This morning at Starbucks I gave the cashier $10 in singles when my total was $6.33 and told her to “keep the change.” And the thing is, it wasn’t an unnecessarily large tip – I’m just really, really bad at math. I’m talking worse-than-Lindsay Lohan-purposely-failing-her-calc-tests-to-get-Aaron-Samuels’-attention-in-“Mean-Girls” caliber bad.

That being said, I’m going to start this week’s column with some mental arithmetic. Answer me this: how many people have you given and received oral sex to/from, respectively?

If you’re a girl, you probably keep a running list of every guy you’ve ever hooked up with on Microsoft Word or maybe Excel if you’re weird, so figuring this out shouldn’t be much of a process. If you’re a guy, feel free to take a minute. If anyone understands the difficulty of basic addition, it’s this girl.

Now compare your two numbers. Are they remotely even? If so, that’s great, but you’re not in the majority. According to a study that probably exists somewhere, it’s common for girls to have given more oral sex than they’ve received. An equal number is expected for girls who’ve spent most of their pre-adult lives in exclusive relationships, but the reverse is rare at the very least.

Reciprocity is a major issue for sexually active college students, and while it might seem like second nature to go down on a guy you’ve been hooking up with for however many weeks/hours, there might be more to it. Here’s what’s been going through my mind lately:

If you go down on him, does he have an obligation to reciprocate and vice-versa? Do girls prefer other sexual acts as forms of reciprocity? Is this discrepancy affecting our current well-being, chance at getting jobs after we graduate and/or potential to achieve lifelong happiness?

How do we define reciprocity?

When it comes to social norms, eating out is typically a big deal. Bigger than fingering, bigger than hand-jobs and, well, bigger than giving head. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, and maybe it all changes once we get into the real world and start exchanging business cards with the people we meet at bars, but for now these standards are certainly affecting the way we view sexual interaction. I’m not here to preach, but here’s my explanation for why we define reciprocity the way we do:

Hand-jobs are, for the most part, dumb. I’m all for people doing what makes them feel best, but I’m also confident when I say the vast majority of college-aged men don’t prefer a good,old-fashioned HJ. Maybe they’re used to getting head, maybe it’s the whole “I’d rather do it myself” idea or maybe, just maybe, it’s the sheer awkwardness of the act itself. Following from those possibilities, it seems like oral sex is the most basic way to get a guy off.

On the other hand, the majority of girls like getting fingered – some even prefer it to being eaten out. The reasons behind this are far-reaching and more feminist than I’d prefer to discuss now or ever, but like oral sex for guys, fingering is often the most basic way to satisfy a woman.

It seems then, that reciprocity shouldn’t be defined by a sexual act’s level of invasiveness, but rather by what’s equally pleasurable for both people. An individual’s sexual likes and dislikes are one of the most personable things about them, and creating a balance between two people’s preferences can turn a lukewarm hookup into one worth furthering.

This “lowest-common-denominator” approach to hooking up isn’t necessarily carried into long-term relationships where people feel more comfortable discussing their preferred sexual acts, but when it comes to a standard hook-up, achieving your goal through the most efficient method just makes sense.

Did I just make sex sound like someone’s Marketing 300 group project? Yikes.

Diff’rent Strokes

When it comes to giving head, the majority of girls I know abide by a few different rules: a) won’t go down on a guy until he does something to her, including fingering, b) won’t go down on a guy until they’ve hooked up a certain number of times, regardless of what he’s done to her or c) goes down quicker than the Titanic, with no reciprocity needed.

None of these approaches is the clear “right” way to go, and none of them are wrong either. The first option ensures things stay equal, so if you care about getting what you give, it’s probably effective. For girls who fear getting too far ahead of themselves in a relationship/hookup/etc., the second approach focuses more on cautiousness and can help you maintain self-control. And, for those of you who just really like giving head, the final option gives you a great shame-free opportunity to show off your skills.

Like I said, each of these philosophies works for a different type of person, and your personal guidelines should reflect what makes you feel happiest and most secure. So if that’s waiting until a guy goes down on you before you’ll do the same to them, more power to you, but if you’re someone who doesn’t mind giving without receiving, don’t let anyone stop you from doing your thang.

Rachel Dickens is a senior majoring in journalism and communication arts. Questions? Comments? E-mail [email protected].