What's with the lack of penetration?

A dear friend of mine has recently posted a couple of blogs - they are intelligent, feisty and well thoughts out - worth a read if you have a mo. 

They got me thinking back to a joke I used in my show Get Laid or Die Trying, which went along the lines of "what I really can't stand are those women who take guys home and then don't have sex with them. They're giving the rest of us a really bad name."

It was a joke admittedly, but it's a point I've argued time and time again. How is penetration more intimate than oral sex? Why get into bed with someone and do everything but penetration? Obviously, not all sex involves penetration, and there are times when it's not feasible - periods, lack of condoms, you haven't had a shower. I'm kidding. Or just when you want some variety.

But what I'm talking about it, is going home with someone and then witholding the penetration, or even in some cases, the removal of pants. If you speak to those who do it, they will say it's about waiting, or that they only do "that" once they're serious. Some don't offer any explanation. I once took a man home, more than once, who my friends and I named Strokey. He liked to stroke, he'd bring me to orgasm, but he wouldn't take off his pants or let me touch down there. Baffling. We even made up a song:

'Strokey, Strokey... Didn't want no Pokey, Pokey". I won't subject you to the verses...

I've had plenty of male friends of mine talk about getting a woman home, whose behaviour up until the point when they were on the sofa back at hers, had lead them to think they were in for a long night of supreme shagging. Only for them to discover said woman would steadfastly refuse to take off her pants, though she would give them a handjob or a blowjob....

Call me old fashioned, but isn't it all rather high school? And conversely, isn't it rather anti-feminist? Why do the boys get all the fun, whilst the women don't get to get off? In secondary school the boys were getting blowjobs and the girls the odd finger, but primarily, the sexual activity was centred around the males. Shouldn't we have progressed by the time we hit adulthood?

I genuinely don't understand the point in taking someone into bed and then not going the whole hog out of a sense of preserving chastity, or for religious beliefs - I really don't see how those hold up if you're going to do everything bar penetration. 

I guess I'm a bit all or nothing. I also think I would have probably lacked the willpower to keep my underwear on, even if I had set out intending to do so.

But at a more serious level, I think there's also an element of women being a little more transparent and up front about their intentions. Of course, we've all had nights when we might have changed our mind on the route home, or even when we've got home. I'm not suggesting that a woman has an obligation to have sex with a guy at any stage of the courtship process - be it 15mins in, or 15 weeks in.

What I am suggesting, is that as women, we have a responsibility to ourselves to treat others as we wish to be treated. To be adult - with the ownership that that brings. Say if you like someone, say if you don't, say if you just want sex, say if you want something more. It's terrifying, and you will get knocked back some of the time, but there is something liberating in being transparent about it all. Don't spend all evening flirting with someone you've got no real interest in - it's a waste of their time and yours, and it suggests that you're really just using that situation for your own issues.

Similarly, if you like someone and you want to have sex with them, then do it. Don't embark on some mission to get them to earn the right to penetrate you, whilst letting them go down on you. It's a mixed message and it doesn't really ring true. Pun intended. If you want to hold out, hold out fully, and for the right reasons and explain why, should the conversation arise. I could be wrong, but I think they'll respect that more.