a good match between the percentages of men that give and the percentages of women that receive oral sex up until 60. After that age, a lot of women stop receiving oral sex, while men still gave it. The opposite happens in the age group 18-24, where 10% more women received oral sex than men gave it. The explanation is likely that women tend to get oral sex from men older than them. What likely happens is not that men over 60 eat the pussy of women under 24, but that women get oral sex from men in older age groups, perhaps just a little older than them.
How many women give blowjobs?
Men who received oral sex in the last month
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 36.4, 66.0, 44.9, 42.4, 36.7, 27.9, 19.2
Mean = 38.4
Women who gave oral sex in the last month
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 44.7, 53.5, 53.0, 41.6, 31.9, 19.7, 8.0.
Mean = 35.7
While the means are not far apart, there is again a mismatch by age. Older men receive more blowjobs than older women are giving. I guess they are getting them from younger women. Maybe that’s why men 18-24 are getting fewer blowjobs.
The number of men that received blowjobs monthly (38%, on average) is just a little higher than the number of men that ate pussy (34%, on average). This doesn’t seem terribly unfair, especially considering that men like fellatio much more than women like cunnilingus.
Men who received oral sex in the last year
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 61.7, 76.1, 71.0, 75.1, 59.6, 46.2, 33.4.
Mean = 60.9
Women who gave oral sex in the last year
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 57.3, 76.4, 73.8, 63.0, 54.3, 27.4, 16.2.
Mean = 52.6
Again, more old men receive blowjobs than older women give. They may be getting them from younger women. However, this time this does not represent a loss in blowjobs by young men. They get their cocks sucked, just not as often.
Yearly, women get less cunnilingus (49%, on average) than they give fellatio (53%, on average). But, again, the differences are small.
How much PIV intercourse takes place?
Vaginal intercourse in the last month, men
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 39.3, 68.9, 63.2, 62.3, 49.1, 44.1, 37.2.
Mean = 52.1
Vaginal intercourse in the last month, women
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 52.1, 72.6, 77.3, 62.0, 52.8, 32.6, 14.6.
Mean = 52.6
Vaginal intercourse in the last year, men
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 53.3, 74.4, 74.9, 79.3, 65.6, 57.5, 50.6.
Mean = 65.8
Vaginal intercourse in the last year, women:
Ages (years): 18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70+
Percentages: 62.1, 83.6, 85.3, 74.2, 64.5, 39.3, 23.8.
Mean = 62.4
Women have more vaginal intercourse than men up to the age of 60, when it decreases substantially. This is not surprising, since older women have vaginal thinning that can make intercourse painful and dangerous (because of urinary tract infections and other problems).
Remarkably, women in the 18-24 age group have PIV intercourse more frequently (monthly figures) than men of the same age. This is matched by the higher intercourse rates of men over 60, which cannot be with women of the same age.
When we compare oral sex with PIV sex, the monthly figures for men are smaller for blowjobs: 34.4% received blowjobs and 52.1% performed PIV. Yearly, they are much closer: 60.9% oral and 65.8% PIV. Therefore, men get blowjobs, but not as often as they fuck.
As for women, 31.8% got cunnilingus compared to 52.6% that got PIV monthly, very similar to men. Yearly, 49.2% of women got cunnilingus compared to 62.4% that got PIV. Therefore, women get their pussy eaten less than they fuck. However, more women like PIV than cunnilingus, so this does not seem to be unfair.
Other studies on oral sex
There are two more papers from the Herbenick group with data about oral sex, but their results are similar to the ones I have given before.
The first one was published in 2010 (Herbenick et al., 2010), so the surveys were done one decade earlier.
The evolution of sexual tastes is the subject of the second paper, published in 2022 (Herbenick et al., 2022). Its main finding is that people in the USA are having less sex, not just vaginal intercourse, but also oral sex and other types of partnered sex. The only thing that increased was solo masturbation.
The percentage of adults who gave oral sex in the last year decreased from 65.3% in 2009 to 60.4% in 2018. Adults who received oral sex in the last year went from 67.1% in 2009 to 62.2% in 2018. For PIV intercourse, the numbers are 76.5% in 2009 and 71.9% in 2018. So, a decrease of 5% across the board.
Comparisons between genders in that study are quite limited.
There is no crisis of men not wanting to eat pussy
I think that the evidence is quite conclusive. A large majority of men (75%) say that they like giving oral sex. The percentage of men who do it on a regular basis — monthly — is much smaller (34%), but that includes men of all ages, 18 to 70+. Men at their sexual peak eat pussy much more often.
Besides, the mismatch between men wanting to do something and actually doing it also happens in other sexual activities, like getting blowjobs (60% want it, 38% got it in the last month), and PIV intercourse (73% want it, 52% got it in the last month). Or between women wanting vaginal intercourse (70% want it) and getting it (53% got it in the last month).
Like the Rolling Stones sang, “you can’t always get what you want.”
Something similar happens with women giving blowjobs: 60% of them say that they like doing it, but only 36% did in the last month. This is age-dependent: 53% women aged 35 to 40 performed monthly blowjobs. Yes, that’s more than men of the same age giving cunnilingus, but that doesn’t mean that men are being unfair, if you take into account that more men like receiving blowjobs (85%) than women like receiving cunnilingus (73%). And, for 27% of women, having their pussy eaten is a hard limit.
Why do men who want to eat pussy do not do it?
Your guess is as good as mine. The papers I cite do not go into searching for causes.
However, things other than men’s unwillingness to give oral sex are likely responsible.
Men who like to eat pussy may be partnered with women who do not like it, of which there are a substantial percentage (27%).
The difference between the monthly and yearly numbers could be explained by men being in and out of relationships, or in a long-distance relationships. For older couples, couples with children and lengthy marriages, having sex less than once a month is not uncommon.
The moral of the story
Let’s talk about fairness. The assumption that men do not want to eat pussy leads to blaming men for not respecting women’s bodies or not honoring their pleasure. Those accusations have become commonplace in the man-blaming culture of fourth-wave feminism. They are turning men away, not just from feminism, but from progressive politics in general. And then Trump happens.
That’s why I feel it’s so important to debunk this bullshit.
Men feel that these accusations are unfair. The evidence I put forward in this article shows that, at least when it comes to oral sex, they are right. I have shown that men want to eat pussy as much as women want to do blowjobs. And that they do it as often as women give blowjobs.
And it’s not that men eat pussy as a way to convince women to have vaginal intercourse. Women need no convincing because they want vaginal intercourse as much as men want it. And they do it more often than men.
But there is a deeper ethical issue.
One of the victories of feminism is to establish that women have the right to say no to sex, and to say no to particular sex acts. If a woman doesn’t want to give blowjobs, nobody would question her right not do it. At least, not in a progressive environment.
Women should not be shamed, blamed or coerced to do sexual things they don’t want to do.
The same should apply to men. Unless we want to enforce a double-standard that contradicts any claims that feminism is all about equality between the genders.
To put it another way, men and women have a right to personal autonomy, which means that they should not be forced to do things against their will. When you blame and shame people for not having the sex they don’t want to have, you are violating their personal autonomy.
That doesn’t mean that we should not do sexual things that we do not like just to please our partner. But we should do them out of our own free will. Out of generosity, not of coercion.
Podcaster Dan Savage #savagelovecast says that sex should be GGG: good, giving and game.
Good means that you have the skills, and know your body and your partner’s body well enough to have good sex.
Giving means that you treat sex as a gift of pleasure to your partner.
Game means that you are open to try sexual things that your partner is interested in, even if you don’t like them at the onset (unless they are hard limits for you).
We need to stop bringing politics into the bedroom. We need to stop treating sex like the bargaining between unions and corporations. We need to stop being so fucking judgmental about sex, examining it under a microscope in search of any sign of unfairness. Sex should be generous and playful, not transactional and a political minefield.
Perhaps if we treated it that way, that would reverse the trend of people having less sex.
References
Herbenick D, Fu TJ, Arter J, Sanders SA, Dodge B (2018) Women's Experiences With Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm: Results From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women Ages 18 to 94. J Sex Marital Ther 44:201–212.
Herbenick D, Rosenberg M, Golzarri-Arroyo L, Fortenberry JD, Fu T-c (2022) Changes in Penile-Vaginal Intercourse Frequency and Sexual Repertoire from 2009 to 2018: Findings from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior. Arch Sex Behav 51:1419–1433.
Herbenick D, Reece M, Schick V, Sanders SA, Dodge B, Fortenberry JD (2010) Sexual behavior in the United States: results from a national probability sample of men and women ages 14-94. The journal of sexual medicine 7 Suppl 5:255–265.
Herbenick D, Bowling J, Fu TJ, Dodge B, Guerra-Reyes L, Sanders S (2017) Sexual diversity in the United States: Results from a nationally representative probability sample of adult women and men. PLoS One 12:e0181198.
Kontula O, Miettinen A (2016) Determinants of female sexual orgasms. Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology 6:31624–31624.
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