In seventh grade, a good friend of mine was out at the typical middle school date hot spot: the movie theater. She had arrived 20 minutes early so as not to miss the previews, and things were getting hot and heavy with the guy of her pubescent dreams. However, “hot and heavy” means a very different thing when you are about to be bar mitzvahed than when you are about to bang like the bells on the top of the clock tower. She was giving this guy a hand job. Jacking him off, if you will.

When he was about to ejaculate, her date took off his shoe and came into his white cotton sock. When faced with the problem of disposing of his now semen-filled sock, he did as all polite, braces-wearing boys should do: he whipped it in the air and threw it into the (now occupied) back row. By all 13-year-olds’ standards, a successful date.

At this point, I hope you are asking yourself why I am writing this column about hand jobs. I decided to dedicate my first Sun exposure to a worthy cause: making Cornell a hand job-free campus. HJs belong in one place: our past. Unless you are in middle school, or in a movie theater, or on the occasional bus (read: wine tour), there is absolutely no reason to ever manually masturbate your man.

As a wise friend once told me: "Never do anything for a guy that he can do better for himself." Hand jobs are juvenile and pointless. There is absolutely no benefit to the giver of the job, besides a forearm workout. Furthermore, guys have been doing it themselves basically since they could walk. There is no way that a girl will ever be able to top the craft they have been cultivating for 15-plus-years.

This doesn’t mean that a girl should avoid pleasuring the peen — just don’t do it with your hand. As the saying goes, the only good hand job is one done with your mouth. Or your vagine hole. Or some combination of the two.

Hand-to-penis contact should last no longer than foreplay. That is to say, touch the penis as often as you want your boobs to be touched (approximately every 15 seconds). HJs should always lead to something else, as long as that something else isn’t ejaculation. If the penis isn’t erect, get it up, do a quick ball sack massage and MOVE ON. In fact, I have only ever given one successful hand job (this does not count the middle school hookups where the guy came after two strokes). After conquering that feat — and getting nothing in return except a sore arm — I turned to bigger and better things and have never looked back.

I also have an ulterior motive in writing this column. As a feminist, I believe that most of the inequality between men and women is created in the bedroom. Society dictates that women are “supposed” to be the ones who put limits on their sex-crazed male partners, to be sexually modest and generous. When a woman knows what she wants sexually, she is labeled as “crazy” or “aggressive.”

Hand jobs are the one exception. Third base (fingering or HJs for the purpose of this column) is the only time that a woman is expected to receive, but not give. It is perfectly acceptable to finger during foreplay but to not return the favor. Third base is to women what oral sex is to men: It's expected for women to be fingered and men to get blowjobs, but the equivalent favor does not have to be returned on the first date (or drunken night … because honestly, how often do dates happen?). So, even if you receive a mind-blowing finger blast, it is no excuse to give a hand job.

As the female sex columnist, my goal this semester is to empower the women of Cornell to investigate their own bodies, learn what they want sexually and inspire our partners to help us along the way.

But that doesn’t mean that guys should tune out and only read my counterpart below me. I’m going to teach you the ins and outs of the female body — what she wants you to do, what she absolutely does not want you to do and what would make the world a better place if you both did. So let’s start off small: no more hand jobs. It’s the one type of job no Cornell student ever wants to get.

Jess H. is a senior in the College of Agriculutre and Life Sciences. She may be reached at jessh@cornellsun.com. Girl On Top appears alternate Thursdays this semester.