Please Don’t Give Me A Hickey
By Thoughtis
Do you really hate me? Like a lot? Well, then you should give me a hickey. That’s the fastest and easiest way you can get on my “OMG, why would you do this to me?” list. Hickeys feel amazing at the time but 30 seconds of pleasure amounts to 8 to 12 days of embarrassment. Not worth it.
In high school, my friends and I used to give each other hickeys all the time. They were just so cool! In fact I used to beg my BFF from high school/current roommate to give me hickeys and she would be like, “Um, okay. If you insist…” Did anyone else do this or was I just a giant freak? My boyfriend in high school also used to give me hickeys 24/7 and I would show up to AP English to discuss Siddhartha or whatever, super proud with hickeys all over my neck while my classmates looked on with a mixture of envy and disgust. Back then, getting a hickey meant you were actually fortunate enough to be hooking up with someone. It was a status symbol, a way to show that you were getting laid and they weren’t. “JEALOUS THAT A WILD ANIMAL ATTACKED MY NECK? YEAH, I THOUGHT SO! JEALOUSY…”
Oh, how the times have changed! After high school, a hickey is the last thing you want to get. You don’t want to be reading Judith Butler in your feminist studies class with love bites all over your neck. Just try to say the word “patriarchy” with a hickey. I dare you. Instead of being the toast of your school, you’re just viewed as a trashy person who didn’t respect their neck enough to say stop when someone was sucking on it. Oh, the shame!
It’s a bummer that hickeys have to be so disgusting because, damn, they feel good. They’re the exact blend of pleasure and pain. It also evokes being bitten by a vampire, which apparently is something we all find sexy. Feeling someone suck on your skin is hot. Let’s face it. That’s why, in college and beyond, I still fall victim to the hickey many times. It happens so quickly and feels so good in the moment that by the time you realize what’s actually happening, you’ve already been branded.
I’m not sure if it’s the karma police coming after me or what, but almost every guy I’ve dated has given me loads of hickeys. Was it because they secretly despised me? Or was it their way of showing ownership, like the way a dog pisses on something to mark their territory. Is that what giving a hickey is all about? For your lover to mark their territory?
The worst time to get a hickey is in the summertime because there’s no way you can pull off a turtleneck or scarf in 90 degree heat. I had to show up to my internship at a major magazine a few summers ago with hickeys all over my neck and it caused me to go into a major shame spiral. Just try to be taken seriously with marks all over your neck. Seriously. Of course I always blame myself. There must be something inherently wrong with me that proclaims, “Go ahead! Piss all over my neck. I don’t mind!” I mean, no one would dare give someone like Beyonce a hickey. I guess I just need to be more like her. When in doubt, just be more like B.