We’ve all got things that we fantasise about which, were they to happen in real life, would disgust or annoy us. Things that might get our genitals throbbing but which cause the moral part of our brains to rebel, and give us a post-fantasy stern talking to.

My most embarrassing fantasy isn’t sexual – it isn’t even exciting. But it’s the one I have spent the most time on in the last week. I close my eyes, block out all the things I should be thinking about, and spend a few minutes on my idle dream.

What’s my most embarrassing fantasy?

I dream of being saved. Not in a knight-in-shining-armour way: it’s far more tedious and practical than that.

I retreat to this shameful fantasy when I’ve had a bad week and everything seems to be going wrong. When I end every day miserable and exhausted and knowing that the next day will be the same. When I sit at my laptop, babbling nervously into a to-do list and panicking about all the things yet to be crossed off, I dream that – corny as it sounds – my prince will come.

He won’t marry me and whisk me away to a suburban idyll, he’ll just come to hold me, let me sob dramatically and unnecessarily on his shoulder, before making a few phone calls that melt all my troubles away.

When I’m down, and sad, I dream of a man who can do all the things I just don’t want to do. Ringing insurance companies, rewriting my CV, replying to emails that have languished unhappily at the bottom of my inbox. My prince: the pragmatic multi-tasker.

Because of all the things someone could ever give me – money, power, a nice thick cock and a regular eye-rolling fuck, the most valuable thing they could ever give me is time.

Why is this an embarrassing fantasy?

I am a capable, reasonable, competent human being. Honestly. Last year my boiler packed up and I managed to get a replacement without either

a) getting ripped off

b) leaving it so long I had to shower in freezing water or

c) sobbing wildly on my kitchen floor shouting “why won’t you just WORK you dogshit arsewipe pile of metal bollocks?!”

OK, maybe I did a teeny bit of c).

I’ve made it twenty nine years so far with only the occasional need of outside help – someone to show me where the stopcock is, the odd spider that I just can’t handle, that sort of thing. And yet despite my pathetic pride and determination to do nearly everything myself, I occasionally let my mind wander off into dreams of men who’ll do these things for me. Bleed radiators, clean kitchen cupboards, instruct solicitors and other such tedious bullshit.

I feel dirty and wrong for this, not because it’s sick or unusual in the way that many of my fantasies are. Not because it’s demeaning or degrading, but because I feel like this makes me a bad feminist. I mean, it’s not very independent, is it? The Suffragettes didn’t go through hell just so I could get a man to deal with my paperwork when I get too flustered. It goes against principles that mean a lot to me, and much of what I’ve worked for.

But still. When things get tricky, and I find myself wading through the mountain of DIY, admin and “please hold for an operator who can explain to you why we’ve suddenly doubled your gas bill” I’m not wishing for more internal strength, but for someone who’ll be strong on my behalf.

Fantasy vs reality

I’ve voiced this fantasy a few times – usually over a pint or two of gin and one of those terrifying crying attacks where your friends either cuddle you so no one can see the state you’re in or push you into the toilets to ‘get it out of your system.’

And occasionally, when I confess my fantasies of being saved, people have commented on the fact that it’s at direct odds with what I actually want in life. That if a guy came through for me on this kind of fantasy – if he cleared up my messes and cleaned my to-do list and took hold of the reins of my life, I would scream blue murder and banish him forever.

To which my reply is: of course. Of course. It’s a fantasy. Just as I don’t really want guys to beat me – I want them to spank me in a very specific way, with a very specific degree of pain, to the point where it’s hot and sexual but no further – I also want them to support me to just the right degree without ever taking away my own agency.

The most enjoyable thing about many fantasies is that if you really wanted to, you could make them come true: as with this one. But I haven’t made it come true – I just like to wallow in it. I like to sit and think and dream of my practical prince, while eschewing any kind of assistance that might make me look less than competent. So by thinking this I get to find out what my little heart actually desires – the difference between what I actually want and what I think I want.

He can still do the washing up though. There’s no shame in letting him do that.

According to some people who give way too much of a shit, Jeremy Paxman has grown a beard.

Think what you like about it, but by God you have to think something. Today the internet has been bubbling with chatter: are you for or against the beard? Does it look good? Does it look scary, because for some reason someone once decided that all bearded men are Harold Shipman? Has your attitude towards Paxman’s hard-hitting interview questions changed because he happens to have some hair on his face? Let’s do a sodding online poll about it, shall we?

Anyway. Because I’m fucking contrary and annoyed, I’m going to weigh in to the beard debate with the definitive answer as to Whether Beards Are Good. Ready? Here goes:

Growing a beard is good

I’m a fan of beards – they’re often a pretty sexy way of framing and defining a man’s face. I’ve been with a few guys who have had some sort of facial hair, and with one guy who found facial hair so amusing he would regularly grow a beard just so that when he shaved it off he could experiment with various comedy styles.

They’re occasionally a bit scratchy when you’re kissing someone, and might irritate you if you’ve got sensitive skin, but the same can be said of a particularly coarse jumper fabric.

I love running my hands over a guy’s beard, feeling the scratchy texture of the hair on my palms. I love watching him trim the edges, that ‘I’m so grown-up’ feeling I get when I think about him doing something so adult. I enjoy the way it frames his face, and the variety – the different stages of beautiful he looks as it gets longer, shaggier, and eventually gets tidied up.

But the best thing, I think, about men who have beards is that they are clearly capable of making independent decisions about what to do with their own face.

Not growing a beard is also good

I also, though, like clean-shaven dudes. There’s a certain elegance and beauty about a really smooth shave. Again, I like to watch men do it, particularly the bit where they tip their head back to get at the hairs on their neck. I love the slight scratch of stubble as it starts to push through in the evening. I utterly adore the smell of a freshly-shaved guy when he rubs his face up next to mine.

But again, the best thing about a clean-shaven gentleman is that he is capable of making independent decisions about what to do with his own face.

Growing a beard is your own decision

I’m surprised at the number of people who would respond to the ‘should women shave their legs?’ question with a loud and decisive ‘it’s none of your fucking business’, yet are happy to pass judgment on a TV presenter just because he has chosen not to shave. I wouldn’t bother writing about this issue if it were just Jeremy Paxman – I appreciate that people are having a bit of fun and Paxo isn’t going to be sobbing into his autocue because some people on Twitter said his beard was shit. But the beard vs no-beard debate leaks awkwardly into a lot of our sexual discussion in a way that is pretty offensive to men, and this seems like an appropriate time to tackle it.

People say things like:

“I just couldn’t kiss a man with a beard”

“Men with beards just look untrustworthy”

Or even, in a move designed to hit not one but two of my ‘rage’ buttons: “The only thing worse than a beard is a ginger beard”

I’m not making these up, incidentally, these are all things people have said to me – the latter prompted a bollocking in the form of a tedious drunken lecture. Mumbled apologies ensued. Awkwardness happened. Lessons were probably not learned.

Preference vs pressure

I understand that people have personal preferences: some gentlemen really do prefer blondes, and some people really can’t get aroused unless their partner is clean shaven. Fair enough – passions like these are hard to control, and there’s no rule that says we must bestow equal lust on men no matter what their facial hair situation. However, there certainly is a rule that states we must avoid pressuring people to do certain things to their bodies just for our aesthetic pleasure. It’s the ‘don’t be a total arsehole’ rule.

Most adult men, in their natural state (and most women, come to that) will grow some hair on their faces. It might be dark, light, thick, coarse, downy or patchy, but ultimately most people will grow some hair on their faces. Having some hair on your face is the natural default for the majority of the adult population. The decision to remove it is one that can only be made by the owner of that face, and making them feel bad about their decision based purely on your aesthetic opinion about beards makes you a total arsehole.

So, just as it’s none of anyone’s business whether I shave my legs, wear make-up at work or wax my pubes into the shape of a lightning bolt, likewise it’s not for us to decide what hair Jeremy Paxman should or shouldn’t remove from his face.

I’ve written a book. It’s an erotic memoir, which begins at roughly the time I first started wanking and ends in 2012. It’s a story about sex, for the most part. It’s got swearing and filth and BDSM and all the things you’d expect if you’ve read my dirty blog entries. But it’s also got rants and a few of the ‘how not to be a douchebag’ rules I try, and frequently fail, to live by. It’s all of my fucks, and all of my fuck-ups, and it’s hopefully funny as well.

You can buy it from any of these places:

Amazon in the UK
Amazon in the US
Kobo
From Mills & Boon

Reviews

BookCunt says: “This is the thinking gentleman/woman’s filth, and will equally delight and disgust you. If you are a fan of the blog then this is a must read. As with all of GOTNs writing, it is a frank and honest, which are two of the best qualities for a memoir to be, in my opinion.”

Martin Robbins, who writes The Lay Scientist at the Guardian says: “It’s like Twilight, if Twilight were about sex instead of vampires and didn’t hate women.”

Curvaceous Dee, awesome hot sex blog writer, says: “Girl on the Net’s amazing memoir is just as hot as her blog, while adding what every memoir needs: a whole lot of wanking, some impressive sexual shenanigans, expanded stories that we never quite got to read enough of on her site, and some of the terrible rotten no-good very bad things that she did too.”

Christopher Mansell of ‘A Writers’ Side Quest’ says: “It’s delightfully filthy, throwing around the sort of language that would put my mother off reading with a casual glee. Stories of so-called normal sex, debauched sex, and even borderline rape in one disturbing case are all thrown in here, and there’s absolutely no holding back. What really elevates it for me is that it comes with its fair share of pathos too. GotN is not perfect by any stretch. She fucks up just as often as she gets things right, and it’s all recounted here, with seemingly nothing left out.”

Fred, of the similarly named blog, says: “G.O.T.N. gives a chronological description of her various lovers, male and female, from her early teens through to present day. Witty, clever, filthy, dirty descriptions. There is a bit of background information about her but mostly it’s just sex. Did I mention it was FILTY, DIRTY, SEX?”

CD Foxwell, of the ‘Erotic Den of Erotica’ says: “This is a memoir that shatters lazy cliches and misguided preconceptions. We all know the notion that women don’t masturbate is preposterous, but here, in e-print, Girl on the Net finally kicks that myth in the knackers with her irresistible memories of her teenage self frantically frigging off at the thought of being tied up by lascivious pirates. Meanwhile, her insights into what was going through her head as she talked dirty with ‘First Love’, or as she encouraged ‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’ to explore her body so she, in turn, could get her hands on them, are fantastically realised – women are sure to nod and smile, while for men it’s like getting to peer behind the curtain.”

Sex-toy site Bondara says: “This isn’t just a blow-by-blow (pun intended) account of GOTN’s sex life but a funny and often heartbreaking story of a real woman not so different to a lot of us. She’s just more honest about what she wants. And she wants sex. A lot of it. With different people. On her terms. I felt empowered by the end.”

Sean Ellis, reviewing for The Pod Delusion, says: “What makes this work as a genuinely engaging book, rather than just a series of pornographic vignettes trussed up tight in a slick jacket (ahem)… is the emotional underpinning. Girl on the Net writes with genuine love, as well as lust. You can feel the highs and lows, the hope and the heartbreak, as well as the hot and the heavy.”

The excellent website dedicated to writing by women, For Books’ Sake, says the book is: “a frank, confident, explicit, at times combative and often deeply witty read about her life as a stalwart sex and BDSM fan; a book that is equally at home talking about her triumphs as she is admitting her very human, very real fuck-ups.”

Left Turn 4 Records zine says: “Refreshingly honest, pretty much every aspect of your mental and physical being is given a soothing cuddle – whether you think you’re too geeky, too awkward, or just plain repulsive, here is a girl telling you that you’re pretty much perfect as you are, and here’s a clutch of evidence to back that up as she goes into the detail of exactly how that night with your foible-type went. Life affirming indeed.”

I’ll add reviews here as and when they come in. My lifelong dream is that it will receive a review of 5 stars on Amazon, with a comment that simply says ‘utter filth’. Fingers crossed.

Contact about the book

For any trade publishing enquiries, please contact Lorella Belli.