Of course, cunnilingus doesn’t need to involve the vagina. (Not to mention that he did it before, so he can’t be a total twat-o-phobe.) Licking the clit and the vulva, in my, male, experience, is more pleasurable than lingual penetration. YMMV
I’m 10 years older than you, and speak for yourself. 
The question in my mind is… well, IS he satisfying you? If not, then isn’t “you’re not satisfying me” exactly what he needs to hear? Say it in a way that is not deliberately hurtful, of course, but say it you must.
Yes, otherwise good relationships do fail because of sexual incompatibility. Sometimes it takes a while to find that out. It doesn’t mean you’re shallow, or lame, or selfish. It’s a valid issue. You deserve to have a satisfying sex life and to be able to talk about it and have him hear you.
Good luck.
Or suck his dick. Oh wait, she’s doing that.
Really, for many women, cunnilingus is best when it concentrates on a thimble-sized area (the clit and surrounding tissue). No smell, no mess.
You’re still young – my advice is to find someone you’re more compatible with, and specifically someone who you can talk with and who won’t get defensive. Good luck!
(bolding mine)
That’s total baloney. And unbelievably immature. A man that age should know that great sex doesn’t happen automatically like it does in the movies! (Well, it sometimes does, but not on an ongoing basis, if you know what I mean.) A couple needs to be able to talk about sex, and express what they want more or less of. And sometimes people do stuff, or do it more often, primarily because it pleases their partner.
But I suspect that he knows that. He said it for another reason.
He’s being manipulative as hell. He’s effectively “punished” you for what he perceives as your criticism of his bedroom skills. He’s made you think that you did something wrong by bringing it up (“maybe this wasn’t a good conversation to have”) and made sure that your enjoyment of it is reduced when he does do it (“I’ll always wonder if…he’s only doing it obligatorily…”)!
And now he has you second-guessing yourself all over the place!
Maybe he’s a control freak, or maybe he’s just overly defensive. I don’t know. But the result is that he’s created a condition where a perfectly ordinary situation (a dip in sexual satisfaction) that can usually be easily dealt with, and corrected with an apology, an explanation, and a little additional effort from BOTH partners is now a big ol’ problem. That’s bad.
I doubt you’ll be able to break the “defensiveness” pattern by yourself, because the problem itself prevents you from helping him fix the problem. But the good news is that this is a case where a little couples counseling could be a tremendous help. A neutral third party might be just the ticket to figuring it out.
I’m just wondering, OP, where you learned to put up with this bullshit. Who taught you that it’s acceptable to have to craft your conversations with a man in such a way that he must never feel criticized or insulted? Who taught you that you should expend this much energy pandering to the selfishness of one old saggy loser that doesn’t want to treat you like you should be treated, i.e. listened to, communicated with, respected? Somewhere along the way you learned that relationships are supposed to be like this, but they’re not.
There is something seriously wrong with this relationship, this man, and apparently you for accepting it, buying into it, and expending so much wasted energy trying to FIX it. It’s not fixable when the other party is like this. He’s 40, he’s not going to change, get out.
Damn, I almost answered this one.
Whew. Nevermind.
Tris
Wow. Well, most of the good stuff has been covered already, so I’ll just add a couple of things that I don’t see mentioned:
NightRabbit, how does he handle criticism of you? If he feels the need to criticize or critique something you’re doing (or not doing), how does he go about it? If someone else criticizes you in front of him, how does he react to it? That will go a long way towards telling you how much he values you, and how he would prefer to be treated. Try getting a handle on how he functions, and see if there’s a middle space between how you ordinarily approach things and how he does. While you’re observing how he critiques you, pay particular attention to whether he is as careful with you as you are with him. If not, that may be something to think about.
Also, have you ever simply refused to accept his defensiveness? One way that I have found of defusing someone who overreacts to critique is by saying “This isn’t about you. I need you to listen to my needs, and pay attention to what I’m saying. Stop making it about you.” Grant you, that’s very blunt, but it gets the point across. Making it clear that you’re talking about YOU, and not about him, may well be the key to having a grown up discussion.
[projection, biased emotional speculation]
And now that the reasoned, productive stuff is out of the way - honey, this guy sounds like the sort of grade A dick that I’d’ve fawned over when I was 20, because I thought that sort of treatment was what I deserved. Re-read Alice the Goon’s post above, and give serious thought to why you feel that a relationship where you walk on eggshells is a good one. Also consider whether you want to date someone who is 40 and behaves like a spoiled 15 year old, and probably will for the rest of his days. One more thing - would you put up with treatment like this from a female friend? If not, maybe it’s time to take a look at how you expect men to treat you in general, not just in relationships.
[/projection, biased emotional speculation]
I’m with the others who say get out now. People in relationships often have to talk about sex and it is a difficult topic for everyone involved. Well adjusted adults realize this and check their defensiveness to get to the heart of the matter. Insecure contol freaks opt for the nuclear response and try to shut down any and all discussion, you are dating the latter.
Ok, maybe I better go ahead.
You might be dating a man with some serious sexual self image difficulties. Such things are not limited to fear of impotence, or lack of sexual drive. Accepting your sexual self, and divesting yourself of harsh self judgments left over from early life is a tough thing to do. The existence of defensiveness pretty much demonstrates the absence of self assured sexual identity.
It doesn’t mean that there cannot be a good relationship here, it just means that getting there will be difficult to do. And it may be the case that he won’t be able to go through with it without a fair amount of encouragement. I hope you can give him that. If you can’t, well, he has to live with who he is.
Deal with discussing yourself, rather than him. Look at why the things you want are more important to you than the things you are getting. If he cannot even talk about your feelings about it, it’s a good signal that you will need help, and if he cannot take help, again, he has to live with reality.
I hope the relationship is worth the effort for both of you. But if it isn’t, at least you know what you want out of relationships, and be more aware of that in your choices.
Tris
WTF? He is NOT satisfying you! Says you:
If you don’t want him to hear “you’re not satisfying me” then you need to not say anything.
I agree with Rubystreak.
Sure, if this were only about the sex thing, I could see trying to work it out with him, to a point. But see this
from the OP. He doesn’t care about her needs in any arena, it sounds to me, but she’s especially anxious about discussing sex with him because it is such a loaded subject. So it’s not the lack of him visiting the downtown area that’s the problem here, really- it’s the whole picture.
You’re not married to him. If you were, I’d definitely suggest couples counseling and trying to work it out, especially if you had kids. But you’re only dating. He’s treating you like shit all the way around. You need to think long and hard about how you want and deserve to be treated, and act accordingly. You’re young, you’re pretty- there’s a bajillion men out there that know how to act right, and will bury their faces in your crotch every night, if that’s what you wanted. Walk away. I, personally, would run away, but you could probably walk fast.
I agree with Alice the Goon. It’s not just his sexual self-esteem, it’s every part of his life in which he cannot bear to hear the least criticism. She has to play a little game of ignoring bad actions and praising the hell out of good ones in order to not get the whiny, defensive reaction out of him. I can’t imagine wanting to continue in such a relationship.
To the OP: You two could really use couples counseling. However, I think you deserve better than him. I’m tempted to be uncharitable to him and suggest that maybe this glaring personality issue is why he’s dating a far younger woman - perhaps an older woman who doesn’t think her time is worth that kind of hassle wouldn’t?
The relationship hasn’t been a waste of your time if you leave him, but how much more time do you want to waste in a relationship where he’s being selfish sexually and in other ways, with you spending more time trying to salvage it? If he gets defensive about any criticism now, I can’t see him being accepting at a suggestion of counseling.
Reminds me of the old joke:
Q: How do you know when a woman has an orgasm.
A: Who cares?
It seems to me that if you don’t share the same tastes (so to speak) and he is unwilling to discuss it, maybe you should move along.
He’s dating a far younger woman because he happens to own a penis and he can.
I’m just using madmonk28’s post because he mentions the other posters who are advising the OP to DTMFA.
I somehow feel compelled to point out that the OP contained fewer than 550 words. There is obviously another side to the issue and NightRabbit obviously didn’t include everything about her relationship.
I sometimes feel that people are being manipulative or defensive or otherwise combative, but my more objective friends point out that my perceptions are always fallible and sometimes wholly inaccurate.
In other words, we are all selfish, defensive, thoughtless or immature at times and we all need to find ways to improve. I don’t see sufficient evidence to label NR’s SO an insecure control freak.
If the OP had been about fixing up an old Pacer, anyone could respond that it ain’t worth fixing. But, if she wants to work on it and someone has already posted that it’s not worth fixing then, IMHO, repeating the DTMFA advice doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I have to thank everyone for their input! It’s true that I guess I expected a bit of “change” in that the defensiveness would lessen once we’d been together longer- but I never thought of that as a change, only as how relationships evolve. But I was probably wrong.
I guess I’m willing to believe that this is a natural dip and that we could come out of it naturally. I’m also more aware that this is controlling behavior, in the same vein as some other behavior of his in the past… someone astute in an earlier post pointed out that he did effectively “punish” me for bringing up my issues before. Also the fact that he’s not willing to phrase any criticism of me in a softer light- he is, in fact, very clear when something I do bothers him. Although this all excludes sex- I don’t think he’s ever given me any feedback, except some isolated circumstances, us well out of bed, where he mentions his dislikes.
I have a lot of food for thought… I’m not entirely convinced that we’re compatible but I am willing to give things an effort before coming to sour conclusions…
You’re not married, there’s no kids: go. Find someone you are compatible with. Such a person undoubtedly exists and will not give you all of this passive-aggressive bullshit when you need to bring up a relationship problem. And frankly it sounds like you have been giving things a lot of effort and not really getting much in reciprocation. This is not a recipe for relationship success.
Also, everything Alice the Goon said.
You are, but he is not. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Dead on summary.