A couple of weeks ago Geraldine O’Hara wrote a warm, personal article about what life was like for her as an erotica author. Initially I leapt with delight at someone being so open about their writing, but my delight quickly turned to frustration and disappointment when I read on – it seems that even as she works hard to cater to her reader’s passions, she’s squeamish and pretty judgmental about them.

In the Telegraph article, Geraldine takes pains to explain to us that she doesn’t do ‘the things in [her] books’, and that she’s not a ‘sex maniac’ – the unspoken implication being, of course, that her readers are. Her worry is understandable: despite the explosion of erotic writing, many of us are still either giggling in a corner about sex or condemning it as something corrupting and vile. But how depressing when even those who produce porn feel compelled to protest: “Oh, I write it, of course. But I’d never think about doing it.”

It’s good to talk

I write filth, and the thing I enjoy most about writing is that I know I’m describing things that people actually do, and thoroughly enjoy. They email me their stories, and comment to say “oh God I did this once and it was spectacular.” I know it can be spectacular because I’ve done it too.

But as much as I’d like to think everyone’s becoming more open about their sexual needs, I still get a surprising number of emails from people saying ‘thank God it’s not just me’ or ‘I like [insert deliciously hot sex act here] too – I was worried that there was something wrong with me.’ These emails usually come from women, and they always make me sad. Men are equally likely to email, but their “oh yeah I love throatfucking” is more likely to come with a “lol” than a lament about how they’re probably sick and dirty.

You’re probably normal and it’s fine

Few of the acts I talk about here are particularly unusual. Even if the majority of people don’t enjoy these things, they’re relatively common fantasies: being spanked, enjoying giving head, having sex with groups of men instead of just one at a time, that sort of thing. And yet while we’re happy to accept male sexuality as a storming force of nature (often to the detriment of men), women’s heartfelt and lust-inducing fantasies are often treated as either faintly embarrassing or downright obscene: things we can write books about but never actually admit to ourselves.

I write mostly non-fiction. That is to say that almost everything I describe actually happened. I slept with that hot stranger. I had that threesome. I went to that bondage club. I didn’t do it because I was ‘curious’ about how other people got off: I did it because I, along with thousands of other women, enjoy it. I’m not ashamed of any of the sexual things I’ve done – I’m far more ashamed of times I’ve lied to people, ignored important phone calls from friends, or said cruel things to loved ones in the heat of the moment. The sex I’ve had isn’t just a collection of sordid fumbles which I’ve later come to regret: it’s sociable, heartfelt fun with adults who I like and respect.

Evil shameful deliciously hot sex

In her article, Geraldine explains that “I don’t write erotic fiction to satisfy any urges. I write it because readers want it.” I’m sorry to have to break it to Geraldine, but urges are definitely being satisfied – those of the readers. And alienating those readers by discussing their sexual fantasies as if they’re the deviant lusts of a sex maniac shows a stunning lack of understanding about sexuality, not to mention a lack of respect for the audience.

I’m not arguing that Geraldine should have to experience all the kinds of sex she writes about – far from it. I’d no more tell her what to do in the bedroom than what not to do, and if her imagination’s good enough to float people’s boats then I wish her the best of luck. But when she explains that

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking Stephen King if he’s murdered anyone lately”

it makes me want to laugh, then cry, then cry some more, then fight a rabid dog like they do in Cujo.

Sex is not murder. Not even if it involves whips, chains and squealing. An unusual type of sex might not appeal to you personally, but to compare consensual sex between adults to murder frames people’s fantasies as devious and evil, and makes me think that the author has fundamentally misunderstood that sex is a good thing. A more accurate comparison, surely, would be:

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking a romance author if they’ve ever been in love.”

Look: we’re all adults. We know that across the spectrum of adult humanity there is a veritable rainbow of sexual tastes and desires. There are those who would frown upon BDSM, pornography, threesomes, or anything that came with even a whiff of the sexually unusual, and they are well within their rights to do so. But for someone who creates porn – who actually makes money from the people whose fantasies she portrays – to compare those fantasies to an act of calculated evil? That’s just perverted.

Telling us we’re unhealthy is unhealthy

This sex shame is damaging and unnecessary: it leads to people (and women in particular) feeling like they should suppress their genuine desires for fear of looking deviant or freakish. In turn, the fact that there are few women publicly willing to admit to ‘this sort of thing’ means that younger women are more likely to feel guilty about their own (perfectly healthy) fantasies and desires.

It leads to the double-standards we apply to women and men (when was the last time you heard a male pornographer declare that of course he wouldn’t watch his own material?). And, of course, it creates an odd dilemma for people like me: unashamed to write about sex but preferring to write under a pseudonym lest future employers are horrified to find I’m not a sexless work-robot. It leads to those awful articles in magazines in which self-appointed ‘experts’ explain to strangers exactly how to please your lover in bed, because you’re scared to ask for what you actually want in case you’re branded a pervert. Above all, it leads to a hell of a lot of bad sex.

It’s not fair to lay all of this at Geraldine O’Hara’s door – it’s not her fault that we, as a society, are weird about sex. But as someone who writes about sex, and makes money from catering to people’s sexual fantasies, it would be helpful if she remembered that these are actually real desires – these fantasies take place in the heads of real people, who will (quite rightly) be offended when they’re compared to murderers. We aren’t perverts or souls to be pitied: we’re adults who are making informed choices about our sexuality. I’m not a bad girl who needs to be punished: I’m a woman who knows what I want.

This week I got an email from a guy who is a virgin. In his words:

!’m 28, male and a virgin. I got brought up religiously. I so wanted to lose my virginity – but it didn’t happen. Let’s just say meeting girls wasn’t something I did. I went to university when I was 20 and well, it didn’t happen. Then I came home and it didn’t happen and… well, although I’ve never seen it, I’m like that 40 Year Old Virgin guy.

Long story short: he is worried that being a virgin makes him less attractive to women. A sticky problem, because if it’s true then being a virgin beyond a certain point means you fall into a vicious circle of not-getting-laid, making you less attractive to potential partners the longer it takes you to get laid, and so eventually diminishing your chances of getting laid to almost zero.

Scary stuff. Luckily, the world is not such a bleak and awful place that women will, en mass, refuse to sleep with you if you haven’t hurled your virginity away by your X-teenth birthday.

What’s the right age to lose my virginity?

The answer to this question is “literally any age you feel comfortable losing it.” Fun fact: this might mean ‘never’, if you never feel the desire to. Before I wrote this blog I Googled “ages to lose virginity by country” and came across this excellent map. The link to the original source is broken (if anyone’s got updated links do let me know in the comments) but I’ve no reason to believe it’s not true – it lists the average age for people to lose their virginity by country, with the ages ranging from around 15 to over 20. The overall average is 17, which would probably surprise the British teenagers I went to school with, who seemed to think that if you hadn’t rid yourself of your virginity by the age of 16 you were definitely frigid and/or ugly.

I digress.

The most important thing to note is that these ages are average: they are the age arrived at when, on balance, everyone’s experience is taken into account. If we all lost our virginities on or before the average these figures would plummet, so from this we can deduce that there are plenty of people losing their virginities much later than the average age, as well as people who lose it before.

Will girls not want to sleep with me because I’m a virgin?

Sadly I can’t answer for all girls, no matter how much I’d like to have an ‘official spokesperson’ badge. But what I can tell you is that there are definitely some girls who will want to sleep with you even though you’re a virgin. Moreover, there are girls who will find the fact that you’re a virgin a distinct turn on.

Over the course of my life I can count the number of virgins I’ve slept with on one hand. Or, to be more precise, one finger. The sex was stunningly hot. Absolutely, achingly, delightfully hot. His nervousness and desperation to do the deed combined to produce a tension that was utterly unique: never before or since have I felt someone trembling so violently as he touched me, or moaning with such beautiful, lustful agony as he slipped his shaking fingers into my knickers. You can read more about him here, or [SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT] buy my book for the full story.

So, in answer to your question, I certainly wouldn’t be less likely to sleep with someone if I knew he was a virgin. On the contrary, I’d be more likely to savour the moment, flattered in the knowledge that he’d probably remember me for the rest of his life. Not all women will think like this, of course, but those that do will appreciate you so hard they’ll make up for any other judgmental ones.

If all this is true, why do I feel bad for being a virgin?

Because some people (I like to call them ‘fuckwits’) speak and act as if your virginity is a troublesome mess to be disposed of. Like you’ve been carrying a used tissue around with you since you were born, and when you hit sexual maturity you must dispose of it as quickly as is humanly possible.

Whether it’s the arsehole kids at school calling you a virgin because you’re not behaving like a sex pest, to the adults who really should know better using ‘virgin’ as slang for ‘pitiable loser’.

Like those who think sleeping with more than the ‘average’ number of people makes you a reprehensible human, some people act as if ‘losing your virginity’ is a chore you need to get out of the way before you can become a fully functioning adult member of society. It’s balls, of course. I remember the night after I lost my virginity lying in bed thinking “huh. So that’s it. I’m not a virgin any more.” I expected to feel different: more grown up. I’m not sure how exactly – I don’t think I expected flashes of light or a tingling cunt or a sudden and comprehensive knowledge of the Kama Sutra. But I didn’t feel different at all: I felt like just the same slightly clumsy, neurotic twat that I’d been before, just with a new experience to hold onto.

I’d rather be a virgin than a bastard

In my experience sex is a very nice thing to have, and if you want to have it and haven’t yet then I understand your desire to hump things, in the same way as I understand why people want to go to Disneyland, or stay at the Ritz. I’m not going to patronise you and assure you that “it’ll definitely happen one day” or that you just have to wait for the “right” person – these things will depend utterly on how you feel about it, what you do, and who you end up meeting.

What I will tell you, though, is that not everyone is going to think badly of you for being a virgin. And I can assure you that the people who make you feel shit because you’ve missed out on a life experience they happen to have had are probably not worth fucking. They’re like braying gap-year-ites who tell you you’ve ‘never lived’ because you haven’t been to India, or got off your tits on mushrooms at a beach party in Thailand. Like arrogant city boys who brag about their salary in front of lower-paid friends. They are the the cool kids from school who never grew up, and remain convinced that happiness can only be measured in comparison to other people.

There are plenty of people for whom your virginity will not be an issue – there are many who will actively find it a turn on. There will be a few – and I suspect it’s only a small proportion – who will judge you for it. Don’t worry about whether these people will fuck you: if they judge you for being a virgin then they don’t deserve to have nice sex.

Last week I wrote about cheese-sandwich sex. The kind of easy, everyday, sex-for-need that you have when you just need a quick fuck. Today’s exceptional guest blog is right at the other end of the spectrum: this is 12-course gourmet sex. The kind of sex you dream about, have, then think about for the rest of your life.

Both the story and accompanying picture are courtesy of @HigherKinks, who you should follow on Twitter if you love hot pictures, and the gleeful, lusty delight with which a pair of perverts go about enjoying each other.

Joyous abandon

One look from a lover can last you a lifetime.

She was kneeling in front of me, naked. This happens a lot.

She was breathless too. Not from thrashing about, I realised – though there had been an agreeable amount of the bouncy stuff prior to this particular moment – but from something more subtle. A tiny gasp, reminded me that some joys are so exquisite to contemplate, that you momentarily forget to breathe. This doesn’t happen as much.

She looked up at me, eyes wide, lip slightly bitten. And that was when I saw the look that I will carry with me into dotage. It was the look of someone who digs you, seriously fucking turned on. Like, stupidly, impossibly, nothing-will-ever-feel-quite-the-same-again turned on. But it was more than that even. It was a look also of acceptance, of longing, of trust and of urgent desires that needed to be quenched. Some folk call it the look of love, but unless you’ve been in this exact scenario I’d invite you not to consider me a twat for suggesting that. (Oh, and there was a gentleman sucking my cock two inches from her face. I maybe should have mentioned that). She moaned at the sight and orgasmed on the spot. This had never happened before.

Some context for you.

New Years Day. Two lovers with no obligation to anyone but each other that day. No work. No kids. No stress. A lot of fucking, obviously. There had been pillow talk.

“We could call him..”
“He says he’s a bit tired and hungover…”
“We don’t have to do anything, just hang out…”
“Yeah.. he’s texted. He’s on the way…”’

It wasn’t much of a gamble. He was her friend, someone we liked and respected, and was good company. But we weren’t sure anything would happen. Or even if we’d want it to. After an enjoyable evening, and perhaps sensing a moment alone was needed, our friend went to the toilet. We looked at each other. We both knew what the other was thinking. She grinned the grin that says “Can we?”. By the time he came back downstairs, she was kneeling over me on the couch, skillfully rolling her tongue around the end of my penis while I babbled something about inviting him to join us or something – I can’t remember exactly what I said because he agreed inside 2 seconds.

From this point on, my memory is jumbled. A highlight reel of joyous abandon and giggling depravities. We undress her. I watch her beguile his cock, watch him eat her out. I get so excited I have to slide myself down her throat as she stretches under us and for the next few hours it just feels like we are drawn from one intoxicatingly filthy scenario to the next like a little boat magically propelled to different islands, each lovelier than the last. That might sound twee, but one of the fantasy islands we visited was the island where the lady gives head while her lover fucks her steadily to orgasm in the ass. Always wanted to visit that one.

In between bouts, we smoke, drink and lounge around, marvelling at my girl’s beautiful body and the pleasures of consenting, carnal adult activity. We talk about other folk we’d like to fuck, of experiences and delights yet to be had. We get so randy we fuck all over again. It was a stupefyingly good night. We took lots of pictures. Like tourists on holiday.

But here’s the thing. When you find someone you love, who you never want to stop shagging, it’s amazing. But when that person sees no reason for you both to not fuck other people together too? How can I explain this to the nerd generation? It’s like levelling up while playing the best computer game ever.

New year’s resolutions are generally a bit crap, but as it’s timely I’m going to tell you about a resolution I’ve been working on for the last month or so, which I’ll carry through into the new year because time is linear like that.

I need to lose some weight.

It’s not urgent, but I’ve decided that my happiness depends on shaving off a few pounds so I can jiggle around the house to showtunes without feeling my tummy wobbling out of sync to the rest of me.

There are three things I hate about this, and believe it or not none of them have anything to do with diet or exercise. Sure, I prefer cider to soup, and running my arse round the block is about as tempting as queuing for One Direction tickets, but these are just things you have to do to lose weight, so I bear no grudges against biology. But there are some things about dieting that bother me.

The detox bandwagon

The first and most obvious thing is the patronising, sexist market that surrounds female weight loss. Don’t get me wrong, there’s an irritating market surrounding male health too (Get ripped in 8 weeks, lads, with this one weird old trick). But given that I am a woman, the female stuff leaps out from the shelves and smacks me in the face more forcefully.

Magazines trumpet ‘detox time’, as if it’s a long-established calendar event: that all women, for the month of January, will eschew booze and munch salads. Because if we don’t do this there’s a very real danger that we’ll just disappear into a fatty swamp of chemicals.

It’s bullshit, mostly. There’s really no such thing as ‘detoxing’, and if we didn’t consume any chemicals we’d die. But since the first marketeer sat down and said “hey I’ve got this great new product it’s like water but better because it costs two quid a bottle” we’ve been dragged into thinking that ‘detoxing’ is not only a real thing but something that all women should do throughout the month of January. Unfortunately, the more of us do it, the more it reinforces the idea that we should all be doing it.

So now I am in a position where I feel guilty for dieting in January, because I am propping up a ridiculous ad-driven concept of the New Year detox, but similarly guilty if I don’t, because I am a woman and therefore should be thinking about calories every single minute that I am not either buying shoes or tearing hair from my pudenda. It’s a pickle.

The ‘oh but you’re not’s

Why is it that, when I mention the fact that I’m a bit chubby, people feel compelled to tell me I’m wrong? Seriously, why?

I’m wrong about a million and one things. Once I argued that the battery life on an iPhone was shorter than the time it’d take me to commute to and from work, and the other day I spent a good twenty minutes insisting that Brad Pitt couldn’t be a day over forty. Wrong on both counts, of course, but not everyone feels compelled to point that out: often they just roll their eyes and let me continue down the path to future embarrassment.

But when it comes to weight, people are keen to insist I’m wrong even when I’m plainly and clearly right. When I say I’m trying to lose a bit of weight (usually in response to someone trying to guilt-slip yet another mince pie down my throat), people leap insistently out of their seats crying “OH NO YOU’RE JUST BEAUTIFUL AS YOU ARE”, as if the world will stop spinning if they let me believe I am anything other than perfect.

Why do we do this? It is, of course, mean to walk up to a friend and announce “you could stand to lose a few pounds, mate.” But I’ve got a mirror – I can see what I look like. And what I look like is an averagely attractive person who could do with losing a bit of weight. You’re neither evil nor a bully if you let me get on with it.

To add insult to injury, although gentlemen friends are allowed to make self-deprecating jokes about their weight, as a woman any mention of weight gain is treated as blasphemy. The poor gents who actually do want reassurance are left out in the cold, listening to the lilting sounds of “who ate all the pies”, while girls hiss “blasphemy!” at each other if one raises the possibility of dieting. This situation sucks for all of us.

Will you still love me when I’m thin?

“I love you no matter what.”

It’s a lovely sentiment, designed to elicit the same warm fuzzy feeling people imagine they’re conjuring if they tell you that you don’t need to lose weight. And yet it’s rarely evoked the other way around. Someone who goes on a diet is rarely reassured “I’ll still love you even when there’s slightly less of you filling those knickers.”

Loving someone when they’re fat is seen as a noble and beautiful thing, as opposed to just something that happens when someone you love piles on a few pounds (or, indeed, if you fall in love with someone who doesn’t have the proportions of a runway model – i.e. almost everyone). If we really meant it then there’d be no question whatsoever about whether we’d stay with a partner who weighed more than average: therefore no need for any reassurance that our deep and true love transcends weight.

Moreover, as I’m confident the sun will rise tomorrow, I know that if I woke tomorrow lighter and tighter your love would not wane. It’s not my weight that’ll put you off, but the things I have to do to stay like that – the act of losing weight itself. You’ll love me when I’m fat, sure, but I think loving me when I’m calorie-counting might be more of a challenge. Will you still love me when I ask you to eat salad to keep me company? When I swap my legendarily awesome macaroni cheese for quinoa? When I neglect your blow jobs to go to the gym?

We’ll see.