Why Doesn’t She Want to Give You Oral Sex? 8 Reasons That Are Not About You

By Chris Taylor

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Song of Songs 2:3

Maybe you’re one of the many husbands who absolutely love being on the receiving end of oral sex.

After all, what’s not to love?

It feels good. The visuals are fantastic. The mutual trust is intimate. Your wife is welcoming your manhood in a way that feeds your masculine heart. You can lean back and simply enjoy the experience.

For some husbands, this is just a dream. They’d love to get some oral loving, but their wives avoid it or do it only begrudgingly.

If your wife avoids giving you oral sex, it’s tempting to take it personally and feel rejected.

But I’m going to let you in on something that may shock you: Quite a few of the reasons your wife might not want to give you a blow job have nothing to do with you.

To be fair, there are some reasons that might be about you, and I’m going to write about that next time.

For today, let’s take a look at some of the reasons wives may struggle with giving oral sex that are not about you.

Her baggage gets in the way. Most of us bring some kind of sexual baggage into our marriages, whether it is from prior sexual experiences, negative teachings about sex, or even being hushed as a child when asking an innocent question. For quite a few Christian women, giving oral sex before marriage—even if the only boyfriend is the man she eventually marries—might lead to some negative feelings about that act. The feelings about the act carry into the marriage, even though it was the context that had been the problem, not the act itself. If her baggage comes from sexual trauma (in particular, childhood sexual abuse), the act may evoke feelings of terror, powerlessness, and self-loathing.

It hurts. Giving oral sex can be uncomfortable or even painful for many women. Sometimes it’s difficult to find a comfortable position for giving oral sex, but most discomfort or pain comes from the oral activity, not from the position. The gag reflex can make a wife feel like she needs to vomit—and that makes it very hard to be willing to do it in the future. Some women also experience jaw pain when giving oral sex.

She believes oral sex is wrong. Some churches teach that it is wrong or that it is acceptable only when intercourse isn’t an option. She may feel dirty or shameful when she gives oral sex, and that affirms her belief that it is wrong.

It isn’t intimate. Although it may feel very intimate to you, for lots of women, anything that isn’t face-to-face and eye-to-eye is far from intimate. In oral sex, your faces are simply too far apart for her to feel close.

It’s too intimate. Having her face so up-close-and-personal to your man parts can be very intense and unsettling. And that’s even before she gets her mouth involved.

It’s gross. NO. This doesn’t mean she thinks YOU are gross. What’s gross is the very idea of putting her mouth on a body part that urinates. Also, pre-ejaculate and semen have a consistency that is difficult for some women.

She thinks oral sex only means deep throat. Oral sex includes kissing, licking, and sucking any part of your partner’s genitals. If your wife thinks of oral sex only as her mouth engulfing the entire penis, she might be pretty intimidated.

Oral sex is one-sided. A blow job is about YOUR pleasure, not hers. Your wife may find it arousing to give you oral sex, but that won’t lead to a happy ending for her.

What can you do?

Sexual intimacy should be about intimacy and oneness—knowing each other more fully and more deeply, physically and otherwise.

There is nothing you can do that will turn your wife from a blow job avoider into a deep throat diva overnight. Furthermore, if your primary goal is to get oral sex, you’re thinking about yourself more than you are about your wife—and that is a bigger problem than whether or not your wife is putting her mouth to your penis.

However, you CAN lay the groundwork that may help her consider oral sex for you in the future.

Your wife first needs to feel that she is heard and valued. Consider her avoidance giving you oral sex as an invitation to you to seek her heart and to know each other more fully.

1. Ask your wife to help you understand why she prefers not to give you oral sex. Listen to her heart, and thank her for sharing. Assure her that you love HER more than you love receiving oral sex. Even if you don’t understand or agree with what she says, you’ve opened the door to future conversations about the subject.
2. At another time, have a conversation in which you tell your wife that you would like to help her understand why oral sex is something that interests you. If you explain it in a way that shows how this helps you feel closer to her, not just how it feels good to your penis, it may be easier for her to understand. Reassure her that you love making love with her, even if oral sex isn’t part of that.
3. Tell her that you’ve seen some Christian resources about oral sex that might be helpful if she is willing to learn and challenge her own thinking. J and I both have a lot of resources on oral sex. (See Oral Sex: Blessing Your Husband and Learning to Be Blessed at The Forgiven Wife and oral sex search results at Hot, Holy & Humorous.)
4. Promise to let it go for a while—but don’t promise to never bring it up again. People grow. Relationships change.
5. Ask her to pray for you both to come to agreement on this subject—and then you do the same thing.

Next time I’ll give you a list of some reasons your wife may be avoiding sex that do have to do with you—and take heart! It’s a shorter list, and there’s a lot you can do to turn those things around.