I’m an online dating evangelist – I think meeting people on the internet and then going for drinks with them (in a safe public place, etc) is one of the best ways to meet likeminded and potentially shaggable people.

As an evangelist, however, there’s a conversation I’ve ended up having a few times that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It goes something like this:

“Remember you told me to go on OKCupid?”
“Yeah. How’s it going?”
“Well, I’ve had a couple of quite good dates. But I’ve also been sent some hilarious and awful messages. And oh God this one person had a profile so bad it was hysterical. I’ll send you a link…”

Please don’t show me the money

I don’t want to see your links. I don’t want to see the people you think are so funny that it’s worth going to the trouble of finding their profile again, copying the link and then emailing it to me. I’m human, of course, and so naturally I find the flaws, foibles and fuck-ups of other humans inherently funny. There’s nothing I like more than hearing how unrelentingly shit other people can be, because it makes me feel like less of a blundering oaf.

Tell me about it, by all means. If you’ve spotted a dating profile where someone’s used a UKIP quote in the ‘things I like’ section, then that’s well worth a pub-time anecdote. But I don’t want your links.

There’s something so deeply personal about an online dating profile that even the idea of other people seeing mine (I’ve wiped it now, so don’t go looking) makes me shiver with cold dread. Like showing your CV to a work colleague who has known you for years – someone who knows that most of what you’ve written is – at best – rose tinted and – at worst – bordering on fantasy.

Mistakes, misogyny and mockery

I don’t like it when people lie on internet dating profiles. When they send messages that are presumptuous or rude. I don’t like it when they make sexist statements or offer arrogant critiques of people’s profile photos. There are many things that I not only don’t like, but that will have me wishing slapstick comeuppance on anyone who comes across as vaguely right wing.

But I don’t want you to show it to me. There are two reasons for this:

1. I have probably seen it, or something like it, already. No, really. I’ve done a lot of internet dating, so if you send me someone’s profile picture along with an amused email about how he’s odd because he included a photo of his dick, the best reaction you’re going to get from me is ‘so?’ I’ve seen quite a few dicks – attached to profiles, emails, and (if I’m really lucky) actual men. I’ve also seen messages where people just say ‘how r u sexy’, or write clumsy erotica, or offer to be your slave forever. Unless it’s a spectacularly unusual message or picture, my reaction is likely to disappoint you. If you want someone to be shocked by it, you’re better off sending it to your mum.

2. I’m uncomfortable laughing directly at people. Sure, if a friend trips on the way to the bar and accidentally spills a beer over someone I didn’t like much, I might have a bit of a snigger. But there’s a world of difference between the odd giggle at someone’s flaws and an anonymous shredding of someone who has laid themselves bare for you in the hope that you’ll approve. The shredding is fine, but when you’re shredding someone and I have to look into their eyes – even if they’re separated by a net connection and the knowledge that they’ll never hear what I have to say about them – there’s a feeling of discomfort that just isn’t enjoyable. If you asked me to kick a kitten I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it just because you assured me it was dead and wouldn’t feel a thing. It’s still not a fun thing to do.

I’m not saying people on dating sites are all amazing and wonderful, nor even that in mocking them you’re a horrible person. What I am saying is that if you want me to join you in appraising and critiquing, I don’t need to see who they are.

Knowing me, knowing you

This brings me on to my final point – and it’s a very important one. Be wary of being too judgmental about people when you’re telling someone else about them. Recently a friend of mine (a new member of OKCupid, on my wholehearted and overenthusiastic recommendation) sent me a profile of a guy she thought she liked, and told me that he’d ruined things by having ‘massive sex issues.’ Meaning to incite a good old giggle and a session of bitching, she invited me to offer judgment about his ‘freakish’ foibles.

Unfortunately for her, his ‘freakish’ foibles sounded pretty hot to me. Moreover, based on a slightly blurry picture and his style of profile writing, I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d already sampled them.

She didn’t reply to his message.

Summer’s come around, eventually. Time for us to run to the park to play cricket badly, burn things on barbecues while sipping lukewarm Fosters, and – if you’re me – growl with resentment at the fact that you have to show people your shaving rash if you want to go swimming.

I shave my crotch sometimes. Not all the time – in fact, one might say I’m reasonably lax about the removal of body hair. Ultimately, shaving things takes time and effort that I’d rather spend on having fun. However, I don’t mind the occasional shave because I like it when people come all over my cunt, and I get to rub it in. I’m gross like that.

So I have no problem with shaving, or hair removal, if it’s something people want to do. What pisses me off, though, are situations where I feel uncomfortable if I don’t. Situations in which I feel singularly incapable of channeling all of the angry liberal feminist rage I feel most of the time, and simply end up looking wistfully at my crotch and wondering why I give such a massive and disproportionate shit about how it looks. In this case, the thing that has made me angry is the prospect of swimming in the sea.

Caught between a rock and a hairy place

I understand that aesthetically some people prefer smooth thighs and a bald crotch, with no pubic hairs poking out of the sides of a swimming costume, but unfortunately for me (and, I suspect, a hell of a lot of other women too) this isn’t actually an option.

The choice for me is between a hairy crotch or an ugly shaving rash, ingrowing hairs, and a desire to scratch myself that’s likely to get me arrested in public places.

When I’ve confessed this to people before, their response has usually been ‘well, why don’t you wax?’ Great thinking, kids, but unfortunately waxing makes no discernible difference to whether my cunt turns bright red and causes me immeasurable discomfort for a week. What’s more, it hurts like… well… like a sadist ripping hairs out of your pudenda.

I got my crotch waxed once, so I know what it feels like. Anyone who suggests that I do this, in the same casual tone as they would if they were recommending a certain film, needs a quick, sharp lesson in empathy. Because my God, people, it hurts. A lot.

When I regaled my Mum with the horrible tale of my inaugural cunt-waxing, she summed up pretty much how I felt about the matter.

“I had it done once,” she said “and it hurt, but only slightly more than childbirth.”

I would probably have been less upset by the pain if it turned out there was a ‘gain’ from it afterwards, but unfortunately the very next day I was nursing bright red patches and itching again, still unable to wear a bikini in case people on the beach thought I was contagious.

How do you solve a problem like a hairy crotch?

I challenged myself to write this entry without recourse to my usual rage-fuelled bile-spitting about society’s expectations of presentation and body. Not because it’s unimportant (it’s very important) but simply because I recognise that no amount of raging and ranting and writing empowering blogs on the internet can magically stop someone being bothered about crotch hair.

If someone gives you an odd look when you stand on the beach, straggling pubes waving in the breeze, your discomfort won’t be lessened any by knowing that I wrote a feminist blog about it the week before. Knowing that I shouldn’t care about this stuff – that I’m intrinsically happy in my worth as a human being whether my crotch is bald or not – doesn’t make the slightest difference to my irrational, emotional insecurity about it.

When we arrive in Utopia, no one will ever have to worry about whether they have crotch hair, or a shaving rash, moles in unusual places or stretchmarks or cellulite or any of the other things that cause us to panic. We’ll all be far too busy swimming to give even the smallest flying fuck about anyone’s perceived imperfections.

But right now that’s not helpful or comforting. Right now I’m preparing for a holiday, staring mournfully at a bikini and dreading the moment I have to show it – and whatever state my crotch is in – to the world.

There’s no conclusion to this that’s in any way satisfying. In the short term I’m buying shorts. Long shorts. Swimming shorts. The really baggy ones that go down to my knees. Twinned with a bikini top and an angry stare, they should get me through this summer, at least.

And in the longer term, well. There’ll be more angry blog posts and rants about what is not wrong with you and why no one should feel compelled to shave their body hair. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we reach our Utopia before summer 2014, when this whole charade begins again.

Ever wondered what an orgasm feels like for someone other than you? Well, wonder no more! After posting my enthusiastic yet relatively incompetent description of my orgasm on Wednesday, lots of people have had a go at putting one of the most complicated physical sensations into actual real-life words.

If you fancy trying it yourself (and why wouldn’t you? It’s a good excuse for both wanking and wordplay) then either describe your orgasm in the comments below, email it to hellogirlonthenet at gmail, or post it on your own blog and link here. There’ll be a prize for the best one (prize TBC but I’m open to suggestions) and in the meantime you get the glory and joy of creating yet another piece of content for vast swathes of the internet to pleasure themselves to.

What does an orgasm feel like? Entries so far…

I’ll let the lovely Cammies on the Floor begin:

“It starts with pressure inside of me, a pressure of fiction, an awareness of movement in and out of me.

“Then I begin to tighten into the pressure. I can do this at whim, but more often than not, it just happens. When I am short on time, know this is a quickie, or am tired, I can tighten, making me come closer to the sensation faster…” If you’re already dribbling a bit – that’s the idea – please do read the rest over on her blog.

Rebecca’s entry is hot – in both the metaphorical and the literal sense:

“It begins with a warm buzzing around my heart. This spreads to my upper arms and my head and grows, just as the nerves pulse downward towards my groin. Then the burning starts. The burning starts low and wide, around my crotch, then it intensfies and localises in my clitoris, burning more intensely as I hold my breath and stretch out my legs…” Hotness continues in the story over  here.

Not to be outdone by the first Rebecca, another Rebecca joins in:

“First, the anticipation. The delicious knowledge of what is waiting. This is what makes me start to breathe a little heavier and start to writhe, ever-so-slightly. Just the mere expectation of the orgasm raises my heart rate, widens my eyes and causes me graze my teeth across my lips…” After an excellent start, her orgasm builds spectacularly.

Ritchie has taken a more methodical approach, breaking orgasms down by type:

“Generally, there is an extremely pleasant warmth that starts around my balls and (and I’m not too sure how to describe this) the ‘root’ of my cock. By root I mean that a cock isn’t blu-tacked onto that bit of your stomach 6 inches or so below the belly button. It goes further in to your body to the pit of the stomach. The warmth spreads, but not too far, and at the point where I am about to come it kind of becomes all encompassing…” If you’re anything like me, you might want to print his comment and keep it under your pillow.

Commenter George has written a charmingly lyrical description:

“I lose control and forget the world; Arms and hands stiffen; My buttocks clench as a mellow pleasure engulfs me; With each contraction, my eyes screw up as ecstasy travels from groin to brain in heartbeat…” And here’s the comment with its poetic conclusion.

Steve dropped me an email with his entry, and it brightened up my evening no end:

“I can vividly remember my first manually induced orgasm. As with many men, this first furtive spanking of the monkey took place in the bath – once that most innocent of pastimes, but from age 12 onwards the location of much fumbling, stroking and general yanking of teenage pork sword. I knew from whispered playground conversations what the mechanics of “having a wank” were. But I’d never actually tried to put these instructions into practice until this occasion.” I’ve posted the full thing in  a comment and it’s as funny and evocative as it is hot.

Ian’s description of a building pressure almost makes me feel the pressure in my stomach:

“It’s like a slowly building, but perfectly pleasant, pressure. Something inside that makes me more sensitive, that makes every movement filled with a little more joy, and in amongst that an urge for something more: to increase the pressure, to keep increasing it, with each increase feeling better and better, until you reach the point where the only thing that would feel better than holding this delicious pleasure is releasing it. In that moment of release it’s like a whole body and mind exhalation.” Read the rest of his entry.

Bubbleburst hits on the trembling, shaking feeling:

“When he makes me cum my hands shake. That’s what he likes to focus on after the withering and growling. After my world has become very big and suddenly very small. My hands shake, like proper tremors you can feel right through me….” And it is completely amazing.

Last (but by no means least) Anon put her finger directly on what I couldn’t – her description of an orgasm which ‘radiates’ struck a chord with me:

“Bringing myself to an orgasm is something that I can do in seconds. A few quick rubs, and a tiny orgasm builds up and suddenly there’s a release of pressure and tension that I didn’t know existed. It’s almost like when you get a really good massage therapist, one who rids you of knots you didn’t realise were there. Except these balls of tension built up in my lower back, in my thighs. I get tense and suddenly – poof! – a release…” In case you can’t tell from that, it’s well worth reading her description in full.

Describe your orgasm

As I wrote in my original post, I love the idea of trying to describe an orgasm – it’s something so personal and intimate and – frankly – bloody difficult, that by writing it down for someone you’re giving them a window into something incredibly unique. I can taste the cake you’re eating, I can hear your favourite music, but I can never fully put myself in your shoes (or your pants) and feel exactly how you come.

If you fancy having a go, the competition’s still open. I’ll find something nice (yet not massively expensive because I’m skint) to give as a prize, and keep your entries coming in via comments, email or on your own blog.