A member of my family is expecting a baby: cue applause, coos, expressions of delight, and the sound of excited aunties scrabbling at wallets to go and pick up the cutest, tiniest booties from a nearby branch of Mothercare.

Exciting though it is for some (the pregnant couple are clearly ecstatic about it), there are others who are tempering their squeals of joy with mutterings: “when’s the wedding?” they ask, with pursed lips and a sour expression.

The answer, in this case, is that there isn’t one.

Traditional family expectations

Perhaps it’s the season: a couple of weeks of touring relatives can give one an unnecessary burden of expectations. Where’s your boyfriend/girlfriend? When are you getting married? Where are the grandchildren with which you’re obliged to provide me?

There are some things we’re expected to do that are fair enough: respond to a nice gift with a thank you letter, help with the washing up so the cook doesn’t have to do it, smile at the Jeremy Clarkson book that Gran thought you’d like even though any decent human would rather eat it than read it. Sometimes we’re expected to do things because they’re just decent things to do, which is fine. But there’s more that sneaks over the line, laying expectations on individuals that are either impossible or undesirable to carry out.

Perhaps it’s families: older relatives are so used to passing on their wisdom that when advice turns to expectation we barely notice the difference. “You’re a lovely girl, you can find a great partner” easily melts into “you’ve got a lovely partner, you should marry him” and onward to “where’s the baby?” fairly naturally. There isn’t an obvious stopping point, at which relatives prompt themselves to step back.

We all do it

I understand why grandparents think a wedding should happen before a birth: it’s how it was in their day, and it’s what they’re used to. Luckily, though, not everyone shares the opinions of those born eight decades ago: we get less prescriptive, society becomes more liberal… it’s how progress happens.

But it happens much more slowly because so many of us stick to the status quo – we expect things of others because it’s the easy thing to do. Far simpler to join in with teasing loved-up friends about marriage and babies than to leave well alone and let them make up their own minds. Far easier to frown at people who choose something different than to celebrate their choice and show interest.

I’m sick of these unnecessary expectations. Not just the ones about marriage and babies, but the other ones too. Losing weight, going on dates, earning money, buying a house, having exactly the right amount of fun but not so much you appear out of control. Have the right kind of sex (fun, varied, but not too kinky) with exactly the right people (ones you love, ideally one at a time). We expect people to be bright and eager, but not desperate. To have a plan, but not too much ambition. To make money, but in ways we approve of. To live, achieve, then die to order.

The rebellious ones

Perhaps worse is that even when people reject these things we still paint them into a corner. As the one who rejects stuff. The one who isn’t traditional. The one who’s rebellious. So-and-so will never get married because she’s always been the odd one out. That boy will always sleep around because he always has. Rejecting the traditional trajectory doesn’t send you on a whole new journey, without any expectations at all, it just lumbers you with a new set.

So while the pregnant couple grimace through questions about weddings, others are expected to never get married, or at least to do something wild and reckless before they don a ring and a dress. Still others have to grin and bear a grilling on why they haven’t got a boyfriend yet, when the answer may well be ‘I just don’t want one‘.

I’m guilty of this too. For all the ‘live and let live’ ranting on this blog, Christmas with relatives has led me to deduce that although when pressed I’ll tell you I have no expectations, my default position is to assume everyone’s similar. That we all want more or less the same things, and that my own route to happiness is the best one for us all to take.

My resolution for 2014: expect nothing.

Nothing kills my mood quicker than a genital close-up. I have no problem with people’s bodies, and I think that there’s a distinct type of beauty in a nice, solid cock, but I find it pretty difficult to find porn with hot scenarios that isn’t going to cut to a gynaecological close-up just as I’m getting to the juicy bit.

I know some people love it – most gentlemen with whom I’ve watched porn have expressed a strong desire to look not just *at* someone but *up* them, so I can see why these shots are included: they clearly please a proportion of the crowd. But they don’t please me.

To clarify: this isn’t a disgust reaction – I am not horrified by genitals. Nor am I shaming the spectacular men and women who show them off on screen, and fuck like champions for an audience of internet wankers such as myself. I’m just lamenting the fact that so many directors insist on close-cropped shots of trains going into tunnels, disembodied vulvas being rummaged at by strangers’ hands, or those same hands pulling butt-cheeks apart until all you can see is a gaping void. And these things usually happen during the climax of the scene – at just the moment when the sex is getting hottest and most furious, when the actors would be building to a moment of exquisite lust, our director cuts away from their faces and straight to parts of their body that are far less capable of expressing emotion.

What I’m saying is this: I’d like to see something super-hot that doesn’t turn into a medical documentary just as it’s getting to the good bit.

My porn wish list

I’m not saying that people who like this are wrong/evil/stupid, and that everyone should be forced to watch only porn that comes from a set-list I’ve prescribed. I’m just having a general moan about the number of times I’ve had to cut short a wank to find a video that’s got more fucking and less fanny.

Perhaps the kind of porn I like (lots of kinky, rough, angry fucking) leans more towards these gyno shots, because that’s what directors feel the audience will want. Or perhaps I’m just crap at finding good porn. So, in case any awesome pornographers are watching, or you’ve come across any videos that show shagging without an accompanying smear test, here are some things I’d love to see more of in porn:

Lots and lots of long shots of people fucking

I like watching people actually fuck. Although head and handjobs are fun to have, I find them far less fun to watch, because there isn’t nearly as much action. Jiggling tits, pounding arses, hands gripping squidgy flesh, sweat dripping from people who are really getting into it? Yes. Fumbling and rubbing? Meh.

While we’re at it, that thing that porn stars do where they push a cock into the side of their cheek? It reminds me of the standard childish symbol for ‘blow-job’ where you’d make a wanking gesture near your mouth while sticking your tongue sideways. I get why it’s more visual than other suckoff techniques, but I’ve never met a guy who has expressed a desire that I do that to his penis.

Noises

I’ve waffled on before about how noises are hot. Not fake noises – I don’t need scripted, efficient ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s. I want genuine noises – the ‘unnggh’s and ‘aaargh’s that people make when they’re fucking like they’ve really let go.

Especially – and I cannot stress this enough – from the men. Men in porn are often strangely silent, as if they’ve expressed opinions on the sex before and have been told to keep their mouths shut. Those that do talk often say things that don’t necessarily correlate to what’s happening on screen, as if the guy is just reeling off a list of accepted phrases like a politician at a press conference spouting ‘hard-working families’ over and over again with no discernible relevance.

Faces

If you’re going to give me any sort of close-up, I would like it to be of someone’s face. Ideally, because I am straight and female and pervy, the dude’s. In fact, if I’m completely honest, I have a deep and abiding preference for porn in which the women look a bit bored – in which they’re either idly or sarcastically pandering to the dude’s insatiable lust while they earn a paycheque/watch themselves in the mirror/wait for the washing machine to finish a spin cycle.

I appreciate this specific kink isn’t for everyone, but I know a hell of a lot of people who’d like to see more face. There are, of course, millions of porn videos that show faces, but my main issue with them is that they are not the faces of hot people reacting to orgasmic delight, but usually faces that are being jizzed on. Pop shots are, of course, a porn staple, so I don’t expect this to disappear any time soon, but we could do with more of the other: if you’re the one jizzing, it’s your face I want to see.

Shameless plug: if you want to read more about dirty fucking, and thoughts on porn, my book is currently ridiculously cheap on Amazon (59p in the UK, 96c in the US). I have no idea how long it’ll be on offer for, so if you want it then now’s a good time to get a copy.

I’m really excited about this guest post. Not only is it something that I’ve never written about before, it’s about something that is so rarely written about you’d be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of it.

Since I started this blog I’ve had lots of people get in touch with me to say lovely things, and the loveliest of all is ‘I feel this way too.’ Whenever this happens I’m overwhelmed with a sense of relief to find that I’m not alone.

This week’s blog is about a completely new topic, written by someone who has a very different experience of sex, and a problem which is rarely written about in the mainstream media. I hope it gives you something interesting to think about, even if it doesn’t directly affect you. And I hope you can share it, so that others who have similar experiences can find it and know they’re not alone.

Over to Artemis…

On Vaginismus

Vaginismus is an ugly name for a physical condition which affects a small and mostly silent minority of women (vaginismus.com puts the figure at 2 in 1,000 women, but acknowledges the difficulty in getting accurate statistics). This is how I experience it.

I am in bed with my boyfriend, and he is going down on me. The sensation is exquisite but I want more: I want to be filled with him, I want him inside me right now, I want more than just his finger and tongue pushing me to climax. I am hot and wet and wide open, my cervix is dilated, my eyes wide, my nipples hard.

He puts on a condom and then he pushes his way inside me. Everything stops. I have to force myself to relax enough for it to stop feeling like I am being stabbed with a blunt instrument. I gasp, in pain not lust. My vagina burns, inside and out. Even so, I feel completed: this is what I wanted, as close as it gets for me; I wanted him inside me and now he is. He begins to move, and there is an unbearable pressure in my abdomen, it feels like I will explode; I pull him closer and the pressure recedes.

The pain wanes but never leaves. I am scraped raw, but still, this is satisfying, and perhaps this time it will stop hurting for long enough that I can find my own pleasure and cum with him inside me. But that does not happen, and when he finishes I am drained and happier, but not released from myself. I go to the toilet. It hurts to pee: the entrance to my vagina is slightly scraped, and stings when touched. It will heal by tomorrow.

Living with vaginismus

This has been my sex life for nearly 13 years. In that time, I have had penetrative sex with four different men. I have probably had sex less than a hundred times in my life. I have lost two relationships because of it. Once, my hormones were so wild and I was so fucked up that I managed to orgasm even though the pain never left; I cannot describe what it is like to cum like that, fighting against my body. An angry orgasm, like Hedwig’s Angry Inch but, obviously, different parts involved.

I’m sure you don’t need me to go into detail about the large number of ways this can affect not just the primary sufferer but her partner as well. It would be easier if we were all lesbians, and I’m sure a lot of bisexual or heteroflexible sufferers do deliberately seek out female partners accordingly – the same has to be true of our silent and totally ignored male counterparts – but that’s not a solution, it’s a response. My response is far less healthy: it combines very well with my desire to harm myself when I hate myself, which it’s very easy to do when you feel like a failure as a woman.

Why is vaginismus invisible?

The media does not talk about people like me. Medical treatment is hard to come by and mostly involves “dilators”, which don’t actually dilate you – there’s nothing wrong with the size of my cunt – but which persuade the body not to fight the sensation. Psychological therapy is more expensive, you see. Far easier to give you some phallic glass and a tube of KY.

Society largely ignores anyone who doesn’t like sex. I have a lot of sympathy and solidarity with asexual people, although I’m not asexual, I’m really not, I want sex so much I could cry just thinking about it. But society doesn’t care that any of us exist: people should be sexual creatures. For men, there are readily available treatments if you can’t get it up; but no-one talks about the small percentage of men who experience pain from penetrating a partner. Women don’t even have reliable Viagra: we are expected to just be able to lie back and think of England regardless of our own pain, discomfort, arousal, or ability to orgasm.

We are silenced before we even open our mouths, mired in self-hatred from the very start, and then ignored by Cosmo and More, Loaded and FHM. Hollywood rarely ever shows a sex scene where the woman doesn’t have a vaginal orgasm – something which is literally not possible for a large number of women due to the way that the clitoris and vagina interact – and outside of rape, women are only shown in pain when they’re losing their virginity. (For the record, I didn’t have a hymen to break, my first time. Lots of women don’t. All it takes to disappear is moderate physical activity, and some women are born without one at all.) They’re occasionally shown as being in discomfort, but that’s usually to demonstrate the clumsiness and inferiority of their partner – which of course makes the partners of women with vaginismus feel just super about their ability in bed.

I want to see more discussion about the reality of sex rather than the fantasy, because I think that might have helped me at the start, and because the tendency to fetishise a homogenous, cookie-cutter idea of sex is deeply unhealthy for all of us. That means listening to those of us who are denied that experience for whatever reason, and not dismissing our experiences just because they’re not yours. This includes not giving facetious “advice” like “I bet I cud make u cum ur boyfriends just shit in bed”. That response is part of the reason why I’ve lost relationships, and will lead to me kneeing you in the balls, and then we’ll see who doesn’t like sex for a while.

This morning, police entered premises in London’s Soho and arrested a number of people. Latest reports say 22. In an official statement, Chief Superintendent Paul Rickett said:

“Victims have identified brothels where they have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and raped.”

Commander Alison Newcomb of Westminster Police said:

“This is not about the prosecution of prostitutes, this is about making the area safe. We do know a lot of the women are trafficked or are vulnerable so this is about taking the danger out of Soho.”

So a quick question: if safety of the women involved is genuinely what the police were concerned about, then why the hell did they subsequently allow (or, indeed, invite) reporters to take gratuitous pap shots of the women involved?

Put aside your views on sex work

This issue isn’t about whether you approve or disapprove of sex work. Personally, I think that making money by selling sexual skills is as valid a life choice as making money by singing for strangers, fixing cars, or pushing paper across a desk until beer o’clock on Friday.

I’d further opine that those who are anti-sex work because they’re concerned about trafficking have got their logic knickers in a twist. If you hate trafficking, coercion and rape then you’re not anti-sex work per se, you’re anti-trafficking, anti-coercion, and anti-rape. Which we all are.

But even if you disagree with me on the work itself, I cannot see how you can be anything other than shocked that these photos were taken, let alone printed in the Evening Standard.

Focus on the pictures

In nearly all of the pictures, the women involved are covering their faces. What better way to categorically state “I do not want you to photograph me.” These women have removed their consent to be photographed by anyone.

But no matter, of course, because the most important thing to the press is that we get a good long look at groups of women who – *sexy shiver* – will fuck you for money. Go on, have a nice little look: that’s free.

At the same time as the press are slavering over these women, the Chief Superintendent is giving a statement which highlights the fact that the police believe some of them have been used and abused in the line of their work. Can you remember the last time you saw a story where the victim of a crime, or someone who was supposedly being protected, was photographed against their will and slapped all over a national paper while the police stood by and did nothing? Me neither.

As the excellent @Fornicatrix put it:

They pixelated those faces as much for our uninhibited viewing pleasure as for their privacy. Who cares about the privacy of whores right?

Why were photos taken of the brothel raids in Soho?

The police believe that in performing these raids, they’d secure the safety of women who had been trafficked or coerced into working there. There are two possibilities here:

– Option one: the police are mistaken, and these women are working off their own bat. If this is the case then the women, rather than having been ‘made safe’ have been subjected to some incredibly intrusive press attention. In fact, as the English Prostitutes Collective pointed out, they’ve potentially been put in danger: “The police must know that some women will end up working on the street as a result, where it is much more dangerous.”

– Option two: the police are right, and these women have been trafficked and coerced. If this is the case then what they have just done is lined some victims up in front of the paparazzi, and just let them snap away.

I’m not an expert on sex work, this is just my initial kneejerk ‘WTF’. But I think this needs discussing because, well, WTF. If you’ve read any other good blogs on this topic, or written any yourself, I’d love to hear more from people about it, especially if you’re more informed than I am on sex work and the myriad issues surrounding it. Please leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it to this blog post when I can.

@NymphomaniacNes has posted on this topic too – I’d recommend you check out her thoughts as well.

And this great piece from @sassylapdancer, which was recommended to me on Twitter.

You might also want to check out this petition.

And read @pastachips, who has given a brilliant overview of the ‘saving women’ issue in the Guardian.