7 Skills Every Woman Should Master

Of Interest

So Esquire‘s list of 75 Skills Every Man Should Master has been everywhere lately. It’s a good read, and most of the stuff is applicable to both genders. Here’s my little list of seven things every woman should know how to do, because I lack the stamina to come up with seventy-five:

1. Entertain unexpected company. Invest in a cheeseboard, and then keep a big jar in your cupboard filled with bags of dried apricots and cranberries, almonds, hazelnuts, and a few bars of exceptional chocolate. All of it will keep for a while, if you can refrain from devouring everything while you watch an episode of Lost.

Now, in three minutes, you can dump out some fruit and nuts, chop up a chocolate bar, and arrange it all to maximum effect on the cheeseboard. If you have decent cheese in the fridge, it’s a bonus. Pow! You’re Martha Stewart.

2. Comfort someone in mourning. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” And then as much silence as you can muster.

3. Celebrate. Good stuff is happening all around you. Pour a glass of champagne, pass around a box of chocolate, and say something memorable.

4. Break up with a poisonous friend. I had this friend in junior high, and every time I told her I liked a boy, she suddenly became very attentive towards him. I was too young to realize what was going on at the time, but by high school, and the fourth or fifth crush she’d pinched, I caught on.

Most of us have a friend or acquaintance who always leaves us feeling just a little bit worse. Maybe your mortifying missteps become her favorite amusing anecdotes. Maybe she throws her arm around your boyfriend’s shoulders with suspicious frequency. Maybe she guilt-trips you into piling a few favors atop your already hectic schedule. Whoever she is, stop calling her. Tell her you’re busy — so very busy — until 2050 or so.

5. Give a good blowjob.

6. Dribble a basketball, throw a football, kick a soccer ball. This stuff comes up. If you can’t do anything athletic at all, you start to look like the kind of girl who spends too much time getting mani-pedis.

7. Apologize convincingly. I was wrong. I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.

If that doesn’t work, you may need to genuflect.

Published

100 thoughts on “7 Skills Every Woman Should Master”

  1. I think #5 is what you make of it. If you see the world as a place where you are expected to like dick, then it will irritate you (I am like this about feminism, and I’m trying to stop seeing the world in such black and white terms). I honestly don’t think, in this case, that it’s about using sexual skill to get what you want, being a girl who bends to a man’s will, or avoiding having to do other things for your boyfriend/husband/lover. It’s about being good to the person you love. Having *real* skills in the sack goes hand-in-hand with being an attentive and caring to the one your with, and who could argue with that? There is nothing degrading about giving a blow job, any more than it’s degrading to receive it. Why does this have to turn into something political when that subject had nothing to do with the post? Can’t it just be about being giving?

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  2. @48, 49, and 50:

    48. I have never known a woman who performed a bj because she willingly wanted to and found it enjoyable. I honestly believe that it is mostly an act of power/dominance by a man, and that most men have no respect for a woman who gives bj’s. (Do they like women who give bj’s? Undoubtedly. Do they honestly, deep down have respect for somebody who allows them to put their penis in her mouth? I just don’t believe it.)

    49. No reciprocation necessary – Not something I’m interested in.

    50. That’s the kind of attitude I’m talking about.

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  3. Inez, thank you for putting into words what I did not convey! I could not agree more!

    And, btw Maggie, fabulous list (per usual) 😉

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  4. Ha! I love how uptight everyone gets about the blowjobs. @#52: I find it highly enjoyable, and those who say it gives the man all the power have been watching too much porn and thinking that’s how sex should be performed.

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  6. Great list. I really liked #1,2 and 4 and 7. #5 I have to admit how hard is it to give a good blow job? But really overall blow jobs aren’t good things or bad things it’s just the the context that makes them so.

    I’d probably add be able to kill insects and be able to hook up electronic equipment (computers, stereo equipment, etc). I also liked the above one about being able to say “fuck you” to someone and then letting go of whatever caused you to say it. And the one about not undermining what you have to say or ask for with “if you have time”, “sorry to disturb you”, etc.

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  7. Wow. “I have never known a woman who performed a bj because she willingly wanted to and found it enjoyable. I honestly believe that it is mostly an act of power/dominance by a man, and that most men have no respect for a woman who gives bj’s.” Um, I absolutely enjoy it, and unlike what you profess, it makes ME feel powerful to be able give that much pleasure to my husband….maybe you and your friends are with the wrong partners.

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  10. #52 – Hi. My name is Nicole – now you know a woman who likes giving blowjobs. In fact, I absolutely love giving blowjobs, but only to men I adore. And do they respect me? Hell yes, they still think I’m smart, strong, sexy, fun and fearless after getting great head. Just like I still respect them after I get great head!

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  11. #52: Re never having met a woman who enjoyed giving a blowjob….
    *virtual handshake*
    Now you have.
    (I’ll spare you the kiss on the cheek as that might unsettle you.)

    There are certain prerequisites for enjoyment: Cleanliness of course, an enthusiastic partner who doesn’t view the act as a power/dominance thing, willingness for reciprocation on the partner’s part… but overall, yes, it’s QUITE enjoyable, and something that I sometimes prefer to “regular sex.”

    For all the flak you’re taking, I think you’re very close to the mark on one thing: Some men view oral sex as a means to degrade or dominate a woman, and in the presence of that mindset, it does become degrading. There is a way I’ve found to suss them out: In many or most cases, these men will not, ever, perform oral sex on a woman. It’s the whole “putting his penis in her mouth” thing in reverse – they consider it degrading for a woman to do so, and therefore they will not do the equivalent themselves.

    I enjoy performing oral sex on my partner, and that enjoyment is not limited to the psychological sense of “power” or accomplishment and “wow, look how thoroughly I can rock his world” – there is, for me, a true and purely physical pleasure in the act itself, the textures, scents, sensations. However, as much as I enjoy it, I keep the “degradation” thing in mind, and do require that my partner demonstrate to my satisfaction that he doesn’t have a power/degradation/disrespect mindset about oral sex. It’s easy to say “Well I should hope you’d know that before you become intimate with a person” but it’s not always the case – some people are very good at hiding things.

    Having said all that (and I apologize for the disjointedness of it all), I would ask you to consider a dollop of tolerance. As a woman who greatly enjoys giving a blow job to an appreciative partner, my first inclination is to say, “Girl, you just need to try it,” or as the other poster said, “If it’s degrading, you’re doing it wrong.” It’d be easy for me to assume – based on my experiences and preferences – that there’s no WAY you can truly *not* enjoy giving a blowjob. But that would be disrespectful to you. By the same token, just because it’s distasteful and degrading in YOUR mind, that doesn’t mean that others are incapable of enjoying it, or are lying when they say they do, and it’s disrespectful to insist otherwise. In all things, at the end of the day, we can only know our own truths, and they are seldom if ever universal ones.

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  12. Thanks so much for the eloquent response, elayne. I completely agree with you. My boyfriend had NEVER forced or even asked me to give him a blowjob. I do so because I enjoy it. Most of my friends are the same. I enjoy that I can give him that much pleasure, I enjoy the experience for what it is. I hope that even if I wasn’t as much of a fan as I am that I might give it a go, just because I love him so much, and while I don’t believe in compromising who I am, I do believe in being GGG (google Dan Savage if you don’t know it) and want to give him what he wants.

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  13. Wow Elayne, I’ve never heard it put so well. If more people lived by this motto, what a wonderful world it would be: “In all things, at the end of the day, we can only know our own truths, and they are seldom if ever universal ones.”

    Thank you. Works in any context.

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  14. #37: I am SICK of people saying things like that. Yes, it’s Maggi’s personal blog, and obviously I read it and I respect her for it and I love it, and obviously I CARE about it because otherwise I wouldn’t bother to comment.

    But the title of her post is “7 SKILLS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD MASTER”, and she doesn’t say “according to my experience” or “these are the things I realized I should know”, she *does* universalize it, and so here is where I jump in and (in a friendly way, I might add) say, “hold up Maggie, not *every* woman needs to know how to do a blowjob, because there are women who don’t like dick.”

    It’s just a gentle reminder. It’s not about political correctness, it’s about how I’m INVISIBLE to the eff-ing world. And I HATE it when people tell me that I should “get over” heteronormativity. BELIEVE ME, if some chick put on her list of things every woman should know that they should be able to eat pussy, there would be hella reactions from straight women about it.

    I’m allowed to point out my own existence. You can’t take that away from me.

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  15. Here’s one you might not have heard: Lesbians can use the term blowjob too. My girlfriend and I do. Is that strange?

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  16. @ YoucancallmeMaam: Another woman right here who LOOOOVES giving blowjobs. I love my husband, I love his dick, the oral sex is gloried in and reciprocated … how can that possibly be degrading towards me or him? For us, as it is for many, it’s a hell of a lot of lusty fun AND an act of love. There’s no degradation in that.

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  17. To #52…I enjoy it very much and I think it would put ME in the power position, if it were about power at all and not about giving.

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  19. Eva said:

    “I am SICK of people saying things like that. Yes, it’s Maggi’s personal blog, and obviously I read it and I respect her for it and I love it, and obviously I CARE about it because otherwise I wouldn’t bother to comment.”

    I completely agree with you, and, unfortunately, that’s the response a lot of blog readers throw out whenever someone even politely disagrees with the blogger. It’s unfortunate, because isn’t the idea behind a blog that allows comments is that it creates a community in which people are allowed to express their differing opinions? To me, that’s one of the things that makes blogs with comments so fun to read.

    I like the fact that you pointed out that there is a significant percentage of women who aren’t into #5 because of their sexual orientation. Nothing wrong with that!

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  20. Heather and Susannah (and Maggie): Wow. Thanks for the complimentary feedback. After I hit “submit comment” I nearly fired off an email to Maggie asking her to just delete it because I was so sure it wouldn’t make any sense to anyone – but I figured I wouldn’t need to bother because Maggie’d scan it and delete it as nonsensical clutter anyway, without my even asking. Y’all just made my day. (c:

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  21. #64 – to be fair she does say “Here’s MY little list…” so it is a personal list.

    And I wasn’t trying to negate anyone’s existence or tell them to “get over” anything. Everyone’s experience is unique and that was just my point. It feels like we have become so consumed with making sure everyone is included in everything and that no one is left out that we no longer enjoy people as they are with their different perspectives on things.

    It was just frustrating to me that once again (I had been reading several other blogs) someone can’t express their own PERSONAL thoughts without being told that they should have thought about the other xx% that actually does something else.

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  22. It’s an example of heteronormativity, for sure. I’m sure Maggie meant nothing by it, but “give good head” would have been the better way to make the point. I think the majority of people who pointed it out did so politely. It’s annoying to be invisible.

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  23. Once I start to hear people whining about not being seen because a blog didn’t include their sexual orientation I have to ask myself how desperate they are for attention and approval.

    Maggie, you keep on blowin’ and we’ll keep on readin’.

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  24. With all due respect to the commenters and ALL of their valuable opinions, I must say that I love how this discussion brought out all the women who admit to loving oral sex. I have a feeling their partners (male and female!) may have benefited some from this discussion. Well done, Maggie.

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  26. As a straight guy, I’m glad to see the answers to #52, and I also wish that Maggie had phrased #5 more inclusively.

    Just to respond to #52 from the man’s perspective: I’ve never viewed #5 as a dominance thing – nor have I ever expected it or even asked for it. There are certainly men who do, but there are all sorts of a**holes out there. That’s certainly not the worst sort a**hole, but it’s not acceptable. Find a different guy.

    For #56: I don’t know how hard it is, but it seems to be a challenge for some people.

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  29. I am totally going to start using “number 5” as a euphemism for oral sex (of any type) from now.

    Only problem: Ordering certain combos at the fast food window will provoke giggles. “Hi, I’d like a #5 please, and *snicker* um, sorry, a #5, supersized *SNORT* – no no, I’m fine, really!”

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  30. not that it’s a power thing, but i’d say that if you have a guy’s dick in your mouth, you pretty much have all the power at that point.

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  31. i also agree with one of the comments above that one thing every woman should be able to do is let her partner (male or female) know how to please her. most people get as much pleasure from giving it as they do receiving it. you feel great; your partner feels like a champ. win/win.

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  32. I’m amazed by the number of passionate comments on #5. Blow job..oral sex…whatever. Relax – the point is not whether you’re into “dick” or prefer “the lily,” or both. The point is that having the desire, generosity and ability, to let your lover relax and allow him/herself to just let go is valuable and is a way of expressing your passion and love. And who doesn’t want to be thought of as a good fuck? Ignore the anatomy…so some of us like dick. Some of us like lily. You’re a lousy, egocentric lover if you have no thought for your partner’s enjoyment.

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  33. It is exciting to know that I am still a hot topic. I’d like to remind everyone that a proper blow job is more than just a skill, but an art form, really. Thank you, Maggie, for honoring me in your list. You are now on my top 7 list of hot babes who can work it.

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  34. Wow. Such a reaction to two simple words. The post was ha ha funny but the comments are hilarious! And for those interested I’m told that the book “Tickle my Pickle” is an excellent how to.

    I’m with #79 – number 5 is my new lingo for blow job.

    LC

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  35. If you change #5 to something along the lines of ‘Perform oral sex well’ this list would be inclusive of 100% of the population. Great list.

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  36. I call BS on #5. It is more important to master masturbation, or at least having an orgasm. So many men are, well, dicks about not reciprocating, that list this passive act smacks of subservience.

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  37. You know, I was really excellent at #5, ’til I came out. I even won a related contest once – you are currently speaking to the 2007 BANANA DEEP THROATING LADIES CHAMPION! Ha.

    What I enjoyed about the whole process was that it gave so much pleasure to the man involved without me expending all that much effort – and without having to endure being touched myself. (Could have been a clue, perhaps.)

    Anyhow, now that I’ve recognized myself for who I am, I’m looking forward to honing my skills on the fairer sex!

    TMI?

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  38. Every gal should learn to make something from scratch. I live in the south, so this is an imperative skill to have. Friend just have a baby? Bring her fresh baked bread or biscuits. Know someone in grief? Bring them a pie. New neighbor? How about cookies?

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  40. Me, my husband, and a couple of friends of ours were having dinner one night. The friends happened to be a lesbian couple who have known my husband for about a decade longer than I have.

    Husband was talking to one of the guests about fishing (he’s quite good, is a guide) and her partner said, “Yeah – I should really take you up on the offer of lessons. I heard you’re just the best.”

    Husband replied,”As Jen will tell you, there are two things I’m good at. Fly fishing and cunnilingus.” Our guests were thoroughly charmed.

    God bless him, he’s absolutely right. I hope he thinks that I’m just as good at…ahem…casting.

    Moral of the story – it’s something that my husband and I give to one another in a loving way. I hope that those who are disgusted or ‘above’ such an act can experience it one day as the super-fabulous treat it is.

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  44. #whatever (I’ve lost track, I’m sorry. So sorry.) Learn to accept a compliment gracefully.

    “Wow, you look really nice today!” “Why thank you, how sweet.”

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  45. Any kind of general list is going to be full of at least a little crap. No? And supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. No?

    The Esquire list, for example should have been narrowed a bit and couched as “Things American middle class men between the ages of X and X might want to consider.” You know, b/c I know a lot of guys who don’t like baseball and men who have no time or cause to learn how to tie a bow tie. And ‘give a woman an orgasm’? Sounds like it’s a formula one-size-fits all type strategy.

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  46. #8 — not write anything you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable explaining to your child or having your parents know. Blowjob? Really? That’s important to you? Or does it just make you seem hip? I enjoyed your blog until now.

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  47. You need one more! Except it’s something everyone should master regardless of which genitalia you are attached to. How to give an apology… a good one… especially in those instances when you’ve accidentally hurt someone or something… I’m thinking of my boyfriend’s mother in particular when I write this… *wink*

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  48. @#96 by the time Hank gets around to reading this particular entry, I bet he’ll know exactly what a blowjob is. Lighten up.

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  49. #96: Hip? No. A Classic. Will never go out of style as long as men have dicks. And women have mouths.

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  50. Something that touches on #5 (thinking of that as a code word will drive me into fits of giggles for a long time to come) that hasn’t been mentioned here are those of us who were subjected to sexual molestation at a very young age. In my case I was six and it was oral.

    As a result, obviously, I spent many years being unable to tolerate oral sex whether it was given or received. Thankfully, I don’t feel that way anymore because it sure is fun.

    May I just say, as is true with ANY sexual act, if it is not completely comfortable for BOTH partners, it is not acceptable. Period. (and if you’re feeling obligated you are NOT feeling completely comfortable)

    Having said all that, I have never found the act to be degrading. Why is it supposed to be?

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