The Flinker by Susan Strict

In the world of the flinker, the male must provide oral satisfaction to every female present before mating can take place with one female – if he can manage to mate by then. Although this system has worked for centuries, something is going wrong. There are fewer and fewer males – the “flinkers” – available, and even fewer who can successfully mate after fulfilling their obligations to all the other females at public gatherings where the matings take place. For Shardine, sent by the Council to investigate the growing problem, the answer is she is certain there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole system, and their race will die out unless everything changes. But few, it appears, will agree with her, and she must flee before there is serious trouble for her. Shardine, however, begins to question her own sexuality, and that’s when the trouble really starts…