Do you have a ‘good’ sense of humour? I reckon most of us want to answer ‘yes’ to that question. Myself very much included. If I’m going to shag someone, not only do I want them to make me laugh but – crucially – I want them to laugh at my jokes too. And although ‘good sense of humour’ is a useful shorthand, because humour is so personal, you’re better off hunting for someone who has a compatible sense of humour, rather than what they describe as a ‘good’ one – I mentioned this in an older blog post about writing the best online dating profile. Most people love to laugh, but not all of us find the same things funny. Someone you think is hilarious might be tedious and irritating to me, and vice versa. I’ve been thinking on this a lot recently, about the ways in which humour can not only entertain us and sometimes laugh us into bed, but also indicate compatibility and green flags in potential partners.

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I learned a new word, team, so now I’m going to inflict it on all of you: interoception. It refers to the sense by which you perceive what is currently going on in your body. How do you feel physically? Are you hungry? Does the tickling, dry sensation in your throat mean you’re thirsty? Are you horny, perhaps? Is your left elbow itching? Interoception is perception of your internal physical needs and wants. Even though I’ve only just learned the word, I have actually written about interoception before: this piece on drinking water was deliberately crafted to manipulate your interoception into convincing you that you’d love to drink a nice, cool glass of fresh water. One of my favourite ever posts, about the ache that settles at the entrance to my cunt when I’m desperate to get fucked, is also about this kind of perception. Quite a lot of the stuff I write here is designed to trigger horny feelings, so to heighten those feelings I often lean in to words or phrases (and sometimes specific instructions I want you to follow) to make you tune in to the way your body is feeling, and pay a little extra attention to those parts of it that are yearning to come. I think it’s this kind of perception that helped me learn how to orgasm during PIV sex.

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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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“I wish I could take it away,” he says. My friend who doesn’t know what to do with my sad feelings. He tells me, with sincerity: “I wish I could take some of this away for you.”

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Cast your mind back to the last time something gave you a kick of surprising new lust. You know what I mean, right? The little moments during sex when someone said something with a particular intonation and it caused you to melt from the inside. The written erotica that made just a few tweaks to the kind of phrases you think about when you masturbate, and suddenly opened the door to a whole new avenue of fantasy. Maybe you were scrolling through your favourite porn site, and you discovered a fresh way to position two subs for a beating that gave you… well… feelings. Cast your mind back to how you felt when you were last turned on by something that surprised you. Now hold that thought, and treasure it: it may be much rarer in the future.

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