I’m a freakish weirdo when it comes to foreplay, I think. I’ve spoken before about how I don’t really like getting head. A good fingering is nice every now and again, but I’m a bit impatient. Just as I’m the first in the pub at 5 pm on Friday, itching to start the weekend, when the chance for a shag comes around I’m the one speeding things up in anticipation of what I see as the ‘main’ event, pulling down my knickers and mumbling “just put it in me – now – please.”

But recently I spoke to the rather lovely @EasilyTempted on Twitter, who talked so lovingly about foreplay (or rather – those myriad aspects of sex that don’t involve putting a dick into a vagina) that it might have tempted me to spend a bit more time doing it.

Here’s what she said:

EasilyTempted – on foreplay

This week my husband and I had a beautiful and lengthy 69. I came on his face, more than once, and he came in my mouth. And then I fucked about on Twitter, while he cooked me scrambled eggs. Possibly a perfect evening.

But.

‘Officially’ we didn’t have even have sex. It got me thinking about the word ‘foreplay’ and how misleading and flawed it is as a concept. Foreplay traditionally describes something which is the precursor to sex. But what is sex?

Personally I think of sex in terms of sexual satisfaction with a partner (or partners ~ I’ve read this blog). In this model I would see it as something that involves an orgasm. But what if you can be sexually satisfied without an orgasm? (I have heard such people exist). And do both people have to have an orgasm or just one?

I have no answers.

Given access to each other, my husband and I probably have sex around five times a week and we have been fucking for 12 years. This adds up to a fair amount of sex. But actual penetration – classic penis in vagina stuff – plenty of what we do involves or concludes that way and a great deal doesn’t.

I don’t orgasm from penetration alone, so perhaps that is why fucking is an element of my sex life but not the focus. My husband is also not interested in isolated penetration – if we have limited time he will almost certainly choose abstinence over a simple fuck. So in that sense foreplay is everything to us, which is why I don’t like the implications that it is ‘just’ the starter.

We are both oral-centric. Kissing, licking, sucking – we live in a grown up sexy lollipop shop.

If he kisses and bites me all over for so long that when he puts his fingers on my clitoris I come immediately, is that foreplay?

If I fuck him with my strap-on, is that foreplay?

If he straps me down, spanks me, and fucks my arse with a dildo, is that foreplay?

These are all things we have done this week, and yet we only had penetrative sex once. Include the 69 and that is only one in four.

Blowjobs seem to be in the middle of the Venn Sex Diagram for a lot of people. You have penetration on one side and foreplay on the other but for a lot of people a blowjob means both – this is all down to Bill Clinton, everyone had that discussion.

But somehow, the feminist in me rails against the idea that if just the man has an orgasm it’s sex but if just the woman has an orgasm it is foreplay. Because this would mean the male orgasm trumps the female.

What I don’t like about the expression is that it gives virgins, new lovers, or even bad lovers the idea that anything before the penetration is merely a waiting room for the main event.

There is a lot more to sex than in and out.

If you don’t already follow @EasilyTempted, you definitely should. She also has an incredibly sexy Tumblr where she collects pictures of people doing the good stuff.

Gentlemen, start your engines, because it’s your turn now. Pull down your trousers, hold your dicks aloft, and start wiping them with special cock-cleansing wipes.

That’s right – worry no more. Having ridiculous expectations about your body is now no longer confined to women. And in case you were wondering, there’s also a product for your balls.

Femfresh social media fail

Last week I wrote about Femfresh – that delightful ‘feminine hygiene’ product that purported to ‘woo hoo your froo froo’ with ‘PH-balanced’ wipes, cleansers and sprays. Lovely.

Since then they’ve had something of a PR nightmare, as the Femfresh facebook page has suffered an onslaught of mockery dished out by a human race which, thanks to this, I now have a lot more faith in. Ladies and gentlemen of facebook: I salute you.

If they’ve taken it down, the Wallblog has screenshots.

What’s the point of shouting?

I feel a bit sorry for Femfresh now – yes, they’re peddling a hatefully unnecessary product. But then, so are Tampax – they sell scented tampons. So are Vagisil and Carefree. And yes, so are Freshballs and Fellaswipes.

While it’s great that one of these companies has taken a bit of a battering over a product that is designed to make us feel shameful about the natural genital smells humans produce, the reporting has been a bit confused on the issue.

The lead story (on blogs like The Wall and HuffPo) has been ‘Women start a backlash because a marketing company called their fanny a ‘la-la.” And that’s not strictly the case.

Firstly, it’s not just women. Men are offended by this shit as well – and why wouldn’t they be? Men no more call it a ‘la-la’ than they’d call their dick a ‘dinkle.’ Just because the childish words used in Femfresh’s campaign are about vaginas, that doesn’t mean that you need to have a vagina to recognise how ridiculous the campaign is. There were plenty of men on their facebook page too.

Secondly, people aren’t just angry because a company referred to vaginas as ‘la-la’s. Or ‘nooni’s or ‘kitty’s, for that matter. This language is offensive and patronising, sure, but most of the comments on the page seem to be surrounding the product itself. The misery of discovering that there was yet another thing we were expected to do to our bodies to sanitize them and prettify them before we’d be allowed out in society.

The bright side of Femfresh

I am disgusted by these products – vaginal sprays, dick wipes, scented tampons – and I am disgusted that we live in a world where people are paid to persuade us that they’re necessary.

But I’m actually pretty happy that this happened. We could have watched the next few weeks go by, occasionally making angry comments about the ads plastered on phone boxes or facebook updates about being ‘proud of your pom-pom’, but we didn’t. A huge bunch of people stepped in and gave what Femfresh – in their characteristically euphemistic way – calls ‘feedback.’ They started a massive, angry, stamping kickoff, and told them that we don’t need their bullshit.

So whether you’re male or female, the next time you see an ad or a website for ‘intimate hygiene products’ that tries to persuade you your body is disgusting and unnatural, remember that you’re fine as you are. Not only do you not stink, but the people who think you do just got utterly owned on facebook.

God bless the internet.

Let it henceforth be known that you may do anything you like with my friends, or my casual fucks. If they consent to it then you may touch them, kiss them and shag them in whatever depraved manner and in whatever tantric position gives the most pleasure to the two of you at the time.

But if you touch the boy I love I will tear you into a billion pieces. I will scatter those pieces across the globe, then spend the rest of my life retracing my steps so that I can stamp on each individual one of them until you are ground into a shower of dust.

Jealousy isn’t as bad as we think

The key argument against jealousy is that it implies ownership. I don’t think that’s true. Ownership of a certain kind is good – whether your relationship is open or monogamous there’s a delicious thrill in being able to say “he’s mine.”

It doesn’t mean that you own that person completely, and feeling jealous does not in fact give you any rights at all over the other person. But part of mutual love is giving a tiny bit of yourself up to the other person. And being jealous is your way of saying “I give a shit about this. This is significant.”

But there’s a world of difference between being a bit possessive – “I want you all to myself you scrummy pile of gorgeousness” – and being so jealous that it becomes destructive – “I don’t want you to see your best friend any more because I’m worried that you fancy them.”

Jealousy is still really fucking bad

The key problem with jealousy is that it is arational. There’s nothing inherently green-eyed-and-evil about getting angry with your monogamous partner for snogging someone else – they broke your agreement, so you have a right to be angry. Your possession of this person extends up to (but not beyond) an expectation that they don’t have sexual contact with anyone else.

The problem with real, steaming, burning jealousy is that it is prompted by things that – to a rational observer – are not a cause for rage at all. Some wholly innocent events have our inner Iago stampeding out from the recesses of our brain screaming “I like not that!”

The receipt of a flirty text. A look interpreted as meaningful. A feeling that your partner’s too close to a certain person. A desire – a need – to know not just what they want to tell you but all the private things in their head as well.

And some people feel this more than others – some have a tendency to quiz their partners, go through pockets and trample on their privacy to get at whatever their gut tells them must be the truth. So as kind, understanding humans we need to try and comprehend why our partners feel this way. I’m not talking about giving in and letting them strip-search you because you were late home from work, but having patience and being willing to discuss the issue can – in my experience – do a hell of a lot to assuage the arational anger that is jealousy.

You’re probably better than I am

I am a terribly jealous person. I’ve destroyed nights out because I worried that boys weren’t paying me enough attention. I’ve ranted about that bitch from their work who won’t stop flirting. I’ve – oh God, my blood runs cold to write the words down – I’ve read a boy’s emails.

As expected, none of these things did me any good. Because at the end of the day, although it’s nice to know you’re wanted, no one’s partner ever said “hey, do that cute thing where you interrogate me about my close friends again, before reading my text messages behind my back.”

So just as we have a responsibility to be faithful (whatever ‘faithful’ means within your relationships), and a responsibility to be understanding when our partners occasionally swerve into unnecessary jealous rages, those of us who do tend towards jealousy also have a responsibility to be rational.

Our partners have chosen us, and that’s really significant – they’re not going to un-choose us in a hurry. And the majority of people are more likely to stumble into an innocent situation that causes one’s jealousy to flare up than they are to casually fuck a passing stranger. Boring, I know, but it’s the rational truth.

So, in relationships as elsewhere in life, we need to ignore our emotions occasionally and examine things with a rational head. Consider whether an innocent explanation is more likely. Step away from our partner’s phone and avoid reading their texts. We need to listen to our brain rather than the seething rage in our gut. When our inner Iago says “I like not that” we need to tell him to fuck off.