Why do I still feel pressure to swallow during sex?

“Overall, it’s just not a delicious experience for me personally, or for every other woman I’ve asked.”

Laura Roscioli is a sex writer based in Melbourne. She feels passionately about making sex (and the conversations around it) more accessible, approachable and open. She also believes that the best learnings come from lived experience, and she’s here to share hers with you each fortnight on FJ alongside other musings, experiences and questions. You can follow Laura on Instagram at @lauraroscioli.

Last time I had casual sex with someone, I went down on them. They came, I swallowed. Without thinking. That simple, split-second act has taken up so much brain space since. I don’t like swallowing, I never have. Even still, I’ve done it loads of times — and always with men I don’t know that well. It’s like something has come over me in those moments and it felt easier to just do it than to make ‘a thing’ of it.

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Back to the last time I had casual sex – I was really into this guy. I thought he was cool because he wore cool clothes, had a cool job and played in a cool band. He was definitely the coolest person I’d met since I’d broken up with my ex. He was the kind of guy I’d always wanted to date. So, when he invited me to his house, made me dinner, showed me his fragrance selection and then we wound up having sex, swallowing his cum kind of felt like a given. But it shouldn’t be, right?

This made me wonder why I’ve felt a silent pressure to swallow with people I barely know. Do other women feel the same as me? It’s not something I hear people talk about, male, female or otherwise. But why does this pressure still exist? 

“Women might feel more pressure in casual sex scenarios because they haven’t built trust and safety with the men they’re having sex with,” says sex therapist and founder of The Pleasure Centre, Aleks Trkulja. “There’s nothing wrong with casual sex, but it won’t always be a safe space if you can’t advocate for your sexual boundaries and what behaviours you do and don’t want to engage with.”

Most of my casual sex happened in my early twenties, after experiencing my first relationship and a crippling breakup. It felt like a time of rebuilding, of understanding who I was, as well as my sexuality. The sex I had known until then was only with one person. We’d had a healthy sex life but it wasn’t overly explorative or wild. I was 18 and in love – that was enough to grapple with. So, when I entered this new phase of having casual sex with people of different genders, ages and contexts, I was an open book, ready to explore pretty much anything. 

I often look back at this era with pride and gratitude for my openness, acknowledging that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without that period of my life. That said, I think my ‘yes’ attitude landed me in some moments where I felt pressured to push my own boundaries, even when it felt uncomfortable.

“It’s easy to find yourself people-pleasing in these moments because you haven’t established what you — or they — are into,” says Aleks. “You want to come across as hot and interested in them, and you don’t want to be judged. So, you’ll go along with it even if you’re not into it.”

As someone who doesn’t identify as a people-pleasure in my regular life, this concept feels a little icky to me. But I’m also tempted to see it as part of the process of understanding myself, sexually. 

Plus, having casual sex is different to a long-term, intimate connection, Aleks says. “People in casual relationships or sexual scenarios tend to degrade themselves and others more. With a no-strings-attached approach, they feel more able to push the boundaries, because they’re not invested… There’s often less checking in on needs and more pressure to engage in these behaviours in casual settings, where the communication hasn’t been established.”

While I hope that all forms of sexual communication are becoming more accessible, I know that I definitely felt unable to communicate in most of my casual sexual relationships in the past. Even the ones where we were able to establish boundaries and foster care and respect within our ‘thing’, there were still moments within sex that felt hard to talk about. Like swallowing their cum, just ’cause.

I feel like it comes back to these silent rules we follow and assume others also follow during sex. Rules we’ve picked up from some universal sexual vernacular; porn, intimate scenes in books or in films, the way we talk about sex in groups, things we’ve heard from our friends. When something is equally exciting and ‘taboo’ to talk about, we have to draw information and inspiration from other sources. 

It just so happens that the mainstream representations of sex tell us that men like to have their cum swallowed. And women have no problem swallowing it. According to most porn videos, they actually enjoy it.

“The role of external narratives we see in porn and how that affects our interpersonal relationships and behaviours has to be acknowledged,” says Aleks. “Porn that men might be engaging with can reinforce the idea that having their cum swallowed is something that’s erotic and hot, which would then encourage them to request it. In turn, the woman might feel like they can appease him sexually if they engage, regardless of whether they’re into it.”

I’ve never known a woman to like swallowing cum — and I’ve asked heaps. Overall, it’s just not a delicious experience for me personally, or for every other woman I’ve asked. It’s funny, because when I recently asked a bunch of girlfriends about it, they said ‘no!’ as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. If it’s so universally disliked by women, why don’t men know this?

But then I wondered if men actually want us to do it. If we’re not talking about it openly, how do we know what they actually want? So I asked my boyfriend, whose cum I’ve never swallowed, if it bothers him.

“Not at all. You know, I think men don’t actually care. It doesn’t enhance the experience,” he said.

Naturally, this piqued my interest. Considering how often it’s portrayed, I assumed that it enhanced their experience immensely. 

“Cumming is intense enough as it is. I don’t feel like I can appreciate the gesture properly because I’m busy,” he told me. “And then I feel bad because they’re pulling a face and I didn’t even really enjoy the sacrifice.”

I suddenly realised that we were each on our own side of the gender divide. He didn’t know that women felt pressure to swallow. He’s always felt as though it was this ‘gift’ he had to act super grateful for but didn’t really want. Meanwhile, I’ve always felt like it’s just something that I should do, to enhance his experience and be a good, hot, cool lover. We had both been making generalised assumptions, because neither of us have been brave enough to ask. Until now.

This is sex in the modern era, right? Around every corner is an assumption we’ve been battling with in silence, only to speak it out loud and discover that it’s only true in our imaginations. And that of misogynistic porn directors.

Read more about the pressures of heteronormative gender roles in sex, here.