It is categorically none of my business what you stick in your cunt. As long as it is a) not going to cause you (or anyone else) damage and b) not something which you have stolen from my house, then I wish you the best of luck and happy wanking.

However, I have a minor personal gripe with the sex toy industry, and it goes a little something like this:

WHY IS SO MUCH OF YOUR STUFF SO FUCKING CUTE?

Sorry, correction: why is so much of your girl stuff so fucking cute?

I’m not saying no one likes it, or that it should be banned – I’m sure there are plenty of women who are happy to stuff bright pink menageries up their vaginas. And to be honest, I’ll do the same if there’s nothing else to hand and I fancy an executive wank.

But I resent it, deep down. Because my usual method of shopping online, no matter what I’m buying, is to sort it into colours and then pick the least sparkly. I’m with Henry Ford: it should come in any colour, so long as it’s black. And at least 7 inches. And powerful enough to bruise my cervix.

I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote.

No, I do not want a face on it

Pink things aside (because I know I am in a minority in my general hatred of colour) could we at least stop pretending that in order to get a woman to insert something into herself, it needs to have some sort of animal on?

It’s as if, when Ann Summers invented the never-bettered Rampant Rabbit, the head of their marketing team (let’s call him Dave) said “hey, it looks like women like rabbits. And cute things. Let’s give them more animals to fuck!” and everyone shifted awkwardly in their seats and didn’t say anything because Dave was the boss and they didn’t want to embarrass him. Well they should have embarrassed him. Someone should have stood up and said:

“Look, Dave, I don’t want to make things awkward for you, but women don’t like fucking rabbits, OK? I mean, maybe one or two women like fucking rabbits, but the majority of women don’t like fucking rabbits.”

“So,” Dave retorts, with a smug ‘you’re almost fired’ smirk on his face “if they don’t like fucking rabbits why are they buying the Rampant Rabbit, Trevor?”

At which point Trevor leaps to his feet and shouts “BECAUSE IT DOES GOOD THINGS TO THEIR CLIT, DAVE. WOMEN LIKE IT WHEN WE DO GOOD THINGS TO THEIR CLITS.”

And there you have it. The Rampant Rabbit is awesome because it has a bit that goes inside and is all swirly, and makes your cunt feel good, and a simultaneous bit that goes on the outside and buzzes against your throbbing clit. The fact that the outsidey bit looks like rabbit ears is no more relevant to your orgasm than whether the box it came in is made from recycled cardboard.

Does cute do it for you?

There’s a movement recently towards more abstract sex toys: shapely things that could just as easily be an ornament as a fucktoy – I wholeheartedly approve of these. I also approve strongly of the ones that look like plain, old-fashioned cock. These are excellent.

But I don’t understand why there are still so many that have been Disneyfied. Whether it’s making them vaguely dolphin-shaped, branding them with Hello Kitty, or giving them the face of a creepy mutant smurf.

As with everything I write this comes with a gigantic flashing neon caveat that says ‘some people will disagree with me.’ Because there is no single sexy thing on which all humans can agree, there may well be people who are more aroused by a sex toy if it comes with a grinning face.

But these people – and I don’t think I am going out on a particularly shaky limb here – are almost definitely in the minority. How often have you heard someone say ‘that’s hot, but it’d be totally hotter if it had a tail like a chinchilla’? It’s just not that common. What’s more, if these products really are catering to a significant group that gets aroused by cute things, surely we’d see a slight overspill into the male section of the market. And yet, as far as I know, no sex toy manufacturer has captalised on this particular opportunity by sticking googly eyes on a Fleshlight.

It’s marketing, yeah?

No one at Lovehoney has yet offered me a lucrative blogging contract, so I do not have access to amazing data on what people do and don’t want in terms of sex toys. It is possible that the reason they are making these products is because there is huge demand for them. When they send people out to accost women on the street and ask them what they would like to stick in their vaginas, many of those women might say:

“I don’t mind, as long as it looks like a furry rodent.”

And their market research people rush back to the office to get Dave all excited about the Clit Squirrel.

So, it’s possible. But again, if cute fucks are so popular, why is this phenomenon mostly limited to female-solo toys? After all, we don’t paint smiley faces on strapon belts, or market sex swings as ‘cuddle harnesses’.

If women are genuinely more likely to buy things because they’re cute, that suggests toys need to be made unsexy before girls will feel confident about clicking the ‘buy’ button. Is this because women are naturally more squeamish about sex? Or is it because women are constantly told that we should be more squeamish about sex? That we should be virtuous and innocent, and the only possible reason why we might buy something that is sex-related is not because it makes our cunt throb with a need to be fucked, but our ovaries squeal in appreciation of how adorable this particular sea horse is.

I’m not going to say I know either way, because I’m just speculating. But I’m speculating pretty fucking hard that it’s the latter.

How do we solve a problem like a sparkly dolphin dildo?

As ever, I’m not calling for a ban, because the inside of your vagina is no business of mine. However, I am going to publicly and loudly state that the only things I care about with sex toys are:

• safety
• price
• whether it does good things to my sticky bits

I not only don’t care if it’s cute, I’ll be actively turned off if it is. I don’t want people to stop making them, or those that genuinely like them to stop buying them. I just want Dave in marketing to have a think, when deciding whether to shape a new vibrator like a creepy smurf thing, why exactly he feels he needs to.

As for the women who prefer our sex toys without My Little Pony-style packaging, who get annoyed when something that provides a genuinely nice wanking experience (i.e. the Rabbit) has to look like a Happy Meal toy – I’d like us to be louder and more honest in our feedback. We need to send a message to manufacturers that, for many of us, this cuteness is not only unnecessary but – if their goal is to make us come like a freight train – actively unhelpful.

I don’t want to rub my clit with a gerbil, I just want to rub my clit.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, so if you buy toys from the companies I get a small cut of the money which helps me keep this site running.

On Friday night I did a bad thing. In case you’re expecting domination, sadism and sexy pain, I should warn you right now that this isn’t going to be that sort of blog.

In the pub on Friday, around five or six pints into an eight pint night, a funny conversation I was having with a friend was interrupted by a reasonably attractive, smiley gentleman. He cut in, with a cute, ‘can I get to know you’, response to something I’d been saying. He was sweet, and friendly, and nice, and making an honest attempt to chat me up.

And I shot him down.

Not just a ‘not right now’ shoot down, or an ‘I have a boyfriend’ shoot down. I didn’t even crack out the cold stare that I’ve seen others give to this kind of approach when they’re not in the mood to be spoken to. I shot him down with a cruel, cruel comeback. Something that both my drunken mind and my drunken friend agreed was hilarious and witty, but which my sober mind wants to suck straight back into my evil, rude, insulting face.

Chatting people up is hard

I’m obviously not going to shag every passing drunk who says ‘hello’, but I’ve always sworn that if someone approached me politely they’d get politeness back.

Why? Well, it takes a fuck of a lot of courage to approach someone you don’t know. A guy who talks to me in a pub is not so much wearing his heart on his sleeve as offering his dick up on a platter: ‘do you want this? Is this good enough for you? Do I gain your acceptance and approval?’

I come out in shivers of nervousness and terror just remembering times when I’ve done the same.

And I have, by the way – done the same. I’m no fan of being the chatter-up rather than the chattee, but I’ll do it when I really fancy someone, because I don’t want to be reliant on them making the first move. Girl friends of mine have told me that I should refrain from stamping up to men reeking of vodka and slurring “You’re brilliant. Can I buy you a drink?” and wait instead for them to approach me. But bollocks to that.

I don’t want to hang shyly in a corner of a pub, batting my eyelashes and clutching my outdated gender stereotypes while the man of my dreams sits fucklessly by the bar. I also know that the sort of men I like (shy, nerdy ones) are often unwilling to approach me because they’ve seen their more confident friends on the receiving end of unnecessarily harsh rejections.

Bottom line: I understand why people are terrified of chatting someone up, because I am also terrified. But I do it to avoid being stuck in a sexless limbo. Horrible though approaching is, asking someone if they fancy a shag and receiving a ‘no’ is still marginally better than going home alone to crywank under the duvet.

I don’t want to fuck an arsehole

But ultimately, the most important reason why politeness should always win out in chat-up scenarios is because being rude makes you wholly unfuckable.

Even if the person chatting you up isn’t necessarily one you fancy, someone you do fancy could well be nearby. And I don’t know many people who’d want to sleep with the sort of shitbag arrogant cunt who would immediately dismiss someone.

Moreover, that hot stranger standing nearby might be thinking about talking to you. He or she might be preparing a line, working up the courage, eagerly anticipating the chance to talk to you. If they hear you telling someone else to utterly and unequivocally fuck off, they’re unlikely to leap eagerly into the conversation and offer their own dignity up for you to shred.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

And so my penance for doing this – for being just the sort of cold-hearted arrogant twat that I despise – is to relive the moment as I write this blog entry, and cringe in miserable shame. I can’t make things better, but I can apologise, so if you’re reading this, sweet 20-something blond boy in the long grey jacket: I’m so fucking sorry.

I’m sorry I was cruel. I’m sorry I’m a shit. And I’m sorry that you might just think twice before you talk to a girl again. I didn’t just break my chat-up rules, I broke the only rule that ever really matters: whatever life throws at you, try not to be a dick.

 

Huffington Post this week has scraped right through the bottom of the internet barrel, and presented us with two photographic galleries of relationship ‘deal-breakers’. These are things which, if your new girl/boyfriend finds them in your flat, will mean an instant end to your relationship. Things deemed so important that people must eradicate them from their home at all costs lest they risk terrifying future partners.

For the record, and in the interests of full disclosure, here are some of mine:

Girlonthenet’s deal breakers

1. A signed photograph of Nadine Dorries.

2. A sofa smeared in fresh human excrement.

3. A well-thumbed copy of Neil Strauss’ hateful twat-manual ‘The Game’.

4. A bathroom cabinet filled with homeopathic remedies.

5. A severed human head.

With these in mind, I had a look through the HuffPo galleries, at the things they’d elevate to ‘deal breaker’ status. For the record, I’m expecting horror: racist literature, blood-splattered walls, cavepaintings drawn in one’s own faeces, etc.

Deal breakers for women

Here is a selection of HuffPo’s top ‘deal breakers’ for women – the things that, if found in a man’s apartment, would put them off for life.

1. An empty toilet roll tube. Because women, as well as being prolific urinators, are also incapable of asking you where you keep the spare loo roll.

2. A cheap Ikea coffee table. Because if you are poor and you cannot afford a nice antique coffee table, then you do not deserve coffee-cup relief. Put that cup on the fucking floor like the cheap, tasteless scumbag you are. You think I’m joking, but this is what the journo actually suggests.

3. Hair in the sink/dirty dishes/dirty sheets. These are all variations on a theme. Basically, gents, they’re telling you that all women will give a significant and powerful flying fuck about how clean your house is. Learn to de-scale a kettle or you will die alone.

4. Toothpaste in the sink. I might be alone in this, but my first thoughts were ‘what the crying FUCK is wrong with toothpaste?’ The journo kindly explains: “This is a total gross out.” What? Why? Toothpaste is a product designed to a) go in your mouth and b) make it clean. Describing it as a ‘gross-out’ displays levels of squeamishness that any sensible human would struggle to sustain.

5. No hand towel in the bathroom. That’s right – being unable to dry your hands after washing is not just an inconvenience, it is a DEAL BREAKER. If a woman has wet hands she categorically will not fuck you. As someone who has a) jeans and b) the initiative to dry my hands on my jeans should I ever find myself lacking a hand towel, this was the deal breaker for me, and the point at which I gave up on this particular gallery.

Luckily for me, you and no doubt the rest of civilisation, there was another gallery – one which evened out the balance by explaining the heinous and absolutely deal breaking crimes that women commit, as listed by the men who have broken deals because of them.

Deal breakers for men

1. Stuffed toys/blankets/dolls. Basically anything from your childhood: items from your childhood are liable to turn a man off. Burn them.

2. Pictures of your exes. Because the thought of you having ever been with another man is a turn-off so huge that no man could ever overcome it – DEAL BREAKER, remember?

3. Cats. Men clearly associate cats with bad things – spinsters, wicked witches, and Tom off of Tom and Jerry. Luckily, though, cats are the only pets mentioned, so feel free to choose from anything else in the animal kingdom. Personally I’m a big fan of snakes.

4. Nice cups. Because men will only drink things from either pint glasses or mugs, and will take any offer of beverages in a more delicate drinking receptacle as a slur on their masculinity. Remember this is not just a ‘nice to have’, it’s a DEAL BREAKER, so if you give a man coffee in a china cup, don’t be surprised if he hurls it on the carpet then storms out of your house screaming ‘I thought you were SERIOUS about this RELATIONSHIP.’

5. Tampons. And this was the point at which my head exploded, splurging gory mess all over the nice cups I keep on my cheap Ikea coffee table. I couldn’t even clean up the splurge, because when I went to the bathroom I realised I had neither hand towels nor toilet roll. So instead I just accepted that my flat would be permanently covered in blood. From now on, once every four weeks, I’ll have to wander my flat, menstruating mournfully, unable to staunch the flow with tampons in case men who love me feel a bit uncomfortable when they spot them lurking in the back of the bathroom cabinet.

I joke, of course. I am no more going to stop using tampons than I’m going to start regularly washing my sheets. But that’s not because I don’t care what men think, it’s because I am 100% confident that most people don’t actually see this stuff as a ‘deal breaker.’

It’s only a bit of fun, GOTN, you idiot

I don’t mind people playing up to stereotypes a bit to get a laugh. I don’t even mind people being a bit shallow sometimes and joking that they couldn’t possibly go out with someone who couldn’t pick their dirty pants up off the bedroom floor. But what I do object to is when lazy journos assume that humans are about seven bajillion times more shallow than we actually are.

I’m far more likely to have dirty bedsheets and a cheap Ikea coffee table than some of the guys I’ve fucked. I’ve got ex-boyfriends who will rant about my inability to clean the bathroom. I’ve fucked guys who’ve had piles of dirty washing up, plugholes that look like they need to be shaved, and – on occasion – no fucking bedsheets whatsoever. And yet none of these things has ever been a ‘deal breaker’ – for me or for my open-minded shags.

We humans are a beautifully disgusting collection of weirdos, so why are we still reading lazy jokes that make us all look like predictable, automated arseholes?

Most people will see these things for what they are – there probably won’t be men reading it thinking ‘oh God, that’s me. I never have hand towels available, it’s no wonder I’m so miserable and alone.’ But there will be women whose friends joke that they need to ditch their cats before they can find a boyfriend. There’ll be girls who feel like they should buy nice cups and soft furnishings if they’re going to be a ‘proper’ grown-up. There’ll be boys who have a weird discomfort around tampons despite the fact that they’re actually – you know – a pretty fucking normal thing to have lying around the house.

Men are filthy, indolent slobs and women are collectors of pretty, homely things. Girls hate it when guys don’t put the toilet seat down, and guys hate it when girls menstruate. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Boys are blue, girls are pink. 

It’s a joke, I get it. It’s just a really fucking old one.