Author: Exhibit A

I have, at best, a mixed relationship with pain when it comes to sex. My own appetite for it is very low – I can tolerate, and will sometimes even enjoy, a good spanking, but anything beyond that just does nothing for me, either physically or psychologically. I am not a masochist.

I’m not a sadist either. I am more willing to inflict pain, but even that is guided largely by my partner’s desire for it; beating someone’s arse till it’s bright red, then repeatedly slapping her face while we fuck (for example), is not a sequence of activities that I find intrinsically pleasurable, but if it makes her happy then I have absolutely no problem incorporating it into our play – after all, the more aroused and stimulated she is, the better the sex for both of us.

Still, I will never be an impact play expert, because it’s not really where my heart lies. If someone needs pain to be a regular, structured part of their D/S dynamic, I am probably not the guy for them – and I’m ok with that. I’m much more comfortable when power and control are used and expressed in other ways, and perhaps foremost among those is denial.

I’ve written about denial before, specifically in the context of orgasms. Telling my partner not to come, and then watching that agonized struggle play out on her face, is one of the single hottest things I ever get to do; likewise, having to respond to that demand, when it’s made by someone who knows just how (and how far) to push me, hits all of my submissive sweet spots…and then some.

That knowledge is crucial, because at its best denial is an unavoidably (inter)active process. One of the biggest sins anyone can commit during D/S play is to conflate submission with passivity. I don’t want to fuck someone who is passive when we’re together – who merely wants to lie there and be done to. When I top someone, it’s important to me not just to take something from her, but to make sure I take something she really, really wants, whether that’s an orgasm, or my cock, or her freedom of movement…or simply the permission to do whatever it is she’s craving at that particular time.

I was thinking a lot about that the other day – about those “oh pleeeeeease” moments, when my partner is so desperate for something that she will literally beg me to give it to her. It’s intoxicating in a way that makes me wonder whether I am a sadist after all, though ultimately I think I get off less on her pain than on the anticipation of the noises she’ll make when I finally relent. That’s how I know I’m doing it right – those fucking incredible noises, and the way they hit me somewhere so deep that I want to forget about whatever it is we’re doing and just pour myself into her.

Moments like that can be triggered by all sorts of things. The one that prompted this post – the denial I’m unbelievably hot for right now – is what I guess could only really be described as the literal form of topping from the bottom. And it goes a little bit like this…

—

Your thighs are visibly trembling as I hold you in place above me. I look up at your body, stretched and somehow incredibly vulnerable – though maybe that’s more a function of the way you’re staring down with parted lips and a question in your eyes that we both know you don’t need to ask out loud.

But eventually will.

Your position is superficially dominant – you have the high ground, gravity is on your side – but you retain only the illusion of control. My hands cup your arse in a way that feels at once casual and fiercely proprietorial. They are loose and relaxed, bouncing you gently as if they’re simply weighing you up. Taking your measure.

I have different options. I can settle under your buttocks like this and merely take whatever weight you try to push down on me, in an effort to get to my cock. Or I can take a firmer grip on your biceps, and make it more of a tussle, as I have to almost lift you up in order to keep you in place. Either way, you understand that this is all about my hands now – my arms too. What they will and won’t let you do. Where they’ll push and pull your body, as you wriggle and fight against them. There’s a physicality to the way we grasp at each other; it’s dominance that I have to actively assert, and which flows directly from the greater strength and weight of my body.

If I feel like it I can lift you away from my cock to straddle my face, where any initial whine of disappointment will taper off with each soft stroke of my tongue. I’ll jam my thumbs into your skin and brace myself into the mattress, allowing my lower back and thighs to take some of your weight as my arms hold you in a vice above me. I could make you come like this, almost against your will; you want to squeeze and shudder around my cock instead, and it’s only when you’re close that you start to waver, start to grind down impatiently as my tongue slips over your clit.

Denial is most effective when you make someone believe – even for just a second – that despite all previous evidence, it really is going to be this easy. That’s why I want you to feel the orgasm building. “Yes,” you’ll say, your voice shaky, “oh yes, please, just like that”, and I’ll nod up at you, my hands giving a little under your arse, letting you press harder against my mouth.

The further I push it, the more of a struggle it is for both of us when I stop – by this point, I’m almost as hungry to feel you come as you are. You clutch at the headboard, fingers scrabbling for purchase. I don’t want it to hurt, not really, but it’s hard not to be turned on by the anguish on your face as I wrestle you back towards my lap.

Fucking you like this would be so easy now. I could hold you open and thrust up hard, the muscles in my arse flexing and driving my cock a little deeper each time. With my hands on your hips, I could fuck you as hard like that as if I was kneeling behind you. Or I could fan my fingers out across your stomach, applying enough pressure to tilt your torso as my other hand supports your lower back; at that angle, depth won’t really matter, and I can almost just massage your cunt with as much or as little of my cock as I like.

I’m not sure you care which way I do it – not now, when you can feel the shaft sliding against you, thick and hot, and your hips are twisting jerkily as you try to manoeuvre me inside. This might be the bit I enjoy the most, and you know that, because I can never wipe the smirk off my face when I tease you with the tip, or force your fingers down to your swollen clit. The pre-fuck anticipation, mixed with the thrill of watching you suffer and squirm on top of me, is what will stay with me afterwards, and what I’ll wank over when you’re not there.

And no, I’m not afraid to let you know that I need this as much as you do, especially right now, with your cunt so wet that you’re almost sticking to my skin. I want you to know that – to feel me twitching against you, my arms straining and my stomach tense, just from the effort of holding back and denying you this thing that both of us now crave. In this position it’s impossible to feign indifference, so instead I’ll let you drink in the desire on my face. I’ll hold my breath each time my cock threatens to slip inside your cunt, and each time you’ll clench just a little harder, certain that I’m finally going to crack and give it to you.

There’s an intimacy in being able to see our different struggles mirrored in each other’s eyes. At its best, denial has a two-way cost; this shouldn’t be painless for me. Showing you the toll it takes will make it easier for you to be even more vulnerable in the future, I think.

Because it’s different when you’re spread out on your knees in front of me, waiting for the touch that might never come. That is power in absolute form; symbolic as well as material. There you are blind, and bereft of contact or reassurance. You cling greedily to every word I toss down towards you; to the seductive, agonizing brush of my velvet cock head along your slick cunt. I am omnipotent, God-like, and the sight of you prostrate in supplication only makes me want to deny you even more. I can wrap your hair in my fist as I tease you, or make you yelp with sharp smacks of your upturned arse. I can edge you with a vibrator as I ease the first inch or two of cock inside you, and when you ask to come, when you fucking dare to beg me for it, I can pull away completely, leaving you open and gasping with need.*

Here though, we are too closely entangled for that – too connected in every sense – and my control of events feels looser, more contingent. Here there will come a point where I simply can’t deny you any longer, because to do so would be somehow inhuman.

You have no mask when you’re on top of me like this; I can see what every careful touch and movement does to you. It is that which finally forces my hand, I think, and again it’s less sympathy than it is an impatient, almost gleeful desire to see the look of relief on your face, and to hear that long, low moan as I pull you slowly, firmly onto my cock. You toss your head back, eyes squeezed shut. Your thighs lock against mine, as if you’re afraid this might be a trick – that I’m going to lift you up and make you beg for it all over again – and I stroke your shoulders, your sides, in silent reassurance.

I’m still in no rush to make you come, but with the weight and heat of my cock inside you now I’m not sure you are either. You’re no longer frantic – it is easier to relax and submit like this, even while my hands continue to conduct your movements from their anchoring points at your hips and tits, your waist and throat. Depth and pace suddenly feel like secondary concerns. The ordeal is over, and you know that an orgasm is just around the corner.

You know it.

You think you know it…

—

*Just so we’re clear, this is also awesome.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about how much I love first dates.

First dates are an entirely separate, unique category of human interaction. They come with their own success criteria and are governed by their own set of rules, which are often contradictory and confusing – not to mention understood differently by different people. They act as a sort of gateway to what we might describe as conventional dating, but can also re-route us to a host of more (and less) interesting places, sometimes when we least expect it.

As a result, it is possible (preferable?) to assess first dates in isolation, rather than making any verdict on their outcome contingent on subsequent events; which is just as well, given how intrinsically rich they are in data and detail. They are fascinating, maddening, and occasionally just a little terrifying, but done right they constitute some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on…at least to begin with…

Anyway, perhaps counter-intuitively this sudden burst of affection was triggered by a message I received yesterday afternoon from someone cancelling the second date we’d scheduled for later this week. Let’s call her Lydia.

“I’ve been seeing someone fairly casually for a while,” she wrote, “and over the last few days we’ve decided to make it a bit more serious and exclusive. As a result, I think it’s best if we don’t meet up on Thursday – I’m quite sad about that, and I’m sorry to mess you around! I’m sure you’re not fussed, but I wanted to explain because I had such a nice time last week.”

As rejection goes, that definitely sits at the milder end of the spectrum. Lydia was honest, kind, and thoroughly decent about the whole thing – and frankly, having got to know her at least a little bit over the last couple of weeks, I’d have expected nothing less.

Still, I was pretty bummed. Like her, I’d enjoyed the previous date a lot. It had all the right elements: good food, good wine, excellent conversation, and a chemistry that simmered just below the surface all evening, before bursting up through it right at the end.

For the most part, I like to keep first dates pretty simple, especially if I don’t know the other person very well. Cinema and theatre are obvious no-nos, along with anything else that essentially makes conversation impossible. Likewise, I try to avoid arranging first dates where the activity is likely to be the main focus; anything too elaborate can obscure and confound the central purpose of the date, which is to get to know each other and establish whether there’s enough of a spark to make it worth meeting up for a second time.

On this occasion, we opted for an early dinner, and squeezed into a cosy Italian place in Hoxton, which I’d walked past over the weekend. I discovered quickly that Lydia was sharp, considered, lively and self-aware; generous with the details of her own life, and curious about those that made up mine. Drop-dead gorgeous too, for whatever that’s worth (ok, a lot – it’s worth a lot). Nothing about her felt forced or artificial; she seemed like a person comfortable and easy in her own skin, and relaxed enough to let a relative stranger see that.

We hadn’t planned anything beyond the restaurant, but eventually found ourselves snogging in the corner of a slightly grotty East London boozer. We were both a little flushed with alcohol, though far from drunk, and I held my breath when I kissed her for the first time, staying as still as possible out of sudden fear that the moment might dissolve around us. Later, as I walked her back to the station, there were more kisses: we snatched them from each other, hotter and a little frantic, our hands roaming more liberally than they had in the pub. Whenever we disengaged, bursts of slightly giddy, rambling chatter filled the space, serving mainly as a shared filibuster; each word took us a little closer to her train, and held at bay the prospect of full-on public debauchery. It felt intimate, but in an easy, almost conspiratorial way.

In other words Lydia was pretty much the perfect first date – and in my head, that will remain the case, regardless of the fact that there now won’t be a second. There will be no revisionism here, and certainly no regret; the date itself was excellent, and sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes that has to be enough…

That’s perhaps one of the biggest differences between the person I am now, and the one I was 10 years ago. For a long time, I found it really hard to relax and enjoy first dates properly; I was nervous beforehand, tentative and reserved while they were actually happening, and deeply self-critical in their immediate aftermath. The built-in failure rate appeared dauntingly high, especially given how infrequently they came along in my early 20s. What’s more they were capricious; for someone who likes to be in control of things, the unpredictable nature of those initial encounters was difficult to swallow.

Like anyone with bad early romantic experiences, I feared rejection, but more than that it was the fatalism I struggled to accept. I would chew over the date for days afterwards, second-guessing conversational choices and berating myself for my many social and physical failings – real and imagined. Rarely did I stop to consider whether or not I’d actually been attracted to the other person; low self-esteem typically relegated that to a secondary consideration, as I instead fixated on their obvious lack of interest in me.

Thankfully those days are long gone. I’m much happier at 34 than I was at 24, and that’s reflected in pretty much every aspect of my outlook on sex and relationships, first dates included. My glass is half-full, not half-empty; for all my cynical moments, I am at heart a positive person, and at this point in my life that extends to cover the way I see my own value too.

That shift in outlook has enabled a further, crucial change in the way I approach dating. In a nutshell, I’m no longer obsessively outcome-focused. Instead, it’s all about enjoying the process and the possibility. Each time I go out with someone new, I do so simply because I’m curious or excited to spend time with them; to soak up their company and conversation, and to offer mine in return. Anything on top of that is a bonus – a lesson I wish I’d taken to heart many years earlier.

A first date isn’t just the means to an end. It’s actually its own gorgeous little moment in time; something we can only ever do once with any given person, and which we should treasure and value accordingly. Sometimes, like last Monday, that moment will be awesome, but even when it’s not – even when it’s downright terrible – I rarely wake up the next day and regret investing the time and effort required to create it.*

I’m sure there will come a point where I slide naturally back into monogamy, or at the very least a less open form of polyamory, whether with an existing partner/partners, or with someone who hasn’t yet crossed my radar. When that happens, I guess I’ll miss the thrill of fucking other people, but if I had to put money on it now, I’d say it’s the pleasure and possibility contained in those warm, rich evenings with someone new that will feel like the biggest loss.

—

*I realise that a lot of this post is written from a position of privilege. For one thing, as a man I have the luxury of going on first dates without having to worry too much about assault, abuse or harassment, and I want to acknowledge that here. Not everyone can afford to be so carefree or positive about dating, and as a result, this is very much my perspective on it – it’s not intended to come across as any sort of manifesto for how others should feel.

A few weeks ago I tweeted a link to this excellent post by Hyacinth Jones, on her love of big dicks. I thought the way she described her preference for well-endowed men was straightforward, honest, and wonderfully unapologetic; there was nothing spiteful or mocking in what she wrote, and as a guy of relatively average proportions I was turned on by her passion, rather than put off because it happens to exclude me.

Later that day, I talked to Malin James, who agreed with my take on Hy’s post, but wondered aloud whether it would be possible for a guy to write something similar about vaginal tightness without being crucified for it. Both of us could imagine the response to that sort of piece, even in what is generally a very tolerant and open-minded sex-blogging community; it wouldn’t be pretty, and any man brave or foolish enough to put something like that out there would take a lot of heat, regardless of how straightforward or measured he was when making his case.

Of course double standards often exist for a reason. While it looks like apples and apples, the reality is that women are routinely shamed for the size and general appearance of their cunts – not to mention the way they smell and taste, and the frequency with which they enjoy having things inside them. Cock size may be the subject of a few crude jokes, and I’m sure it must feel genuinely awful to be on the receiving end of one, but the way men talk about cunts is far more toxic – and laced with misogyny. It’s also rooted in a profound fear of female sexual agency, and in the pretty gross belief that virginity has value: abusing women for not being ‘tight enough’ is really just another form of slut-shaming.

How do I know this? Well for one thing, I have never – literally never – heard guys discussing cunt size when a woman isn’t around. It just doesn’t happen. I’ve listened to (and participated in) endless locker room conversations about so-and-so’s tits, or the cracking arse on some bloke’s girlfriend/sister/mum/etc. I’ve sat through detailed descriptions of blow job technique and prowess. Of sexual appetite and preferences. Of kinks and fetishes. Men chat a lot of shit to each other about a lot of things – and clearly not all of those conversations were beacons of sex-positivity and kindness – but not once have I had someone complain to me about the tightness of a partner’s cunt. It’s just not something we care about – except, apparently, when we want to make women feel bad about themselves.

Over the years, my own experiences have backed that up. I´ve fucked virgins and mothers of three; women in their late teens and women in their mid-40s; women of pretty much every different height, weight and skin colour under the sun…and not one of them has had a cunt that I wasn’t fucking delighted to be buried inside. I could honestly count on one hand the number that were memorably tight, and I wouldn’t need any hands at all for those that weren’t tight enough.

There is certainly no correlation whatsoever between tightness and sexual performance, nor has it ever had a material impact on my enjoyment of a particular partner’s body. 95% of the time, I’m not sure I even notice either way. The preference for bigger dicks obviously has an aesthetic element for a lot of people, but cunt size only really becomes apparent during penetration, whether with fingers or cock. At that point, there’s generally too much good stuff going on for minute differences in tightness to cross my radar, and I’m much more likely to get excited by how wet my partner is, or how good her skin feels pressed against mine, than I am to worry about whether she’s squeezing me as hard as the last woman I fucked.

The only exceptions have been the handful of partners who were so tight that I found myself having to really focus on not coming too quickly. That’s a bit of a mixed blessing, clearly; while that sort of intensity is very exciting, especially at first, it can also mean having to pick between a shorter fuck and one with occasional breaks to calm down. Both of those can be great, but there are times when I don’t really want either of them; and I’ve been on the receiving end of enough eye-rolls to know that the women involved were often similarly unenthusiastic about having to make that choice!

The bottom line is that cunts are magical things, and I’ve yet to meet one that I wasn’t instantly in love with. They’re supple, flexible, warm and soft in all the best ways, and always, always tight enough to feel wonderful around my cock. Malin was dead right, a heterosexual man sharing the equivalent of Hy’s big dick post probably would get slated – rightly so, given the wider context – but I also really struggle to believe that anyone out there would actually want to write it.

Guys might get hung up on all sorts of weird things, but I’ve seen no sign that we give a flying fuck about cunt size. Any nasty, sneering evidence to the contrary will always have far more to do with a wider hatred of women or with male insecurity than it will actual sexual pleasure.

Yesterday someone tweeted a link to something I wrote over 18 months ago now, about sex and periods. I don’t generally enjoy re-reading old blog posts, in the same way I don’t like listening to recordings of my own voice, but in this case it was useful for two reasons.

On a very basic level, it was good to realise that I still stand by every single word of something I wrote right back at the time I started blogging in earnest. I know for a fact that there are posts from early 2014 that I’d probably write quite differently now, but that isn’t one of them.

More importantly, reconsidering period sex nudged me to act on a conversation I had recently about other areas of sex and sexuality where a positive male perspective might add value or challenge conventional wisdom. Male desires and sexual attitudes tend to be represented in mainstream media in a way that ultimately harms both men and women. It’s simplistic, reductive, and laced with misogyny – I’m also pretty sure it’s wildly inaccurate.

That’s something I’ve thought about quite a lot over the last couple of months, especially after doing the dick pic interview with Rachel Kramer Bussel in August. I’ve always been wary of writing anything that implies I speak for all (or even most) men, but at the same time I recognise that sex blogging is not an area rich with male voices – and that as a result, there is a pretty healthy appetite out there for more insight into how and what men actually think about sex, about their own bodies, and about women’s bodies too.

That appetite is evident even in the search terms that people use to find my blog. Over the last 12 months, I’ve had countless hits from people clearly seeking information or just trying to satisfy their curiosity about men and sex. ‘How men feel about nudity’ is one that I see on a fairly regular basis, as are variations on ‘men who enjoy showering together’ and ‘male attitudes to oral’. More recently, my heart ached when I saw that someone had felt the need to ask a search engine ‘what does “you’re too wet for me” mean?’ – if that person is reading this post, let me tell you right now that it probably means you’re sleeping with the wrong guy…or at the very least, one who has a few things left to learn about how this whole sex business actually works.

These two posts about cock rings were sort of an initial attempt to dip my toe back into more informative/revealing waters. I’ve got one other thing sitting in my Drafts folder, waiting to be written up, but I’m also curious to know whether any of you have suggestions for topics I could pick up and run with over the next few weeks. Perhaps there’s a sex myth you want exploded (or confirmed), or a question about men’s bodies that you’re tired of getting the same, boring Cosmo answer to. Maybe you just want to know more about how guys masturbate, or what it feels like when you finger us during oral.

Either way, this isn’t just a lazy way to get other people to supply me with blogging material – I’d genuinely love to hear from anyone who has a ‘thing’ they’d like me to write about. If that’s you, just pop me an email, or leave a comment on this post, and if I think I can do your suggestion justice I’ll respond to it here at some point very soon!