After multiple women accused James Deen of rape and sexual assault in November 2015, The Frisky made the immediate decision to end our affiliation with the porn star and to cancel his sex advice column with the site. In addition to believing it would be inappropriate to continue publishing sex advice from someone facing such serious allegations, The Frisky is firm in its commitment to believing and standing in solidarity with victims/survivors when they come forward. After serious consideration and input, we decided to leave the previously published columns up on The Frisky with this disclaimer, as we believe the glaring divide between Deen’s consent-focused advice and the rape allegations against him should be part of the public record. For a more thorough explanation on our decision to end this column, click here.
*****
I have made a real and true effort to make married sex fun, interesting, and satisfying for both myself and my husband. I gave him my blessing to continue his porn watching as long as it doesn’t interfere with bedroom performance and I partake myself occasionally when he is away. We have toys. If he sees something in porn he actually thinks we would enjoy he lets me know and so far I’ve attempted to incorporate everything he’s brought up except for the one thing: facials. I do not want his mess in my eyes or hair or up my nose. I do not like it. So now he’s become somewhat obsessed with this idea and brings it up at least once a week. At the same time, he’s also apologetic about his pestering and can’t say what it is about this that he finds so appealing. He knows it won’t feel any different than cumming on my body or hand, but he still can’t stop talking about it. He also says he would feel bad if I let him do this thing because he thinks it’s gross and humiliating. I was always under the impression that this is one of those things done in porn just to get that dramatic finish, or as part of a face rape scene with all the implied dominance and helplessness yadda yadda. It always seemed pretty useless in the real world unless you were doing some sub/dom play, which my husband is NOT into. So tell me, is there something here I’m missing? Or is he merely fixated on an fantasy aspect of porn that doesn’t really translate in the bedroom?
Yes, you are absolutely missing something. But before I get to that, let me be clear: If you don’t want your husband to come* on your face, don’t do it. Your husband needs to stop pestering you. The two of you need to have a clear conversation where you say, “Listen dude, I will let you know if I change my mind about this, but at the moment, this is not something I’m interested in doing. Please stop asking me.” He needs to respect your boundaries. He needs to understand that it doesn’t matter how many times he brings it up, how many different ways, how many jokes he tells or how many subtle hints he drops, you are not interested. When he brings it up by saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do it if you wouldn’t like it…”, he’s still secretly hoping you’ll say it’s okay. He’s trying to plant the idea in your head while taking the guilt of asking for it off his shoulders, but it’s still the same fucking thing, and he needs to stop doing that.
If he doesn’t respect your request, then you need to address the fact that your husband is kind of a disrespectful asshole. But from what it sounds like, the two of you have a solid relationship with good communication skills, so I imagine he’ll understand and stop bringing it up. Maybe one day you’ll feel comfortable with it and say, “Okay, I’m down to do this.” But there’s no reason you need to like it, there’s no reason you need to be interested in it, there’s no reason you need to try it.
That being said, YES, you are absolutely missing something when it comes to facials, because you are assuming a lot about human sexuality. You are missing the understanding that sexuality does not fit neatly into boxes, it just EXISTS. There is no one reason why people do the things they do in bed, including the act of giving or receiving facials. The appeal could be merely the visual aspect of it. There’s a sensational/physical aspect to it that’s hot to people too. For instance, to use a similar example, there’s a woman I used to have sex with who could only come if she was grinding on her teddy bear while I was pissing on her face. Now, realistically, she didn’t actually need me to pee in her face; she just liked the feeling of warm liquid streaming onto her – she could have been in the shower doing the same thing. And she needed to grind on a teddy bear not necessarily because it was a teddy bear, but because it was an object with the right softness and density to get her off – maybe a pillow would have worked just as well. There are many people who enjoy facials for similar physical reasons.
Sure, their enjoyment could have a lot to do with BDSM in some way, however it doesn’t necessarily need to. There are all sorts of different reasons why people find giving or receiving a facial to be arousing and enjoyable that have nothing to do with domination or rough sex or degradation or anything like that. This is one of those “a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square” sort of situations. So yes, you are missing a lot.
Think of it like shaking someone’s hand. Shaking someone’s hand is not a representation of anything other than a salutation, but it can be done for many reasons. You can shake someone’s hand to say “Nice to meet you!”, you can shake someone’s hand to say “Good job!”, you can shake someone’s hand because you just want to touch them. But there are people out there who say, “Hey, i don’t feel comfortable having my hands touched – I’m a germaphobe.” And in that case, you don’t need to shake their hand — you can say “good job” or “nice to meet you” instead. The same message gets across and there’s no harm done.
A facial is one representation of a male having an orgasm. It is not necessarily about degradation, or humiliation, or facial abuse. At some point in life, a guy said, “I want to come on your face,” or a woman said, “I want you to come on my face,” and it’s been perpetuated and become more common because enough people find it arousing that they continue to do it. Porn did not invent facials; people were likely doing facials before the first facial ever appeared in porn. Does art dictate life or does life dictate art?
Unfortunately, not enough people in our society have regular conversations about sex and sexuality, and they don’t always understand that porn isn’t education. There are a lot of people who see facials in porn and want to replicate it in their own lives – but the thing is, a lot of people enjoy it! There are a lot of women and men that enjoy being covered in semen! There are a lot of different reasons why a dude might enjoy coming all over a woman’s face that aren’t necessarily degrading, just as there are a lot of women who enjoy being come on for reasons that have nothing to do with being humiliated. [I’m one of them! — Amelia] In fact, if a woman wants to be dominating in bed but also have come on her face, she could easily order her partner to do it in a dominating way — “You’re going to jerk off on my face!” Domination itself doesn’t really have to do with the actual sexual acts, it has to do with the persona and the approach.
So, to summarize: YES, you are thinking about facials incorrectly, so stop that and understand that you are wrong when you assume it has to do with domination and humiliation. But at the same time, this is not something you have to want or do. You should be very clear with your husband that it’s not something you’re interested in and to stop asking you and if you ever change your mind, you will tell him. Hopefully he respects your request.
*While The Frisky is firmly anti-cum and will always spell it “come,” I nevertheless asked James to weigh in with his opinion on the cum vs. come “debate.” He said: “I usually spell it cum, but if I’m conjugating the verb into past tense I might change it to ‘came’. But usually I say ejaculate or jizz or something more fun than cum.” So there you go.*
Original by @jamesdeen
