Girl on the Net

I love a good hike, and I’m also a fan of shorts, so stinging nettles hover somewhere close to the top of my ‘irritating nemesis’ list, alongside barbed wire and people who let their dogs off the lead then shout ‘DON’T WORRY, HE’S VERY FRIENDLY’ when the little prick comes bounding towards me all full of teeth. It would never in a million years have occurred to me that stinging nettles could be sexy. But, as with so many topics, incredible guest blogger and queen of unusual kinks Jenby is here to show that actually, stinging nettles can be very fucking sexy indeed…

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When I was in my late twenties I used to write blog posts about bullshit societal expectations of women at that age. How we were expected to be slim, ‘feminine‘, hairless, petite and sweet-smelling (especially in the ‘cunt‘ region). Then, for a brief period in my thirties I was nagged to be one thing above all others (PREGNANT!). Now that I’ve sailed past childbearing age without even a cursory click on a ClearBlue ad or video about IVF, the sales messages have settled into a comfortable, familiar horrorshow of content for the ‘older’ lady. And they seem pretty united in bad news: I’ve got far too much skin everywhere, and my face is falling off.

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Autumn is here, and with it the promise of Halloween. So I’m excited to bring you this week’s guest blog on the hotness of fear. Katie runs her own sex blog at NymphoStimToy (@NymphoStimToy on Mastodon), which you definitely need to check out because not only did her first post (‘when I’m better‘) absolutely annihilate me, she also has the best sex blog tagline I have ever seen, and I’m jealous. But as I say, today she’s here to talk about fear: the fact that arousal and terror sit so closely in our bodies, providing similar heart-pounding, gasping, adrenaline-fuelled reactions means they’re incredibly closely linked for many of us. And she wanted to talk about giving an eager submissive the gift of pure terror…

Note: Katie has written consent and the build-up to fear very beautifully in this piece, but it’s important to state clearly that you shouldn’t ever seek to frighten someone unless you know they have consented to that, and you’ve discussed things like safe words and other ways for them to withdraw consent at any time. As a general rule, the scarier the play, the more groundwork you need to have put in beforehand to understand your partner’s limits and the cues they will give you if they need the terror to stop. 

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In response to a very bitter post I spat out recently, quite a few people asked me if I’d heard of ‘kintsugi‘ – the Japanese art of repairing broken things with gold. The idea is that, by gilding the cracks, you can see what something has survived and it becomes more beautiful. It’s a very cool concept, and yes I have heard of it. Stuart even used it in an illustration many years ago about heartbreak, which I’m using for this piece today too. But no matter how gorgeous the idea, I am not in the headspace right now to repair myself with gold. To observe the shattered pile of dust which used to be my self-worth and note with detachment that, some day, it’ll make a lovely pot.

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I don’t do choking any more. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, it turns out that something I have loved for many years is far less safe than I realised. It’s too much risk. I’m not going to order you not to do choking play, but I will tell you that this breath play article by Jay Wiseman is worth a read – it gave me useful information in a way that genuinely changed my mind. As I’ve said to a couple of dudes since I stopped being comfortable with choking: “sorry to be a buzzkill, but we’re gonna need to do something different.” I’m no medical expert, so I don’t think it’s my job to explain the detail of the risks involved with choking and asphyxiation, and I wouldn’t expect you to trust me as a source on that anyway, but here’s what I am an expert in: making shit horny! Instead of scolding you for enjoying this particular kink (I enjoyed it myself for a very long time), I’m going to share some safer alternatives to choking. Activities that – for me – capture a similar vibe to being choked or having my breath restricted, but without the underlying dangers.

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