Why I Never Swallow Cum

Or Put It In My Mouth

Photo Credit: Jocelyn Morales

The Start

I have never swallowed cum. I have never even put sperm in my mouth or spat it out. 

This is contrary to what is “normal” in most heterosexual porn. The girl gets on her knees and opens wide, demanding that the male actor ejaculates down her throat. She then swallows this thimble of gooey, cream-colored liquid, as if it satisfies a hunger that has lasted a thousand years. Of course, this happens after she was pounded to the point where you wonder how she can walk home afterwards. 

I am glad to share that this typical scene could not be further from my sexual experiences. Not only do my male partners finish differently, but also I have an alternative take on semen in general. Here are the juicy details of my reality:  

1. Real life is very different from porn, which is a good thing.

In heterosexual porn, cumming into a girl’s mouth seems to be the peak of pride and pleasure. This already leaves me puzzled. If I was a man who wanted to optimize my pleasure and not care about women, finishing in this way seems anticlimactic. Surely it would be optimal to cum inside her vagina? 

As I mentioned in a previous article, I am into creampies. So when my male partners ejaculate in real life, it either ends up inside me or on their chest or on the bedding, if worse comes to worst. Thankfully I have a hormonal IUD, a very effective form of birth control, so I am less concerned about getting pregnant. For the women out there who would never consider getting an abortion, spitting or swallowing semen might be a great alternative. If it is consensual, I am all for it. But to me, the way that male porn actors ejaculate into girls’ mouths feels intentionally degrading.

Why aren’t we questioning these bizarre standards of pornography? Have we all just accepted as a society that this is a normal way to treat a woman? Luckily, not everyone thinks so. A couple of years ago, I got to interview Lilly Sparks, founder of Afterglow, who makes more tasteful porn for women that is just as hot. Also, Cindy Gallop founded Make Love Not Porn, devoted to sharing videos of real-world sex. These alternative platforms remind us that real-world sex is lovely and messy, and between two respectful and equal humans. 

2. I do not exist solely to please men. 

When so much of porn focuses on male pleasure, it creates the expectation that as the female half of a heterosexual couple, I’m supposed to roll over and be a spineless plaything. Yet, I am not a doormat. Beyond wanting to have the sperm closer to my vagina than my mouth, I don’t find sperm sexual. I don’t find it special and it doesn’t smell particularly good, either. To me, it is a bodily fluid just like any other. (As an aside, I had a long discussion with a male friend about whether sucking a penis or eating out a vulva was worse. We concluded that both are okay if your partner has bathed recently.)

As I am indifferent to semen, I will not get on my knees and beg for it. I will not pretend it’s my lucky day when I will never feel that way about it. Still, younger me, especially in my teenage years, wasn’t so wise. She was far too preoccupied with doing whatever she thought would get boys to like her. 

We all need to do more to escape from “the tyranny of the should” as coined by Karen Horney (no relation to the topic). If putting semen in your mouth and swallowing it is your thing, by all means, go ahead. But for the rest of us females, we would be better off only doing things we really want to do with our male partners. We should not just do things because we think it will please them. Yes, we were raised to be eternal people pleasers. But it’s also unfair to men when we’re doing things that don’t make us happy. Men are doing their best to connect with us physically and emotionally. If we pretend to like something when we don’t, that’s not real. That’s not helping anybody. So if you’re going to put sperm in your mouth, do it because you want to. Do it because you are curious about what it tastes like or it turns you on.  

I won’t bow down to this societally constructed pressure that porn has created for us. I will be honest about my disinterest in sperm. In spite of my opinions, almost all my male partners have treated me as an equal human. That’s more than porn tells me I deserve. I would say that I am grateful for this, but that makes it sound like treating women with respect is not a baseline expectation for men in our society. 

3. None of my male partners have explicitly wanted it. 

I am not against putting sperm in my mouth. But given that I have very little interest in doing it, only one reason would lead me to consider swallowing cum.

Most men I have slept with would prefer to go out to dinner with me, watch a movie, cuddle, and then see what happens, as opposed to nutting in my mouth after 20 minutes of intense sex. Many of these partners have been loving and caring humans. I would only consider putting sperm in my mouth and swallowing it if one of them told me openly and honestly that it was their favorite thing in the world. If it was the absolute kinkiest thing they loved and they had found it to be life-changing.

As I explored in my article about pegging my boyfriend, I think it is paramount for people who are sleeping together to be honest with each other about their deepest desires. Expressing what we want and having our partner hear us with compassion and acceptance is perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world. 

You might want your girlfriend to swallow your sperm. You might want your partner to fuck the shit out of you while wearing a lab coat. If we cannot let ourselves be open in sex, where can we be our true selves? It is the opposite of the external world in that sense. We live in a world of shoulds and should-haves, where the internet demands every inch of our attention and requires us to perform constantly. Yet when we get in bed together, perhaps this is the one sacred place where we can be fully seen. Where the roles can be reversed. Where we can lay our guards down and let ourselves be loved.

None of my male partners have expressed that ejaculating into my mouth would mean a lot to them. But if someone asked me one day, I would seriously consider it. It would still be up to me if I would do it. And if I did, it only would be out of the kindness of my own goddamn heart. 

The Finish

Overall, I think the difference here comes down to why we do things. Porn tells us that swallowing our partner's cum is the ideal way to pleasure them. But ultimately, we will never know if this is true unless we talk about it in our couples honestly and vulnerably. If sperm swallowing is the ultimate goal of my male partner and he truly does not want to cum inside my vagina or on his chest or on my chest or on the bedsheets, then I will listen and consider whether that is something I am willing to do. 

Most men I know do not want to degrade women. As Dr. Laurie Mintz taught me, most men are very interested in pleasing their partners. If anything, based on my BDSM test results, I am the brat who is far more interested in degrading my partner than having my partner degrade me.

I’ll add that to the list of things to discuss with my next male partner.