Fellatio

Fellatio means oral stimulation of the penis: lips, tongue, inside of the cheeks, saliva. It's one of the most common oral sex practices, as foreplay as much as a full moment in itself, right up to orgasm if you both want it.

In practice, it all comes down to three things: saliva (it replaces lube and changes everything in terms of comfort), rhythm (steady and gradual works best, sudden accelerations often break the build-up) and the hand. Plenty of people find it simpler and far more pleasant to wrap one hand around the base of the shaft and let it follow the movement of the mouth: depth then stops mattering at all, and the jaw tires much less.

The areas worth exploring go well beyond the shaft. The glans and above all the frenulum, just underneath it, are very responsive to slow strokes of the tongue. The testicles lend themselves to kisses and gentle caresses (never any abrupt pressure), the perineum too. Anal stimulation with a finger, or penetration, is a huge yes for some and a total no for others: you ask beforehand, you don't guess.

A few precautions: cover the teeth with the lips, unless a very light graze has been explicitly asked for, and handle the gag reflex by using the hand as a marker rather than forcing the throat. Coming in the mouth is negotiated in advance, swallowing or not is neither a feat nor an obligation. Oral sex can transmit STIs: the condom (flavoured, sometimes) remains the only real barrier, especially with a recent partner. If there's pain, a lesion or any doubt, a doctor will settle it better than any magazine advice.

Not to be confused with: cunnilingus, its equivalent on the vulva, anilingus, which concerns the anus, and the sixty-nine, the simultaneous, mutual version. "Deep throat" is just one variation among others, no more intense and not compulsory, and the idea that it's the goal to reach mostly comes from a fantasy spread by images.

Synonyms : blowjob, BJ, head, going down on him, oral sex, sucking off