The other day, while bemoaning the fact that my tongue had not touched a clitoris in seventeen years and remembering that my life had become so vapid and meaningless that I had resorted to this ongoing “tour” of cliterary blogs in an effort to get linkage (4,300 visitors last week! Thank you, Terry Teachout!), I came across this letter in one of my scholarly periodicals:

Dear Penthouse Letters:

My wife and I were trying to spice up our sex life. One evening, she suggested that I dress up in a human-size cocker spaniel costume. I asked her why she wanted me to do this. And she confessed that she had been dissatisfied with me for some time. She had resorted to illicit relations with Pumpkin, our pet cocker spaniel. She had persauded Pumpkin by putting a Milkbone up her cunt, which Pumpkin proceeded to masticate upon. And then, attracted by my wife’s smell, Pumpkin proceeded to perform cunnilingus on my wife.

I must confess that after hearing this, I was torn as to whether I could even waggle my tongue within my wife’s inner recesses and, in particular, her clit. But once I had donned the dog suit, I became comfortable with performing cunnilingus — often with Pumpkin helping out whenever he craved a Milkbone.

— A NEW KIND OF DOGGY STYLE, Fayetteville, NC

Allowing “A New Kind of Doggy Style” a little leeway, we can see that this isn’t a sad story at all. It seems to me that his wife has gusto and a creative solution to an ongoing problem. Cunnilingus has always struck me as a practice that is, quite frankly, too much effort for the typical male. Why should anyone be burdened by it? Further, why should anyone write about it when their critical skills are bankrupt? The short answer, I do believe, is that these cliterary bloggers are not critics. They are that rare species of thinker known as the enthusiast. And they should spend less time writing about the clit and more time licking it. One should grant these moonlighters scant stock, given that the real cliterary enthusiasts, however misguided, are hidden behind locked doors, evading strange and antediluvian North Carolina laws that are, rather inexplicably, still on the books.

In fact, it seems to me that some of these conditions are reflected in cliterary blogs such as John Bruce’s. I’ve already discussed Bruce’s failure to say anything positive about the clitoris. He writes like an embittered and impoverished muskrat who has not fondled a bare breast in some time or, failing that, a man who would need an instruction manual to discover the advantages and pleasures of his own cock. One can infer from Bruce’s writing that his penis is quite small and flaacid.

In fact, if you were to put an ice cream cone in Bruce’s hands, he would probably throw it instantly into the garbage can, declaring it a foolish distraction. So miserable a man is Bruce that one wonders why he expends endless pages saying nothing but negative things about the clitoris. Perhaps, if properly coaxed, Bruce might learn to lick and love the clit.

But then why should he? What are we likely to get from a man so hopeless in reasoning, so clueless in connecting, and so diffident about the clit? Why did you choose to write about the clit, John? If you don’t like clits, shouldn’t you consider the anatomy of another gender?

Further, there is the strange association of clits with some unspecified hillock known as Mt. Hollywood. While any competent scholar is well aware that much of the porn industry can be found in the Los Angeles area, why stand in the shadow of some dubious mountain? Is it possible that Bruce will never climb the mountain? Even a few steps up the incline? Even in a half-hearted way?

I’m still learning more about these cliterary bloggers, but I’m sure we can all agree that careless reading and an inflexible mindset is the ultimate justification for being an inveterate wanker.