The premise of this book is simple: when it comes to pleasuring women and conversing in the language of love, cunnilingus should be every man's native tongue. As bestselling sex author Lou Paget has written, "Ask most women, and if they're being honest, they will admit that what makes them hottest and come hardest is when a man can use his tongue well."

But as with any language, in order to express yourself fluently, in order to make your subject sing and soar, you must be thoroughly acquainted with the rules of grammar and style. One of my favorite books on the subject is the indispensable classic Elements of Style. I don't think I would have made it though freshman comp, or survived college as an English major, without that slim, dog-eared paperback tucked away in my back pocket. In the able hands of authors Strunk and White, grammar was not simply made understandable and meaningful -- it was made beautiful.

Elements of Style exhorted readers to "write boldly and make definite assertions." And in the spirit of that timeless classic, She Comes First will condense a wealth of experience and expertise into a simple, essential rule book; it will elaborate on the principles and philosophy that underlie those rules and, in doing so, offer nothing less than the definitive guide to the grammar of oral sex. If you want to learn how to give a woman mind-blowing, body-rippling orgasms with your tongue every time, this is the book for you.

Although I have a Ph.D. in clinical sexology, this book is principally written from a practitioner's perspective; by someone who knows and loves cunnilingus, appreciates its role in stimulating female sexual response, and has developed a methodology for consistently leading women to orgasm: one that stems from the conviction that cunnilingus is much more than just a sexual activity, but rather the centerpiece of a philosophy of sexual contentment. Call it the "way of the tongue."

But don't get me wrong: I'm not some Casanova or Don Juan, vainly putting words down on paper in order to boast and strut -- far from it. Through much of my life I've suffered terribly from sexual dysfunction, and I know all too well the humiliation, anxiety, and despair of not being able to satisfy a woman. If anything, this book was written in the sincere hope that other men might develop effective "sexual habits" -- ones that will enable them, along with their partners, to suffer less than I have, or perhaps not at all. As Tennessee Williams wrote of the marriage bed in his play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, "When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there!" Well, here's to getting rid of the rocks and smoothing out the sheets.

My initial forays into oral sex were a crutch, a way of compensating for my sexual inadequacies, and they were approached with the assumption that cunnilingus was a poor man's second to the joys and splendors of "real sex" -- like many, I took it for granted that intercourse was the "right way" for couples to experience orgasms. But, to my surprise, I discovered that the "way of the tongue" was by no means inferior to intercourse; if anything, it was superior, in many cases the only way in which women were able to receive the persistent, rhythmic stimulation, outside of masturbation, necessary to achieve an orgasm. I quickly learned that oral sex is real sex, and later in life, when I happened to come across a copy of the seminal Hite Report on Female Sexuality, I was reassured to find that women consider oral sex to be "one of their most favorite and exciting activities; women mentioned over and over how much they loved it." When it comes to pleasure, there is no right or wrong way to have an orgasm -- the only thing that's wrong is to assume that women need or value them any less than men do.

In her article "Just Be a Man: Six Simple Suggestions," sex columnist Amy Sohn's very first piece of advice is, "A man goes down. No excuses. No hesitation."

But once down there, what's a man to do? The vast majority of women complain about guys who don't like to do it, don't know how to do it, or simply don't do it nearly enough. Flannery O'Connor was right: a good man is hard to find, especially one who's good at taking a leisurely stroll downtown. But once found, a skilled cunnilinguist rarely goes unappreciated. In her essay "Lip Service: On Being a Cunning Linguist," author and sex columnist Anka Radakovich sings the praises of a boyfriend who specialized in oral sex: "I became tongue-whipped (the female equivalent of pussy-whipped) and even offered to do his laundry if he would come over and satisfy me. After two months, I put a framed photo of his tongue on my desk."

It's time to "think outside her box." When it comes to the oral caress, every man should make a mantra of Rhett Butler's infamous line to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind: "You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how."

Those who know me know I'm a private person. I wouldn't dream of confiding my battles with sexual dysfunction to the world if I didn't wholeheartedly believe that there was a compelling need for this book. I know this based on what I've read, what I've been told, and, most important, what I've experienced firsthand as a clinical sexologist: not only do women crave and enjoy cunnilingus; they require it. Any sex therapist will tell you that the number one complaint they hear over and over from women is of an inability to experience orgasm during penis-vagina intercourse. The solution is not simply "more foreplay," as magazines often chide us, but rather the skillful extension of those activities we associate with foreplay, namely oral stimulation, into complete, fully realized acts of lovemaking -- the transformation of foreplay into nothing less than coreplay.

This book is not anti-intercourse, but rather pro-"outercourse" -- a conception of sex that goes beyond penetration, embraces mutual pleasure, and is better suited to stimulating the female sexual anatomy to orgasm. This model doesn't exclude intercourse, but instead promotes the postponement of male gratification until after a woman has achieved her first (but hopefully not last) orgasm during a session of sexual activity -- a deferment that has the double benefit of vouchsafing female satisfaction while also significantly enhancing the quality of the male climax. This book espouses the postponement of gratification, not the postponement of enjoyment.

She Comes First offers men and women a surefire "bird in the hand" approach to good sex, as opposed to the high-stakes "all or nothing" proposition of intercourse. It's time to close the sex gap and create a level playing field in the exchange of pleasure, and cunnilingus is far more than just a means for achieving this noble end; it's the cornerstone of a new sexual paradigm, one that exuberantly extols a shared experience of pleasure, intimacy, respect and contentment. It's also one of the greatest gifts of love a man can bestow upon a woman.

How to Read this Book

In Part I, The Elements of Sexual Style, you will be introduced to a powerful philosophy that will inform, if not dramatically alter, the way you approach sex and relationships. You will learn to:

• Dispense with "disinformation" and cultivate a true understanding of female sexuality

• Think clitorally, rather than vaginally; to focus on stimulation as opposed to penetration

• Postpone gratification without sacrificing pleasure

• Turn foreplay into coreplay

• Skillfully navigate the process of female sexual response and appreciate the role of the clitoris as the powerhouse of pleasure

• Develop a sense of awareness that will render the often elusive female orgasm knowable and tangible beyond the shadow of a doubt

We will also discuss important, often misunderstood, topics such as the "real" anatomy of the female genitalia, hygiene, safe sex, as well as the social and cultural context that informs the way we think and act regarding cunnilingus.

If Part I is the "why" of cunnilingus, then Part II, Rules of Usage, is the "how." Here you will be introduced to proven oral techniques that will enable you to successfully take a woman through the entire process of sexual response, or what I've dubbed the "play process" -- foreplay, coreplay, and moreplay.

Whereas many sex books are content to merely tell the reader "what" to do, it's this author's conviction that the "when" is just as important. It's all in the timing, and to that end, Part III, Putting it Together, delineates clear routines for seamlessly integrating the techniques into a unified experience that will enable you and your partner to reach new erotic heights.

Peppered throughout the book you will also find illustrations, tips, exercises, interesting facts, frequently asked questions, as well as candid responses from some of the many men and women I interviewed regarding sex, relationships, cunnilingus, as well as their own personal do's and don'ts.

Finally, at the end of the book you will find a series of appendices that address many relevant topics and specific situations.

Taken as a whole, She Comes First represents the most thorough treatment of the art of cunnilingus currently available, and will not only teach you everything you need to know in order to master the grammar of oral sex, but will also answer any questions you might have along the way.

By the time you finish this book, you'll not only be thinking about sex from a new perspective, but there will also be nothing you won't know about how to lead a woman to orgasm with your tongue time and time again.

Pop Quiz

Feel free to read She Comes First in whatever manner you find comfortable, but if you're inclined to skip Part I and go straight to the techniques in Part II, then I would ask you first to consider a few simple questions:

• Did you know that the clitoris has eighteen parts, all of which play a role in the production of pleasure? Can you identify them?

• Did you know that the vast majority of nerve endings that contribute to the female orgasm are concentrated on the surface of the vulva and do not require any penetration whatsoever in order to be stimulated to orgasm?

• How many different types of orgasms is a woman capable of experiencing?

• Can you say with complete confidence that you know how to locate the G-spot? Can you name any other hidden zones of pleasure?

• Do you know why cunnilingus is the best means of stimulating a woman to multiple orgasms?

• Do you know why a man is partially responsible for his partner's genital scent?

• Are you entirely sure that your partner has never faked an orgasm, and can you unequivocally recognize the difference between the real thing and a screaming phony?

If you answered no to any of these important questions, then I would encourage you to read the book from start to finish. But no matter how you choose to peruse She Comes First; I hope that, like Elements of Style, it proves to be a book you can come back to time and time again, regardless of your level of expertise.

A Taste of What's to Come

In the spirit of Elements of Style, here are a few basic rules to get you started:

1. Learn to Appreciate Irony: because when it comes to human sexuality, life abounds with it. Just for starters, take the fact that men and women's genitals are formed from the same embryonic tissue, yet our respective processes of arousal couldn't be more different. As the founding editors of Men's Health magazine, Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains, so succinctly put it in their book Sex: A Man's Guide, "Studies show that three fourths of men are finished with sex within a few minutes of starting. But women often need 15 minutes or more to become sufficiently aroused for orgasm. And therein lies a world of rage, grief, and airborne pots and pans."

To put it in grammatical terms, most women are left frustrated with "incomplete sentences" in the face of their partners' prematurely "dangling participles." Hence this book's emphasis on the postponement of male gratification and the first part of its title: She Comes First. As journalist Paula Kamen documents in Her Way, a Survey of Contemporary Young Women, "Women's orgasms are no longer considered a lucky bonus or an afterthought, which marks a shift away from sexual guilt and toward women's pursuing their own desires, as men always have."

When it comes to pleasuring women, keep in mind the ancient words of Taoist master Wu Hsien, "The man must keep the situation in control and benefit from the communion without undue haste."

2. Don't Mistake Her Subject for an Object: namely, the clitoris. With its eight thousand nerve endings (twice as many as the penis), enviable ability to produce multiple orgasms during a single session of sex, and no known purpose other than pleasure, is it any wonder that Masters and Johnson proclaimed the clitoris "a unique organ in the total of humanity"? The clitoris has over eighteen parts, both visible and hidden, that participate in the production of pleasure. (Keep reading, and you'll learn how to master each and every one of them.) Contrary to conventional wisdom -- at least the kind that's as common as Ben-Gay and mildew in the men's locker room -- the clitoris is much more than just a "love button," it's a sophisticated network of arousal that has more hot spots than a latent volcano.

3. The Tongue Is Mightier than the Sword: especially when it comes to clitoral stimulation. Even porn star Ron Jeremy, in possession of the famous ten-inch member, observed, "More women have gotten off with my tongue than with my penis." Shere Hite, author of the Hite Report on Sexuality, went so far as to suggest, "Intercourse was never meant to stimulate women to orgasm." One of the reasons for this is that the clitoris is about 2 to 3 cm closer to the front of the woman's body than the vaginal opening. During intercourse, the penis often misses the clitoris altogether.

In Sex: A Man's Guide, the authors cite a study in which ninety-eight wives in happy, stable marriages kept a sex diary that noted the frequency of sexual activity and the level of satisfaction. Of all the activities they mentioned, cunnilingus ranked as the most satisfying. Eighty-two percent said having their husbands pleasure them orally was very satisfying; the next highest activity, intercourse, was rated very satisfying by only 68 percent. The women reported that during intercourse they reached orgasm about 25 percent of the time. But they reached orgasm 81 percent of the time during oral sex. As Dr. Alex Comfort wrote of cunnilingus in The New Joy of Sex, "One can give the woman dozens of orgasms in this way and she may still want to go on from there."

4. Learn from Your Mistakes: Unlike the adolescent boys of the Cook Island of Mangaia, who, according to author Shane Mooney, are trained in the finer points of breast stimulation, cunnilingus, and delayed ejaculation in order to guarantee the pleasure of their future partners, our Western education is, alas, an incomplete one. When surveyed by Shere Hite regarding their partners' oral techniques, the vast majority of women complained that guys were too rough, too impatient; too fast, too slow; off target, or they changed rhythm at the wrong time. One woman even exclaimed, "It seems like he is trying to erase my clitoris."

Yikes!

But what many women don't know is that men yearn for feedback and guidance. They crave instruction, but communicating about sex is far from easy, and words often fail us in the heat of the moment. As author Sally Tisdale put it in her book Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex, "We can't really explain how arousal feels, what an orgasm is, and the closer we get to one, the less value words have, the less we can use language at all."

So we turn to sex books and magazines or, worse, cheesy porno flicks, and locker-room banter. Most books take an encyclopedic approach to sexuality -- a little of everything, not a whole lot of anything. They emphasize breadth rather than depth and, at best, cunnilingus is given equal attention with other subjects. When it comes to detailing technique, most offer a few scanty pages at most, and almost all write about cunnilingus as an aspect of foreplay rather than as a complete process in its own right. They're like big fat cookbooks that are limited to a few recipes in each category. But cunnilingus is a repast in and of itself, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unique ways to partake.

Attention Men

While She Comes First will benefit anyone -- straight or gay, male or female -- who has an interest in learning about female orgasms and producing them consistently through inspired oral techniques, the book was written primarily for those guys of the world who crave the knowledge to become better, more sensitive lovers, and for the women in their lives who are eager to benefit from their education.

The truth is that men and women differ markedly in how they learn about sex. The Kinsey Report, a well-known survey of human sexuality, observed in 1953, "It is obvious that neither younger girls nor older women discuss their sexual experiences in the open in the ways that males do." A lot has changed since then. In an updated 1990 Kinsey Report on Sexual Literacy, the authors note that women aged eighteen to twenty-nine fared better than their male peers in terms of their knowledge of sexuality and attributed the differences to women's "growing belief that they have a right to sex information and accessible publications about women's health." So it would appear that both the women's movement and the safe-sex movement, with their emphases on clarity and candor, have done much to educate women about their bodies and sexuality in the last half century.

But what about guys?

In both my research and interviews I observed that the women were, in general, more knowledgeable about sex and tended to be much more willing to discuss sexual issues freely and candidly. In describing sexual activities, principally cunnilingus, women were significantly more aware of the qualitative aspects, as well as the technical details, related to their sexual response. While emphasizing the importance of personal experience in acquiring knowledge, women also confirmed that much of their information on sexuality came from friends and parents, as well as books, magazines, and the Internet.

Men, on the other hand, were not as knowledgeable about sexuality, and tended to describe activities such as cunnilingus in more graphic, objectifying detail. Men also acknowledged that they relied more heavily on pornography and firsthand experience when seeking information regarding female sexuality and felt substantially less comfortable seeking "touchy-feely" advice from parents and friends.

So where is a guy to go when seeking specific, accurate information regarding how to stimulate the process of female sexual response? The media bombards us with sex, 24/7, but there is very little mainstream discussion about human sexuality, and even less that is targeted specifically at men. Ironically, some of the guys I spoke with said that the television show Sex and the City -- with its candid discussions of oral sex, orgasms, and other issues -- was a principal source of information about women's sexual attitudes and desires. Still others confided that reading magazines like Cosmo and Jane in private was illuminating, and that there was a quality of information that couldn't be found in men's magazines.

One guy summed it up: "Cosmo and Glamour are much more specific about sex and relationships than men's magazines like Playboy and Maxim, which constantly talk about sex, but not sexuality. They're more 'conquest-oriented' than advice-oriented, and they also focus a lot on gadgets, weight lifting, and getting ahead in your job. Men's Health definitely raises the bar, but that's just one magazine, and even it tends to focus more on achieving perfect abs than on detailed sex advice."

Unfortunately, both men and women end up suffering from this dearth of accurate information -- with men flicking their tongues like porno stars, employing sexual positions that have little to do with clitoral stimulation, and generally being clueless about the female anatomy and the process of sexual response.

When it comes to mastering the grammar of oral sex, we need more than just a handful of random tips gleaned from the latest copy of Maxim or Cosmo. We need that veritable "little rule book," as Elements of Style has been so fondly dubbed: focused, concise, with techniques that make sense, explanations that illuminate, and routines that really work -- a book that inspires us to develop our own unique voice and sense of style. She Comes First is that book.

So whether you're just starting down the path of a cliterary life, or are already a bona fide member of the cliterati, get ready to learn the rules of grammar and to deploy them with style.

Why I Wrote this Book

My own education as a "cunnilinguist" began with sexual dysfunction -- a long-drawn-out battle with premature ejaculation (PE). I was hopeless, pathetic. Just the sight of a woman's naked body could make me lose control, and foreplay quickly led to end of play. In the language of love, I couldn't get past the first syllable. I was sure that on my gravestone, my epitaph would read, "He came. He saw. And then he came again."

Later in life, I learned from my study of the pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey that the typical male sustains penetrative thrusting, on average, for about two and a half minutes. That provided some small comfort, but at the time I felt terribly alone. I often wondered why I was "biologically cursed" to reach orgasm so quickly. Was it a vestigial remnant of the evolutionary battles of natural selection, when a man had to spread his seed quickly in order to ensure the propagation of his genetic material? Would Charles Darwin have told me that what I considered a grievous weakness was, in fact, a competitive advantage in the struggle for the survival of the fittest? Perhaps, but to me it felt more like the "barely hanging on of the unluckiest."

Today, I am convinced that one of the main sources of PE is poor masturbation habits -- how boys are taught, or rather not taught, to do it quickly, furtively, and shrouded in taboo and secrecy. It doesn't take long for a young man to program himself to seek his pleasure quickly, and as we all know, bad habits are difficult to break. Perhaps if someone had told me early on to masturbate with a woman's orgasm in mind, rather than my own, I would have been spared years of turmoil.

I was a sexual cripple, and oral sex became my crutch. If I couldn't satisfy a woman with my penis, then I'd sure as hell satisfy her with my mouth! I can still remember all the fears, preconceptions, and blunders of my early experiences in college. My first forays into cunnilingus were not unlike many men's -- hesitant, tentative; going down here and there for a few licks. I learned through trial and error, but eventually came to realize that cunnilingus was much more than just an arbitrary, or optional, aspect of foreplay; it was coreplay. It was an essential process -- with a beginning, middle, and end -- for leading a woman through the many stages of arousal that eventually culminate in climax. Cunnilingus not only enabled me to pleasure a woman utterly and completely, it allowed me to stop worrying about sex and start enjoying it. In doing so, I was able to drop the anxiety, develop greater self-control, and become a better lover overall. Cunnilingus certainly saved my sex life, and when I think about all the depression and heartache I suffered as a result of my battles with PE, it's not so far off to say that it saved my entire life.

I'll never forget the first time I ushered a woman into orgasm with my tongue. It was a watershed moment. I felt as E. B. White did when, recalling his years as a young struggling writer in New York, he described how it felt to sit down for dinner at Child's restaurant on Fourteenth Street and, going through his mail, discover his first check for a magazine piece he had written: "I can still remember the feeling that this was it, I was a pro at last. It was a good feeling and I enjoyed the meal."

I couldn't agree more.

Today, I'm happily married and able to make love successfully, but I still believe wholeheartedly in the "way of the tongue." It's simply the tool best suited for the job. More than that, I believe that cunnilingus is the most intimate, respectful, and rewarding sexual act a man can engage in. As Sally Tisdale wrote, "To submit to another's belly, or another's mouth. Oral sex may be the most potent of sexual acts. It is an act of power derived from the most vulnerable kind of intimacy."

Some people refer to oral sex as mouth-music, and as a musician I guess you can say I'm well down the path of accomplishment. But it wasn't until I met my wife that I found my Stradivarius -- unique, beautiful, and priceless. If she is my violin, then I am her bow. I encourage you to find your Stradivarius. And when you do, protect, cherish, and remain constant to it, for then you will be able to play as a master.

As much as I will discuss general techniques for success, every woman is different, and cunnilingus is ultimately about individual acts of knowing and giving. That's not to say you can't have a lot of fun casually, but such exploits are ultimately the pursuit of technique without a greater sense of purpose -- pyrotechnics rather than real fireworks. Giving great head requires trusting the rhythm of what happens and relaxing into a deeper, more instinctive zone of the self. It involves a mutual process of letting go and connecting to each other on every level. There's no faking it. You need to be more than just a technician. You need to imbue technique with all of your senses and imagination. You need to be present, you need to be real; you need to be there in body, mind, and spirit.

As E. B. White wrote, "Style results more from what a person is than from what he knows. But there are a few hints that can be thrown out to advantage."

With that in mind, let's get going.

Copyright © 2004 by Ian Kerner, Ph.D.