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Welcome to Fair Play, a column exploring the shifting dynamics of sex, dating and culture by Playboy Senior Editor Magdalene Taylor.
Most men, I assume, interpret handjobs much like they do cold leftovers in their fridge: they’ll take it if there’s nothing else available. The humble handjob is often seen as juvenile and unsatisfying when compared to something like oral or traditional intercourse, only one step above solo masturbation.
But finally, on an episode of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes, actor Cameron Scott Roberts (most recently in the latest Scary Movie) made the bold proclamation that handjobs are actually better than blowjobs. And it seems as though the world is ready to accept that he’s right.
“There’s a notion that all men want is to get their dick sucked and I’m here to say that I think that notion is a little bit blown-—no pun intended—out of proportion,” says Roberts. Specifically, he argues that people are craving intimacy, and that the handjob allows for more of it than its mouth-based counterpart. “Intimacy is at an all-time low in this country,” he says. But with a handjob, “you can be close to someone and their face can be with you… Kissing is what everybody wants at the end of the day.”
Roberts and Rahma mutually suggest that the preference for blowjobs is some sort of porn-based conspiracy, as though men are somehow being tricked into wanting them. In reality, there probably is some basis in porn here. At very least, a blowjob is more visually interesting to capture on camera than a hand on a penis, which is probably what a straight guy watching porn can already see right in front of them. But experiencing a hand job a different story. As Roberts mentioned, people can kiss, talk to each other and generally share the moment as one.
But let’s get to the real headline: from a straight woman’s perspective, all of this is great news. Most people who have performed both blowjobs and handjobs will probably assert that handjobs are a bit easier (or at least, less messy and uncomfortable) than the blowjob. And perhaps if we all knew that handjobs were being embraced, we might even be a bit more inclined to indulge in them.
This one Subway Takes mention is not the only moment of handjob resurgence. With the latest season of Love Island USA now streaming, audiences are catching glimpses of numerous under-the-covers HJs. With participants spending most nights sharing one room, the handjob becomes an obvious method of a slightly more inconspicuous sexual encounter. I have to imagine, too, that this sneakiness is part of the handjob’s appeal. Even when two adults engage in it in the privacy and comfort of their own home, it harkens back to clandestine hookups and our formative sexual experiences.
At the end of the day, though, I think Roberts is right: it comes down to a desire for closeness and intimacy with our partners. It’s easy for two people to have intercourse without even looking each other in the eye, but a handjob? That requires presence and warmth between lovers. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re all after.
So you know what, yeah—it’s a handjob summer. If not literally, at least metaphorically. Let’s embrace this manual form of sexual congress as the embodiment of our unselfish devotion to one another. And fellas… this goes both ways.
