The other day, I was playing Magic: the Gathering online, like one of the cool kids. I like to play it in the evenings, because I find it relaxing to scream ‘Fuck off with your TWATTY DRAGONS’ at the telly while glugging wine. After half an hour or so of being repeatedly beaten by a bunch of cheating nobheads, I realised that I’d been horribly sexist.

“Oh look,” I’d exclaim when my opponent brought out a ridiculously overpowered beast which which to savage me. “I imagine his bastard ogre will decimate my teeny elf in a manner of seconds.”

And it did. But that’s not the point. The point is I was playing against someone with a generic, genderless username, and yet I’d repeatedly referred to them as ‘he’. In fact, almost every Magic opponent online is a ‘he’ in my mind, despite the fact that I would rage against anyone who told me any given game was for boys or girls.

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“Oh actually I think women should run the world. There’d be fewer wars, for sure!”

Oh do you? Thanks. I’ll get cracking then, shall I? You pop over there and sit in a corner and I’ll roll my sleeves up and apply my tidying skills to the world’s problems. For I am woman: meek and mild and gentle and peaceful yet also great at multitasking and international diplomacy.

When you think about it, it’s weird that women haven’t been running the world all along, isn’t it? When so many men in power think we’d do such a bang-up job. After all, they’re really keen for us to take over the world, so why on Earth have we not yet stepped into the powerful jobs that they have no doubt left, because they genuinely believe that a woman would be better at it?

Oh, right.

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I’ve seen and read a lot of stuff in my life that was shocking. From the mild things that made me feel a bit queasy, to the more extreme stuff that has given me the shakes or prevented me from sleeping. However, I’m lucky enough that I don’t have PTSD, or any other significant issues that would cause me to be seriously affected by this. The worst I get is anxiety, and that’s more related to my to-do list than my reading habits.

So. Lucky me.

If you’d asked me five years ago whether we should print trigger warnings on books, films, and other media, in order to warn people who could be seriously adversely affected, I’d probably have accused you of trying to sneak in some censorship. What’s more, as a sex writer I’d have told you that my sexual fantasies are sometimes dark, and that you should take that as read when you read this blog.

Surprise! I was wrong.

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