Author: Exhibit A

HIM: Last night the lovely Em and I both read this dreadful piece of body-shaming, sex-hating clickbait from Metro blogger Hannah Gale, and came to the same basic conclusion: WTF?? It’s one thing to offer reassurance that ‘hey, just because most people like x, that doesn’t mean you have to as well, and while we’re at it, don’t let anyone make you feel bad or pressure you into doing things you don’t enjoy’. That would be fine, and actually for those of us who hang out at the kinkier end of the spectrum, it could’ve served as a useful reminder that not everyone sings from the same filthy, uninhibited hymn sheet.

But no, instead of something nuanced and thought-provoking, Ms Gale chose to churn out 500 words of joyless, ignorant, po-faced drivel. It’s both prudish and desperately unfunny, but the author’s worst crime is to introduce her list by claiming that in writing it, she’s being ‘honest about sex’. Perhaps she genuinely does hate all 21 of those things (in which case I pity any man or woman who winds up in bed with her), but even if that’s the case, this list is no more honest about sex than the romcoms to which she purports to be responding.

Both of us enjoy provocative articles that challenge our views on interesting subjects. Both of us hate dreary, immature nonsense that makes us do this face:

But instead of just banging on about how crap the Metro’s list is for another 250 words (and believe me, we could), Em and I thought we’d take it point-by-point and explain why, actually, there’s awesomeness to be had with each and every one of them. If you think we’ve missed anything, or if you want to add any general thoughts on the list, please comment on one of our blogs, or hit us up via Twitter.

1. The smell. That smell. You know the one. The indescribable combination of semen, lady juice and sweat. Nice

HER: Oh, you mean that heady smell of satisfaction and pleasure? Call me crazy but I love the smell of sex; it’s musky and makes me want to lie, cat-like, purring in messy sheets. Ok, so it might not be a Yankee candle scent any time soon but to have such an aversion to it seems a bit worrying – it’s you, after you. Your scent, your body.

2. Removing socks. Hey, let me just try and hop around naked while I pull a sock printed with dinosaurs off my foot. Especially unsexy when your partner is trying to continue the foreplay by latching onto your nipple while you wrestle with your ankle.

HIM: Ok, let’s ignore all those occasions when your socks don’t need to come off during sex… You don’t want to mix sock removal and foreplay? Fine: why not make taking off your socks – or your partner’s socks – part of the foreplay? Tie them up and slowly roll each sock down over their ankles, as if you’re rolling a condom down onto a hard cock. Make it part of a striptease. Or just, y’know, relax and accept that just because something is physically awkward (or clumsy, or funny) that doesn’t make it ‘unsexy’. That only happens if you’re too uptight to be able to enjoy life’s little absurdities.

3. Fanny farts.

HER: This one really pisses me off; sex isn’t cookie cutter, rom-com toned, tanned limbs effortlessly working their way through the Karma Sutra without so much as breaking a sweat or an awkward ‘watch out, where are you putting that?’ A ‘fanny fart’ is just a build up of air in the vagina – it’s normal and if you like positions like doggy or legs on the shoulder, you’ve probably experienced one. To me, this ‘unsexy’ point is rooted in the fear we are taught to have of our own bodies; we need to be ‘perfect’ at all times and as female sexuality is so fraught with societal judgement and policing, anything that deviates from the Disney princess sex we think we should be having, is immediately ‘embarrassing’ and makes us want to curl up and die. Fuck that. Your body will make noises. It’s alright. You don’t need to be banished to a dungeon to live a life of celibacy just because your lady garden made a little noise after a vigorous session; any guy/gal worth their salt won’t give a fuck. If they do, kick them out of bed and think of it as a lucky escape.

4. Or even worse, those real farts that slip out when you least suspect it.

HIM: So much of what’s wrong with this list stems from the way the author seems to equate ‘good sex’ with a sort of soft-focus sterility. It’s not hard to imagine her tapping out each point with pursed lips and a disapproving frown, inwardly shuddering at the thought of All. That. Mess. For most of us, farts themselves are not inherently sexy. However, at worst they can be politely ignored, and at best, with a partner who is comfortable with his or her body, they offer the perfect opportunity for some light-hearted teasing, or a few stolen, mock-comforting kisses, or even just the simple pleasure of shared laughter.

5. Getting sex cramp in your leg. Feeling like someone may have slipped a dagger into your thigh and not knowing the best way to respond.

HER: Yeah, okay. Cramp does suck but what is frustrating about this bloody point is the bit where she says ‘not knowing the best way respond.’ How about saying, ‘I have cramp.’ Too simple? Do we need some kind of Morse code we can tap out on each other as talking or engaging in conversation is clearly too much to ask? One tap for cramp, two for carry on, that’s good? My view is that if you are getting horizontal with someone, you must like them at least a moderate amount. You’ve probably even spoken to them on a few occasions so piping up and saying ‘cramp’ isn’t that hard. You’re not admitting to killing puppies in your spare time or asking them to donate a kidney so what’s the big deal?

6. Getting semen in your eye. Or in your hair. Or anywhere that isn’t your private parts. How long are you supposed to wait until you start the thorough clean-up process?

HIM: When I was a teenager, my top bunk was high enough that I could lie on my back, plant my feet on the ceiling, walk them up towards my head, and jizz all over my own face. I’d love to say that I did it in an attempt to better understand the female experience, but really I just liked the taste of cum, and enjoyed feeling it shoot out onto my mouth, cheeks and chin. Maybe it’s not much fun if you happen to get an eye-ful, but everywhere else, it’s all kinds of hotness; if you instinctively think of cum as ‘gross’ or ‘nasty’, or rush to get it off your skin the second the sex is over, you might want to re-examine your attitude to the human body.

7. Also, swallowing semen and trying to pretend that it tastes like a peanut butter milkshake rather than, well, a slimy, salty bogey.

HER: You know you don’t have to swallow it, right? There isn’t a law or anything babe. Sure, it’s not a taste sensation or anything you’d rush to put on a dinner party menu but it’s not awful. Female come tastes much nicer than semen; it’s sweeter, I think but anyway; you don’t have to swallow, and if you do, you don’t have to PRETEND anything. You don’t OWE anything.

8. Your underwear. Because however much you try and plan it, you’ll always get laid when you’re wearing the greying pants with a hole in the back. You should really throw those bad boys out.

HIM: Maybe you should. Maybe you shouldn’t. I’m probably the wrong person to ask about underwear. I do know that if a partner is put off by the colour of your underwear, they probably shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it. If you’re comfortable standing in front of me wearing grey, faded knickers, that probably means you’re confident enough in your own skin to be a lot of fun in bed, and that’s very sexy. Also, surely a use can be found for that hole in the back…

9. The awkward ‘oh… you’re bleeding’. It’s never actual blood though, just that brown-coloured discharge *shudders*.

HER: I haven;t actually experienced this and it sounds a bit worrying tbh, but again: it’s your body, your business. As long as you AREN’T bleeding or in pain, fuck it.

10. The crab shuffle off the bed, and the race against time to make it to the toilet without leaving a stream of semen in your wake.

HIM: This just feels like someone trying to invent a problem. I get that you probably don’t want it all over the carpet, but jeez, maybe keep some tissues by the bed? You can store them next to your penis beaker. Or, if your partner’s anything like me, get him to scoot down between your legs and lick/suck it all out of you: believe me, that generally leads to more good things happening.

11. But failing, and having a nice trickle of the white stuff down your leg..

HER: You could use a condom, just an idea. If not, keep some tissues by the bed? Baby wipes? Also, it does wipe off and it isn’t radioactive so you’ll be fine for the few seconds you have icky semen on you. There is so much body loathing going on in this article; sex isn’t sterile.

12. Trying to talk dirty. What words are you supposed to use? ‘I want you to stick your willy in my pussy’ *is sick all over self*

HIM: Pro tip: avoiding ‘willy’ would be a good start. Without wanting to sound like a stuck record, dirty talk works when you’re relaxed about sex, and when you see it as something joyful and uplifting. We all have particular words, phrases and images that don’t do it for us, so dirty talk with a new partner can be a bit hit-and-miss, but it’s not hard to iron out those initial creases, and turn it into something that has one or both of you clawing at the walls with lust. And of course it doesn’t have to take place while you’re actually in bed with someone: often, the best dirty talk happens hours or days beforehand, on the phone, or over email, or whispered into your partner’s ear in a crowded bar…

13. Trying to strip, while sober and in silence. Oh, you don’t get an erection from me battling with my jumpsuit?

HER: Put some music on. Talk. Tell him/her what you want them to do to you when you’re naked. It doesn’t have to be an awkward silent affair. Plus this one makes me think that she isn’t a fan of sober sex – bit worrying. My view is that my body is fucking epic and if you’re invited to attend, you better bloody enjoy it. Maybe ask for help stripping? Make it sexy rather than this clinical image you’ve managed to conjure up of you silently removing your clothes, full of foreboding about future wet patches and come faces..

14. Orgasm faces. They’re probably quite similar to the face of someone who’s just been shot. Probably.

HIM: Even if you ignore the crude, clumsy attempt at humour, this is errant nonsense. Don’t like your own orgasm face? That’s fine: it sort of falls into the same category as listening to your voice on audio recordings, or watching yourself on video, and plenty of us inwardly shudder at those. However, in terms of sexiness there’s not much in life that beats giving your partner a toe-curling, leg-trembling, face-scrunching orgasm, and everything about that – the noises they make, the way they grip your hand/cock/fingers/hair/etc, and yes, the sight of them completely undone by the pleasure of being with you – is a world of Yes.

15. Pubes. They’re scratchy and wirey. They get in your mouth. They need grooming. They’re just a sex hazard aren’t they?

HER: As someone who prefers the fur-free look downstairs, I can’t say much about pubes. I think oral feels much nicer when I am bare but on him? I can’t say I’ve ever really thought of them as a ‘hazard’ tbh.. I’m worried now about the kind of sexual partners she’s had, with their angry pubes.. Ask them to trim if you want.

16. The sweat. The sweat that makes your perfectly placed fringe stick to your forehead like a greasy pre-teen, and your make-up melt down your face until you look like a serial killer. Cute.

HIM: The sweat! Fucking hell, yes, the sweat. Even as someone who would rather be too cold than too hot, I absolutely love rolling off my partner’s body after a hard, fast, breathless fuck, and dissolving into a puddle of my own perspiration. It is a physical marker of time well-spent, and also contains all those lovely pheromones that get us so worked-up about each other. Sweat is unsexy on the Tube, or in a cramped office environment, but in bed, it makes me want to lick all the salty, tangy goodness off someone’s skin, and go at it all over again.

17. Dryness. Trying to approach foreplay with the excitement levels of the Sahara Desert. It sorta hurts.

HER: Lube is your friend. Use lots. I love lube, it’s a gift from God. Makes everything feel amazing. Also, spend more time on foreplay to get you going – don’t be afraid to ask for what you want and to expect pleasure.

18. Doggy style. Just, doggy style. What horrible person invented this?

HIM: Oh boy. Where to start? Ok, here’s a list of all the people in the world who dislike doggy-style:

1. Hannah Gale
2. I dunno, maybe the Pope

Trust me, that’s exhaustive: I’ve done the research. Look, I’m all for saying that different people like different things, and I’m trying to make this as non-judgey as possible, but unless there’s a specific physical reason why doggy doesn’t work for you (maybe your boyfriend’s cock is stupendously large?), this is a tough one to get my head around. Doggy has something for everyone, whether you’re M/F, M/M, F/F, or some other wonderful combination of body parts. We’re kind of built to enjoy it, in fact. Hannah, I gotta say, I’m really struggling with this one…

19. The crippling jaw ache that comes with too much blowing. Imagine if you put that much energy into the gym, eh?

HER: Mix it up babe, use your hands to ease the jaw lock.

20. Willies and vaginas in general. No, really, think about this one. Are they not just the ugliest things on your entire body? Why couldn’t they just look more like your arm or something?

HIM: Willies are ugly. Vaginas suck. Sweat is icky. Cum is slimy. Pubes get stuck in your teeth. In fact, when we fuck we should probably just wrap ourselves in giant, full-body condoms, put a sheet between our bodies, and close our eyes so we don’t have to look at each other’s orgasm face. Right? Wrong. Hannah Gale asked us to ‘think about this one’, and believe me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve also thought about all the fucking beautiful cunts I’ve had the pleasure to get up close and personal with over the years, and I’ve thought about my own cock, and how I’ll be damned if I let some sex-phobic, body-hating excuse for a blogger tell me it’s ugly. Fuck you, Hannah Gale, and fuck you, Metro editors, for publishing this piece of shit.

21. And finally, rolling into a wet patch you had no idea was still there.

HER: Keep tissues by the bed to sort this out, or just go with it. It’s not like you are having a bath in come, is it? It’s just a bit damp and it feels kind of naughty to be revelling in it.

—

HER: To me, these points all stem from unrealistic expectations we have about sex and how it ‘should’ be. My first thought was how boring and tragic Gale’s sex life must be if she is so anti all the things that make sex messy, fun and enjoyable. I love the idea of breaking down those barriers that exist around sex and opening up about what we like/dislike but this just reeks of insecurity and body loathing. She thinks vaginas are ugly; hates come; thinks orgasm faces are comparable to murder victims and is too afraid to say she has cramp or fanny fart. It doesn’t sound like she is enjoying sex at all so I would recommend Hannah stays in with a bottle of wine, some literotica and her hand for a bit and figures out what pleases her and what she wants in a bed buddy.

What do you think?

@anygirlfriday

@EA_unadorned

Enough time has gone by since I wrote the first half of this that I should probably answer the rest of the questions in a new post, rather than tacking them on to the original one. For the next few hours I’ll be jumping back and forth between work, writing, Wimbledon, and the World Cup, so I’m going to post these in batches, with the aim of getting them all up by the end of the evening. If anyone has additional questions for the list, kindly fuck off feel free to send them over!

Right then, here we go:

What’s the best approach to pick up a man in a social setting? Be witty? Eye contact? Inappropriate amounts of cleavage? What if you are shy and can only manage to stammer and look away quickly when he catches your eye?

Jeez, that’s a tough one. It kind of depends on the guy in question, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, just as there isn’t when it comes to picking up women. For example, some guys will be charmed and intrigued by the whole stammering/looking away thing, especially if they think they’ve directly inspired such shyness. Others will respond to a more forthright, confident approach. I guess what I would say is that while wit, eye contact and cleavage might be a turn-off for some men, they’re probably not the guys you want to fuck anyway; if they find those things actively unattractive, it suggests they have fairly ‘traditional’ views on how women ought to behave.

If you want to know how to pick me up, then yes, wit and cleavage would certainly represent a good start. I don’t often get chatted up (not in ‘social settings’, anyway), so the direct approach tends to work best – if you’re too subtle about it, I probably won’t realise you’re interested.

Did you ever have a crush on a teacher or professor?

Yes, though I’m afraid it’s not a very interesting story. I was 17, hormonal, bookish, and apparently invisible to women; she was young, attractive, passionate about Victorian poetry, and keen to tell me how brilliant she thought I was. Of course I fell in love with her. Nothing ever happened, because she was a teacher and I was a spotty, sweaty teenager, but I did get a lot of good wanking material out of the year I spent in her classroom.

I also had a slightly severe Politics professor at Oxford, who must have been in her mid-30s when she taught me, and while I wouldn’t say I ever had a crush on her, she did inspire some of my earliest fantasies about femdom and older women.

Have you ever run into a situation where someone ran into your blog who shouldn’t have? (Co-worker, boss[!], friend from school, sibling, etc). How did it turn out?

‘Shouldn’t have’ is a slippery little term in that context. Have I had to deal with someone who I didn’t want to find my blog stumbling upon it? Yes. However, you could ask that the person in question had a right to read it, so I’m not sure that counts. Otherwise (touch wood), I’ve been very lucky so far: either my family/friends/colleagues/etc haven’t found my blog, or they’ve been decent enough to keep quiet about doing so. Long may that continue!

Actually, it’s not something I spend too much time worrying about. I have around 300 followers on Twitter, and over the last few months have averaged just over 150 blog hits a day. In the context of the wider population, those numbers are very small, so the chances of someone I know finding it by accident are pretty slim – I just don’t have that kind of profile. If it happens, it’ll be because I do something monumentally stupid (type the wrong email address, for example), or because someone is malicious enough to expose me, and there’s not much I can do about either of those things, beyond sort of vaguely trying not to piss anyone off too much. I suppose it’s why I’m a bit less guarded about my anonymity these days than I used to be.

Who, out of all the people you have ever slept with, would you most like to spend a day in bed with and why? One who it isn’t actually possible to, i.e. an ex that you fell out with or now hate.

I received so many interesting questions that it’s hard to pick a favourite, but if you really twisted my arm, this is the one I’d go for. It’s certainly the one I’ve spent the most time thinking about. For starters, what criteria should I use? Should I pick whichever woman was ‘best’ in bed? Or someone I didn’t get enough time with? Or maybe I should go for someone from way back, when I didn’t know what I was doing in bed, and show them everything I’ve learned since then? Seriously, there are so many ways I could go with this.

The way the question’s worded does help though. If it has to be someone unattainable, that rules out various exes who I could, in theory, jump back into bed with. I think I can also forget about any I ‘hate’; a one-off hate-fuck would be pretty hot, I guess, but I’m not sure I want to spend a whole day lying next to someone I despise.

Who does that leave? Well, there are the ones who are married (or otherwise monogamously attached), the ones who now date women (and there are actually two of those), the ones who live thousands of miles away, and I guess there are the ones who, for reasons both good and bad, wouldn’t pick up the phone if they saw that it was me calling.

Hmm…that’s still a pretty long list. Anyway, after agonising over it for a few days, I managed to whittle it down to two. Let’s call them Diana and Rebecca.

I met Diana on a train. Actually, I’d spotted her about 20 minutes beforehand, in the rush-hour melee on the concourse at Paddington. Just for a second, the crowd thinned out and she materialised in front of me, small and pale and calm. She had dark hair and big tits, but those weren’t what I noticed at first; this will sound stupid, but as soon as we made eye contact, I could tell that she was interesting. I lost sight of her after that, but as I squeezed my way down the aisle on the train back home, she reappeared at one of the tables, opposite an empty seat. By the time I stepped out onto the platform in Swindon an hour later, I was completely smitten.

Diana lived (and still lives) with her boyfriend in Bristol. Every Tuesday, she went up to London to study for her part-time Psychology degree, and for the couple of months after that first encounter I met her each week at the station afterwards, for the trip back out west. It didn’t matter whether I needed to go that way or not, nor did I mind having to hang around for an hour or two before leaving London: the pleasure of her company was enough to make it worth the effort. There was an easy intimacy between us. We’d buy a bottle of wine, squeeze into the first seats we could find, and spend the little time we had together just talking non-stop. Not chatting: talking. I found myself storing up thoughts, ideas, and all sorts of interesting little nuggets during the week, to share with her on our journeys. Just thinking about her made me smile.

The sex was probably a mistake. It happened shortly after I moved to London: she came to visit one Saturday, and suddenly we had the luxury of a whole day together. We picnicked in the park, we went to the Tate, and after a couple of hours spent wandering through the streets together, we ate dinner down by the river, in the last of the evening sunshine. It was basically the perfect date…except, of course, neither of us could acknowledge it as anything other than a day out with a friend. Later that night, we settled down onto my bed to watch a movie, and it was only then that we both plucked up the courage to confront what was happening.

We had sex. Once. It was tender and passionate and heart-thumpingly exciting, all at the same time, but it was also terribly fragile. We clung to each other in an effort to stop it all spinning out of control, and I could hardly breathe for fear that this glorious thing we’d stumbled into was about to slip away. Which, of course, it did. After a few minutes, she looked me in the eye and said “no, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” And so we stopped.

There’s a lot more to the story. The short version is that although Diana and I are still very good friends, those few excruciatingly wonderful minutes marked both the beginning and the end of what might have been something more. Since then, just enough distance has crept into our conversations to prevent a repeat of that night, but there’s still a part of me that wishes…that wishes…

Yeah, so she’s definitely a candidate.

With Rebecca, it’s a lot easier to explain. Our two sets of parents were university friends, and each year we’d visit her family in France as part of our summer holiday. Rebecca was six months younger than me, and my first real crush; I mean, come on, she was glamorous and French, and we used to run around half-naked on the beach together…even at the age of 11 I’m not really sure I stood much of a chance. I mooned after her for years, but nothing ever happened, and once I stopped going on holiday with my parents, we gradually lost touch.

Fast forward to 2010, and my sister’s wedding. I had just been dumped, she was there with her brother rather than her boyfriend, we both had a shitload to drink…did I mention that she’s French? She was sharing a bed with her brother at a local B&B, and while he went out on the town, she and I staggered back to their room and collapsed into bed together.

I’d love to be able to say that what came next lived up to all my teenage fantasies, but sex rarely works like that, especially when you’ve drunk your body weight in wine. We sort of fumbled around for a bit: I went down on her; she reached for my cock and tried to get me hard; one of us somehow managed to locate a condom; and that was pretty much it. No erection, no hot fuck, and no happy ending to the story I’d written so many times in my head over the years. When I woke up the next morning to find her brother asleep on the floor of the room, tangled up with one of my sister’s best (male) friends, the whole thing felt even more surreal.

What saved the situation is that we were able to laugh about it afterwards. As she said over breakfast (with a Gallic shrug), we’d known each other for so long that it was bound to happen at some point, and neither of us felt embarrassed by how the night had ended. However, while I don’t really think of it as a missed opportunity, there’s still a part of me that would like to be able to go back and do it properly – or to stay holed up in that hotel room with her for just one more night.

So there you go: Diana and Rebecca. Rebecca and Diana. Tough choice.

Can’t I just have both?

On the fluffier end of things, I’m always curious about what people would choose for their final meal, so in that spirit, what would you wish for your final sexual experience if it could be anything you wanted, from the most profane to the most profound?

Fuck, I don’t know! That’s like the whole ‘favourite song/book’ thing: essentially a question I don’t want to answer because it’s too fucking hard. But ok, I’ll give it a go.

Given that you specified a sexual experience, I’m tempted to cheat a bit, and pick an orgy. After all, that would give me the opportunity to cram in all sorts of good stuff, and I’m pretty sure I’d die happy at the end of it. Not sure that’s really in the spirit of the question though.

Ok, how about this. Back in August, I went to a trade fair in Birmingham. Manning one of the stalls was this incredible, devastatingly intelligent, pre-Raphaelite beauty…but with massive tits and a Geordie accent. We chatted, we flirted, we snuck off and drank beer together; at the end of it all, we exchanged business cards, and three months later she flew over for a dirty long weekend in Poland.

We agreed that on the first night, we’d just chill out and get to know each other a bit better. Sure, there was some kissing, but neither of us really wanted to jump the gun. We needed to build a bit of trust, and confirm that the chemistry we’d felt in Birmingham was not merely the result of boredom and lukewarm Carlsberg.

The following morning, I dressed for work. Florence (as we’ll call her) wrapped herself in my duvet and watched me dash around the bedroom through sleepy, sexy eyes. When I was ready to leave, she looked me up and down, then took me by the hand and pulled me back over to the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress, naked apart from the duvet, and planted her feet either side of mine. I had time to take one deep breath, and then this 24-year-old machine unzipped my trousers, pulled out my cock, and proceeded to make me come in her mouth in about 45 seconds flat.

Seriously, I’ve never felt anything like it, either before or since. To this day, I’m not quite sure how she did it; all I know is that the second she took me in her mouth, my knees buckled and my eyes rolled back in my head. After she’d gulped down every last drop of cum, Florence zipped me back up, curled a hand round the back of my neck, kissed me hard, and sent me off to work.

Lots of women tell me they’re great at giving head: some really are, some really aren’t, and most are kind of in the middle. Florence told me that too. Florence delivered. It was awesome.

In this post, I briefly mentioned that I’d had cause to revise some of the indifference to blowjobs that I expressed eight months earlier in this post. Florence is basically the reason for that revision. If I had to pick a ‘final sexual experience’, I could certainly do a lot worse.