sex negative

The Worst Rim-Job Story Ever

Illustration: Sarah Maxwell

Sex Negative is the Cut’s series on the messy, clumsy, unromantic reality of boning.

My boyfriend and I decided to try some butt play shortly after we watched a porn scene featuring a rim job. I hadn’t ever done it before, but I was curious and he was interested so we decided to give it a shot. It’s important to be open to new experiences, I told myself. Even if they involve someone else’s butthole.

On the night in question, we were at home having a few drinks. We hadn’t planned to do it then (I feel like scheduling specific sex acts takes away some of the magic) but I could practically feel the excitement radiating off of him as we loosened up. In hindsight, I can see that maybe we should have talked about preparation and expectations a little more.

We started fooling around. As I was blowing him, he slowly started to spread his legs apart. It was clear what he was trying to signal so I gathered my courage and went for it. I started by licking the area a bit tentatively (and non-penetratively), and it was uneventful. Mostly, it just felt like licking some bumpier-than-average skin. He was clearly enjoying it — I could feel his thighs shake occasionally — and although I was still trying to decide how I felt about the whole thing, I just kept telling myself that it was fine, we were having a good time. And then he farted directly in my mouth.

It was totally silent and probably would have been imperceptible if I had simply been in the same room with him, but I had my face buried in the deepest reaches of his crotch, so it was like a fart made specially for me. Suddenly, the physical reality of what I had been doing was in very stark relief, and between thinking about that, the smell of the fart itself, and my sensitive gag reflex, I was frozen in place, trying my best not to vomit.

When I regained control, I got up and went to the bathroom where I stood over the toilet, heaving and spitting, for a couple minutes. I tried to sort out exactly what had happened. Did he know he had farted? There was no physical indication he did — no sudden tightening to try and stop the fart too late, no full-body flinch of embarrassment. So, either he didn’t feel it or he did and he was trying to play it off like nothing had happened. There’s a possibility I was being gaslighted about actual gas.

After the worst of the urge to barf had passed, I swished around a little of his mouthwash (directly from the bottle — if I can put my mouth on his butt, so can he) and gave myself the best pep talk I could before I headed back into the bedroom: It’s okay, bodies do their things, you can do this. I briefly considered getting back in between his cheeks, but I couldn’t do it. I made up an excuse (though we did try butt stuff a couple of other times). He and I broke up a few months later and I never did ask if he knew that he’d farted in my face.

The Worst Rim-Job Story Ever