Ah, guest bloggers. You make me laugh, cry, masturbate furiously, and want to hug myself with sheer delight that there are so many horny pervs out there who are just like me. This week’s guest blogger, Walter, has done exactly that. He’s captured the sense of delicious and electric arousal that comes from a seriously horny memory. Those fucks you know will never leave your head. The sex you return to over and over again when you need relief.

Please welcome Walter, who has a filthy hot story to tell about nostalgia wanks.

Nostalgia wanks

The initial spark can be small; an arousing image, a few words that make me go: “Mmm, that’s hot”, sometimes a mere suggestion of a particularly sexy activity, and there it is: a familiar twitch between my legs tells me that for the next couple of minutes my thoughts will be preoccupied with one thing. What can I say? I’m young and my sex life is less intense than I would like it to be. What I need to start wanking is more of an excuse than a reason.

But once I get started, things change. As I give myself a tentative stroke, as I feel the blood rushing, my cock swelling, as I finally reach down and squeeze it, enjoying the feeling of bare skin in my hand – that initial impulse is no longer enough. It’s too late to put on porn (it’s hard to type with one hand), so I search in my mind for something that will make me harder and desperate for release. I try to create an other: a mate, a partner, a fucktoy or a mistress that will make me shoot spunk all over myself and possibly my surroundings.

But imagined people don’t do it for me. They’re blurry and abstract, more a collection of body parts – a pair of tits, a cunt, a tongue, an arse – than a person. I need someone tangible. Someone with a voice, a smile, a personality. Someone real.

Quite often, I settle on ex-lovers, resulting in what I call “nostalgia wanks.” One reason is that I know them fairly well. I can remember what made them unique: the way they kissed, how their cunt hair felt on my face, how one of them used to say “Come” while gently pulling me deeper in just the way that made me squirt-come inside her in a matter of seconds.

Of course, it’s not just their bodies that become so arousing. It’s the emotions as well. In my mind, I go back to the beginnings of Us – the nervousness of our first dates, the excitement of first being naked together; the first time she took me in her mouth, and the first time I heard her come.

I also go back to the ending: the sullen fucks after a fight, with me biting her shoulder and roughly fondling her tits, reaching down to grope her cunt and see if she’s wet yet, her reaching behind and yanking on my cock. I imagine all that was, all that could have been, and sometimes I make up scenarios improbable or downright impossible…

I imagine our meeting, a little awkward at first, after all this time. We sit in a café, talking about our lives now, catching up. She seems happy and confident. She smiles a lot and throws me long looks, which I’d have no trouble interpreting if it wasn’t for our mutual history. Surely she wouldn’t want…?

“How about,” she says, moving closer, “we go to your place?”

A nod is about all I can manage.

I’m still hesitant when we arrive, but she kisses me just as the door closes behind us. One of my hands rests on her back, the other instantly finds the familiar curve of her hip. I pull her closer, our bodies touching. I’m hard and I think she can feel it, too.

“Do you want it?” she asks, stopping for a moment.

“Yes,” I gasp, and she reaches towards my belt.

We move into my tiny flat, pulling shirts over our heads, not bothering to turn on the light. All I see are glimpses of her body, brought out by the street lights from outside: her pointy breasts, high cheekbones. I kiss her neck, immersing myself in the familiar, intoxicating smell. A part of me wants to savour the moment, but I’m too hungry for her, to desperate to lose myself in her. I hear her sigh and I nearly come, pressing my cock to her stomach.

But she has other ideas.

She pushes me onto the bed, then reaches down to pull her pants from underneath her skirt. She straddles my face; I can smell her cunt, want to dive right into it. I grab her arse, try to push her a bit lower…

“Don’t be so impatient,” she says mockingly, and I obey, give in to her completely.

I hear her breathe once, twice, then something wet falls on my face, something warm and salty.

I start to protest, but it turns me on too much. I strain my neck upwards, lap her piss straight from her cunt. I grab my cock and start pumping.

“Do you like that?” she asks.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to fuck me?”

A vigorous nod.

“Well,”she says, as the stream of piss stops. “Bad luck.”

She gives me a kiss on the cheek gets up, picking her shirt from the floor. I want to say something, but I’m too close to release, so I keep moving my hand faster. As the door closes behind her I come, hard, with a choked gasp.

I open my eyes and come back to reality, feeling wonderfully empty and calm.

Are you the sort of person who emails me every now and then saying ‘stick to filth, stop with the feminist rants’? Look away now.

Are you a guy who claims he is a feminist but makes self-deprecatory jokes about how if he did the washing up he’d only do it badly so there’s really no point? Are you the kind of person who says ‘ah, men are just useless at housework though, aren’t they?’ This one’s for you.

Chore wars: housework and feminism

First thing’s first: men are not shit at housework. When my partner forgets to do the washing up, or the washing, or the tidying or the bathroom or any one of the million things that humans need to do in order to keep a household in working order, I do not roll my eyes. I do not tut and say ‘oh, baby, you’re such a man.’ That would be sexist.

When I complain to a friend that I’m sick and fucking tired of picking socks off the floor and changing bedsheets and the fact that I am always – always – the one who spots that the fridge needs cleaning before it grows a new species, I do not expect my friend to roll her eyes either: sexist.

Housework is a feminist issue. As I feel compelled to point out, it’s not the most important one. But it matters. It matters, precisely because it doesn’t always feel like it matters.

‘Oh, it’s only the washing up.’

‘It’s just a bit of vacuuming.’

‘It takes two seconds, so why make such a fuss?’

Thing is, as many people have pointed out: it’s unpaid work, so it’s not ‘just’ anything. Sure, it only takes a few minutes to run round the house picking up clothes and chucking them in the washing machine. Half a minute to put the powder in, choose the right setting, and set it off. Only ten minutes at the end to take the washing out, hang it up, and fold away the stuff I’ve negligently left drying there since halfway through last week. But it’s ten minutes of my time, and my time is precious.

When all the household chores are added together, I spend roughly ten hours a week cooking, cleaning, tidying, sorting, and screaming silent screams into my pillow because holy Christ this is not what I want to do with my life. Then, when I have finished with the screaming and I get onto a bit of a moan, people (mostly men, but often women too) tell me that it isn’t important. That, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter that I’ve had to clean the hob again because ha ha jokes when it comes to housework men are just not programmed to notice what needs doing.

A rock, a dishcloth and a hard place

This rant’s been sitting in my drafts for a while, as I pluck up the courage to spew it onto the internet and have people go ‘oh GOTN you’re so clichéd with your old-fashioned caring about domestic labour’, but this week BBC Woman’s Hour launched the ‘chore wars’ calculator, so I thought it was a good opportunity to let rip. Chore Wars is a bit of a cutesy, not massively accurate way to calculate who does the most chores in the household, and whether the split is fair.

This is not a feminist issue just because traditionally housework was seen as a ‘woman’s domain’ – it’s an issue because polling shows that much of the unpaid household work still falls to women, even in households where the amount of paid work is relatively even. It’s also a big issue because of how we still talk, think and write about it. When it comes to household chores, my male partner has two options:

• help out, and receive praise for being an amazing human
• not help out, and get some mild tuts and eye-rolls and a pat on his simple, masculine head

Ah, shit – in these options I have automatically used the phrase ‘help out’, as if he is stepping down from on high to swoop in and help this damsel in marigolds rather than performing a task that, ethically, is his to own. God, I hate me. And I also hate the fact that even on International Women’s Day this year, in relation to a press release about the uneven split of unpaid domestic work, Reuters’ headline smugly pronounced that Norwegian men are ‘most helpful’ with housework. Helpful. Not ‘contributing a fairer share’, but ‘helpful’. Thanks.

Talking of thanks, where’s my fucking pat on the head? Whenever my partner manages to do one load of washing or tidy the lounge, I have been conditioned to actually tell him ‘thank you’, like he is a particularly well-trained puppy doing clever tricks for biscuits. I myself am perpetuating the myth that household tasks are mine to own and his to deign to help with, by rewarding him just for getting off his arse. He hasn’t been conditioned to praise me for scrubbing a frying pan because I’m a woman, so apparently it’s just my goddamn job.

When it comes to the housework I have two options as well, but mine aren’t quite as tempting: I get to choose between being a servant or a nag.

Housework and sex

This is a sex blog primarily, and that’s because the vast majority of things in my life are actually linked to sex in some way. I am a horny, angry, feisty slag, and even something as simple as housework is linked to sex in my mind. I don’t find it enjoyably filthy to sashay around the house, naked but for a small cotton apron, and bend over to scrub the floors while boys wank in a corner (although that might be hot in the right context), but I do draw a strong mental link between sex and housework.

Housework is not sexy. Standing up to my elbows in a sinkful of grease is not sexy. Selecting the right washing cycle to remove jizz from the bedsheets is not sexy. It’s not even sexy when I strip to my knickers and scrub round the edge of the bath.

And so, when I do all the housework, I have less sex. I’m not on ‘sex strike’ until a guy swoops in to do it – why would I deliberately forego something I love just because I’m angry? It’s not a conscious and deliberate choice, it’s a byproduct of emotional and physical exhaustion.

If I’ve spent all day doing housework I’ve had no time to think about what I might like to do to him. No time to walk, or cycle, or do sit ups, or any of the things I do that make me feel sexy in a sweaty/musky/messy way. No time to remember the filthy fuck we had last week that I haven’t got round to blogging yet. The mental narrative running through my head on a good day involves any number of ‘mmm’s, ‘unnngh’s and ‘oh God I want him to bend me over the coffee table’s. Post-housework, my brain says ‘fuck this shit forever’ and hides in a hermit cave of boiling, passive-aggressive rage.

Bottom line: if I’ve spent ages hoovering the living room, I’m unlikely to want to fuck on the carpet.

Is this blog post sexist?

This isn’t a blog post in which I berate the male half of the species for not picking up a fucking duster. There are millions of men who are not only capable of doing this stuff, but who just get the hell on with it each and every day. Men who – day in, day out – consider the housework to be part and parcel of their role as a significant half of an equal partnership. Or – if they are poly or living in a flatshare – a significant contributing member of a group. Or even just on their own.

These are the men who don’t refer to spending time with their children as ‘babysitting’, or who declare with puffed-up pride that they’re ‘treating’ their girlfriend by cooking dinner, thus taking away perhaps 10% of the unpaid work that she does without thanks every day.

On the other side, there are women who do nothing around the house and drive their partners up the wall. These people are – unless there are genuinely good reasons such as issues with illness or a drastically different split in out-of-home paid work – equally selfish of course. But when their partners complain they’re unlikely to be met by well-meaning friends who roll their eyes and tut ‘women, eh? What can you do?’

Feminist men do the cooking

I’m not writing this just because I hate housework – most of us hate housework: it’s a thankless, miserable task. This isn’t about individual items to tick off a household ‘to do’ list: it’s about hypocrisy.

Because I’ve met men who go on marches and pickets. Who sign petitions and have angry rants and show solidarity to women on all manner of feminist issues, then go home and expect to be worshipped as a God because they spent two hours cooking dinner on Sunday.

If this isn’t you: well done. If this is you, have a little think about why you’re willing to write off unpaid labour as ‘not really my problem/not my area of expertise/something that magically happens when I’m not looking.’

Then put down your ‘awesome feminist’ badge, and pick up a fucking dishcloth.

Questions and comments

I love a good ruck as much as the next opinionated blogger. But here are some questions/comments that I anticipate I might receive as a result of this post, and what my response will be if you give them to me.

I’m a man, and I do exactly half of the housework. I am OUTRAGED by your rant. 

Well done. If you do exactly half of the housework and you never moan about it or expect unnecessary thanks, then you are good. But not ‘good’ in the sense that ‘you get to sit on a moral high horse and shout at women who are frustrated by the traditionally unequal split of household chores’, just ‘good’ in the sense that ‘you meet the minimum standards of human decency.’

I am a man, and I do more housework than my female partner. I am OUTRAGED by your rant. 

When you complain about her general slovenliness, are you greeted by people saying ‘well, you have to expect it really – women are so shit at this’? I suspect not. But well done for doing loads of housework, and if you’re frustrated I suggest you send your partner a link to this blog.

In my relationship, we have come to the arrangement that one of us earns the money and the other keeps house. 

Congratulations. If you have both agreed to this and find it fair, then good luck to you both.

There are certain household tasks that I cannot do because I have a medical condition/have to work much longer hours than my partner. 

There are many reasons why household tasks might not be evenly split. That’s obviously not what I’m talking about here though.

Have you tried training/teaching your partner to do better?

He is not a fucking dog. He is an adult who knows how to do this shit. Besides, this rant does not just come because he – a flawed individual like the rest of us – pisses me off sometimes by failing to do his fair share. This rant has come because he is not the only one by a long shot, and because I hate other people’s ‘men are useless’ excuses for this crap even more than I hate scrubbing pans and folding laundry. For the record, though, my partner is much better than many other dudes I’ve known, and he does what decent humans do, which is recognise where he falls down and try to get better at doing stuff. Sadly he doesn’t have a blog in which he can rant about my failings, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I fail too, in equally important ways.

Isn’t it just that women have higher standards than men and men are more happy to live in filth?

This question is a BONUS one added after a Twitter comment. This one’s thrown at me a lot, so worth tackling. Different individuals have different tolerances for mess: this is normal because we are human. But, unless you are asserting that ‘men’ as a homogenous mass, are all happy to eat off food-soiled plates, wear clothes that have never been washed, allow their bathrooms to smell of piss and mould, and never eat food that has had more than a five-minute blast in the microwave, then this is a massive red herring. As a lazy, slobby, twat who is generally happy to have dirty clothes carpeting my bedroom, I can assure you it’s not about differing standards: it’s about the time spent on work, and who holds responsibility.

This isn’t like you, GOTN, to rant about what ‘all men’ are like.

I’m not. Not ‘all men’ are like this. There are men who do their fair share, who thank their partners for doing theirs, and who never refer to caring for their children as ‘babysitting’. I’m not saying ‘all men are shit at housework’, I am saying that if you are a man and you are shit at housework then that’s a fucking problem. Moreover if you let a female partner do most of the household chores, you sure as shit don’t get to call yourself a feminist.

This week’s guest blogger is a lady after my own heart. By which I mean, she is someone who gets righteously angry about the way many women are told to behave. Smell gorgeous, look fresh, be awesome: never let on that beneath your clothes is an actual human body that sometimes excretes weird fluids or happens not to be airbrushed.

Now, this blog is going to come with a caveat, as most blogs about women and sex usually have to: because it deals with society’s treatment of women, it relies on the idea of a gender binary, and that one’s gender is dictated by one’s genitals. Gender is far more complicated than just ‘vag = woman’, but this is what society tells us nearly all the frigging time, and as such causes a whole host of problems, one of which Christina tackles in this blog. I’d love to host more writing about how issues like this affect trans women, so if you’re a trans writer and you’ve got an idea for a guest blog please do get in touch.

In the meantime, I’ll hand over to Christina Wellor – who takes a hefty swipe at society’s fear of vulvas, vaginas, and all those v-words that in general are seen as a bit icky. From twee-bullshit marketing that encourages us to ‘woo hoo our froo froos’ to the implication that a bikini wax is a duty you have to perform before you’re allowed to have a holiday. If you like it, please do check out her blog and follow her on Twitter.

‘Vulva phobia’ is just another thing holding equality back

Despite all the positive shifts towards gender equality, there’s still one thing that continues to plague women and that’s society’s attitude towards our bodies; or to be more specific – our genitals. We’re discriminated against because of the configuration of bits of skin between our legs. You may not believe me and that’s fine because you don’t have to take my word for it, just go to your local supermarket and see how many products you can find to keep the average vulva clean and fresh. Then have a look for similar products aimed at penises and ball sacks. I do believe you will find none and I could rest my case there, but vulva phobia, as I like to call it, manifests itself in a hundred other ways and I’m not even sure people consciously take in half of them.

Take sex scenes for example. How often do we see scenes of fellatio in mainstream TV and cinema, however obscured by clever framing or strategically positioned heads and cameras? A lot. In fact, there are at least three blow job scenes in Mad Men alone. But you’ll never see a woman with her thighs spread either side of Don Draper’s handsome head (and don’t try to convince me that man wasn’t a serial pussy eater. He totally would have been). The point is – directors, producers, maybe even censors; are afraid to depict it. It’s the same with almost every TV series and film. The concept of a man’s face having a close encounter with a vulva remains unacceptable for cinematic representation, yet cocks can be shoved down throats at a moment’s notice and without a second thought.

Just what is this about? What is it about the female anatomy that still embarrasses people so much; yet when we get the chance to have a look at Jennifer Lawrence et al in all their naked, pussy baring glory, we’re all over it? If we’re that desperate to see what’s between their legs, why aren’t we treated to a cunnilingus scene from time to time, without having to resort to porn?

Is this women’s own doing? Are we simply too embarrassed about our genitalia? Are we so obsessed with what we perceive to be the negative traits of our vulvas, that we can’t bear the thought of them being seen, smelled, tasted, accepted? Hell, does the whole world have a problem with them?

I’ve always thought that if you make something into a big deal or play the coy card, then it simply serves to increases people’s appetite for antagonisation. Take Madonna for example. When she bared her ‘gash’ (her words not mine) in her 90s book, ‘Sex’, it was in the public domain for all to gawp at. But she was in control. Today, I doubt anyone even wastes their time looking for compromising images of Madonna, because what she’d be prepared to put out there herself is ten times more shocking.

Of course, I’m not suggesting everyone should become a sexual exhibitionist, just so that no-one can hold them to ransom with naked photos. That would be stupid. I’m simply trying to point out that the public is hell-bent on poking someone’s weak spot. With that in mind, I can only imagine that the situation got a lot worse for Jennifer Lawrence, once threats of prosecution and lawsuits were bandied about. It’s like a red rag to a bull.

If we remain so coy about female bits, the way we have been for years; it’ll continue to be deemed ‘unacceptable’ to show a cunnilingus scene in a film. If society keeps asserting that our vulvas need fumigating with special soap, scented panty liners, deodorising spray and freshening wipes; it’ll perpetuate the idea that our pussies are dirty and unhygienic. And let’s be honest, who wants to see a woman being eaten out over their pizza and popcorn on a Saturday night, when they know full well how much we stink? (It must be true, because marketers are telling us that all the time.)

I genuinely believe that we’re victims of our own unfounded embarrassment; and until we start to shed some of that and stop buying into this bullshit idea that our privates are too cringeworthy for celluloid or any visual media for that matter; our cunts are going to be shamed to the detriment of our self esteem and the benefit of Femfresh’s profits. Just imagine how many less downloads of celebrity flaps there’d have been, had the papers and news channels not offered so much coverage of the story!

Also, I know there wouldn’t have been even half this fuss if the naked photos had been of Brad Pitt’s semi-erect cock. Women all over the world would still have been downloading them at a rate of knots, but the morality of the whole debacle wouldn’t have been brought into question; at least not even close to this extent. (Is that because penises don’t smell? Because they really don’t you know. Like, ever.)

I’m demanding that everyone stops fuelling the awkwardness and embarrassment about our pussies – this applies to directors, producers, marketers, editors, journalists and all the paranoid women that buy products to sanitise their flaps. You’ve all got a responsibility to stop shaming us, it’s insulting and it’s time it ended. More to the point, I can’t believe you never let us see Don Draper give head.

Thanks Christina! As I say, please do check out her blog. And I’d particularly be interested in other examples of this – I’ve of course noticed and raged out about the Femfresh thing: particularly as it’s marketed at women with a message that ‘you’re wrong/bad/smelly and you must be fixed’ but it hadn’t occurred to me that we rarely see cunnilingus in mainstream TV sex scenes in the same way that we see blow jobs – now that Christina’s pointed it out, I can’t help but notice it. Are there any other examples of this that you’ve spotted? And if you want to read/see more about why vulvas are ace, check out the Pussy Pride Project, run by Molly’s Daily Kiss.

Sometimes when I am having an argument with a complete twat about consent, they argue that consent is difficult and the fluid nature of it means that life is so hard for people that they might as well just NOT HAVE SEX AT ALL because they’ll never be sure if their partner likes it. At this point I smash my face repeatedly into whatever firm objects there are to hand, and explain to them that before throwing all their toys out of the pram they might like to instead try communicating with their partner, and watching/listening for those sexy clues (verbal, non-verbal, a combination of the two) that someone gives you when they’re keen.

At some point in the conversation, aforementioned twat might say this:

“Oh, I suppose you want me to get them to SIGN A CONTRACT or something saying ‘I declare that I consent to this sex’ before I even lean in to KISS THEM?!”

And it is at this point that my head explodes, spraying passers-by with the messy detritus of the by-product of their twattery. Because there’s a mistake here. A massive and fundamental one.

Good2Go app and consent

This week yet another shiny new sex app was launched. The aim of it was to get people thinking about consent, and the app itself does… well… some things that sort of miss the point. There’s a Slate article here that explains what the app does, but in essence the idea is that you and your partner both use the app to record the fact that you are ‘Good2Go’ (i.e. have sex, although there’s little detail about specifics) and then you have sex. And then… what? Magically everything you do is consensual and nothing can ever go wrong?

The app does flag that consent can be withdrawn at any time, which is useful, but not massively so, because fundamentally the app is based on exactly the same misconception as the idea of a consent ‘contract’: that consent is a tickbox. Once ticked it can be unticked, but it’s a firm and decisive ‘OK.’

How I like to get sexual consent

Perhaps the reason the contract idea sounds so tempting to twats is that it sounds a bit legal – a bit ‘official’. Of course the sex you’re having is official and totally A-OK: someone has consented to it. They have rubber-stamped your sex plans, signed their name on a dotted line at the end of a piece of paper, ticked a box, pressed a button on an app. You’re ‘good to go.’

Unfortunately, this is not the kind of consent I want when I’m fucking: it’s the kind of consent I want when I’m selling someone insurance.

“Do you understand the risks, sir? Have you read the small print?”

“Why yes I do, and I have.”

“OK, please sign the dotted line then prepare for the sexing to begin.”

It is the least sexy thing in the entire fucking world, and sexual relationships just don’t fucking happen like that. If they do, you are either a fetishist with a really niche role-play fantasy, or you’re doing sex wrong. If I want to fuck, here’s the kind of consent I’m after:

“Touch me. There. Oh fuck, yeah that’s it. Bit higher. Mmm. Bite my nipples. That’s good. Oh please put my cock in your mouth. Like that. Bit more gently. Aaah, perfect. Fuck. Fuck that’s good.”

Or, if you’re less chatty during sex itself, here’s the kind of consent I’m after:

“I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to get shagged with a strapon.”

“Sweet. Want me to show you?”

“Umm… would it hurt?”

“Maybe. Tell you what – I’ll use tonnes of lube, and we’ll start slowly and take it from there, what do you reckon?”

Note that he hasn’t explicitly offered a safeword or asked me if I’ll stop if he tells me to because for me that goes without saying. If it doesn’t go without saying for you, then say it. Anyone who thinks you’re a dick for saying it is not worth fucking.

Other forms of consent include guys begging me to fuck them, guys staring at me with sexy, sexy eyes, then raising eyebrows as if to say ‘do you want this?’ as they reach round to touch my arse. They include me telling a guy a story about a particular fantasy in which I struggle a bit against him while he fucks me, and that guy fucking me in that way, but stopping if I say ‘ooh, fuck, ouch, your elbow’s on my hair’ or ‘OK that was hot but can we switch round now?’ They include all of these things and more.

Crucially, consent in all of these situations is individual to me, and to the person I’m with: it’s personal. If any single one of you points at this blog post and uses it as an excuse to raise your eyebrow and grab the arse of a person you fancy, then scream at them “BUT GOTN SAID THAT WAS CONSENT!” you have utterly and completely missed the point.

But what is consent, exactly?

Consent may be hard to explain, because it’s individual, but that doesn’t mean it is hard to do. You communicate with your partners about what they want, what they need and what they are absolutely dripping hot for, and you keep listening. As you kiss them, touch them, fuck them, and cuddle afterwards. And yes, I am fully aware that this blog post is in no way helpful to someone who is stuck in the ‘contract’ mindset: someone who wants a blogger to give them a list of words and body language signals and phrases that they can tick off and feel comfortable that they definitely did all the right things and established consent.

But that’s deliberate. I haven’t done it for the same reason I haven’t told you how to have the perfect conversation or work out whether this person you’ve approached in a bar definitely fancies you: sometimes things just don’t work like that. I need to stress wholeheartedly that I am not an expert in this. I am an expert when it comes to negotiating the kind of sex I want from my own partners, but I am not an expert in what you should do with yours. If you want some more considered, expert advice on this, do what I do and learn from Bish.

What I do feel qualified to tell you, though, is what consent is not: it is not a simple rubber-stamp ‘OK.’ Saying ‘should I have a contract?’ or ‘should I have an app?’ is based on the fundamental misunderstanding that because we have a legal definition of ‘consent’, that gaining it should be done in the same way as you’d go about gaining planning permission, or something equally tedious.

Do not ask your partner whether they’re ‘Good2Go’, like you’re a dodgy car salesperson trying to get them to sign off on a ropey deal. You’re not looking to get them to agree to something, you’re looking to find out if this is something they actually want. Ask them: is this fun? Do you want this? What’s great and what’s not working? Ask with your eyes, your hands, your mouth, and every tool you have to communicate. And keep asking.

That’s not just how you get consent, it’s how you get good sex.