Life , sex (oral in particular) and the peculiarity of it all beg for summation by way of sports analogy. Will a brother ever voluntarily opt to orally split the seam as an offensive bedroom manoeuvre? Well, that's a game-time decision, playa's choice. Assuming, of course, that the brutha in question has any big-league experience at the cunnilingus position.I'd wager the cross-cultural betting line on the prospect of a no to that affirmative action, given the workplace whispers, barstool blather, dining table fables and locker room fuming on this tender subject.

Would that he could or could that he might, if not for the fright. The black man's burden, each with his own crotch to bear in the dilemma of the modern-day shake-spear: "to chew or not to chew?" That is the question.

Not just a phantom in the bent minds of others, this fur-pie consuming contest hovers mostly in the skewed psyche of brothers. In the functional reality of myth and the wake of urban (as in black male) legend, there is no last word on a brother's disposition toward carpet munching.

***

My man Sliv calls me up howling with laughter, explaining how what started out as a considerate dinner invite from his new Trinny bossman morphed into a considerable chastisement about "filth and nastiness living."The floodgates burst when Sliv came clean on going down on womenfolk. Apparently, he's still invited, though duly warned that he'll be outed there by his conspicuous assignment of paper plates and plastic cups and cutlery.

The good yuk-up over that is a gateway to an exchange of lore of sexual saints, nymphs and whores and back again to the point of why so many bros make a crusade of telling you, "I don't do that shit!"

Well, who asked, ya black bastard? And further, where's your woman at? 'Cause if you won't, someone you know surely will. His name is Joe Grind, and he eats it on the side.

I no more think it manly to not lick the lips below the hips than I feel it mandatory to partake for any sake beyond personal desire and, of course, the astute observance of one good turn of the tongue deserving another.

And a situational cost-benefit analysis goes a long way when the carnal mind leads you astray.

As a crony, Texas Tom, once said (while recording a telephone sex line worker trying to get him off in a hurry by suggesting that the last vestiges of her ragtime flow were still extant for his culinary sampling), "I'm not much of a bloodhound myself!"

More live and direct, a certain fellow back in high school – an immigrant to Canada, sick of home cooking and declaring, "No more black pussy. I want a nice China-beef!" – was of a radically different mentality.

This yardie caused a stir when word got loose that he'd gorged himself at the altar of femininity under less than ideal conditions for worship. Just how he ended up admittedly face-deep in a menstruating white chick, a global court of his peers, if there are any, can only decipher.

The biggest labia-lapping fear back in that day was suffering the unthinkable misfortune of slurping trail-mix – the spunk left in wait by the last man in. Must have been a latent crime-and-punishment thing.

But there was also often unkind, untrue, improbable and immature riffing about offal odours emanating from the source. Even today an esteemed Zimbabwean compatriot, in absolute earnest, still warns, "If it smells like bread or fish – no! And if it's a girl from back home you should never do those dirty things."

***

I'm playing in a basketball tournament – we're a bunch of guys who don't know each other – when the badman-baller boasting turns to talk of tail. The emergent star of the brood fumes, "God gave me parts!" after some lesser sporting mortal speaks of his love of devouring that thing that does not come on a plate.I assume Star-man's holy hookup, godly parts, is what's topping up his fancy-boy bikini briefs as he bemoans the depravity of oral to everyone's amusement.

Everything's a holler until the poon reaper comes sniffing at your door. And that was the case after I got slid an invite to a far-out fete where the vibe of the ass in the mass of humanity made for living way too easy.

I meet a friendly stranger not at all opposed to my squeezing the Charmine in public all of 10 minutes into our acquaintance. Ah, Toronto the Good when you're understood.

I'm impervious to cock-teasing nuance. All sexual intrigue is quite illusory to me until the deal closes. But this lady's got a predetermined game plan. The Xs and Os are quite simple, as my new coach implores me to absorb: "I'll suck your balls. I swallow. You can have my ass. Serious. Anything goes, OK? But you got to promise to lick me first. You black guys never want to do that, so I have to bribe you."

Dear me, who says racial profiling doesn't exist in this fair city?

Oh, well, as a man wise beyond his years once said in defence of his fondness for addressing women's cornholes with his mouth, "You have to give well in order to maybe sometime receive in kind."

This chick is murder hot, and it doesn't jibe that she's so desperate for a generic black monster to raid her white cookie jar. But my nut sac suddenly feels too full, twitching in anticipation of a triumphant off-loading. Yeah, baby, "It's on!" I tell her, and we grab a cab.

Then the double-talking starts. Some shit about a pit stop – another plan for mutual pleasuring grows more obscure by the moment. Always better to strike while the vulva is hot, and I got a tepid detour on my hands. I've seen this flick before and I hate the fucking fuckless ending.

***

So we're downtown in a joint still selectively pouring hours after last call. She seems to be more in the mingle rather than fetch-and-step mode. Obviously a known entity up in this spot, she introduces me to every black jack-man in the hole without ever knowing my name.

While I can't blame a good old-fashioned white gal for coming down with a case of jungle fever from time to time, this here scenario – both real and imagined – was giving me the willies.

Somewhat paranoid by nature, I start to wonder if I'm being paraded around as exhibit A in a black male hall of infamy for willingness to compromise my oral integrity as leverage toward some later hypothetical genital stimulation.

I take each greeting as mockery, figuring she's already done the Mandingo proper this night and I'm the skedded cleanup crew. Nothing like a sloppy second chance to make a first impression.

Still no closer to that theoretical testicular tongue-lashing so graciously offered earlier, I give her the slip as she greets yet another stray black cat.

***

I lie low for a while but then want to shake that ill-fated excursion into the cross-racial vaginal divide. To assuage my sensibilities I hit the Net looking for a different flavour, perhaps a taste of some hot Mama Africa from a black dating site.

My account is routinely rammed full of toxic messages and pics from married white suburban plumpers scavenging for a dose of some dick-swinging black archetype with a conveniently blue-sky world view and a Renaissance-man inclination to be friends before all. Shoot me now.

Finally, a peep from a nicely twisted sistah, and the cyber-dance is kind of sweet. That is, until she demands to know if this brutha is like most others, loath to go down under for a savoury plunder of that female wonder.

I know guys who won't do chicks who don't agree to throat dick in advance, and I find that ridiculous, so this pre-emptive twat-tasting line of inquisition is jangling my nerves a bit. There's no way I'm answering without said prize laid out before my very eyes.

And for some inexplicable reason imagine her looking like a roots gal from my past who curled the lips on her face and huffed, "Why would you want to do that?" when I erred in the notion to inhale her love potion – only to find the gates of Nubian paradise locked due to a management-side labia dispute.

Anyway, I log off, making like the connection was dropped before that infernal question was asked again, and let the face-plant issue sit for another time, which as it turned out was merely the next cunting day away.  

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NOW | MAY 22 - 28, 2003 | VOL. 22 NO. 38