Vulva | Ask Garnet

Eating Her Out

This was asked in a comment for the blowjobs tips post:

Any chance of giving us poor guys (and maybe some girls) a heads up on how to return the favour? I love to go down on my wife, and she enjoys it but the more tips the better.

For instance – I heard about this way of giving her oral on her vulva but avoiding touching her clitoris until she is on the brink. Then go for the clitoris and she will cum really hard. But I don’t know the name or the actual technique.

Other ideas would be most welcome.

Instead of giving detailed options for going down on your lady friend, I am going to do a quick and dirty guide in just a few paragraphs like I did with the blowjob one. This is just a starting point, not an end all be all. If you want more involved tips there are books and workshops for that. I couldn’t possibly contain it all in one blog post. I highly recommend Ian Kerner’s She Comes First. And as usual, keep in mind that everyone is different so these things may not work for everyone.

Number one thing you can do wrong when going down on a woman: Head straight for her clit. Most women need a good amount of warm up time and some women don’t even like it if you give direct clitoral stimulation at all. Its just too intense.

So tease. Tease her like she’s never going to feel your tongue on her clit ever. Tease her until she begs for it and then tease her a little more. Tease her until she feels like she’s going to cry from the frustration. Because when you hold out and tease her for that long, your tongue is going to feel absolutely amazing when you finally get there. Kiss, lick, and stroke everywhere except her vulva. Kiss her neck, nibble on her ears, pinch her nipples, lick your way up and down her thighs and across her belly. When you pass her vulva let your hot breathe linger on it for a moment before you continue on.

When you finally do get to her vulva lick, suck, nibble, and even tug (if she likes it) a little on her outer labia. Then lick a little bit of her inner labia. Avoid her clit because that is where she wants so badly it hurts. After spending several minutes getting so close to her vulva she almost drives your head towards it – and she really might try to do this – give her one or two little tiny flicks of your tongue so she knows that her clit is finally in the picture. Be not surprised if a gasp is released from her mouth.

After the small lick or two move on to big ice cream licks. Lick her from her perineum to the top of her clit hood with a long wet flat tongue. Do this a couple times and use it as a way to break up the shorter tongue flicks that will come later so you can give yourself a rest.

Now this is where most women vary. I can’t give you the right or wrong ways to lick a clit. All I can do is tell you that you have to try different things to see what works for your partner. Try side licks, angled licks, up and down licks, sucking, fast licks, slow licks, pointy tongue licks, soft tongue licks. Just make sure your licks are rhythmic Get feedback from her. And unless she’s about to cum, keep variations going so neither of you get bored. Of course some people just want the same licking style over and over and I’m not one to say they shouldn’t. Either ask or experiment with figuring out whether or not she likes direct clitoral stimulation or if you should only stimulate her through the clitoral hood.

She may want a finger or two or more in her vagina while you do this. Ask her or wait for her to invite you in. Usually making a come hither motion with your fingers works best. Not all women want penetration. Some may want you to play with their breasts, stroke their thighs, etc. Whatever the lady wants, the lady shall receive.

And then just hold on for the ride. And what a ride it can be. I once cracked someone’s jaw!

Side note: It never hurts to put a towel under your female friend’s bottom before the goings on happen. Just sayin … unless you want to lay in the wet spot later. Secret: that’s how our couch got stained. Oops!

Flower Balm

Babeland recently sent me a small pot (1oz) of Flower Balm, which is a clit stimulator.

Now I’ve tried a couple clit stimulators in my day and none of them have done a damn thing. This can most likely be chalked up to the fact that I need a jackhammer in order to get off. Not that I’m complaining, because I love my jackhammer. Its just that those little nuances like rabbit ears and ticklers never did anything for me. So lightly mentholated clit gels don’t tend to do anything either.

This stuff, on the other hand, I actually felt! Whoa! But really all I felt was cold. There was no special tingle or anything. I felt like there was a strong breeze on my clit even when my legs were together and in pants. It turns out that I don’t particularly like this feeling although you may. I like my cunt to be a warm cozy place that is as far away from cold as it can possibly be. I had an idea that that was the case in the past when having a fan directed a little too accurately at my vulva, but not until I tried this product did I realize how strongly I felt this. I think I will now stick with only warming type products instead of cooling ones.

But seriously if the idea of a cold cunt appeals to you (especially on a hot summer’s day) get this product! It actually works unlike all the other ones that say they work. But keep in mind that it does contain oils so it is not latex compatible. If you are using safer sex supplies with this balm make sure to use polyisoprene condoms and nitrile gloves.

It also made my tongue and lips go a little numb so I don’t recommend it for oral sex.

Ingredients: Almond oil, coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter, menthol, peppermint oil, citrus essential oils, methyl paraben, bht, and ginseng.

If you are sensitive to any of the above ingredients do not use!

Size Obsession

This has been pretty big news lately so many of you may have already heard about this, but I think it is so fabulous that it needs to be written about again and again until people really get the point. Keira Knightley, the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, has put her foot down and told studios that she does NOT want her breasts digitally enhanced in her new movie’s publicity photos. She says she’s very happy with the breasts she has. For more info and a video that interviews feministing’s Courtney Martin click on the picture below.

And for even more American size obsession check out Vagzilla! on Scarleteen.com for a humorous and educational take on genital size.

Pump It Up!

So I guess I’ve been watching porn for most of my adult years, and sometimes I’ve come across some porn where it involves women using Pussy Pumps. From what I’ve heard its supposed to be very pleasurable to them, but from my point of view it looks very uncomfortable. Do these things actually provide extra pleasure and sensation to a woman? Or is it just done as some kind of fetish theme for people to watch?

Pumps could be used for either purpose. Whether it is for a kink or the woman is really enjoying it on a physical level depends on the individual woman.

Many women do find it quite pleasurable to use pumps on their vulvas, clits, and/or nipples. In this post I will specifically focus on the first two though since that is what you’re specifically asking about.

In general when a female bodied person becomes aroused the genitals will fill with blood and swell. What a pump does is cause this to happen to a greater extent. The sucking action of the pump draws blood into the tissue causing it to swell. This can make the genitals extra sensitive, which can be really fun.

It can, however, be uncomfortable, as you mentioned, if the woman does not take special precautions. She could even end up causing some damage. Because of this I urge anyone who is thinking about pumping to be careful. When using a clit or vulva pump one should use lots of lube and go very slowly. Never use drugs or alcohol which might alter your pain responses. And if it hurts, stop. For anyone who is serious about genital pumping there is a great chapter on it in the book The Ultimate Guide to Strap-On Sex.

Vulva Just Rolls Off the Tongue

I thought we’d start the new year right with a little feminist rant from me. This rant is specifically about the female genitals being referred to as the vagina.

This is something that has bothered me for awhile now, but was most humorously brought to my attention by the writings on a bathroom stall. Some obviously sex positive, queer women (ah how I love liberal city colleges) wrote about how much they loved to eat pussy and how it was such a beautiful thing. A response by one woman (I’m assuming these were women since it was the women’s bathroom) was something along the lines of “Ladies lets have respect for ourselves! It is a vagina, not a pussy!”

First of all, let me say that I have no problem with the word pussy. If that is how you want to refer to your genitals, by all means go ahead. I also enjoy cunt quite a bit.

The problem I actually had with this, besides the fact that referring to one’s genitals as pussy is not disrespectful as long as you enjoy the word, was that she was telling women to respect themselves by referring to their genitals by an incorrect, and I think rather disrespectful, name.

Let me make myself clear here. The vagina is a wonderful thing, but it does not refer to the entire genital area of a woman. You cannot in fact “go down on” or “eat out” a woman’s vagina, which is what the other women were talking about on that stall wall. If you spend all of your time trying to go specifically for the vagina you will end up with an incredibly sore tongue because the vagina only refers to the internal canal. And while some women do enjoy a bit of tongue fucking in their vagina, it is hardly the main goal in oral sex.

There are a couple reasons why I do not like it when a woman’s genitals as a whole are referred to as her vagina. The first, which I stated above, is that it is incorrect. Both men and women need to know more about women’s bodies and incorrectly referring to the whole shebang as a vagina promotes ignorance. Did you know that many women still think that they urinate out of their vagina? Maybe you are one of them. Maybe if we did not refer to the whole thing as a vagina then we would all know that women urinate out of their urethra just like men do. You can see where this could become confusing.

Second, I think that referring to the whole area as a vagina is sexist. In Western Society there is a huge focus on penetration. Many don’t believe that you can even have sex without penetration. This is why so many people are confused by lesbians because without a penis to penetrate each other with they can’t possibly have sex. Notice how a man is always necessary in sex, but a woman is not? Although considered deviant, two men can have sex because there is a penetrator and a penetratee.

My point here is that sex = penetration in our society and the socially acceptable thing to penetrate is a vagina. There is no need for the rest of the female genitals nor the rest of the woman really in this definition of sex. This type of sex focuses on the pleasure of men, not women.

So lets make a pact to only call the female genitals by their correct names. I mean after all who refers to a man’s testicles as his penis? The whole outside of a woman’s genitals is called the vulva. Many people seem to have an aversion to the word. I didn’t like it at first either. I learned to love it by thinking about how much I love vulvas and really dragging out the word. Put a long u in there and bring some sensuality to those v’s. You’ll learn to love it too.

The names for all of the wonderful parts of the vulva can be found in the diagram here.

As to the bathroom stall writings, I actually responded with a comment of my own. This was the one and only time I have ever written on a bathroom wall, but I felt my input was necessary. I wrote “Actually it is vulva, but I always liked cunt!”