So, here’s an odd statement, which the guy who emailed me was kind enough to allow me to publish:

I sometimes want to try things out – I have zero or little experience and I worry about that. Would be wrong to use a girl as just like to practise on and improve?

The word ‘practice’ bothers me, and not just because of its context-dependent spelling of ‘s’ or ‘c’. This gentleman was asking, after my article on virginity, whether it was OK to find someone to practise sexual things with (kissing, oral, and other delicious non-penis-focused activity) without having to have actual sex.

The answer to this question is a wholehearted ‘yes’, but also a wholehearted ‘no’, because of the way it was phrased.

Not having sex is totally fine

If you meet someone and want to do sexy things but without having what you’d class as ‘full sex’ (i.e. train goes in tunnel) then that is not only fine but, if the other person you’re with is a fan of kissing, oral, frotting, etc, utterly delightful. There’s a deep and gutwrenching joy in having things that aren’t ‘full sex’, and although I am personally a bit of a penetration fetishist (I find it hard to get off if I’m not being pounded, or at least under promise of being pounded in the very near future), there are hundreds of other things that are fun.

However, the word ‘practice’, makes me shudder with discomfort, because it implies some things that make me sceptical of how you actually feel about your partner.

There is no sex Olympics

The key question, really, is what are you practising for? Is there some sex competition that I didn’t know you could enter? Are there skills and techniques you need to know in order to pass a shagging exam? Is this hard work going to pay off ten years down the line when you meet someone who refuses to sleep with you unless she can see your Doctorate in lovemaking? No? Then what you’re doing isn’t practice.

It’s an uncomfortable word because usually we practise on something that isn’t the real thing. We learn to drive with supervision, in cars that have a spare set of pedals so our instructor can slam the brakes on when we almost power headlong into a roundabout (and Colin, if you’re reading this, I’m really bloody sorry). We practise exam questions on past test papers. Above all, the results of our ‘practice’ don’t really matter, because the marks aren’t real or final.

But in bed, the person you’re with is real. They have real nerve endings, real emotions and desires. To reduce them to a GCSE test paper, in which the marks (i.e. their feelings) don’t really matter sounds deeply disrespectful. This, coupled with the word ‘use’ was what gave me shudders in this guy’s email.

There’s nothing wrong with having consensual sex fun with someone that doesn’t involve penetration, but there is definitely something wrong with viewing any individual sexual partner as just a stepping stone towards the amazing sex that you’ll eventually have with someone else. Heavily implied there is ‘better’. You practice on the not-quite-real person, then have better sex with someone… well… better.

Eww.

Sex practice doesn’t make perfect

Most importantly, the idea of practice implies that if you do enough of it you’ll eventually become ‘good’. This is one of those bullshit beliefs we hold because so many advice columns, sex books, and articles about ‘Ten Ways To Blow Her Mind In Bed’ insist on peddling the myth that everyone likes the same thing. That you can be, objectively, a ‘good shag’. This – and I cannot stress this enough – is bollocks.

Sometimes you’ll have sex with someone for the first time, and loads of your trademark moves will genuinely blow their mind. They’ll sigh, and writhe, and moan in delight as you rub, lick, suck, and fuck them into a glorious and delicious climax. But this is rare. Most of the time you’ll do some things they like, some things they love, and many things that make them want to say ‘left a bit’, ‘a bit softer’, ‘no, wait, a bit harder’ until you do something exactly the way they like it.

I’ve slept with a fair few guys as well as a few girls. Each and every one of them was slightly different, with some of them doing things in ways I’d never have anticipated but turned out to love. Others did things that worked well for their previous partners but turned me right off. I’m sure the same is true of what they thought of me, and generally with those people I was with for longer, we got better at pleasing the other one and knowing what they wanted. No amount of practice can prepare you as well as the knowledge that everyone’s different. So practice doesn’t make perfect – it doesn’t even make ‘good’ – the best revision you can do is to talk to the person you’re with, and listen when they tell you what they like.

Don’t ‘use’ anyone

You don’t owe it to any hypothetical future partner to be the best you can be in bed. It’s not the case that you can pick people who don’t matter to help you perfect your techniques so that you can wow the love of your life at some point. Firstly because the love of your life may well want something completely different, secondly because whoever you’re practicing with may turn out to be the love of your life, and finally because it’s just a shitty thing to do. If I had wild and sticky sex with someone and subsequently found out that they were just ‘using’ me for ‘practice’, I’d kick them out of bed before you could say ‘I am not an unfeeling shag-robot.’

I don’t think this guy is deliberately being mean, or callous. After a few emails back and forth I think he’s just under the impression that he needs to be the best he can be. But you can be at your best not by learning techniques or practising your cunnilingus skills, but by being empathetic, caring and considerate of what your partner needs and wants. Not a hypothetical future partner – the one you’re with in exactly that moment.

Some people think that because I’m a feminist I must hate men. I definitely, truly, genuinely do not. So here’s an open letter to them all… Dear men,

(more…)

A member of my family is expecting a baby: cue applause, coos, expressions of delight, and the sound of excited aunties scrabbling at wallets to go and pick up the cutest, tiniest booties from a nearby branch of Mothercare.

Exciting though it is for some (the pregnant couple are clearly ecstatic about it), there are others who are tempering their squeals of joy with mutterings: “when’s the wedding?” they ask, with pursed lips and a sour expression.

The answer, in this case, is that there isn’t one.

Traditional family expectations

Perhaps it’s the season: a couple of weeks of touring relatives can give one an unnecessary burden of expectations. Where’s your boyfriend/girlfriend? When are you getting married? Where are the grandchildren with which you’re obliged to provide me?

There are some things we’re expected to do that are fair enough: respond to a nice gift with a thank you letter, help with the washing up so the cook doesn’t have to do it, smile at the Jeremy Clarkson book that Gran thought you’d like even though any decent human would rather eat it than read it. Sometimes we’re expected to do things because they’re just decent things to do, which is fine. But there’s more that sneaks over the line, laying expectations on individuals that are either impossible or undesirable to carry out.

Perhaps it’s families: older relatives are so used to passing on their wisdom that when advice turns to expectation we barely notice the difference. “You’re a lovely girl, you can find a great partner” easily melts into “you’ve got a lovely partner, you should marry him” and onward to “where’s the baby?” fairly naturally. There isn’t an obvious stopping point, at which relatives prompt themselves to step back.

We all do it

I understand why grandparents think a wedding should happen before a birth: it’s how it was in their day, and it’s what they’re used to. Luckily, though, not everyone shares the opinions of those born eight decades ago: we get less prescriptive, society becomes more liberal… it’s how progress happens.

But it happens much more slowly because so many of us stick to the status quo – we expect things of others because it’s the easy thing to do. Far simpler to join in with teasing loved-up friends about marriage and babies than to leave well alone and let them make up their own minds. Far easier to frown at people who choose something different than to celebrate their choice and show interest.

I’m sick of these unnecessary expectations. Not just the ones about marriage and babies, but the other ones too. Losing weight, going on dates, earning money, buying a house, having exactly the right amount of fun but not so much you appear out of control. Have the right kind of sex (fun, varied, but not too kinky) with exactly the right people (ones you love, ideally one at a time). We expect people to be bright and eager, but not desperate. To have a plan, but not too much ambition. To make money, but in ways we approve of. To live, achieve, then die to order.

The rebellious ones

Perhaps worse is that even when people reject these things we still paint them into a corner. As the one who rejects stuff. The one who isn’t traditional. The one who’s rebellious. So-and-so will never get married because she’s always been the odd one out. That boy will always sleep around because he always has. Rejecting the traditional trajectory doesn’t send you on a whole new journey, without any expectations at all, it just lumbers you with a new set.

So while the pregnant couple grimace through questions about weddings, others are expected to never get married, or at least to do something wild and reckless before they don a ring and a dress. Still others have to grin and bear a grilling on why they haven’t got a boyfriend yet, when the answer may well be ‘I just don’t want one‘.

I’m guilty of this too. For all the ‘live and let live’ ranting on this blog, Christmas with relatives has led me to deduce that although when pressed I’ll tell you I have no expectations, my default position is to assume everyone’s similar. That we all want more or less the same things, and that my own route to happiness is the best one for us all to take.

My resolution for 2014: expect nothing.

“Tribute wank” is a term that I was unfamiliar with until this week, making me think I should spend less time wanking myself and more time conversing with other humans.

A tribute wank is, from what I gather, a wank you have about someone in particular, which you send them evidence of later. It could be anything from phoning them to say “hey, I cracked a quality one off over you yesterday when I was thinking about the hot sex we had last week” to sending them an actual physical photograph covered in your own jizz.

The hotness

I once received a fantastic video from a guy which had – as most of my favourite videos do – his cock in it. He stroked vigorously for the requisite few minutes, just enough for me to start salivating a bit, then came nice and hard all over his hand. So far, so traditionally excellent.

But in the background of the video he had his laptop open, with a picture of me comfortably full-screened. He’d used one of the pictures on this blog, downloaded it, opened it in a new window then – most flattering of all – focused on it for the duration of an entire wank.

The not-so-hotness

So having established that I think tribute wanks can be really hot, I’m going to backpedal madly and tell you to think very very carefully before sending your delightful post-wank picture/video/text. Apart from the obvious problems (once it’s out there, it’s out there), you need to be really sure, before you hit the ‘send’ button, that the person at the other end will be pleased to receive it.

Even as a lover of hot pictures and homemade porn, there are certain things that will turn me off quicker than if you’d taped a picture of Jeremy Clarkson to your bellend. For instance, if you demand an immediate response, you might as well put your camera away and just chuck a bucket of cold water over my privates. Equally if you decide to send me something when I’m pissed off with you, I’m unlikely to leap joyously from my seat and shout “my God, what a touching kiss-and-make-up gesture, I must hump this man into a sticky mess immediately.”

So, if you’re tribute wanking over your partner, and you know they’d be keen to see the evidence, my advice would be to time it carefully: try not to send it when they’re in the middle of a conference call, or angry at you because yet again you’ve failed to do the washing up.

The downright awful

This might sound shocking, but many people just don’t want to be sent homemade pornography at any time. They’d rather you kept your dick/tits/arse/that cool trick you’ve just learned with a Hitachi magic wand out of their inbox.

I’d hazard a guess, based mainly on how many cock pictures I (sex blogger but basically a nobody) receive versus the number of cock pictures my friends (nobodies who don’t also happen to run a sex blog) get, that most of the cock pictures flying around the internet are unsolicited. That is to say, they are not sent between two consenting adults, but sent from one consenting adult to another adult they are really hoping will enjoy the picture.

I fully understand why you might find it hot to send your naked self to a stranger, but do you see the problem here? You can hope, you can wish, you can dream, but if you send any part of your anatomy to someone you don’t know, who has never asked you to send anything, you can’t guarantee that they want it.

So here lies my problem with tribute wanks: while some receivers find them amazing and sexy, I know a lot of people who would find them not just undesirable but awkward, horrible and downright terrifying. Others, of course, might enjoy receiving one from a person they really fancied, but wouldn’t extend this enthusiasm to everyone on their contacts list.

We receive spam all the time, and of course it’s easy to hit ‘delete’ or ‘unsubscribe’. But this is different. It’s not the equivalent of a delivery driver shoving some useless local pizza deals into your mailbox, it’s more akin to … well … a photo of an anonymous nob in your mailbox.

So, in conclusion, tribute wanks are like any other sexual act under the sun: some people like it, some people don’t. If you want to do it you need to make sure that the person you’re sending it to is not just ready but eager to receive it.

Note: I used to ask guys to send me pictures. It was amazing and lovely. I’ve since realised that was a bad plan, as I was inundated with pictures, many of which I didn’t have time to reply to and some I didn’t even have time to look at. I’m sorry. I have learned my lesson.

This week Cosmo tried to explain to people, with side-splitting hilarity, what the key differences were between porn actresses and real women. For example, porn actresses vs real women on doggy-style sex:

Porn star: “This element of degradation and anonymity is definitely not making me wonder whether you are actually attracted to me! I will call you ‘Daddy’ now because that’s not weird for either of us!”

Real woman: “I should really get that wall repainted.”

Performance vs preference

To regular readers, it might seem like I’m stating the spankingly obvious, but there is nothing deeply and inherently different about women who work in porn. They are not genetically-engineered sex-mad creatures whose only true joy in life is gargling with spunk while getting banged energetically by a group of colleagues. Nor are they sex robots, programmed purely to seek out new and exciting ways to get jizzed on. They’re people who are doing a job.

Last week I talked about the obvious differences between porn sex and ‘real’ sex, and the fact that a professional is going to do things a little differently to how you might in the comfort of your own home: it’s the professional’s job to put on a great performance. But just as I Am Not My Job, neither is a porn actress. She doesn’t live her entire life as she would at work.

At work I sign off emails with ‘kind regards’, wash up my coffee mug as soon as I’m done with it, and even occasionally wear make up. In the comfort of my own home I sign off emails with ‘See you tomorrow, twatface’, let coffee grow an inch of mould before I move it to the kitchen, and wear nothing on my face save the occasional chocolate smear. In the same way, porn actresses aren’t constantly acting.

You’re a porn star too

We all put on performances sometimes. Personally, when I’m having shiny new sex with a partner I’m far more likely to lean back when I’m on top and grab my hair with both my hands while I’m riding him. Why? Well, somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain is the idea that it makes my tits look lovely. Eager to impress, I’ll jiggle and grind hands-free so that the fortunate gentleman in question gets something to look at beside my own gurning sex face. This performance isn’t repeated often when I’m deeper into a relationship – I move towards my easier and more pleasurable default of ‘placing his hands on my tits so he can squeeze me while I fuck him.’ It’s not quite as pretty, but it more effectively hits the spot.

The Cosmo article frames what porn actresses do and think as the complete opposite of the thoughts and actions of ‘real’ women, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Sometimes I’m a porn star – with my hands-behind-my-head and my doe-eyed, spluttering blowjobs and my “please please fuck me in the ass”, because sometimes I fancy putting on a bit of a show. Other times I would prefer to just turn my back and have you lazily spoon me into an orgasm before turning the light off and falling asleep.

The problem with the Cosmo article is that it isn’t comparing the same type of shagging for each person: it’s comparing their work shagging to your play shagging. When off-camera porn actresses are the same as all of us: sometimes have the performance sex and other times they’ll have the lazy, comfortable, quick-orgasm-then-a-cup-of-tea sex.

Cosmo might as well write an article entitled ‘Accountants vs real women’, highlighting how hilarious it is that the accountant is careful about their figures, while ‘real’ women jot down a budget on the back of an envelope. Would we actually expect an accountant to get out a calculator and perform double-entry bookkeeping for the household bills, ensuring everything is signed off in triplicate? No. Because accountants, unlike porn actresses, aren’t expected to drag their work kicking and screaming into every corner of their life.

Porn actresses vs ‘real’ women

This matters because I find it a bit creepy to separate porn actresses from ‘real’ women. As if their lives are defined entirely by their jobs, and their jobs must necessarily bleed into every aspect of their daily routine. Separating women who work in porn from women who work anywhere else implies a lot of ‘other’ness that leads to uncomfortable assumptions.

If porn women are different to ‘real’ women, do they behave differently? Could you spot them in a crowd? Do they need to be treated differently, because of the sexual qualities than run through every aspect of them?

The answer, of course, is ‘no’.

It’s important for people to understand the difference between porn sex and real sex: of course it is. When I wrote about Sex Box I got a (probably justified) telling-off for not making it clear that we should educate people (particularly young people) on the difference between porn sex and home sex. Of course this is important – if you’ve never had sex before and all of your beliefs are shaped by what you see on the screen, you’ll could end up with a devastatingly inaccurate view of what a fun shag has to look like. Just as if you only ever watched Eastenders you’d have a terrifying impression of East London.

So the distinction is important. But let’s remember that it’s not a distinction between ‘real’ humans and a porn-making race of sexual superbeings. The people are all fundamentally the same: it’s the type of sex that changes.