For lanfykins

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

This is for Sarah, who asked me for a story about Firinne inventing herself. It's also partly inspired by Sarah's Natasha story on how she feeds. I showed Sarah a draft of this last night and it lead to a conversation about how screwed up most female vampires must be - the requirements of feeding, plus the social conditioning that most females receive about sex and sexuality does not exactly make for well balanced individuals.


The first of a thousand lovers…

I met him in a bar in Montparnasse, where he smoked black cigarillos. I chose him because he was American, and so wouldn’t notice how bad my accent was. We only spoke in French. It made it easier, somehow.

“There are a number of ways you can sustain yourself, child. I would, however, recommend that you consider the path of the succubi. Your blood is too potent for you to survive on animals alone. You lack the skill to feed on the sleeping, and to take by force would waken the Beast too soon. To take blood in the act of l’amour…”

I had only ever touched one man before. I didn’t really know what I was meant to do. I smiled at him a lot, and laughed a little too loudly at his jokes. He didn’t seem to notice.

“You will need to crop your hair. No girl of the type you wish to pass as would wander around Montparnasse with her hair hanging down her back like that. We will have it bobbed at the start of the evening.”

He bought me a drink. I pretended to drink it. He smelt of stale sweat, and I don’t think had washed recently. Oh god, I needed to drink, but I didn’t want to. Not like this. There had to be another way?

“You need to learn to apply your lipstick correctly. Have you never worn it before? You look like a child without it.”

For a long time I didn’t think he would try and seduce me. He seemed happy enough to talk about poetry, about music. He liked jazz, he said, and seemed amused when I said that I believed in free love. I had read somewhere that a Russian dancer claimed that sex should be as easy and natural as drinking a glass of water.

“You think that?” he said, and laughed.

“Your eyes as well – outline them with kohl. You are beautiful. Any man would be lucky to take a woman like you to his bed. But remember to leave when you hear the church bells sound for Matins”

“I do,” I said, and then “do you not?”

I sounded desperate.

He took a long drag of his cigarillo.

“As natural as smoking,” he said, and grinned, showing his teeth. “I don’t like water.”

I smiled and leant across the table, with a sickness in my stomach. I didn’t know if it was hunger or fear.

“I have rooms near here,” I said.

He laughed.

“You’re really that eager?” he said, and shook his head. He added in English “I guess it’s true what they say about French girls…”

And I wanted to run away.

“Don’t look so scared, child. This is the best way for you. I do not think you would be happy with a trail of dead bodies in your wake.”

The rooms that I had acquired were small and cramped, with cockroaches scuttled across the ceiling.

The man’s hands were rough, and he mauled at my breasts, kneading them like they were dough. I think I cried out when he bit down too hard, and tried to push him away, but he just laughed.

“You can’t run away now,” he said, and grabbed at my waist. “You’re the one who asked me here.”

He clamped his mouth onto my neck and sucked at my skin until it hurt. I couldn’t get to his damn neck.

“You’ll be able to take his blood from his throat, or his thigh, my child. Remember that. The throat or the thigh.”

I pushed him back a little bit, and said “let me…” whilst I fumbled with his trousers. My hands were shaking and I wanted to cry.

I never wanted to be a whore.

Still, I didn’t cry. I don’t think he would have noticed if I had. He just groaned when I buried my face in his lap, and then grunted when I first bit down.

I couldn’t find the femoral artery at first, but he didn’t care. He was snorting like a pig with all the pleasure he got every time my fangs sunk through his skin. I bit, and nibbled, and he pushed his salt smelling groin towards me every single time I tried to move away, until I found the blood at last and began to feed in earnest.

“We are all whores, one way or another. Fortune is a right bitch, that way,”

Afterwards, I walked home and cried the entire way.

No one looked twice at me; a ragged female with smeared lipstick, walking through Montparnasse in the lonely hours of the night.

“I can’t…” I said, and “I won’t…” but I think I knew then that I didn’t really have any other option. How else could I feed? I could live with being a whore more easily than being a monster.

Anton kept a house on the Île Saint-Louis. He had set aside one bedroom for me. I burnt the dress that I had been wearing in the fireplace there, and watched the sparks rise up.

In the morning, I knew, I’d look perfect again. My hair would be long, my skin would look fresh and clean. I could bathe and wash away the scent of that man from my skin. No one but me would know that I had let a total stranger maul me in a tainted bed.

But I’d still know.

“It won’t be me,” I said, and stared into the twisting flames. “Whoever they touch, it won’t be me. It’ll never be me.”

And I threw the silver locket my mother had given me into the fire to seal the deal.

Comments

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

That's a very good piece. Makes you think.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

It came from a series of conversations with Neill and Sarah about feeding, sex, and the female vampire. Add to that the fact that any female vampire Sired before the 1960s would probably be incredibly inexperienced with a man, unless she was a very specific type of female, and you have that story.

It is also subtitled 'screw you Requiem and your stupid rule that vampires cannot attach any emotion to sex and are capable only of viewing it as a pleasant physical sensation'. I refuse to believe that becoming undead removes all your previous social conditioning just like that!

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I think I've always played vampire very asexually, as I don't really see vampires as sexy creatures. Even the most human/attractive vampire I ever played seemed like a gay man with women, he just didn't see them as attractive, but he flirted a lot

On the requiem front. Sure, maybe Requiem Vamps might not be able to form emotional attachments through sex (in the way peiople generally feel closer after sex), but surely the would still attach social moral codes from their human lives to it. After all they are on an almost exactly the same moral path at a normal human is, they wouldn't just lose what they believe.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You see, I tend to think that the emotional connection from sex comes from social conditioning. I don't think it's inherently linked to sex.

You feel closer to someone after sex because you've shared something society tells you is important, because they've seen you without those nice flattering clothes, because they've made you feel nice, because of all the things society tells you sex means.

It isn't an intrinsic response, I don't think, which is why that Requiem rule bugs me.

*ponders*

Re: Masquerade vampires and sex - I do tend to think of them as sexual beings from a human PoV. I mean, the Kiss induces orgasm for a start! The whole mythos that the game is based off has vampires as being a very sexualised metaphor, although it's bad sex - barren sex - predatory sex. Vampires are both the epitome of the zipless f**k and the boy/girl your mother warned you about.

From a vampiric PoV I think it varies. Toreador I view as maybe not sexual, but hugely sensual - I think auspex has to do that to you. I think young vampires as well will still have those sexual urges vaguely, because they haven't quite shifted from being human in some ways - again - I think a lot of sexual behaviour is societal really.

I think as vampires get older what sex means may well change. I think some aspects of it - power, manipulation for example - will still matter. Other won't. I think sex will also be drowned out by the need for the Blood - that just feels SO much better - how can sex compare?

I don't think I totally buy into 'they are dead - they don't have sex - it doesn't feel good'. Well, a lot of women have sex without it feeling _that_ good. Orgasm 100% of the time is pretty much a male perogative. Why should vampires be different? I also don't buy the 'they don't have sex because it feels so much less good that drinking blood'. Um, as a rule, I find that spectacular mind blowing sex casts snuggling on the sofa into the pale, but that doesn't mean I never want to hug anyone again.

In general, actually, I think all White Wolf games suffer hugely from being written by guys who rarely got laid in high school and have an odd view of sex. Those books make me feel more like there is a 'male' and 'female' perspective on sex than almost anything else.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I believe the emotional connection from sex comes from happy hormones that flood your system and which you attach to the person that you're having the post-coital cigarette with. An evolutionary response to make you stick around and protect your potential offspring - brain chemistry is a powerful thing. It's not 100% and can be over-ruled by other things but sexuial pairings are universal enough for me to believe it can't just be society that tells us it is so. But then I might just be seeing it from my personal lens of monogamy.

I do agree that sexual behaviour is socially mandated, and that vampires can have sex and enjoy it. I just don't think they get the enormous hormonal rushes that are part of the human act of sex, but that's again maybe because I'm a pro-human and want to keep some things for the breathing folks.

Maybe this way makes sense to me because I'm a guy who rarely giot laid in high school and thus probably have an odd view of sex. :P

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You may care to read "The anatomy of desire" by Simon Andreae, which is an excellent investigation into the evolution of human sexuality and how - and why - it works the way it does.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Does it agree with me or call me a stupid-head?

In the second case I will not read it.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Partially it agrees with you, but it also says it's an awful lot more complicated that that.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I just don't think they get the enormous hormonal rushes that are part of the human act of sex

I agree with you there; but I think most vampires would try to replicate that side of sex by including an element of feeding in it, which is about the most intense sensation a vampire can experience.

(Do vampires experience the Kiss when they are fed upon?)

But I can't help feeling that the food/sex conflation that occurs thanks to the effects of feeding would change someone's attitudes and priorities...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

(Hence, partly, Belladonna)

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

But I can't help feeling that the food/sex conflation that occurs thanks to the effects of feeding would change someone's attitudes and priorities...

Again, emotional connections through sex via social rules also rely on there being some level of parity between the two parties. In the case where A) one of them is lying to the other about who and what they are and B) one of them is seen as a quick snack, then you're not going to form the same kind of attachments. That's for sex with humans at least.

Sex with vampires that includes feeding immediately gets you into Blood bond territory.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think sex with humans would be complicated - the different power dynamics, the lying or the control (if you ghoul them). I think it's why vampires, to a certain extent, need each other. It's hard to be around other predators but it's harder to be around prey all the time as well.

The blood bound is wonderful. It does put vampires into this wonderful evil choice - being alone, or being bound. And that kind of magnifies a certain type of view on sex and relationships quite nicely.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

OK, so you have two vampires. The like each other.

Route 1: They blood bond mutually. Aw. But then, why would they have sex? Your example above about hugging vs sex doesn't really fit. Hugging in public is socially acceptable, it's quick and easy - sex is not acceptable in public (generally) and it takes a bit longer (hopefully) and a bit more effort. When vampires have to choose between mutual blood drinking or sex then they have to choose between two activities that are both socially unacceptable in public, both require a bit of effort (though blood drinking probably requires less) but one feels vastly more pleasurable, reinforces their mutual bond and is driven by there hormonal/evil vampire lusts. So in this case I don't see why they would have sex, except if they got bored of blood drinking.

The other option is that they get together and don't bond each other. In this case sex is the option, but the blood drinking is always going to be there, like with a couple who choose to make out but not have sex. It will be ultimately frustrating for both of them. Social conditioning may push young vamps this way, but as they age it won't last.

So either way I see sex as largely unimportant for vampires, compared to blood drinking, and therefore prefer my interpretation of my characters as haemosexual. YMMV.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think I see sex between vamps as being a lot like heavy petting between teenagers who are trying to not go all the way.

It's frustrating, but still a heck of a lot better than just drinking cocoa.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

*nods* that seems to fit. I also think that the teenage metaphor works quite well. As people get older they are less likely to stop at the heavy petting stage and more likely go to straight sex. I also think that as vampires get older they are less likely to be bothered with the sex part and become more interested in the blood part - though with its consequences it might be more akin to having unprotected sex.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Again, emotional connections through sex via social rules also rely on there being some level of parity between the two parties. In the case where A) one of them is lying to the other about who and what they are and B) one of them is seen as a quick snack, then you're not going to form the same kind of attachments. That's for sex with humans at least.

Yes, agreed. And I think that's a horrible thing for the vampire; well, for a new and humane vampire, anyway.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Who would have suspected that such a thing would occur in a game of personal horror? :)

I often find with White Wolf games is that the stuff they describe as being horrible really isn't, but when you take what they have said, extrapolate and explore it you find yourself finding new horrors within, which quite neatly tie back into the intended theme of the game.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Yes... the entire 'the Kiss is intensely pleasurable' thing they probably thought would make for cool pseudosexual feeding scenes that would make their players happy.

But that only works if the vampire is a specific type of person; change them into a very English virgin, and suddenly it's all sorts of icky.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

So much of White Wolf works on the assumption that the players/characters would be like the writers. By which we mean white, male, middle class, American and heterosexual, with a bunch of fairly average responses/attitudes for that kind of demographic.

So much of their world looks very strange if you try and look at it from another PoV.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Even as a white, male, middle class heterosexual it's pretty annoying when your ST tells you "It's like sex, only better".

Though I'd be fascinated to see a breakdown of what sort of IC feeding targets are most attacked by which sort of player. Does the stereotypical White Wolf player almosty always attack the cute gothy girl?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Based on player behaviour, yes. :p

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I wonder if hunters in the WoD use this to their advantage.

"So, we know that 95% of our targets are male, a disproportionate number have goatees and they often wear badges with a clan affiliation on them. All we need to do to lure them out is send a cute, gothy girl into the club and we should have most of them mapped out."

"Oh, and kill anyone carrying a teddy-bear or inflatable hammer."

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Justin Achille once said that if he was a vampire hunter, he'd just board up all the goth clubs in his area, set fire to them, and assume that god would know his own.

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

In oWoD it was implied that vampires also experienced the Kiss. Which was why mutual bloodbonds between "sexual" partners occurred - they were having sex by that method.

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

Whereas Requiem vampires explicitly do *not* experience the Kiss -- they find feeding on other vampires intensely pleasurable. In fact, it's the most intense pleasure there is. But they don't get any particular joy out of being fed upon, except for personal reasons.

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

I've always tended to play Masquerade vampires as sublimating the sexual urge into something else - violence, perhaps, or an obsessive drive of some kind.

The don't have the wash of hormones in their body that makes them want sex, or get feelings of empathy and trust in the point coital glow, but they do have the Beast. So, yeah, it's easy to confuse sex and hunger in some manner, particularly for high humanity Vampires who are still instinctively couching things in human terms of reference, but I think as the humanity fades, it's going to be become more about food than sex.

The vampire I've played that made, in some respects the most sexual sense to me was a Power and the Inner Voice Giovanni who was a massive sadist - his "sexual" practices were all about the stripping of control and hurting other people, because it gave him control over his beast, rather than giving in to it. Well, OK, he had the practices before the path, even while he was mortal. But he was a very bad man.

(Edit: I have just reread the above paragraph, and realise there's a way to construe that that reflects quite poorly on me. For clarity - he made sense in that he was internally consistent in that regard. Not that I think total monsterism makes sense. IYSWIM.)

Oh, and thinking about it, the soldier Ventrue who had at one point been on humanity 1 and then had worked back up, for whom violence engendered an almost-sexual glow of satisfaction, and lack of violence made him pent up and angry, but who didn't see the point in actual sex.

Most of my other PCs tend to ignore sex entirely, except as tool to get what they want, because they don't have the hormones telling them it's a good thing to have.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I’m now thinking through my characters (well, the ones I’ve played since I turned 20. I reserve the right to have some terribly dodgy views as a teenager) and how they worked with sex.

• Bridget O’Connor – teenage Gangrel – very feral. She did have a sexual/blood based relationship with a Caitiff. Both were very young vampires, and I think they had sex more because it represented a kind of bond between them that they wanted to be very clear that they had. I think in her mind it also represented a kind of closeness – a sort of pack like bond. She also couldn’t feed on him often (tho there was a partial bond) due to having Grip of the Damned. Again – two very young vampires – and I think that was why it worked in my brain.
• Nikita Lyona – Brujah Ancilla – path of Cathari. I don’t think Niki was remotely interested in sex, per se. I think she was very interested in what sex meant to the people around her – she was especially keen on sex if it was something her partner felt was wrong or sinful. It was all about power/manipulation/control. She did have some kind of sexual relations with her broodmate and his childe, but that was again a lot to do with blood, control, manipulation, sin, and there was a level of sado-masochism involved in it as well. She sort of fell in love with a scrubby little Brujah, mostly because he and she were so good at fighting and hating – they didn’t have sex, I think, but were really addicted to the emotions they could engender in each other.
• Laurie Hamilton – Malkavian Antitribu – path of weird Baali-ness who’s name I can’t remember – uninterested. Totally and utterly. No view at all.
• Miss Elizabeth Owens – Toreador Antribu – path of Death the Soul. Repulsed by the very idea. Totally and utterly.
• Firinne Devon – Toreador Ancilla – Humanity x 4, and Humanity x 5 for a bit. I think she’s got a whole ambivalent thing going on. I think she likes to be desired – there’s a big manipulation/power thing going on. She’s also very very sensual in my mind – auspex + blush of health + Toreador + random thaum ritual which gives her human functions for short periods + eat food – she experiences a lot more than most. Sex, per se, isn’t exciting, but I think there are many many more sensations than just blood for her. I could see her easily spending hours just stroking a particularly nice piece of silk. I think she also likes strong emotions, or just anything that lets her pretend to be human for a bit. I think sex can kind of fit in to that game.
• Griffin – Ravnos Anti – Path of Cathari – I think, realistically, she shouldn’t have been interested in sex. I think I let that sort of creep in due to being slightly scatty and getting distracted by some angsty rp potential, but sensibly, there was no good reason for her so to be. She’s meant, really, to be this horrible perversion of all that is good – a nasty corpselike parody of beauty - or something. But I don’t know if she worked that way.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to why people are all assuming that the good feelings of sex are entirely down to hormones. After all, the physical sensations can be pretty intense and as anyone who'se tried to have sex whilst totally drunk can attest, if your mind isn't focused, it can be damned hard to finish, so there's definately a thought process going on there.

Maybe it's down to the way I've experienced sex in the past, but sometimes there's pleasure to be had as well knowing that you're pleasing another person, watching them shudder with delight as you tease and excite them. Why can't a vampire get the same vicarious pleasures? Imagine a vampire who, having realised they no longer get the same physical responses without conscious effort, decides that they should focus all their thoughts onto their partner instead.

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

>>>I'm curious as to why people are all assuming that the good feelings of sex are entirely down to hormones.<<<

Because all human thought and emotion is a function of chemical activity in the brain. The chemical changes associated with sex are *why* we think and feel that it's a good thing. Even the vicarious thrill of pleasing one's partner is a result of chemical activity in the brain.

My take on vampires is that as they are unnaturally animated corpses, and their thought processes are therefore driven by something supernatural rather than biological. And y'know, it's a personal horror game about inhumanity, so it makes sense that some of the best things about being human would go away.

Yes, it's completely possible, even likely, that a high humanity Vampire (or a Vampie on some appropriate path) might get something out of pleasing a partner, but their urge is not going to a biological one as much as it's going to be related back to their relationship with their beast, as their animating force.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think we're going back to how old the vampire is, and how humane.

Increasingly, I think that a very young, very high humanity vampire could still get a lot out of sexual activity. A 1000 year old predator on Path of Power and the Inner Voice - not so much!

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting that the young or the high humanity are doing it purely out of their relationship with the beast, in some concious, calculated fashion - that's the sort of manipulation of urges I would expect a path follower to go through. I'm saying they're getting these urges/passions/desires from their beast, and they're sublimating them at some unconcious level. But yes, a sublimated desire satisfied is still, er, satisfying.

But my thinking is that applies to Vampires in the 7-10 range. 5-6 is the point, I think where sex goes away a bit, except as a tool (I think it ought to be something that goes swiftly, as we're talking about a horror game), and then it would reappear in some kindred in the 2-4 range as something a bit less pleasant.

And like I said above: don't count the old and alien out. It's just I think they're going to be kinky to a horrifying extreme.

Dammit, I'm having character ideas now.

Oh, and FWIW: I completely get the social conditioning part that you've put into the fiction above. But I think that would fade reasonably fast, within the first couple of years, if not months - after all, if you're the sort of person who can successfully adjust to the idea that the world is not as you thought, and that you're now a blood-drinking night fiend, then a certain amount of prior social conditioning will probably burn away quite fast.

*ponders*

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think I'm kinda biased by two things.

1) I've always seen the vampire mythos as very sensual/sexual. Dracula, Lestat, Carmilla, the Lost Boys - even the Twilight sparklies - vampires in fiction are nearly always sexual creatures and capable of sexual desire. It's part of the trope. And to my mind, it's a large part of the myth - they are a symbol of the sexual predator, the threat, the sex without procreation - bad, lustful, impure sex.

And I think that's such a part of the myth that it feels odd to take it away entirely, however logical it may be. That's not to say all vampires must be sexual, but it feels odd to say they are not.

2) Saying vampires are capable of sex, or desire, or love, or lust leads to Interesting Emotional Role Play. And I'm a whore for the angsty doomed love stories. Basically, give me an inch, and I'll try and push an argument as to why it's OK to do that through it.

The colder and more distant the vampire is, the less fun I find them to RP. Which is, as an addition, why I don't think I've ever played a vampire who's older than 100 and have a great fondness for neonates.

Re: *ponders*

[alasdair.livejournal.com]

Oh, I absolutely agree about their myth. But I don't think taking away *their* enjoyment of two-and-a-half-minutes-of-squelching-noises stops them from being sexual/sensual. Yes, they use sex, yes they are sexy and penetrative, and all those things. (Except in Twilight, where they are sparkly rainbow magic vampires, and about as threatening as toast.)

Absolutely, they feel lust. A lust much more powerful than any human drive. But they are monsters, and they aren't lusting after your body, or your brain - they're lusting after your hot, spurting blood.

For further consideration: who says a (reasonably decent/humane) Vampire can't become attached to their Herd in the same way mortals do lovers?

I tend to agree on the ancient ones. They're fun as a power stunt now and again, or just to play something really weird for a while, but they're not longer term character fodder. Give me someone in the 50 to 100 bracket any day - young enough to be human, old enough to be slowing becoming something else...

Re: *ponders*

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think, in general, people are bad at thinking through how old you need to be to feel alien, and old, and out of your time.

Heck, the 1840s were another world. You play a character sired in 1890, and you'll have lost everyone you knew and loved, live in a world which looks totally different. You don't need to be a thousand.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to agree, though possibly for different reasons. I find the idea that every single piece of chemical activity in the human body shutting down and never getting replaced by the Curse to be a little bit far fetched. It's something that'd be transitional, so a newly turned vampire probably *can* feel some of the old thrills

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Imagine a vampire who, having realised they no longer get the same physical responses without conscious effort, decides that they should focus all their thoughts onto their partner instead.

Dude. Stop reading Twilight.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but I don't actually dislike the Twilight vampire mythos.

The story, the dialogue, the characterisation - they are all bad.

But the vampire back plot isn't the worst in the world. Even the sparkles.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I quite like the mythos too. And I also quite enjoy the books because I like romance as long as it is hidden by a veneer of fantasy so I'm not actually reading romance novels.

The mythos remains surprisingly intact even though it probably wasn't all thought through in the first book.

You ain't seen me, 'right?

[lawrencegillies.livejournal.com]

Likewise, there's a series of supernatural romance novels (*cough* that I most definitely have not read *cough*) written by a woman called Kressley Cole which actually has quite an interesting setting that's wasted on the sort of slushy, Romantic, slightly sexy fiction that she writes. Her writing is also excreable, and her regional accents are worse than Gambit in the X-men, but the setting is, as I say, quite interesting.

Re: You ain't seen me, 'right?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I won't be checking them out on Amazon. Right now.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

Can't say I've ever heard of the series in question! Too much Anne Rice possibly though...

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

On a more serious note. I haven't been ignoring the pleasurable aspects of it. But without the hormonal back-up it's just nice feelings - nice feelings that can be more effectively found through drinking blood (which also carriesthe biological imperative part of sex).

Sure, vampires can get vicarious pleasure, but it doesn't have the same impact on a vampire as it does a human, because it doesn't have the massive hormonal/chemical surge behind it.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

After all, the physical sensations can be pretty intense

...which isn't necessarily a good thing. I personally do not always find the physical sensations involved pleasurable; it depends entirely on my level of attraction and sexual readiness. And that's hormonally mediated.

So from my point of view, trying to do it without would be a bit, well... lie back and think of England.