Everything You Need to Know About Going Down on Her, Revealed
Depending on your familiarity with the term and the sex act it describes, “cunnilingus” might sound incredibly daunting, or just plain hot.
Cunnilingus is a latin term for oral sex performed on a vagina. Typically, that means on a woman, but it can also be on a non-binary person who was assigned female at birth, or a transgender person with a vagina.
What Is Cunnilingus?
So what does that entail, exactly? Well, like any sex act, it sort of depends on the two people involved.
There are certain actions and moves that are more common, but the important thing is that you and the person you’re going down on are on the same page in terms of what feels good. Things that feel incredible to one person might feel uninteresting – or even painful – to another partner. The only way to know for sure is to talk to each other and try things out.
But in short, cunnilingus is typically focused on one partner licking the other person’s clitoris – or rather, the clitoral head, which is located directly above the vagina. Just in terms of what you can do with your mouth, it can also involve sucking on the clitoris, sucking on or licking the labia minora, or inserting your tongue into your partner’s vaginal opening.
Why Is Cunnilingus Important?
Thought experiment: Imagine a woman rubbing your testicles against her clitoris until she climaxes. Then she turns to you in a post-coital fog of pleasure and says, “Was that good for you, too?”
There’s a pretty good chance that’s never happened to you, but it’s not a completely alien concept to women, many of whom are used to sex being about a guy’s pleasure first and foremost – or in some unfortunate cases, exclusively about the guy’s pleasure. The upshot of that is that the central pleasure location on a woman’s body – the clitoris – still gets ignored by many guys.
To put that in perspective, it would be like if during sex, the glans of your penis never touched any part of your partner’s body. In the testicle-rubbing-clitoris scenario above, you might feel some pleasure; after all, the testicles do have nerve endings and it can be deeply arousing when they’re touched.
Also, you might be turned on just to be naked with another person, and it might be exciting to know that she’s aroused in your presence. But without any stimulation of your penis, you’re almost certainly not going to orgasm, and you’re probably going to be at least a little bit disappointed.
The good news is, making sure your partner doesn’t experience the female version of that scenario isn’t particularly complicated – you just need to start incorporating clitoral stimulation into sex with the same regularity as penetration. And the best way to do that is through oral sex – aka cunnilingus.
Basic Cunnilingus Tips
It’s all well and good to decide to start engaging in cunnilingus, but without knowing what you’re doing, it can be daunting or, worse, wildly unsuccessful if and when you do start.
To help prevent you from ending up with your head between your partner’s legs, gripped by a deep feeling of panic or confusion, TGPersonals we spoke to some sex experts about the basic tips you should know before you start eating someone out.
1. Locate the Clitoris
As mentioned above, for many people, the main thrust of cunnilingus is licking the clitoral head, which pokes out from under the clitoral hood, just above the vaginal opening. Whether you’re looking for it or feeling for it by touch, finding it is an important first step in performing cunnilingus.