The hand job is back.
Or so say the “sexperts.” But I beg to differ.
In high school, my boyfriend introduced me to the theory that no hand job a girl gives can compare to what a guy can do to himself, but he didn’t agree. He said, “All my friends hate getting jerked off because they think that doing it themselves always feels better, but that’s bullshit. It feels different when it’s from a girl, and it feels better.” In retrospect, maybe I should have been skeptical. After all, I was his first.
Years after that relationship ended I still remember that conversation, probably because I have since heard countless people articulate that same theory. Both sexes say it’s juvenile, as it’s common knowledge that a guy can masturbate himself much better than any girl can.
Recently I was reading Esquire and happened upon an article that claimed the hand job — which by now I had been convinced is extinct — is making a comeback. According to the magazine’s sex expert Stacey Grenrock Woods, “more and more people are discovering the timeless elegance of a good hand job.”
Apparently this is due to the growing importance of practicing safe sex and with a hand job no condom is necessary. Woods writes, “To do the hand job, all you really need is a lubricant, an adventurous spirit and two minutes.” So I had to ask: Does the “hands off” theory of the hand job really resonate with most guys? Or do they, deep down, really love the idea of someone else doing the work?
Not surprisingly, most guys were adamant that the hand job is not the sex act of the future. “I think they are childish, sometimes painful and an all around big fuckin’ slap in the face,” said one guy. When I asked him if that meant he was a believer in the “I-can-do-it-to-myself-better-than-she-can” theory, he replied, “Do I believe in it? It’s not a theory, honey. It’s a law.”
Another male told me that hand jobs are “the spawn of Satan,” a harsh title for what most girls consider a sexual favor. But nonetheless, guys seem to feel that this favor is no favor at all, but an awkward attempt on the girl’s part to do something sexual if she doesn’t feel ready to give oral sex. This male told me that he likes to use what he calls “the swipe method.” This entails swiping the girl’s hand away every time it starts to touch the penis, until she finally gets the picture. The move, he has found, is effective. And apparently it’s common knowledge that hand jobs are sometimes painful. As one guy told me, “girls need to stop thinking they are milking a cow.”
So I don’t care what the “experts” say. I’ve talked to some experts of my own: boys. And it seems unanimous that hand jobs, though a nice gesture, are better left to the most experienced hands — those of the guys themselves.
Medill senior and PLAY sex columnist Rachel Bertsche prefers gloves to mittens. She can be reached at [email protected].