From a very early stage in my sexual development, perhaps the age of 15 or 16, I knew that when I got serious about boys I should be a fellatiator. (MS Word is angrily insisting that "fellatiator" is not a word, but if Colbert is allowed "truthiness" as his defining characteristic then I can take fellatiator as mine.) Between the ages of about sixteen and nineteen I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and give oral sex to a nice boy. This fascination seemed entirely at odds with my budding identity as both a feminist and a bi-sexual, but something had such a deep seated, unconscious appeal that no logical, conscious polemic could overcome it. Over time, I realized that this desire was inextricably bound up in my growing interest in Domination/submission. Simple sex is, at its core, a congregation of equals; two people come together to engage in a mutual activity for mutual pleasure. This sameness of purpose and activity limits the power difference between the two partners. Sure, one can go top and the other bottom, or you can slap your partner's ass, but in the end you are both "having sex", doing the same thing. In oral sex, on the other hand, there is no doubt that the two partners are engaged in very different activities (one giving and the other receiving) which makes a real difference in power possible. The giver may be submissive (offering pleasure to her/his partner for nothing in return) or dominant (holding the power of one of the most primal urges in his/her mouth), but s/he cannot be equal.

Some background might help you understand why this idea holds such appeal to me. I was born in mainland China to a relatively conservative Chinese family. My father's family had been Westernized Catholic bourgeoisie before the revolution, and despite his total apathy to all things theological the Church's strict asceticism had a formative impact on him. My mother's family were devout Communists who came east during the revolution, and strictly adhered to the Party's puritan stand on sexual deviants. The closest my family ever came to discussing sexual matters were fleeting references to my maternal uncle, who had spoken too freely about homosexual rights during Hundred Flowers and so had been "cast down" during the Cultural Revolution. Apart from their conservatism, my parents shared a sense of ambition (they met at Tsinghua University and bonded over their desire to go to America to make better lives for themselves) and they worked hard to instill those same values in me.

I don't remember much before we came to the US, but I do remember being quite upset by the move itself. My parents had benefited from a rigorous English immersion course that allowed them to be at least functional with the broader community, I had not. Almost as soon as we arrived I began kindergarten, and it was obvious that I just did not fit in. There were a few other Chinese speakers, mostly the children of grad students like myself, but the only one I really formed a bond with was an introverted girl who would later give me my first inkling that I might not be a 100% normal heterosexual. In lieu of a social life I threw myself into my studies, but we were required to be outside "playing" during recess, so I had to find other ways to pass my time. That's how I learned to watch, and watching is how I really saw power dynamics for the first time. There is a wonderfully complex hierarchy among schoolchildren with its own codes and shibboleths; it's just fluid enough to make it ever changing, but just solid enough that it can be understood and delineated. Those were unhappy times for me, but fortunately I had never been happy enough to realize how miserable I was.

I've long since forgotten how I learned about actual sex; I only know that when maturation class came in the 5th and 6th grades it held no real surprises for me. Some older girl had doubtless passed on the sacred knowledge of what would happen at some hazy point when my classmates and I were "older" before grown ups could ruin it with their level headed, practical explanations. In any event, as we passed into junior high the symptoms of puberty became the badges of maturity. Growth, swelling hips, budding breasts and even the dreaded menstruation would make us giddy with pride that we were growing up even as we were baffled by new emotions and experiences that neither gossip nor medical fact had prepared us for. Of course, whatever marks those who should be proud must also mark some with shame, and puberty wasn't easy on me. I was a fairly late bloomer, not having my first period until I was almost fourteen, and my breasts never quite grew to the impressive proportions I wanted them to. Doctors would cite my body fat as the reason for both, noting that I hovered around the very bottom of the healthy range. Still, junior high was a period of positive change for me. I was determined not to repeat my elementary school loneliness and approached networking with the same vigor I had applied to my studies before. My English had become near perfect, and my parents openly encouraged me to participate in school activities both for my happiness and for college applications, so my social life quickly ballooned with friends from things like math counts, science Olympiad and cheerleading.

It didn't hurt that, despite my wiry frame, I was fairly pretty in an Asian geek sort of way, which lead to the tentative advances of a few boys. I said no, of course, since my priority was still school, and I didn't think I had time for that kind of distraction (my father said it best in his terse way: "It's a lot easier to make a boy crazy for you than a college"). But no matter how emphatically I turned them down, they proved that my life had crossed one of the last thresholds of innocence: sex was now a factor. Of course, we were still in junior high, so most of it was not intercourse sex, but just "giving head", and even that was a serious allegation, mostly spoken in hushed tones as proof that someone was a slut. Still, the idea fascinated me whenever I caught a glimpse of an unusual bulge in a man's pants. I brushed it off as idle curiosity, assuring myself that I would never do anything slutty, and if I did it would be nothing so degrading to women!

Gradually, my aversion to the sexual melted away. First, it became more and more clear that the feelings my best friend's warm smiles and alluring eyes invoked in me were more than friendship or simple aesthetic appreciation. A few weeks later, terrified out of my mind and between my sheets I touched myself for the first time, leading to my first ever orgasm. After that, I was hooked. I started probing around the internet for more info, finding chat rooms on MSN and AIM, story sites like ASSTR (and later on Lit), dirty pictures, and so on. It always started out as "just a peek" to see what was new and usually ended with me sneaking back into my room, naughty thoughts of busty women and well hung men in my head, to finish my little ritual.

My exposure to online pornography/erotica/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it launched me on two parallel but somewhat contradictory courses. On the one hand, being exposed to such a breadth of human fantasy helped me begin to get a real grasp on my own sexuality; vague yearnings were crystallized with their own words and associated images. I discovered that I was drawn mainly to stories about Domination and submission its various forms, especially those with subs I could identify with: young, perky, a bit self conscious and usually Asian. Others tickled my fancy, covering a whole range of topics, but none stuck with me like those. And of course, among D/s stories my favorites pretty much always involved fellatio. The more I read about it, the more I understood why it appealed so much to the sub in me. Since ancient times, the phallus has been a symbol of virility, potency and power. Fellatio appealed to me so much because it tapped into that loaded imagery, becoming a form of total supplication to a cultural font of authority. I was so fascinated by this social dimension of phallic ideals that I convinced my (very enlightened) AP Art History teacher to let me do a term paper tracing attitudes towards the phallus as part of the human ideal from classical to modern times.

On the other hand, my research on the issue of pornography exposed me to a wide range of feminist debates about what exactly porn meant for women's rights. Some thought it was the perfect antidote for centuries of sexual repression, tossing aside the Madonna/wore dichotomy and finally acknowledging what every girl knew: we liked sex. Most, however, pointed out that there was a difference between women becoming sexual beings like men have been allowed to be for centuries and women becoming sex objects. Adding to my woes, I was not just a woman, but an Asian woman, and as many of the commentators I read pointed out, Asians in particular were feminized, eroticized and exoticized to create an appealing Other for western ethnic groups to project their fantasies on. Most Asian women, I am sure, can attest to the creepy guy who clearly has the "yellow fever" since Asians have been so essentialized as "ideal" women. The Cindy's Torment controversy was before my time, but there was plenty of evidence that stereotypical fantasies of meek Asian women still abounded, and I had indulged myself in more than a little bit of that evidence.