Cunning Linguists Turn Me On

Today we’re going to talk about oral sex. So, if you’re under eighteen, or at work, it’s recommended you close this window immediately and go do something else. My archives have some nice wholesome material somewhere, if you’re interested.

A friend who shall remain nameless—although she knows who she is and she’s welcome to come out and admit it—was once being given “sex ed” classes by her older sister, who shall also remain nameless (hello, out there). “Do you know what oral sex is?” her sister asked. “Yes!” said my friend, much to the amazement of her older sister, who laboured under the impression that this friend was most innocent and untouched by the Things Adults Did. “What is it then?” she asked. “Oral sex,” said my friend confidently, “Is when two people take off their clothes and talk about sex.” Right.

I can’t say much about going down on a woman, seeing as I’ve never done that, but it’s fairly simple to pleasure someone of my gender. Simply have an agile and dexterous tongue (mmmmmm) and wandering light fingers and, um, lots of energy. Lots and lots of energy. There’s this bit in Deep Throat (not that I’ve seen it, but I’ve seen this quotation somewhere and loved it) where the woman goes, “Do you mind if I smoke while you eat?” By the way, I’ve done that, and it’s awesome. You totally should as well. There’s something so decadent about lying there, sprawled on your back, preferably with your top on, because you don’t want live ashes spilt all over the rather *ahem* delicate areas of your body, doing French inhales and watching the top of someone’s head. Preferably someone you love, but someone who gets your panties in a twist totally works as well.

Why are men so obsessed by the blow job? Besides the fact that it combines two things they love the most—sex and sitting on their asses doing nothing—I think it’s also a power trip for them. As it is for you, I suppose, but men get this big kick out of watching you turn your attentions to Junior down there. Some men get carried away though. You know what I hate? Men who insist on controlling your head. There are some who will move your head up and down, and worse, others who will speed up the motions of their hips, until you’re practically gagging. And then they complain you’re using your teeth. For the love of god, until you decided to rape my mouth, I was doing perfectly fine.

I guess it’s a power trip for women as well, giving a blow job. You have him right where you want him, and if you want to just hear that he loves you, or he needs you, or you’re so fucking hot, even if in your heart of hearts you know he doesn’t mean it, this is a good time to make that request. Everything I needed to know about giving good head I learnt from Cosmo. Of course, each man is different, blah blah blah, but there are a certain set of rules which applies to most men I find. The quick-inhalation factor, if you're with a quiet guy, the ohhhhhhh factor if you're with a moaner, and best of all, if you're with a talker, the oh-fuck-yes factor. Those are fun. Power trip, yes, totally. But scoff all you like, Cosmo and that online woman's magazine thing ivillage gave me a lot of handy household hints. One article in ivillage was called How To Love Like A Geisha and while I remember very little of it, one tip was to use your hands and tongue in opposite directions, as in, one clockwise and one anti-clockwise. It may sound complicated, but once you've perfected it, it works like a charm.

I believe men's magazines don't offer the same service, which I think is weird. They do have articles about sex, right? So, I'm assuming the presumption they're working on is that men either a) need no help at all on their game b) do not want to provide any reciprocal pleasure to their women or c) don't read magazines to get sex tips. But then, don't you guys sit around and discuss what turns the opposite sex on the way we do? (And when I say we, I mean my friends and I, when we're working on a third bottle of wine and reduced to giggles. But I'm sure other groups of girls do as well) And if you don't ever dicuss the dirty with your friends, how do men know what to do in bed? Porn? And if that's true, I'm sure all the men I've been with have been very disappointed.

While we're in the Things That Leave Me Mystified department, what's with the obsession about swallowing? I did a fair amount of research for this post; ie, I asked people I knew about their views on blow jobs; and when I got to the swallowing, all the men got this glazed, happy look on their faces. Ahhh, swallowing, I'm sure their minds went, that's good shit, dude. I personally don't get it. I'm a spitter myself, as are lots of women I know, and in a conversation with Hobo recently, I told her about this post and she said, "You should write that men should avoid asparagus if they want a blow job." Yes, coz semen? Has different tastes. If you've eaten spicy food, it tingles on the back of your tongue. Sometimes, most of the time, it's bitter, but the best, says Hobo, is when you eat strawberries or pineapple. Gentlemen, I hope you're paying attention here. Hobo also told me about "snowballing", where this friend of hers got a mouthful without warning, so holding it in her mouth she crawled upwards to kiss the guy and deposited in his mouth. ALWAYS GIVE WARNING. I cannot say this enough. Once, after I spat, the boyfriend then was sitting with such a smug expression on his face that I grabbed him and tongued him. I'm sure he'll never look that smug again.

Although blow jobs are a heck of a lot of work. And effort. And time. And usually the guy is so spent after you're done with him that he has no time for you. My friends and I only pull out the oral if we really like someone. So, if assuming you've slept with five guys, only two get the royal treatment.

I'm putting in two polls here, one for the men and one for the women. The male one is basically to establish what another ex of mine told me--there is no such thing as a bad blow job. True or false? Weigh in. The one for the chicas is to determine what kind of liberated twentyfirst century men we're dealing with. Did your last or present hook up go down on you?

In case the polls don't appear properly, as they're doing on my machine, here are the links where you can take them online. Boys and girls.

I'm sure this post will generate a fair amount of namecalling, but try and keep an open mind. Hey, at least I'm not getting knocked up, right?

We've come a long, long way together

Happy three year anniversary to me.

Wow. Three years. It makes me feel rather ancient, well, on the internet anyway. When this blog was created, I really had no idea that I'd be hanging on for that long. I'm not great with sustaining projects. Usually I lose interest halfway through. But maybe it's something about the medium--it's so bloody addictive, you know? Like an instant writer's kick, to type into something and then magically see your stuff out there, your stuff, unedited, vulnerable, waiting for feedback. I admit, I'm addicted to everything about this medium. When blogs finally go the way of those old Geocities homepages, and mirc chatrooms, I will be very, very sad.

I'm addicted to checking my stat counter, to looking for new comments, to Technorati even.

I'm addicted to thinking of things to blog about--looking at each situation from a third person perspective, never being completely in a moment, because a minute later I think, "I wonder if I can get a post out of this."

I'm addicted to having another personality, not me, not the real life me, but The Compulsive Confessor, eM, someone who people listen to sometimes, someone who occassionally makes other people laugh, someone who has spunk and the courage to say what she feels, someone who a few people think is worth revisiting.

I'm addicted to the other blogs I read, to be a voyeur in someone else's life, to know about the initials that rule them, the Saturday nights across the world, the random childhood memories, the being at a traffic light on a Monday morning.

And I'm really, really addicted to knowing what happened to me three years ago, knowing how my years have gone, knowing that once this was important to me, once I lived another life as another person, and it's all there, all so accessible, and it's awesome watching the way my writing has changed since I was 22 and new at this, to now, at 25, an old grizzled veteran.

Yay, me.

ps: Curious minds wanted to know more about the book--I'm not saying anything except that it should be out later this year or early next year. I'm doing another round of edits and it's immense fun, not to mention BLOODY TERRIFYING to think that little ol' me will soon be a Real Live Author. Wow. I love blogging.

Caffeine, nicotine; I just noticed good things end in "ine"

It’s been raining in earnest, and everything looks very pretty and green and freshly washed. Plus, the temperature’s gone down majorly, and now I can actually make it through the entire night without turning over to switch my AC on and off obsessively. That being said, I think the weather might be contributing to my feeling blue. And grumpy. Oh, I’m quite grumpy. Actually, no. I don’t think what I feel is quite so dramatic. It’s more like meh. Yeah, meh, as in “Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?” “Meh.”

Since all this meh-ness is happening, I really don’t have much to say. Oh, I suppose I could talk about my weekend. But I can’t seem to sum up the appropriate enthusiasm about it. This weekend, I walked next to an out-of-fuel bike, I hitchhiked (with appropriate male company), I got very drunk (twice), I watched the sunrise, I got mentioned in the Hindustan Times (link would be much appreciated, because I haven’t seen it yet), I survived two hangovers (phew), I drank Old Monk again with no unusual hangover (yay!), I played DJ twice, on a laptop and an ipod, I got called attention seeking because of aforementioned Djing (once, and I think he was cross because I wasn’t flirting back), I depleted a lot of the minimal funds left in my bank account (so very, very, very broke) and, yes, it was a fun weekend.


Anyway, so today, since I have not much to talk about, I'm going to instead, seize inspiration from what is sitting right in front of me, and talk about coffee mugs. More specifically, all the coffee mugs I have owned. I don't know about you, but for me, I've always had a "special" mug, that belongs to me, and if I don't have that very mug in the morning, I feel sort of odd. Right now, I'm using a Barnie's promotion mug, with a Dali type scene painted on it, of various people drinking coffee and signed by Perizaad Zorabian. (Twice I misspelled that, and finally had to cheat, and turn the mug around to check). This was a free mug, sent with the invite to the opening to a former features editor of mine, who generously handed it over to the person sitting closest, me. I heart freebies.

My first mug that I can remember, was way back when coffee mugs were the shit, and every birthday you could expect one, still in its Archie's Gallery packet with some sort of motto on it. A very popular one was the one with two girls hugging each other, saying, "Best Friends, something something." (Because, of course, it was the girls who gave and recieved these. Boys gave you stuff like The Very Best Of Soft Rock). Around this time, I had sort of decided to cast all the girls in my group in a sort of make-believe band, which I called the Buck Tooths. I had great fun writing about it and drawing little illustrations, and the other girls had fun too, because I mean, who doesn't like to be written about, right? (FYI: This was also the topic of my first ever piece of journalism, done for The Asian Age's kids section, complete with illustration for which I was paid the princely sum of Rs 350. AND it had my byline. I still have those clippings somewhere). So one birthday party, I think it was my thirteenth, I designed computer invitations that said "Please come to my party, blah di blah blah" which ended with "a bear hug to a Bucktoother." One of my friends bought me a coffee mug, with a picture of two hedgehogs hugging each other, with a card saying, "A bear hug to a Bucktoother." Corny, yeah, but we were thirteen. And mugs were cool. (Books, for some strange reason, weren't quite as cool. Other top ranking birthday presents were those kitschy ceramic ornaments you got at Archie's, shaped like little laughing very politically incorrect black babies, or the head of a cocker spaniel or something. Basically, Archie's met all our birthday shopping needs.)

I had that mug for ages, until my dog decided to drink out of it, when I left it unattended and it broke, not being made for snouts. Then I had one with flowers on it, with a matching saucer and coaster, which I still use when I go to my mum's house in Delhi. In my own house in Delhi, I used a Sunil Das mug, with a lovely sketch of a running bull on it, signed by the artist, part of a boxed set from the National Museum. I used to have an orange Barista mug, you know the one with all the writing on it, that says, "The sun is shining, the perfect day, I need some coffee"? Shark Tooth has the blue version now, and when I see it, I feel all full of nostalgia.

At Leela's house, another place where I drink a lot of coffee because her maid does it beautifully, with all this foam, and mmmmm, cinnamon toast to go with it, I miss that cinnamon toast, there were always the same mugs. Hers was a large white Barista one, and I think I got an earthen one, in blue or green. Aww.. just writing that sentence made me homesick, because I'm suddenly conjured back to sitting on her bed, legs crossed, watching TV or reading or jabbering away with a member of her lively family, who practically adopted me. I love people with large families, where every night is like a party. It sucks that things have to change.

I used to have a Phantom Of The Opera mug too, bought from the Broadway show shop, which was so cool, because when you put hot liquid into it, a mask would appear on the side. The dog broke that too. Stupid dog. I bought Iggy something similar when I was in London, an Elvis mug, with The king still lives on it, and when hot liquid went into that, a picture of Elvis appeared with The king still lives in my heart. All this reminds me I haven't taken a nice long holiday in a while. I'm beginning to get wanderlust again. They should make wanderlust vibrators for a quick fix when you're feeling restless.

My coffee is cold now.

When we're NOT wallowing, we're actually having a pretty good time

* Have you lot seen Wife Swap? If you have, you know how glorious it isn't, and if you haven't, you simply must (6 pm, Sundays, Discovery Travel and Living). Anyway, it's possibly the most incredible television programming idea, simply because, oh, the grounds for bitchiness are way, way more than any Top Model type shows could ever offer. Basically, they choose two very different families and switch wives and then chaos ensues. So far, from what I've managed to see, there've been a Wiccan Goddess and a woman who believes her husband runs the household, a very very rich woman who shops a lot with another woman who spends a lot of time with charity and so on. You get the drift. There's a lot of talking about spending time with your kids and eating dinner together, which are funnily enough the two most popular rules that happen during rule change. But my very favourite part is the one right at the end, where the original couples face each other and there's usually a slanging match. One woman even refused to come out of her car, coz she had been a diva all week. Why am I talking about Wife Swap? Because I have no life, clearly.

* Wait that's not true. I did indeed go out this weekend. There was this blog party thing, a gathering of People Who Heart The Internet, about as much as I do. Of course, I'm only a closet nerd, but it's good to come out of the closet every now and then. I felt exactly like one of those weekend homosexuals, who are all whee-purple-ripped-tank-top at gay parties only to be all ho-ho-ho-I'm-straight-in-my-pinstriped-shirt-and-tie on Monday. Anyway so I gushed all over Bombay Addict, who looked rather bemused, but I really must pimp his blog, which I like a lot. It's an awesome blog. Go read it! I also met Amit and we were speculating about the identities of some of the pretty women there and I tried to talk him into going over to them and saying, "Hello. Would you like to see my *ahem* India uncut?" Hee. Only he refused. Spoilsport.

* Here I must put in a minor digression. Where have all the pretty boys gone? I find myself ONLY checking out women, for sheer lack of any eye candy whatsoever. Really. I go to places and I look around and the men are so appalling with tight floral shirts or jeans worn up to their armpits or man boobs, or with really bad teeth or you know, something and then there are all these beautiful women looking petite and fey and fairylike, and always very very well dressed and I know Delhi doesn't have this awesome reputation for treating women well, but hey, at least we've got something to look at. No, but Bombay women really know how to dress. In Delhi, most people overdo the cham-cham, like this one acquaintance of mine from college, who also got married in like second year and was insufferable ever since, and when I bumped into her at Rick's, she was wearing electric blue pants, which would be okay, if she hadn't turned around and revealed to me that the back half of her pants were, um, gold. Yeah. Not much for subtlety, no. The good thing about that though, is that the few women in Delhi who know how to dress without too much glitter, look lovely and distinguished, very much like yours truly. Oh all right. Not much like me. My clothes are minimalist, and I very rarely accessorise. But still. I usually look nice in them, which is what matters.

* After the blog party, me and Sameer, who was my date du jour, went to Hard Rock to hang out with some new people (I'm meeting so many new people these days, it rocks), and when we were right outside Hard Rock with all these fancy cars pulling up and fancy people getting out, my car stalled. And I mean refused to start again. So the bouncer and the valet pushed it outside and we spent some time opening the hood and looking inside it, only we had no idea what we were looking at, so we settled for looking despairing which is when two taxi drivers came up and with magic and lots of changing gears, managed to get it started again. And I drove it back inside Hard Rock to exactly the same spot where it, lalalala, stalled again. Oh, the mortification. This time the valet took over and we went inside blushing in embarrasement. Nothing that two vodkas with oj wouldn't cure. (Vodka-oj by the way, is my new drink). Then we took my car back to my house, hopped into a friendly auto and went to one of the New Friends' houses. Where he had the most posh alcohol ever. Like Jagermeister! Which is this German liqueur thing which you do in shots and which burns the back of your throat as you toss it down. Mmmmmmmm.

* All my new friends seem to have fancy alcohol, which makes me dread the day I will have to invite them all over and serve vodka or Old Monk or Kingfisher strong (coz the guy near my house doesn't have regular beer) in my house which despite my best cleaning efforts smells faintly like cat litter. Like last weekend? I was at another set of New Friends' house, and their house was lovely, with a view of the sea from each balcony and I just wandered around going wow. Wow. WOW. Anyway, so I was asked what I wanted and I shrugged and the host said, "You were drinking margaritas, right?" and proceeded to make me one. FROZEN. PERFECT. In margarita GLASSES. Dude. I nearly died.

* And one must mention one's first bit of current affairs reporting, which was excellent fun and made one feel all investigative-reporter-y. I love my job.

* And, I bought an AC! And I'm officially never leaving the house again! (I don't actually have any money left to leave the house till the end of June, so I suppose it's fortunate that I feel that way)

The post which male readers should ideally not read, because they'll be very bored

Ask most women what they do after a break up and usually the answer lies in your hair. It's fun being a woman, only because your hair is such a creative medium, you can do almost anything with it. You could if you were a guy too, I suppose, but then you get called "metrosexual".

Of course it's a total myth that men aren't obsessed with their hair as well. I swear I know guys who check themselves out more than women do, who obsess about receding hairlines and so on. And then there are the guys on the road with a comb in their backpocket. (A little note to my male friends who read this and who I KNOW check their hair every five seconds: YOU'RE NOT THAT FAR BEHIND).

Anyhoo. Remember when K and I broke up? Here's a little reminder. Then there was this other dude who I liked and that also ended, when I had my hair ironed straight for the first time ever. I remember looking in the mirror and going, Woaaaaaaaah. They can do that? Not having long hair for the longest time meant that each time something new ended I had to find different ways to make myself feel better. But now, my hair looks like hair again, and it was about time I did something "different". It's in an awkward sort of stage, sticking out in ducktails behind my ears when I push it back, sort of poofing around my neck and generally being very uncooperative and thick and sticking to the back of my neck in this weather.

So I was wandering past the Lakme Hair Salon accidentally on purpose yesterday and I decided to go in and do something drastic. Just a pick-me-up. I was contemplating having it rebonded. (Okay, for the one male who DIDN'T follow my warning title and is still here: using chemicals to straighten your hair). But then it's awfully muggy and my hair is of the frizzy variety and then it could start raining soon, plus, Dennis-the-hairdresser told me it was still too short to bond it. Instead, I sat down with a colour wheel and picked out a shade of red that looked fairly mellow and yet not too subtle, my hair's very very very black, so if I chose burgundy or something, I might as well have not done anything. And he trimmed my hair for me and then mixed the colour with something out of a large white bottle--I'm assuming peroxide?--which looked exactly, but exactly like semen. I kid you not. I'm looking at that and then looking at Dennis-the-hairdresser to see if he's giggling even a little bit, but he was completely straight faced while he mixed it and ew, put it in my hair.

It's a long complicated process, as those of you who have done it know. It takes at least an hour and a half to go through all the layers of your hair, then another fortyfive minutes sitting under the dryer and the girl next to you going very snottily "Excuse me, your cigarette smoke is blowing in my face," which you pretend not to hear because Dennis-the-hairdresser has told you you're allowed to smoke, only her hairdresser mouths the words to you and then since it's nearly done anyway, you stub it out. And read Femina which says according to a survey done in the UK, smart women are 16 per cent less likely to get married. Oh dear. This does not bode well.

So finally it's closing time, and I had been sitting with aluminium foil in my hair for quite some time, so I was happy when Dennis-the-hairdresser pronounced me done and then rinsed out my hair. And then I looked at it and well, here's the tricky part. I can't tell if I love it or hate it. It's the first time I've ever coloured my hair, and it's red all right, but I'm undecided about whether it's rock star red or malnourished child on the road red. And I can't tell whether it does anything for my skin tone. But then I'm always full of self doubt. Even the first time I cut off all my hair, I agonised for like a week. And then I got used to it. And so far the two pronouncements I've gotten about my hair have been, "Did you do something to your hair?" and "I can barely see it in this light, oh wait, there it is, it's quite subtle really." Oh, and Sharktooth this morning, "It's not weird, I don't know, I guess it'll just take some getting used to, I have Opinions about Colouring." Clearly, I will have to wait till I meet a woman to get what it really looks like. One is reminded of the scene from The Inscrutable Americans where Gopal goes, "Are redheaded women red all over?"

In spirit, totally.

eM's quick guide to fighting loneliness

(Inspired by this song and the fact that one is now newly single)

* Hold your breath. Count to three. Release.

* Take on more stories than you can handle. Talk about work as soon as you wake up.

* Don't blink for longer than you have to.

* Watch television for three hours at a stretch.

* Don't sing.

* Don't dance.

* Don't make any sudden movements.

* Keep your body close and tight. Keep your mind even closer.

* Sleep fitfully. Have nightmares about giant green hands from the sky scooping up people by a beach. Wake up by moonlight and smoke a cigarette.

* Laughing will hurt. Keep it to a smile.

* Let your smile stretch till your jaw hurts and you don't know what you're smiling about anymore.

* Eat a lot.

* Eat nothing at all.

* Rationalise, rationalise, rationalise.

* Never date again.

* Stop thinking about sex.

* Don't watch the rain.

* Contemplate joining a gym.

* Contemplate joining a convent.

* Contemplate going home again.

* Avoid happy couples.

* Avoid happy people.

* Close your eyes. Count to three. Jump.

I'll be just fine. Eventually.