I have a wonderful partner: He’s smart, gorgeous, and generally treats me with love and respect. But he does this one thing that I can’t stand, and no matter how much and how angrily I ask him to stop, he persists. I’ll lean in to kiss him, close my eyes, and all of a sudden there’s a tongue swiping my face. The face licking fills me with rage, especially since I’ve begged him to stop and he seems not to care. In fact, he told me that he takes my anger as game playing—i.e., I say no but really I mean yes! Last night I was really upset about a friend’s suicide, and we wound up fighting a bit. But when we curled up with each other to go to sleep, I was calming down and feeling better. Then—you guessed it— I leaned over to kiss him and got a face full of tongue.
All my feelings of calm went straight out the window. I burst into tears, while he smirked and giggled, insisting it’s no big deal and I should stop making a fuss. I wanted comfort, not a face full of man drool. One of his arguments is, “But you let dogs lick you.” Last time I checked, my male counterpart is neither husky nor pit bull. I’ve told him he can lick me anywhere else—anywhere! He thinks he should be allowed to do what he wants to me whether or not it angers and upsets me (not to mention turns me off). What the fuck? How do I make him stop? It makes me not want to kiss him, much less have sex with him. I’m starting to think he doesn’t really want me, even though we’ve been together happily for two years, and is using the face licking as a passive way of pushing me away.
Wet Wendy
My first thought was that things will improve once he graduates junior high, but then I figured out that you’re talking about an actual adult here (if only chronologically). Just when I think I’ve heard all the retarded little ways people have concocted to torture one another, I hear a story like yours.
For some insight into the male mind, I asked my Special Naked Friend what he thought of your problem. Not a completely unannoying fella himself, I was surprised at how angry it made him. (But then, SNF is extra sensitive to your plight because he hates having his ears pulled, and a certain ex of his used to yank on them constantly and then pull a pout when he got pissed off.)
“He’s telling her, ‘I’m going to fuck with you, and you’re going to stay with me,” was his take. SNF went on to say your man was either being extremely malicious and controlling or was simply an idiot.
I think the truth lies somewhere in between. (Though pulling this shit while you’re mourning a dead friend can only be defined as a truly moronic maneuver.) I found this sentiment particularly disturbing: “He thinks he should be allowed to do what he wants to me whether or not it angers and upsets me.” Uh, no! Wrong!
There are several ways you could deal with this idiocy. I would be tempted to hock a retaliatory loogie right back at his face, but spitting is really aggressive and two wrongs don’t make a right, blah, blah, blah. Or, as men like talking about their feelings about as much as they enjoy prostate exams, you could forcefully suggest a round of couples counseling.
I’ve noticed that certain guys are lacking the empathy gene and cannot put themselves in another person’s shoes unless you force their feet into them. Perhaps you could come up with something equally annoying to do to him—like, say, blast an air horn in his face every time he licks you. Yes, he’ll be upset by the loud noise (not that it’ll be much fun for you, either), but eventually he’ll stop. (You’d hope, anyway.)
Then again, you could just tack this column over your bed as evidence that an uncertified advice professional has declared his behavior childish, hostile, and wholly unacceptable. Good luck.
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