Is that socially acceptable? I would kind of automatically assume the guy in question was an asshole. But I'm a man and run in pretty liberal circles so maybe my perspective is skewed.

Again, it's more her unwillingness to pleasure her partner *at all* than the actual blowjobs.

Okay it's the Internet and tensions can be high but honestly he didn't say anything remotely like that

No, not necessarily, but there's a heavy subtext in this specific case that she gets no enjoyment out of pleasuring her partners, which yes probably means she isn't much fun to sleep with.

This isn't actually entirely clear, though. You might reasonably imagine this guy would actually like the odd blowjob (or at least some kind of orgasm) now and then, but doesn't want to stake the relationship on it. Which would be sort of the exact situation the author had been in before.

Yeah, sure, of course. But she doesn't seem to want to pleasure her partners in any way, which is a bit eyebrow-raising.

I'm mostly just confused about why she can't give him a handjob or use a toy on him or at least let him jerk off on her breasts or something. "No blow jobs" is one thing, but "I don't want to ever help my partner orgasm" is definitely selfish.

I feel like he's pretty consistently portrayed as asexual, but yeah

Ok come on you have to think this is at least a little funny

I'm considering moving to either the Bay Area or to NYC (from Canada) after finishing grad school. I'd be about 29. Please advise.

I was kind of expecting one of those terrifying Buzzfeed style "all the colour and joy will soon drain from your life" style articles at first, but yeah this doesn't sound so bad

I actually think this, while technically true, kind of misses the point. Free speech normally refers also to the *normative claim* that people should have a fair chance to air their views.

Not that this really helps t-shirt guy, but it isn't really encapsulated above.

um... I guess the latter? I'm in my late twenties.

Well, whatever. If you don't want to do something you don't want to do it.

I might advise you to bend (haha) a bit on things that you don't necessarily love but aren't totally repelled by either, but I'm sure you've thought all of this through.

Yes. And there's nothing wrong with this at all. Not starting a relationship because one of you can't connect with someone who won't flog them with a pineapple while wearing a goat mask or whatever and the other is repulsed by the idea is the Logical And Responsible thing to do, from both partners' perspectives.

This is actually a really important question I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far

I kind of agree. Except! Things like "do you need to choke me to feel sexually fulfilled. are you sure? are you going to date me for three years and then get bored and cheat on me because I won't let you choke me." are kind of important and quite hard to determine early on.

Does "3-week cycles of no contact followed by a couple days of emailing that degenerate into one or the other of us complaining of regret and then breaking off contact again" count

I have, like, a friend who needs to know that

2, yeah ok. 1 though? Really?

I agree this would be useful information, but how could anyone possibly know the answer beforehand?

It could just mean you are under 35 and live in a city