Excellent advice from Em of Em & Lo: Sex. Love. And Everything in Between.
If we all followed the golden rule of reciprocity in bed, we think there’d be more sex, more orgasms, less bickering, fewer sex advice columnists (we’d be out of a job!), and possibly even world peace. Remember, if your partner tickles your back, it’s not just because they’re being nice  they want you to tickle their back, too. And anything tactile, whether it’s a back massage or a nipple tweak or oral sex, feels better when you don’t have to ask for it.
It’s funny that Em would have to remind us but… we hear over and over… and over and over and over… that the hetero bias towards one-way sex is frustratingly durable.
I don’t want to bring up my, um, universal explanation for everything but it does seem that if people were a bit more willing to acknowledge that women might enjoy sex because it feels good and not just because they like making letting their man feel good in exchange for some other, non-sexual benefit we’d probably all enjoy ourselves a lot more. There’d certainly be more orgasms during sex. And there might be probably be fewer sex advice columnists. I’m actually not sure about world peace or even less bickering since I’m not a big believer in the “...just needs to get laid” theory of conflict resolution. I do think there might be less bickering about sex.
But forget all that! You know what’s really nice about reciprocity? It’s not the “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” that makes it cool. It’s the “doing unto others, period” that’s cool. Because, seriously, scratching or massaging someone else’s back is fun. Tweaking someone’s nipple back is fun. Oral sex? Can I just make the only-seemingly-paradoxical proposal that while it’s not as orgasmic to eat someone it’s just as much fun?
The one caveat? “Reciprocity” isn’t the same as “payback.” If you’re eating your partner, say, only because they won’t eat you if you don’t? Then yeah, resentment’s kind of a buzzkill… but it’s a buzzkill both ways. I’d also point out that reciprocity also isn’t “I’m rubber and you’re glue.” It might be that one of you rocks out over receiving oral and the other only gets of when she or he is on top. If so then great — reciprocity can work that way too.
