This is interesting, P. I don't agree with any of your reasons though… I think that a higher-earning woman is more likely to be educated, and thus will likely be choosier in selecting her sexual partners based on income and education as well. I would tend to think that men who earn more and are educated would tend to be higher-level thinkers who get off on the idea of the woman getting off, and thus are more likely to pleasure her in order to arouse themselves.

Less educated, lower-earning men (in my mind) tend toward lower-level thinking, and are sufficiently satisfied to rabbit-fuck you until they come 90 seconds later, whether you're turned on or not.

Call it classist, but that's my experience. The more highly educated and earning a man has been, the more enthusiastic he has been about my sexual pleasure.

I completely disagree that men who are lower-earning are less intelligent or lower-level thinkers. Many simply have different values- for example, are more family focused. I have a very demanding career, and my extremely intelligent and thoughtful husband has chosen to dedicate himself to our children. His movement to a lower-status career and reduced earning power does not suggest that he is in any way a "lower level thinker" than I. In fact, I think if you reversed the gender and suggested that stay at home moms or women who worked part time and dedicated themselves to their families were lower level thinkers, you would get quite an outcry. Making this assumption regarding men seems just as ridiculous in my mind.

Maybe your experience stems from your consideration of men who are less educated/lower earners. I suspect that someone you so obviously look down on would feel less motivation to satisfy you.

I think "you own demographic" should probably be "your own demographic." Isn't that what editors are for?

Thought provoking as always. Keep up the good work.

My wife's a teacher (low earner) and I make about 3 times her salary, yet I go down on her as often as I can. I guess I would be the anomalous 5% of men your editor refers to who actually *like* going down on girls!

Actually, I believe less successful women have better sex. Worrying less = less distraction during sex = more enjoyment out of sex. Duh! Scale back on the career and you'll have less stress and more time. Sure, money will be less. But you'll be a more likeable person and more men will want to date you. I believe successful men prefer to be with a woman who is caring, supportive, and sweet rather than a woman who earns a very high income.

I'm not entirely sure it's less successful women having the better sex although I fully agree with the premise of less stress equaling to better sex as the absence of mental distractions will allow for a greater experience of sexual stimulation. And regarding the activity of oral sex, it's an acquired taste, but once acquired and combined with the knowing she's getting off because you're down there is orgasmic. I get mentalgasms.

Haha Grace –
I just want to summarize your comment to make sure I understand.

Success = worrier
Success = less likeable
Success = not caring
Success = not supportive
Success = not sweet
Therefore men prefer unsuccessful women.

Funny, that's not what I learned in my path to the top.

Now I'm not picking on you, just making a point here.

I'm going to bet you DON'T work. I'm also going to be that you DON't get much head either. Because since you don't work, you owe SOMETHING to your keeper – be it kids, or blow jobs or dinner on the table, whatever.

I think that proves PT's point, eh?

Word.

This is an extraordinarily vulgar post, one which cheapens your talent. Your insight and talents are above this, you don't need to be ridiculous to get your blog read. You need to continue to provide value to your readers along with your terrific prose.

Reading all of her stuff the last two months; obvious she is not concerned with being high brow, she wants to be scintillating and edgy, true to herself.

Penelope needs a late night radio slot, for sure.

Ok, glad that this keeps morphing into a sex blog because career advice is, on standard, boring. Do high power women like to be dominated to? Just asking.

This is an interesting topic, but I'm wondering about the hypothesis of the research and how it relates to one's career.

First, shouldn't the hypothesis be, "Do higher income women get more satisfaction from their sexual partners than lower income women?". This would cover a wider range of sexual behaviors that may or may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Second, this could lead to a second hypothesis, "Do higher income men get more satisfaction from their sexual partners than lower income men?".

Then, you could make yet a third hypothesis, "Do people who who demand better performance from their sexual partners have greater sexual satisfaction?"

I'm guessing that the answer to #3 is "yes".

So all this boils down to is those who ask, get.

Very important to know in managing one's career.

I don't find this vulgar, but sad. And irrelevant.

"Second, I think your editor's assumption is wrong. There is no way that 95% of men don't enjoy giving oral sex. No way."

Would have to agree here. My condolences to your editor for no embracing the joys of eating p~ssy.

I think the whole premise is interesting but flawed. After a reasonable sampling of NYC women from various socioeconomic strata I can safely say rich p~ssy and poor p~ssy = edible p~ssy……

When you can make a post with this title and content – and have no one question your taste – you know you've arrived.

I'm sure you "arrived" long ago but it must be nice to reap the rewards of years worth of credibility being built up to where you can just post – with no qualifications or justifications.

Thanks for not holding back.

Good bye. I'm not offended, in the least,I just can't find value in your blog.
I do hope in the New Year and future that find your funding, heal your blindness, find a relationship that makes you happy, find great jobs for your children, workout how to be travel with children, never have bed bugs again, and I really hope that a building never falls on you again. I do think it would be wise to worry about everything, tho…because it will probably happen to you.
Good Luck.

Your spellchecker obviously isn't working. You meant to say AURAL sex, not ORAL sex, right?

Hmm… I think my comment got stuck in the "vulgar language" filter or something…

The gist of it was, that I think higher-income, higher-educated women seek similar men. Those men tend to be higher level thinkers, who get off on the idea of a woman getting off. Thus, I think in general, they are more apt to be turned on by stimulating a woman, in any way, shape or form they can.

Lower income, less educated men tend to be lower-level thinkers, including their sexual thinking. Thus, they can rabbit-screw (take that dirty language filter!) a woman until they finish 90 seconds later without a care toward whether or not the woman was turned on.

Call it classist, but it's been my experience that the higher the education and income, the more turned on they seem to be by getting a woman off. Including oral sex.

Until you get some numbers to back a claim like that up, classist is exactly what that is.

What about hygiene? Is there a correlation between level of education and/or success and personal hygiene? That is certainly an area of the body that if not properly maintained can present certain olfactory challenges.

Maybe if we were talking about extremely poor people who don't have access to normal resources (for example the homeless who aren't able to shower as often).

But I had assumed the post had more to do with average earners vs. very high earners, or people with advanced degrees vs. people with only high-school or undergraduate degrees.

As a physician, I can tell you that within these groups there is no difference in personal hygiene. I think its a bit offensive to assume that just because someone isn't a very high earner/ doesn't have a graduate degree they don't know how to keep their genitalia clean.

I will do my part in fighting this travesty of justice. Come on guys take the pledge… you can make a difference in fighting against this unjust disparity.

Hmm.. I seem to remember a study a number of years ago that showed quite the opposite. The higher the I.Q., the lower the frequency of sex. Also, the less T.V. one watched, the lower the frequency. Housing was a factor also, the lower the home value, the more frequent the sex.

So, people living in trailer parks, that watch lots of T.V. and had low I.Q.s were doing it all the time…

Can't find a reference though.

People are tempted to put whatever casual factor they want (in this case money) as the one ingredient that leads to more sex. The fact is though that the inter-related characteristics like domestic status, happiness, income, attractiveness, education level that determine sexual frequency are so complex no study can pinpoint which factor is the cause and what factor is the effect except that married people tend to have more sex than single people.

And I love some of the hilarious stereotypes like Holly's above. Really…the narcisstic investment bankers who helped cause our nation's downfall are really higher level thinkers? Are GM and Ford execs on a higher plane than average people? Does Bernie Madoff look like he is a genius in bed? This worship of people who make money as "higher level" thinkers is what got us in this mess in the first place. Sometimes a high income person is only good at making a high income. Some lower income women I have dated, ones with a healthy dose of confidence and lack of NYC type neurosis or S. Cal vanity, were far better in bed than their overrated, educated and overpaid counterparts.

And yes, I am fully aware that in reply that I am stereotyping as well :)

“Let's assume that men give oral sex only because women ask for it. That's probably 95% true."

Wow, that's a pretty hefty assumption. Fortunately in the Venn diagram of sexual relationships, I don't seem to have much overlap with your editor.

I think a girl should have some fun with her blog.
I can't wait until next week's poll.
The comments are better than the poll/post today.
I would guess the emails are even better.
If Penelope can't find a link to some piece of research on sex then I know that I can't either or else it would be extremely difficult.
It's interesting to think about the relationship of more education, more money, self-confidence building, and oral sex. What about the frequency of the oral sex between Eliot Spitzer and Ashley Dupre and the oral sex and control aspects that some of our past Presidents got to experience. It's not just salary and sex here. It's the pecking order in the company, organization, or whatever else that comes to mind.
There are some things you never forget and one of those things for me was a skit I saw by the late Sam Kinison on one of his videos. He demonstrated his technique for oral sex. LOL just thinking about his performance. So I was going to google it for the link but I found a better link at AskMen.com – 14 Oral Sex Tips is the title and it can be found at http://www.askmen.com/dating/love_tip_150/199_love_tip.html . Good stuff.

Well…I am all for oral sex, get plenty of it and always have, regardless of my income. I do think, however, that PT's post is quite silly. It really doesn't belong on this blog, in other words…

NOW, having said that, I found that the more educated I become (I have a Ph.D.), the more men want to impress me in bed. My income has shot way up as well, but men seem to find that intimidating. So, I can't say that my higher income has helped that much when it "comes" to receiving oral sex.

Who is this editor/idiot/loser who assumes that 95% of women have to request oral sex to receive it? Is he kidding, or does he just hate performing oral sex? It's a completely inaccurate statistic. Furthermore, I can attest to the fact that my lover loves going down on me, and even more so when he's trying to cheer me up. Because I'm self-employed and making absolutely no money right now.

Wow. I hope your intention of posting this was to get people who were reading this blog for career advice to go elsewhere as well as diminish the credibility of previous advice given–perhaps a little self sabotage in a way.

I certainly am not morally outraged in the least bit, but will probably stop paying attention to "career advice" from this blog. I'd been following your blog for at least a year and in recent months it has seemingly turned into a soap opera'ish story of your life with less focus on your insight and research on valuable career advice. This hard hitting career entry is certainly the icing on the cake.

It's funny because if you knew me, you would know that It would be far outside my character to spend time on a response to something so insignificant..but here I am.

good luck!

Sorry. I strangely feel compelled to add one more thing.

I'd love to see an article or at least a response on how this entry pertains to the mission statement of your company. Maybe a Venn diagram would be easier? Perhaps the mission statement needs revision? Or Maybe you should send out an email blast to your corporate clients to check out this new entry so they can "locate hard-to-find candidates."

This blog entry is just so ridiculous I can't stop laughing. It's funny how one poorly chosen article can make your opinions and advice irrelevant to a certain percentage of your readers. I hope for your sake that it is a small percentage.

Verbose mission statement:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/about-brazen-careerist/

Hum, I'm not sure this is true. Aren't there also studies that say very religious women have the best sex of all of us?

That aside, I guess I'm a high earner. I live in a small town. I'm not single. I'm self employed. This describes most of my friends (except for the self employed part), and we're all getting plenty of oral. So this is what I think:

* We are assertive. High earning women tend to be. I'm the type of woman who says, "Hey dude, your mouth. Down there. Now."

* Our men adore us. They are willing to do anything to stay married to us.

* We reciprocate. In fact, we keep them very happy in the sack, too.

* Can't speak for all of us, but at least a few of us wax, which makes the whole area much more inviting for that type of thing. The typical bikini wax, even if a small town, runs $90, so it's becoming something only high earning women can afford. Might explain all of it…

I think money has nothing to do with it; looks have everything to do with it. Guys want to date attractive women. The more skills he brings to the party, the higher chance a guy has of scoring and keeping an attractive woman.

LMAO Pam "more licks than a blow pop"! Possibly the best blog comment I've ever read!

Your editor isn't doing you any favors Penelope.

Is your editor a man or a woman? I, too, find the 95% calculation ridiculous. Over almost twenty years of having and talking with other women about sex, I have personally experienced or heard of two men who were not enthusiastic about giving oral. One of them was 20 years old; presumably, he may have grown up a bit since then. I am from a very poor background but got scholarships, worked hard, etc. and now work and have worked for several academic institutions, so my experience spans over several socioeconomic groups. Good in bed/bad in bed has little to do with income or class, as I see it.

Your editor is telling us something about himself that makes me think I would not date him.
I would say there is a coincidental connection between income and oral sex. I have always enjoyed great oral sex from partners who shared my sense of adventure, curiosity and sensuality. Those are the same guys who are the most interesting out in the world as well. It took much longer for my academic and professional experience to develop, but in those arenas I have also benefited from my openness to new opportunities and experiences. At 56, I'm amazed to find myself defined as an "ultra-achieving woman." Wow. And I'm still enjoying great oral sex too.

Conny – Call me, I'm in the book.

Interesting poll question.

But I find that usuallt none of the possible answers fall in line with my experiances. You should always add the option of "I don't care about this poll, I just love voting" which will allow people to participate, but give you a chance at a more meaning ful result. And probably another another option of, "I thought hard about the question, but I have a hard time relating to the narrow choices of answers you have limited me to."

just a thought

Interesting. Never had to ask, never had a problem receiving. I tend to find that the men I date are interested in my pleasure, to heighten their own. I suspect *that* is your correlate with income/education.

I dunno if I can agree with this. Just take a look at a successful woman! She works harder and longer hours and is alot more focused on her career. As a result of this she will have very little time for sex and that translates into slam bam thank you ma'am. The unsuccesful women now probably just want to leave work early since they do not care about their job. As a result they will be "dined" on more often.

anyways to sum it up…men dont get enough head, successful or unsuccessful

A speed dating study? Phooey!

High income men get more oral sex. Definitely.

Great looking women get more oral sex. Definitely.

The rest are maybe's.

Penelope,

Given you've been on both ends of the spectrum (high income, low income), have you noticed a correlation in the frequency of oral in your life?

During your high earning years, did you get more?
In your low earning years, did you get less?

I'm not in a position to offer an opinion (wife stays at home) other than she never has to ask for it. The assumption that 95% of men DON'T like to do it is off by a mile, methinks.

I found this amusing, and maybe a little 'tongue in cheek' ;)

Anyhow was sent this link the same day… wonder what Karma is telling me.
http://www.louisvillefreeface.com/
… shocking

Enjoy.

LOL, you all are toooooooottttaaaaallly over thinking this.

High Income = More money to spend on yourself.

1. Expensive Clothing
2. Physical Trainer
3. Better Diet / food
4. Manicure / Pedicure
5. Expensive Hair
6. Skin treatments

You have all those to work with, you would have to be pretty ugly to start with to not be hot.

Take Penelope for example. Above average looking, athletic build woman. With the money she spends on herself, you get a sophisticated beautiful looking woman that any man would be honored to submit to (call me anytime Penelope :-)))))

Best. Post. Title. Ever.

Of course, the real secret here is to buck the odds and figure out how to get more oral sex than your earning power actually merits.

Well there's two minutes of my life I will never get back.

The first place I ever heard mention of oral sex for women was in the kitchen of a Cracker Barrel. No, it's not as bad as it sounds. Heard from a veteran waitress to a younger waitress (not me): "Honey, if he ain't petting the cat, I don't wag the dog." And I know veteran waitresses aren't high income earners, but they are often the sole income earner for their household (so maybe financial independence plays a part?). Veteran waitresses are also often slightly off their rocker, Cracker Barrel pun not intended.

If it is true, that a more successful woman receives more oral sex, I think it may be that that type of professional is more aggressive, outgoing, and probably has a higher risk tolerance. These traits would most likely not be limited to her career, but instead permeate her entire life, making her more open and expressive in the bedroom as well.

My contention here is that it probably isn't the successful career, or how much money is made, that correlates to more oral sex, but instead the "type A" personality.

I believe that Outgoing women receive more oral sex and being outgoing correlates strongly with being successful, however not every outgoing person is successful.

hmmmm P we knew you were a CEO but I was not aware you were back to being a high earner – good on you :) le

Seems pretty simple to me – better educated women tend to date better educated men; better educated men are more likely to give oral sex because culturally it's more expected of them. The intelligensia consider it an ordinary part of sex. The working classes often think that it's a sign of being under your girlfriend's thumb. I don't think it's anything to do with the women's position at all – it's all about the guy's background.

As a man who has in the past held various "low rent" jobs and is now not an above average earner, I can only commment on my personal experience. I have always enjoyed giving and receiving oral sex. Some women enjoy receiving, some don't. I have found that the latter is less often the case then the former but see absolutely no correlation to the level of income of the woman. So maybe I am one of the few odd cases that your editor is talking about. How I feel about myself has nothing to do with whether I want or dont want to partake in either form of oral sex. Just my $.02 for what it's worth.

This makes for sensational blogging, but does this post really highlight anything new? Sure the wealthy, successful, or attractive (male or female) are more likely to get what they want from life. It only stands to reason. Aren't we just beating a dead horse here for S and Gs?

This is by far the stupidest post I've read. I love when writers like you have this need to write some stream of conciousness crap as if 1) we really care 2) there is some degree of value.

Sounds like that editor was asleep at the switch.

Keep the crap coming!

I am fascinated by the number of people who seem to think that they should be the arbiters of what you write. Don't like one post? Then chuck Penelope and her blog out entirely! Or at the very least post something rude about the post! You're in charge here after all, right? – not the author! It's up to HER to cater to YOUR personal tastes and your ideas of what her blog should contain. That's business!

It reminds me of Comic Book Guy, on the Simpsons:
CBG: Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes registering my disgust throughout the world.
Bart: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you
have to complain?
CBG: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of
entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe
you? I mean, if anything, you owe them.
CBG: ….Worst episode EVER.

Penelope is always on step ahead.

Earlier this week, the most read article on the Times Online website was "Wealthy men give women more orgasms": http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5537017.ece

From the article: "“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research."

This is drivel. Unfortunately for all the rich, ambitious hags out there, you can really can't buy beauty, or talent in bed. Those of us who've experienced plenty of different women from different walks of life know that a prada bag and expensive make up don't mean anything when it comes to the good stuff.

Of course that would be nice, wouldn't it? Work hard, make network connections, make alot of money, have more orgasms, buy whatever you want, it's the American dream baby.

You have to be asleep to believe it.

More salary means more sense of independence, authority and control. And also to some extent more stress.Going oral is sort-of- reflection of any or of all the above.
Research can also be revealing when it is conducted to find out about the 'nature of oral sex' and its link to the nature of job, salay and perk structure. For a highly paid woman scientist may prefer a relatively 'softer or less wilder oral sex' than a high paid marketing or military professional. The idea is may be the nature of job, being less aggressive or more aggressive help professionals develop 'related traits' and that may 'express' itself in oral sex making it 'soft' or 'hard'
The idea is the more the microscopic research, the more the revealation. And that is more 'knowledge' more understanding ' and more fulfilments.
Yes, positive research increases life's happiness level.

I think about your post the other way around. I am the mother of 2 kids and work full time. So, at the end of the day I have given all my energy to the job, kids and house and cannot summon up the desire to be with my husband. However, if he contributed to making my life easier (such as earning more money, allowing me to be a stay at home mom, resulting in getting dinner cooked, homework done, kids to activities, etc, before 6pm), then I would have the energy and desire to be with him at night. In my opinion, men who make their wive's lives easy deserve and get more sex.

At a singles seminar, I heard the therapist say, "A man that goes down on a woman, and does not demand reciprocity, is, god."

jiz monkey, next time get her to rinse it off.

One of the men's magazines(playboy or hustler), had a statistic on oral sex. It said, women in higher income jobs got more sex, only because they had more partners.

Ryan, really? You must let me know where you meet this kind of woman.

Just the other day I was trying to work out why I like your blog … firstly I love your headings … very catchy and intersting!!

Secondly I like your style … its simple and very much to the point! Not many people can write like that (I know I cant, but I would love to!)

Lastly with the risk of sounding a bit like a pervert …. I think you are one sexy woman and I love to hear you talk about oral sex!

So there you have it ….

I get more oral sex than the sex itself, we both have Bachelor degrees. He enjoys giving it to me !!!

Love it. Ditch the research and the stats, I just want to hear about you getting oral.

I love giving oral so it doesn't a matter a whit the economic level, although how attracted I am to the girl DOES matter. So, if I'm only mildly attracted, she only gets oral some of the time. The quality decreases with the attraction level as well. I'm attracted to intelligence, looks to a certain extant, and how she makes me feel. That may or may not be related to salary.

I'm dating a girl now who is a high earner, the highest earner I've ever dated, and she is getting some SERIOUSLY quality oral, and lots of it, from me.

Most any man, can adjust in total comfort, with an attractive woman. Women are different, than men, she has to "feel" comfortable. A man can kiss a woman that is not in tune with him, and he can enjoy the kiss tremendously. Not so with females….

Well, Joe, the article was interesting. First, it is a very small, unbalanced sample size (100 with cancer and 200 without); hence, you should be instantly suspicious. Also, it can not be stated enough as most Americans are woefully ignorant about science, correlation does not equate causation. If a large study confirms the conclusions of this article, then it would be more reasonable to believe the results. But, this looks like a preliminary study rather than one that you should base you life on.

Personally, I expect all my partners to have had multiple partners before I came along. If the study is true and my risk is increased, then I think it is a reasonable trade off. There is no way to be completely safe in life.

Interesting!

I don't think my sex life has fluctuated in anyway with my income levels though.

This is an interesting post. I don't really care about the income part, but I found the correlation between education and oral sex to be new information.

I did my undergrad research paper on sex. It wasn't on this topic (it was race and promiscuity), but I came across a lot of interesting facts on sex. I think race would be more of an indicator on whether a woman receives oral sex or not. Some races get straight to the book and others perform more foreplay.

Regardless, it would be interesting to see sexologists give the break down facts on who is receiving oral sex and why.

"High earning women do well dating because they are better looking than average"

- Didn't know that was true, nor do I see any logical reason for a correlation there. If anything, it'd be assumed that women who earn well actually look worse than average; as to explain why they find it necessary to work hard in the first instance. Very good looking women often aim to get by socially on their looks rather than working towards being financially successful.

"..and because men prefer dating women who make a lot of money."

- ? Who ever said this? Men prefer dating women who make a lot of money? .. Haha. O kay; then why don't we see this very often: a man dating a woman with a lot of money? Once again, if anything men seem to prefer dating women who make less money than themselves.

I think your research is very interesting. It is based not on statistic, but on your personal point of view. And as we know: so many men, so many minds.

And they say money doesn't buy happiness