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.

Clothes should technically be unimportant – boring, unappealing bits of fabric that we wear to protect our modesty and stay warm. Except, of course, they aren’t. We wear them because we want to look good – we choose things that hide our ugly bits and show off our best bits.

Someone recently asked me why women’s clothes were so much more sexual than men’s, and whether I was disappointed that men’s clothes didn’t show them off in such a sexual way. My response was a surprised guffaw – men’s clothes aren’t sexual? Have you ever seen any men?

Sure, it might not be as obvious to a straight guy (or a gay lady) that the things men wear accentuate their beautiful bits, and there are fewer items for men that are as screamingly sexual as, say, a beautiful corset on a curvy lady. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t sexual at all – some men wear clothes that are so hot I have to bite my fist to restrain myself from biting through the fabric and nuzzling enthusiastically at whatever I find beneath.

Fashion itself is shit, of course – fashion is the art of persuading people they are bad, wrong and ugly in order to sell them expensive things they don’t really need. But in the meantime we have clothes – clothes from 20 years ago, clothes from the back of your wardrobe, clothes that you’ve just dredged up out of the laundry pile – any of these things can be beautiful if they show you off right.

So, eschewing fashion itself and concentrating on ‘clothes that make me slick my knickers’, here is the GOTN Boys’ Collection.

Tight t-shirts

Yes. Yes please. Black or white, ideally, but any colour’s probably good. I like seeing the shape of your arms stretching the fabric, and exactly where your nipples are. This item of clothing comes with a warning, though: if you push the sleeves up to your shoulders I will want to lick you on the tube.

Jeans that fall off your hips a bit

I don’t mean ‘jeans that defy gravity by hanging just below your buttocks’ – this is too extreme. There is nothing for me to imagine. I’ll probably have a quick look if you have a particularly shapely backside, but the mystery is gone so there’s not much for my mind to dwell on.

But jeans that are just a bit loose? Jeans that hang low enough that when you stretch I can see the dark trail of hair pointing down towards your dick? Jeans that show off the top of your hipbones and the dimples just above your arse in the back? Get some, and watch me get wide-eyed and dribbly.

Uniforms

Oh God what a horrible cliché I am. Still – show me a man in an army uniform and I’ll show you how quickly I can drop to my knees.

Tight cotton boxers

I love boy’s pants – as a girl I’d give my right arm to wear them. Not just ones I’ve bought straight from the shop, you understand, but ones taken from the bedroom floor of a guy I’ve just fucked. Pants stretched to just your shape, with that delicious smell of sweat and precome.

But the best thing about these tight cotton boxers is the bulge your dick makes when you’re wearing them. The way it stretches the fabric when you get hard, and the ease with which I can slide the elastic to just below your balls, cupping everything nicely as I run my hand over your solid cock.

Watches

OK, girlonthenet, you have officially gone mad: watches cannot be sexy.

Au contraire. You know where you wear a watch? On your wrist, at the end of your arm, near your hand. Hands that are beautiful, arms that are beautiful, and – ultimately – hands that you wank with.

If you wear a watch I will be unable to look at it without imagining what it looks like on the wrist attached to the hand that’s tightly gripping your red-raw, rock-solid dick. I don’t care what the time is, I care about what you look like when you’re wanking. The flexing tendons in your wrist, the frantic rubbing, the pained and desperate furrowing of your brow, your thick fingers squeezing the last drops of spunk out of your twitching dick.

Nice jeans, tight t-shirts and clinging pants will highlight the pretty things about you, but ultimately I’m a simple creature – the quickest way to get my attention is to make me think about you wanking.

 

That ‘you’, in the title? It refers to everyone, including women.

This week a minor row kicked off between DickGraceless and Katy_Red – two people who write a funny and occasionally offensive blog over at Honey and Cream. The row began when Dick said women who insist that men pay for dates are prostitutes. Anger occurred, responses happened, and Katy_Red then outlined why she thought that – on a straight date – the man should pay, at least on first dates, special occasions, and if he’s asked the girl out.

I don’t intend this to be a personal attack on Katy_Red – she writes funny blogs and seems nice, and no one ever deserves the full brunt of my rage. But there are a number of women (and men) who believe that men should pay for dates – an idea which I find horribly offensive. So take cover, because this one might be a little bit angry.

What women want

Are you on this date because you fancy this person? Because you think you’ll have a nice time? Then cough up – pay half of the bill. Get your fucking round in. Because otherwise you’re perpetuating the ridiculous idea that men have money and women don’t. That men want women and women want free stuff.

You’re on the date – you wanted to be there, you attended because you thought you’d have a good time. So chip the fuck in.

Katy_Red says that she doesn’t find the idea of splitting the bill all that sexy. It’s not supposed to be sexy. That bit is not the key element of the date. The sexy elements come elsewhere – long sultry glances across dinner, talking about the filthy things you want to do, squeezing his dick under the table. In fact, the sexiest thing about a date is knowing that the other person really wants to be there – that of all the things they could have done tonight they chose to spend it in your company. So congratulations – by insisting that your date buys dinner in exchange for your time you have just killed the sexiest fucking bit of the evening.

What exactly do you want out of this date? Do you want to have a relationship, or sex with this person, or do you just want free stuff?

Everyone has different needs and desires, but I’ll tell you what I want – I want to find men I like and then fuck them. I want to go out with interesting, funny, nerdy guys who’ll share a pint with me, take the piss out of my stupid bits and compliment my good bits, and I want them to take me home at the end of the evening and present me with a nice, hard dick. If you fancy me and I fancy you then what I want from you is sex – not dinner. If you gave me the choice between an expensive meal out and a hand job I’d be cancelling reservations and pulling my knickers down quicker than you can say ‘manual relief, please.’

Are these women prostitutes?

No. Absolutely and conclusively not. When you fuck a prostitute it’s pretty straightforward – you agree a price for certain services, he or she performs those services, and you hand over your cash. A professional, honest transaction.

Insisting that someone buy you dinner on the potential promise that at some point you might have sex with them is not a straightforward and honest transaction, so it doesn’t make you a prostitute. It makes you an arsehole.

In her blog on the topic Katy_Red asserts that men are more likely to get a snog, or a blow-job if they’ve ‘flashed the brass a bit.’ Apparently men are just sexier if they’ve poured expensive wine into your face.

Forgive me if my opinions on this fall beyond the line of acceptability, but I don’t find men more attractive if they have money. Money is, in fact, something that any man could potentially acquire – it doesn’t turn them all into Colin fucking Firth. A rich Joe Bloggs is the same as a poor Joe Bloggs, just with more accessories. Money does not maketh the man – being funny, hot, and willing to fuck me till I cry maketh the man. No matter how much cash you’ve got you can still be unshaggable or unattractive in other ways – I mean, Christian Grey had a private helicopter and he was still a gigantic bellend.

Exceptions to the rule

As with all good rules there are exceptions. I’ll pay for the whole meal if, say, it’s someone’s birthday or if they’re broke. I’ll let them pay if they’re taking me somewhere really posh that I’ve told them I can’t afford, or if they just feel like treating me. But these are the exceptions, and that’s as it should be. Buying dinner should be a nice thing that you do for someone, not an expectation based on weird ideas we have about which gender should be the ‘giver’ and which the ‘receiver.’

Men – stop fucking doing it

I’ve been on dates before where men have not just offered to pay, but insisted on paying. Taken the bill, refused to show it to me, even handed my credit card back when I’ve placed it down on the saucer with the mints. People wonder why I’m offended, and I’m even more offended that the answer isn’t fucking obvious – is there any better way to belittle me? To show me that you’re the powerful one?

Gentlemen – in hiding the bill for me you’re forcing yourself into the role of my provider. And, in a situation where I offer to pay and you refuse to let me, I don’t hear ‘I’m great boyfriend material because I am generous and have loads of money’ I hear ‘there there, sweetheart – don’t trouble your pretty little head about cash – I have plenty for both of us.’ Well bully for you, but fuck off.

I trouble my pretty little head about cash every day – when I pay my mortgage, when I pay my bills, when I buy my food, when I splurge ridiculous sums of money on nights out that end in miserable hangovers and – listen carefully – when I decide whether I can afford to go out on a date.

You’re not my provider – I am. The only thing I want in exchange for my company is good company in return, and someone who respects the fact that I am an autonomous individual capable of making my own decisions. If you insist on paying even after I’ve vehemently protested, you’re not being generous, you’re being controlling. You’ve stripped me of the responsibility I have over the money that I work fucking hard to earn.

Sex in exchange for dinner

The absolute bottom line, of course, is that dates and relationships are never transactions. A girl doesn’t ‘have’ to fuck you because you’ve taken her somewhere with a Michelin star. Nor do you ‘have’ to buy her presents because she gives you head. No matter how much you spend on a date, a girl is never compelled to fuck you – it’s her decision. So why are we still pretending that you have to open your wallet before she’ll open her legs?

I want to live in a world where I fuck people because I want to, not just because they’ve bought me presents or dinner. So – men, women, everybody – please stop perpetuating the idea that the relationships we have with each other are some sort of weird exchange of unequal commodities. I’ll give you sex in exchange for sex. I’ll get my round in if you do. And if I want fucking dinner I can buy it myself.