As you give...

ALL I want is a bit more equality, OK?

ALL I want is a bit more equality, OK? With the TV remote, the polishing of the bathroom sink, the 3am baby feeds, the 5am baby feeds, the books pages of newspapers and sex. Pure and simple.

Which is why it’s flattening to read the findings of a recent Family Planning NSW survey. Its findings: that oral sex is now so commonplace among Generation Y women that many believe it’s required of them. That young Aussie men “expect” to receive it.

A delicate question: are these men likely to, er, return the favour? Because let’s be blunt, when we’re talking oral sex among our youth it’s more often girls administering to boys. Half the surveyed women, aged 16 to 25, said they’d sometimes been pressured into giving it. Here’s one of them: “When doing it for the first few times as a young teenager, you feel you must do it to impress the guy you like.” A girl of 16: “Most people I know that have oral sex only do it because everyone else does, and if you don’t, you’re frigid.”

Heart, sink. Because I glean not a single drop of empowerment, or control, or pleasure in that statement. I’m with you, girl. I do not think of laugh-out-loud deliciousness or exquisiteness or joy when I think of fellatio. Especially in terms of a teenage girl. To me, it’s about as appealing as ironing shirts at midnight. I do not feel strengthened as I’m doing it. Do not feel like it’s sex the way I want it. To me it’s bleak, demeaning and kind of lonely – anyone could be doing it.

OK! I’m not even going to begin to speak for every woman here. Some girlfriends find it incredibly affirming to give so much pleasure to a man, and good luck to them. But I’m with Iris Murdoch when I think of young girls being expected to do this, and complying just so as not to seem frigid: “There is nothing like early promiscuous sex for dispelling life’s bright mysterious expectations.”

May I gently, pleadingly, suggest a touch more equality here? To engender a little less selfishness perhaps, an encouraging of tenderness; a connection, in the loveliest sense? According to a US study, in some teenage circles oral sex is seen as almost obligatory. Scott, 15: “Me and my friends don’t think of it as a big deal. It’s really quick and less serious [than intercourse]. And you don’t really have to like a girl.” Ah, so where’s the sense of respect here, the cherishing, the acknowledging of an actual individual?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for curbing the teen pregnancy rate (it’s argued in some quarters that encouraging oral sex results in this); all for having young people being more aware of their choices and more empowered to say no. As long as it works both ways. Which brings me back to equality. Which brings me to the flipside of all this. You see, I’m of the firm opinion that cunnilingus is one of the most deliciously transcendent joys available to women; and yes, I’m aware that we can seem equally selfish in demanding it. But do women, enough? Equally?

Thank you, God, for giving us the only organ on the human body devoted purely to exquisite sensation: the clitoris. That tiny little pleasure dome has 8000 nerve endings crammed into it (twice as many as the penis). In Greek mythology, when Zeus and Hera visited the hermaphrodite Tiresias to determine whether it was men or women who experienced more pleasure from sex, Tiresias replied: “If the sum of love’s pleasure adds up to 10, nine parts go to women, only one to men.”

So if feminism is all about equality, are we any closer to a world where young women feel just as comfortable requesting oral sex as boys do? A world where boys feel that administering it is expected of them? The Family Planning NSW survey also found that 82 per cent of young women found oral sex enjoyable and rewarding – I just hope that’s because they’re getting as good as they give.