Dear Sexpert,\nI've been seeing this guy for about a month, and although we've never actually had sex, we have been involved physically. The other night, I brought him to orgasm with just my hand, thinking hand jobs followed the natural progression of a developing sexual relationship. But after we finished, he told me he thought it was weird and that he'd never done it before with anyone else. I'm really confused, because I know he's been with other girls, and I can't figure out why he would think a hand job was weird. Doesn't everybody do it? Aren't hand jobs normal?\nDifferent Strokes
Dear Strokes,\nGetting sexually involved in a new relationship is always a little awkward at first. Your ideas about what the "natural progression" of a sexual relationship should be might differ from your partner's. In this case, I think there's something of a gender discrepancy at work. Forgive me if I have to make some generalizations here, but it seems to me that women tend to think of hand jobs as a substitute for sex, while men consider them a form of foreplay. In other words, you might not feel like you're ready to have sex with him yet, so bringing him to orgasm through manual stimulation is a fair replacement. But he might think of it as a transitional stage: after a certain amount of touching, you'll move on to something else, such as oral sex or intercourse.\nWhat concerns me more about this situation is that he made you feel weird about doing it. Whatever it was that he found strange about it, following an orgasm with, "Gee, that was weird, nobody's ever done that to me before," is no way of expressing one's gratitude, unless he backs that up by saying it felt great at the same time.\nIt could be that it was your specific technique, rather than the hand job itself, that he found unusual. If that's the case, ask him to tell you (or better yet, show you) how he would like you to touch him. Hand jobs can be awkward: sometimes it's difficult to get to him at a good angle, so the positioning of hands and bodies can get to be a bit uncomfortable. Every guy's preferences are different concerning speed, pressure, etc. You have no way of knowing what would feel good to him unless he tells you.\nSome guys claim hand jobs feel more personal than other forms of stimulation, because it feels similar to masturbation. The idea that you are doing something to him that he could just as easily do to himself (and probably more effectively) can leave some guys feeling a little exposed. But the great thing about hand jobs is they are, by their very nature, "hands on," so let him know he can help you out anyway he wants to.\nYou should approach him about this in a nonconfrontational manner. The only way to solve this mystery is for him to tell you exactly what he thought was so weird about it. You don't want to make him feel cornered; maybe it's something he's self-conscious about it, or maybe he's not quite as sexually experienced as you thought he was. But you at least have the right to know if it was something he enjoyed, or if the experience was worth repeating.\nIf you're not ready to have intercourse with him, make sure he understands your reasons for wanting to wait. Hopefully, he'll be able to help you understand why he thought what you did was weird, and you can come to some kind of compromise about what the natural progression of your relationship should be.\nSend questions and comments to the Sexpert at jfinkel@indiana.edu.
