The following is a parody of a rant I recently read on Cosmo.

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“I know this is totally weird, but I love doing taxes. Like, I don’t care whose taxes they are, or if the person whose taxes I’m doing are gonna do my taxes afterwards, but sitting down and filing federal taxes for the spring quarter is like, my favorite thing to do for hours and hours. I know you’re not supposed to talk about how you ‘like’ doing taxes, and everyone is like, ‘Ew, you actually like doing taxes?’ but like — Yes! I love doing taxes!”

Have you ever heard anybody say this out loud? No, because nobody, not even professional accountants, not even Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, likes doing taxes this much. But replace “doing taxes” with “cuddling,” and it’s utterly within the realm of possibility that you’ve heard a man say this. Probably in mixed company — or, if he’s that far gone, among a group of male friends. Acting like you enjoy copious fully clothed body contact is somewhat akin to a humblebrag. “I’m sick of hiding it: I’ll scream from the rooftops that I’m naturally ripped and handsome!” “Fuck this, I will not be judged for my spectacularly privileged upbringing!” “You can’t make me ashamed of being white anymore!”

The depressing truth is that statements like these are often a gambit for female attention, a way for a man to prove that he’s somehow cooler, less hormy or more “into” relationships (a unicorn) than other men (regs horses). I know this because I used to be one. When I was a senior in college, I once told a girl I really, really liked that I could only have an sex from with a girl I loved deeply in a committed relationship. Not only was this a massive lie (I was actually a virgin at the time, so ROFLcopter), but the kind of lie that came ready-made from some kind of self-hating, sexually dysfunctional, all-male workshop. It is similar to faking enthusiasm for the ballet: If we’re all pretending to be unicorns, not only are we all screwing ourselves over by denying ourselves access to real sexual pleasure, but we’re ruining shit for men who haven’t drank the peer-pressure Kool-Aid and Krazy-Glued a horn to their foreheads.

I’m not saying that it’s normal to feel like you’re getting Sex and The City 3-plus-mace-in-the-eyes torture every time you curl up on the couch with some Chinese food and a movie. It is healthy to love giving a person you like, or are even sexually attracted to, pleasure. It is normal to love the free and easy exchange of cuddles between yourself and your partner. But there is not a man in the world who physiologically gets his rocks off on unreciprocated, random cuddling. You know how I know that? Because our dicks are not on our shoulders, that’s why.

But, Bastard, that’s so relationship-negative!

No. It’s not relationship-negative to point out that if we all stopped playing pretend that we are super fucking psyched to platonically give some girl a back-rub on the second date (most of whom, I have found, do not return the favor until you’ve gone out for at least a month, which is total bullshit), some of the inequality in the dating scene would be corrected. It’s not relationship-negative to not let some girl you barely know convince you to just massage her neck a little bit before sex, not just as foreplay, but as some weird requirement that doesn’t involve her pampering you in return before full sex. Male backrubs are the guy doing the girl a favor; female backrubs are expected as foreplay in many cases of casual dating. Basically demanded.

Everybody say it with me, okay? I solemnly swear that I will not pretend that spending hours piled up with a girl on the couch watching a marathon of The King of Queens until we both fall asleep is the epitome of my own sexual satisfaction. Unless Kevin James really gets you going.

But, Bastard, I really do get off on cuddling!

Are you sure you don’t just like (or even are just sexually attracted to) the chick to whom you are snuggled up? Are you sure you and/or said chick are not providing any additional sexual stimulation to your cock or balls while you are providing said cuddle? A good litmus test of whether this is actually true: Would you get off on laying a random disembodied girl’s head on your shoulder? Personally, I don’t know a whole lot of (actually, any) men who would.

If you’re still saying yes to all of this: Do you also happen to be man who also doesn’t haveany male friends and prefers hanging out with women because men cause “too loud and obnoxious?” Because, in my experience, these two overlap.

But Bastard, I’m just more into platonic affection than most men! Just because SOCIETY isn’t comfortable with a man who likes cuddles this much doesn’t mean I should pretend to be a NON-UNICORN!

Dude, are you aware that your super-outside-the-box Chill Guy Who’s Into Cuddes and Backrubs thing has been fully-packaged for you by the mainstream media? Male backrubs have always been marginalized while cuddles receive the reverse treatment in pop culture.

Outside of romances and romantic comedies made for female enjoyment, if there is an actual real live man who gets off on cuddling on a giant pillow with no additional stimulation anywhere else on his body, I will put on a high school sports mascot outfit and twerk to “Wop” by J.Dash at your place of employment. But until then, I am nobody’s fool about this. Lost In Translation was a monster success because every woman in America was obsessed with fantasizing about this nonexistent man who could be sexually satisfied by a night spent cuddling in bed. Ten years later, like some twisted form of evolution, men have attempted to “adapt” to become this fantasy. We don’t need to do it. Do you see women attempting to adapt into Sasha Grey? No. We could be focusing on some way cooler form of evolution. Like growing gills or some shit.

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In all seriousness (as much as I am capable of such a thing) here is my take on the original rant, which is intended to accompany my wife’s post here.  Buried beneath tons of bullshit and hyperbole-for-effect is one almost-valid point: you should not lie about what you do and do not like, sexually or non-sexually.  Honesty is pretty important in relationships (an understatement, I know) and systematized lying about this will create an unrealistic expectation of women to enjoy performing fellatio.  So don’t do that.

As an aside, I do love the contradiction there at the end where she claims she knows no women who meet her (very narrow) criteria of a woman who loves to give blowjobs, then says in her experience there is a lot of overlap between those (apparently mythical) women and women who ‘have no female friends because they hate drama’.  I’m not sure how that works.

That said, I do get a wee bit offended about the idea that Anna knows what gets every woman in the world off.  I personally know women who orgasm from

1) Spankings/impact play

2) Anal Sex

3) Being bitten in particular places

4) Footrubs

5) Being tied up with rope and suspended in the air

6) Being whipped / flogged

7) Being the one fisting another girl

8) performing (not necessarily receiving) cunnilingus

9) Having their nipples pinched/bitten

I know of (in my extended social circle, rather than immediate) women who orgasm from giving head to men, and at least one case of a woman who was conditioned to orgasm at the utterance of a particular word.  The entirety of this article really does a disservice to the breadth of human sexuality.  There are entire internet communities devoted to people who have sex with cars.  The idea that every woman who claims to love sucking cock is lying is, in this light, laughable.  If you look hard enough on 4chan and craigslist, you can find people who get off on damn near anything.

To the women out there who don’t love (or particularly like) sucking cock – don’t do it, or don’t do it often.  Maybe only do it as a special treat or on the rare occasion when you’re in the mood.  If you actively dislike it maybe don’t do it at all.  Not every man demands (or even can get off from) oral sex.  I’ve even met a few who are actively against it.  If you do it a lot at the beginning of a relationship (especially if you never explain you’re not that into it) because you’re all excited and eager to please, and the blowjobs decline with the NRE, then you’re setting yourself and your partner up to discover a potentially problematic sexual incompatibility later.  That’s never fun.  Guys, this goes for you too.  Whatever it is you pretend you love because you think women want that, STOP IT.  You’re not doing anyone any favors unless you are willing to keep up that charade for the rest of your life.