My First Time Giving a Blowjob Was a Valentine's Day Gift—To Myself

My First Time is a column and podcast series exploring sexuality, gender, and kink with the wide-eyed curiosity of a virgin. We all know your "first time" is about a lot more than just popping your cherry. From experimenting with kink to just trying something new and wild, everyone experiences thousands of first times in the bedroom—that's how sex stays fun, right?

This week, we're talking to Mina, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, about her first-ever blow job. You can catch My First Time on Acast, Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

We started flirting and drinking, and then in front of everyone, he turned around and kisses me. It was this delicious, full-on tongue kiss. He wasn’t shy! We went on a walk around the village, which was freezing cold because it was February. Somehow we ended up in the woods, and my hands went down his trousers. From there, my mind cuts to giving him a blowjob. I’m on my knees in the woods, giving my first blowjob, which felt pretty cool.

The most vivid thing I remember is standing back and watching himself finish himself off. I just remember admiring this guy I’d fancied for such a long time, and watching his face as he came. I thought, Oh my god, this is amazing. That was my favorite part. I think that was my introduction to voyeurism, and since then I've always really enjoyed the act of watching someone come.

I mostly remember the excitement of the situation, and the fact that it all felt new. He also did briefly attempt to go down on me, which is interesting, because teenage boys are not generally encouraged to do that.

Afterwards, we headed back over to the group. I remember sitting on a church wall thinking, Wow! What a night. As we were teenagers at the time, obviously teenagers do talk. For a couple of weeks at school, my peers would be coming up to me and asking me about it. He also embellished some of the details, and I was really unsure how to deal with this weird oral fame I’d garnered. But the chat eventually died down. I don’t remember it being a real moment of trauma in my life. I’d say, overall, it was a really positive experience for me.

I still love giving blowjobs to this day. After receiving oral sex, giving a blowjob is my number one thing to do sexually. Of course, it’s not always perfect—especially in my early 20s, when I was less confident, there were times where I didn’t feel comfortable or confident enough to say no, which is really shit.

Blowjobs are so prevalent in the media, whether it’s in TV, films, or porn. All you have to do is watch a teen movie to see a blowjob either implied or talked about. I think that’s part of the problem. Giving head is so normalized, but receiving oral sex isn’t. Women’s magazines teach you how to give a blowjob, but you never see the cover of a men’s magazine saying: “How to go down on a woman.” It’s like giving a blowjob is expected of a woman, and you feel like you’re a failure or you’re fucking up the sex session if you don’t do it.

I remember reading about the orgasm gap, and being shocked to learn how much less often heterosexual women have orgasms than heterosexual men. I definitely feel like there’s an oral sex gap: Men are expected to receive head, but women are not. Even now, I love giving blow jobs, but I rarely receive head back. Or if I do, it’s half-hearted—they do it for like a minute, then move on. We need to start talking about this and normalizing female pleasure, because otherwise things won’t get any better. Imagine if the situation was reversed and men weren’t coming when they had sex! There would be uproar.

Being a woman who openly enjoys giving blowjobs can sometimes feel like a bit of a political statement, like my sexual preferences are somehow servicing the patriarchy. I’ve definitely had conversations with some women who label themselves as feminists and who have issues with women giving head. But if someone told me that giving a blowjob was an anti-feminist act, I’d tell them to kindly fuck off. Because, to me, it’s inherently anti-feminist to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t like or do sexually.

Why do I love giving blowjobs? I love being able to take it slowly, feel your way around, and be in tune with the person you’re giving head to, so you can hear their reactions and feel when they like something. It’s just a gorgeous thing, and I enjoy all of that: figuring out what they like, and how close they are to orgasming. It’s really exciting. That’s probably why I love it.