Most people living in the UK will have noticed that the sun came out this weekend. I mean, even if you haven’t opened the curtains or you live in a basement you’ll have noticed that the sun’s been out, because everyone with a social media account has been commenting on the joy of being able to go outside without wrapping yourself in waterproof plastic and holding a charm to ward off floods.

Back in October, I wrote about why Autumn is sexy. Although, as a wool-wrapped goth, I’m mainly a winter person, I thought that given the mood of general sun-worship I’d do the same for summer. Here are all the hot things I’m looking forward to during that one week in mid-August when we get something resembling a warm season.

Five reasons why summer is hot

Guys get their upper arms out

That’s right, gents, your upper arms and shoulders are to me what sugar is to a five year old. The muscle definition (which most of you have even if you aren’t bulked-up gym bunnies, by the way) is temptingly squeezable. I used to have a friend who’d roll up the sleeves of his t-shirt in the summer to ensure he didn’t get a tan line halfway down his biceps. Practical and sensible, sure, but it left me melting in an oozing puddle of knicker-moistening lust.

I’m not a fan of topless guys in very public places, though. I suspect this is a by-product of living in Japan for a few years, where people frowned on public semi-nakedness in the same way as they’d frown on public defecation. Taking off your entire shirt when you’re walking down the street feels a bit aggressive to me, so I shy away from looking at men who have got everything above the waist on display.

But your shoulders? Your biceps? Those big strong arms that I imagine squeezing me around the waist or neck? I cannot get enough of them.

Playing sports in the park

Men doing things. Men doing hot things. Men running around energetically while I sit under the cool shade of a nearby tree imagining what would happen if I snuck into their changing room and held up a sign that said “I am your post-match refreshment: FEAST UPON ME!”

The physicality of park sport combined with the playful friendliness of it (I’ve rarely seen groups of hooligans chanting when there are jumpers for goalposts) makes for a deeply erotic tableau.

And just so you know, it doesn’t have to be football. In my area of London the park sport of choice is cricket. Now cricket, despite being second only to golf as the most tedious non-sport known to mankind, at least has the benefit that the players use their hands. Sexy, sexy hands.

Speedos

Do you hate Speedos? Do you disparagingly refer to them as ‘banana hammocks’ or something equally crass? Well, when I am a millionaire with my own private pool you won’t be invited to the party.

I won’t give you any bullshit about the atmosphere they evoke, or the peripheral hotness of seeing a man in these tightest of tight swimming trunks. Speedos are hot because I can see your cock: end of.

Swimming shorts are hot too, because they drape so nicely over your manly hips and arse, and look excitingly like the weight of the water could drag them down your legs at any moment. Oh, and when they get wet, guess what? I can probably see your cock.

Holiday fucking

Whether I’m stuck in a hostel, trying to have awkward sex up against a bunkbed before some backpacking strangers get back from the bar, or holed up in a cheap Spanish apartment, tipsy on sangria and lazily wanking you off before we head out for late-night tapas, holiday sex is the ultimate in ‘couldn’t give a fuck’ fun.

When I’m on holiday I don’t care in the slightest that I’m sweaty, bedraggled, blotchy, burned, or have half the Sahara and a good portion of camel hair lodged in my arse crack. Unless you’re infinitely better than I am at picking up strangers over buckets of vodka in Ibiza, holiday sex is usually sex you have with someone you’ve known for ages. Someone who is just as relaxed and de-mob happy as you are, and has more than enough time to fuck your brains out.

If you feel the same about the hotness of holiday sex and you have a spare pile of money, let me know – I’ve got an awesome idea for a travel guide listing streets, restaurants and tourist attractions in which you can surreptitiously fuck. It’s basically The Lonely Planet, but for perverts.

Delicious salty man sweat

Need I say more about this, the ultimate in filthy summer delights? Well, I can’t. Because I am too busy licking it from your neck.

I’m the worst student. When I’m not cocking up the task you’ve set me, or getting stroppy because I don’t understand, I’m struggling to concentrate because – God damn my juvenile brain – there’s a teacher, and he’s got such sexy hands and commanding presence and I want to know what it would be like for him to put me over the desk and spank me.

Don’t get me wrong – I listen, I do. But I have such strong connections with school and arousal that there’s an unavoidable physical reaction I get that prevents me from always being the model student.

Teenage kicks right through maths class

Most people have a teacher they used to crush on. I’ve told you about mine before, and the feelings I had for him sit heavily in the back of my mind when I’m in any situation that involves sitting down and listening to a speaker.

But there’s more to the learning/sex association than a hot teacher and my own fluttering eyelashes – school itself was deeply hot.

I was a nerdy child. The one with greasy hair and crap glasses, who sat aching on the sidelines at the school disco, desperate for a boy to rub herself against but never quite cool enough to be asked. Interactions I did have with boys were usually furtive. Geeky guys drew the line at being associated with me and I, keen to ape the mysterious heirarchy of popularity, didn’t want to be too publicly associated with them for similarly misguided childish reasons.

So: furtive secrecy all the way.

A touch under the desk. An elbow brushing my chest when a boy leant across to get a pen. A five-minute grope behind the sheds on the playing fields until the bell rang for the end of lunchtime and I groaned and nearly melted into a puddle of my own frustrated angst.

Maths class was the best. I sat sandwiched between two friends, who used my desperation for in-class touching as an outlet for their own rampaging hormonal curiosity. We’d flirt. We’d touch. We’d scrawl notes to each other in the back of workbooks:

“I had a wank about you last night.”

And all the time knowledge was being hurled at me. Equations, formulae, words, techniques, answers. I wrote it down. I tried to focus. And I tried to wrench my brain away from the fact that oh God his hand was on my thigh and his fingers were so close and if I just shift a little bit to the right he’ll feel the wetness seeping through my knickers.

The hotness of learning doesn’t go away

I’m not young any more, and I can make it through a conference call or a powerpoint presentation without dripping concentrated lust through the crotch of my jeans. But the association, now made, cannot be broken. I’m the one sitting at the back noting down words and feeling hot with the physical memory of classes in which the boys deigned to touch me. The rigid stiffness of sitting still gives me an awareness of all of my muscles, my limbs, the rise and fall of my chest, the pulsing throb of my heartbeat kicking against the seams of my clothes.

It can’t just be me – it’s definitely not just me, right? The combination of youthful memories and adult fantasies means that when I’m at the back of the room I’m more vulnerable to instinctive arousal than ever. I’ll take notes, listen, and ask pertinent questions, but when I shift in my seat it’s not always because I’m uncomfortable.

Eroticon 2014

As you might have guessed, this weekend I was at Eroticon – a spectacular sex writing conference. I kept a bit quiet about going because I don’t like to broadcast where I am at any given point, but this post won’t go live until I’ve left. Alongside writhing in exquisite horniness for two solid days, I learned many fantastic things from some truly brilliant and lovely people. I’m sure I will miss some people off the list because I am fallible and useless and editing this on my phone – but thank you to everyone I met for being kind and putting up with my anxious mumbling.

Ruby Goodnight, Cara Sutra, Emily Dubberley and Mia More – all incredibly lovely people who taught me many things about online writing, press, and working the machine.

Molly and DomSigns – they are like the Sid + Nancy of sex blogging. Follow both of them, and if you get to meet them one day then you are incredibly lucky – try not to be as inarticulate and starstruck as I was.

Pandora Blake, Myles Jackman and Zak Jane Keir – they talked very wisely about censorship, and taught me things that scared the crap out of me. Zak wins the award for ‘quote of the weekend’: “If censorship is the answer, then it was a fucking stupid question.”

Victoria Blisse, KD Grace and London Faerie – sometimes you need to step outside what you know, and these people all taught me really interesting things about perceptions of sex outside my own limited experience and opinions.

The lovely people at Belle de Soir and Doxy who gave me one of these incredibly powerful fuckwands. I have never had a sex toy that comes this close to being an actual power tool, so expect a post soon in which I describe, in excessive detail, the terrifyingly awesome things I expect it’ll do to my cunt.

The excellent and hilarious HarperElliot and Gryphon taught me how to read porn out loud, so if you’re interested in hearing a blog post rather than reading it, let me know and I’ll try to record something using their excellent advice.

And a final, most heartfelt thank you to the awesome Ruby, who is the hard work and exceptional organisation behind Eroticon. You are spectacular, and thank you so much for having me.

As a sex blogger, I am legally obliged to provide some sort of fodder that hits the keyword “Valentine’s Day”, or Google will have me shot. But if you want a syrupy-sweet and romantic entry or a rant about twee, tedious predictability of the day itself, you’re better off looking at previous years’ entries. Because today I’m going to talk about House of Cards.

House of Cards on Valentine’s Day

No, this isn’t just an excuse to remind other fans that Season 2 of House of Cards will be released on February 14th, it’s simply because House of Cards presses so many of my ‘holy shit that’s so hot’ buttons that it is almost impossible to list them all.

I’ll give you my top ones, though.

1. Powerful, evil men

From Andrew Scott’s playfully terrifying Moriarty to the drawling, bass sarcasm of Professor Snape, there’s an entire book to be written about how deliciously sexy evil can be. I’m definitely not the only one who thinks this. Plenty of submissive-leaning people on Twitter replied to my achingly hot story about number 14 by telling me, in no uncertain terms, that they were off to rub themselves raw, and I’ve been in certain circles where one cannot mention Kevin Spacey’s name without causing at least three people to collapse in a puddle of their own lust.

Why is Kevin Spacey so sexy? I think it’s because in House of Cards he is a ruthless, vicious, scheming man. A bastard’s bastard. The créme de la créme of cunts. And with every new machination, each twisted smile or liberty taken, I want to hug myself with merciless joy and have him devour me like the wolfish Beelzebub he is.

2. Hate fucking

Not all the sex in House of Cards is hateful, but there’s certainly a hell of a lot more of it that is powered by rage, revenge, and politics than you’d get in your average drama series. Sometimes it’s nice to see the perfect couple getting together on screen. But at other times it’s fantastic to be reminded that sex can be had for many reasons: not all of them good.

An on-screen fuck is so much hotter when you know one or other of the characters has an ulterior motive.

3. Zoe Barnes (played by Kate Mara)

I very rarely fancy women, but I am happy to make an exception for Zoe Barnes. She’s indescribably stunning, as well as being sneaky and devious and cunning and all that good stuff too. She also has a quality that I am exceptionally jealous of – in anything she wears her tits look spectacular. I want to hug her so that our chests smoosh together, then pick her up and fuck her against a wall.

The perfect House of Cards relationship

Hauling this entry back from drooling celebrity lust and onto the crucial topic of Valentine’s Day (see, Google? I am playing your wicked game), the most insanely hot thing about House of Cards is the relationship between Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey) and his wife Claire (played by Robin Wright). They’re  both incredibly powerful people, but together they seem to be striving for a kind of give/take equality that I’ve rarely seen before.

Neither of them seems as concerned about fidelity as you’d expect from a high-profile married couple. They both make mistakes, sexually and personally, but what’s utterly fascinating is that they have this ongoing deal: I support you, then you support me. They know that it’s not always possible to excel simultaneously, so they take it in turns. Frank takes the limelight while Claire supports him from the wings, then they swap, and he dedicates his time to making sure that she gets the best exposure.

Every now and then they share a cigarette. The cigarette is, like all smoking on TV these days, a metaphor for their relationship. One of them will start it, then halfway through pass it to the other one. Breathing in, then out, then handing it over.

Love me like Frank Underwood

Don’t get me wrong, these characters are both pretty horrible people, so I wouldn’t recommend any of you turn into Frank Underwood any time soon (unless you are joining me in ‘filthy evil men’ sex games), but their relationship looks a lot like the sort of thing I want. A partnership of the most interesting kind, where you’ll step aside for your partner when they need to succeed, fight for their goals as passionately as you fight for yours, knowing with total certainty that they’ll do exactly the same thing for you a little way down the road.

And, of course, lust painfully after each other as you get dressed for a night out – because along with the support and the love, there’s always a little promise of fiery rage around the corner.

 

Addendum: If this entry wasn’t Valentine’s-y enough for you, here are some previous V-day entries ranked in order of how much I like them.

Love is like being tied to a rock that you also sort of want to have sex with

The most romantic thing I’ve ever written

Unwilling monogamy (not strictly V-day, but about love)

For Valentine’s Day I want a blowjob