People disagree with me on lots of things. Like all people, I am occasionally offensive, often unknowledgeable, and far too frequently wrong. But one of the things people disagree with most often is the words I choose to use.

Language is an intensely powerful thing when it comes to sex. One person’s ‘hot’ is another’s ‘horrible’, with the result that despite having polite disagreements on sexual politics, one of the most heated rows I have is over my preference for ‘cunt’ over ‘pussy’.

I think it’s one of the biggest challenges for erotic writing. You don’t want to go too bland and be unable to conjure anything hotter than his ‘length’ penetrating her ‘sex’. Likewise you don’t want to go so hardcore that you put off readers who’ve warmed themselves up during the written foreplay, then fling your book/blog to one side if you get too gynaecological.

How much does a fuck cost?

My favourite sex words and swear words are the ones that have power – the ones that sound punchy and strong, and evoke that same passion as the kick you get in the bottom of your stomach when someone you fancy says something hot. Fuck, cock, prick, cunt. I know they’re not for everyone, but I think you can tell a lot about a writer by the words that they favour. So, I did a few quick calculations.

My book (which is currently on a 99p deal at Amazon, and that means it’s also cheap in the US too – at the time of writing this it’s $1.51) is 95,000 words long. It contains 499 instances of the word ‘fuck’. This includes words like ‘fucking’ and ‘fucked’, and to be fair some of those will be used in a non-sexual context, so fuck that for useful science.

More pertinently, there are 342 counts of the word ‘sex’. I think sex is a generic enough word that if you’re reading a sex book, you expect it to appear quite frequently. Perhaps slightly less expected is that there are 23 bastards, including one ‘weapons-grade bastard’. When looking into verbs, there’s one instance of ‘splattering’ that involves magnolia paint, as opposed to one of the more obvious substances:

Better, perhaps, as an indication of what I like, here’s a penis chart:

And one for the cunts:

There’s no real conclusion to this other than that I’m sweary and I like it. I think words that are traditionally considered ‘offensive’ are hotter when you’re talking (or writing) dirty. Not because there’s an extra frisson of excitement contributed by the fact that they’re usually taboo – there are plenty of other things that are taboo which we leave firmly out of the bedroom. No, I think their power comes from the same thing that got them on the ‘taboo’ list in the first place – namely the plosive, punchy, staccato kick when you say them. They’re frowned upon because they’re often used with power, in hatred. They’re hot because they’re used with power, in love.

Some people agree with me about that sexy kick, where others prefer softer, mellower words with their wanking. As with everything sexual, to each his own. But I hope this has given you some explanation (if never an actual excuse) for why I swear so frequently. Like the groaning of horny men or the slapping sounds of skin-on-skin, without which I can’t enjoy a dirty video, swearwords are the soundtrack to the porn that I write. Without them I couldn’t get aroused.

To close, I’ll answer my original question: how much does a ‘fuck’ cost? It makes up 0.5% of the words contained in my book, so at a current bargain price of 99p in the Kindle Summer Sale, one fuck will cost you around half a penny. In the US, it’ll cost you 0.8 cents. Cheap as fuck.

I’m an online dating evangelist – I think meeting people on the internet and then going for drinks with them (in a safe public place, etc) is one of the best ways to meet likeminded and potentially shaggable people.

As an evangelist, however, there’s a conversation I’ve ended up having a few times that makes me incredibly uncomfortable. It goes something like this:

“Remember you told me to go on OKCupid?”
“Yeah. How’s it going?”
“Well, I’ve had a couple of quite good dates. But I’ve also been sent some hilarious and awful messages. And oh God this one person had a profile so bad it was hysterical. I’ll send you a link…”

Please don’t show me the money

I don’t want to see your links. I don’t want to see the people you think are so funny that it’s worth going to the trouble of finding their profile again, copying the link and then emailing it to me. I’m human, of course, and so naturally I find the flaws, foibles and fuck-ups of other humans inherently funny. There’s nothing I like more than hearing how unrelentingly shit other people can be, because it makes me feel like less of a blundering oaf.

Tell me about it, by all means. If you’ve spotted a dating profile where someone’s used a UKIP quote in the ‘things I like’ section, then that’s well worth a pub-time anecdote. But I don’t want your links.

There’s something so deeply personal about an online dating profile that even the idea of other people seeing mine (I’ve wiped it now, so don’t go looking) makes me shiver with cold dread. Like showing your CV to a work colleague who has known you for years – someone who knows that most of what you’ve written is – at best – rose tinted and – at worst – bordering on fantasy.

Mistakes, misogyny and mockery

I don’t like it when people lie on internet dating profiles. When they send messages that are presumptuous or rude. I don’t like it when they make sexist statements or offer arrogant critiques of people’s profile photos. There are many things that I not only don’t like, but that will have me wishing slapstick comeuppance on anyone who comes across as vaguely right wing.

But I don’t want you to show it to me. There are two reasons for this:

1. I have probably seen it, or something like it, already. No, really. I’ve done a lot of internet dating, so if you send me someone’s profile picture along with an amused email about how he’s odd because he included a photo of his dick, the best reaction you’re going to get from me is ‘so?’ I’ve seen quite a few dicks – attached to profiles, emails, and (if I’m really lucky) actual men. I’ve also seen messages where people just say ‘how r u sexy’, or write clumsy erotica, or offer to be your slave forever. Unless it’s a spectacularly unusual message or picture, my reaction is likely to disappoint you. If you want someone to be shocked by it, you’re better off sending it to your mum.

2. I’m uncomfortable laughing directly at people. Sure, if a friend trips on the way to the bar and accidentally spills a beer over someone I didn’t like much, I might have a bit of a snigger. But there’s a world of difference between the odd giggle at someone’s flaws and an anonymous shredding of someone who has laid themselves bare for you in the hope that you’ll approve. The shredding is fine, but when you’re shredding someone and I have to look into their eyes – even if they’re separated by a net connection and the knowledge that they’ll never hear what I have to say about them – there’s a feeling of discomfort that just isn’t enjoyable. If you asked me to kick a kitten I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it just because you assured me it was dead and wouldn’t feel a thing. It’s still not a fun thing to do.

I’m not saying people on dating sites are all amazing and wonderful, nor even that in mocking them you’re a horrible person. What I am saying is that if you want me to join you in appraising and critiquing, I don’t need to see who they are.

Knowing me, knowing you

This brings me on to my final point – and it’s a very important one. Be wary of being too judgmental about people when you’re telling someone else about them. Recently a friend of mine (a new member of OKCupid, on my wholehearted and overenthusiastic recommendation) sent me a profile of a guy she thought she liked, and told me that he’d ruined things by having ‘massive sex issues.’ Meaning to incite a good old giggle and a session of bitching, she invited me to offer judgment about his ‘freakish’ foibles.

Unfortunately for her, his ‘freakish’ foibles sounded pretty hot to me. Moreover, based on a slightly blurry picture and his style of profile writing, I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d already sampled them.

She didn’t reply to his message.

UPDATE March 2016: if you enjoyed this extract check out my new book – How A Bad Girl Fell In Love. 

I’m not very well today. Thumping headaches do not make great blog posts, and I’m feeling about as sexy as a box of rocks. So instead of a blog post, here’s an extract from my book. If you like it, you can buy it from a variety of good internet bookshops. If you’ve already read it, please do review it on Amazon. For reasons I am slightly hazy on, this is important.

Dear all the men on the internet: you complete me

I was recently singled out at a comedy night, during that part of the show where the compère chats to audience members in order to make hilarious jokes about their lives. He asked how long I’d been with the boy next to me, and where we initially met.

‘On the internet,’ I replied, and the audience pissed themselves laughing.

How quaint. I felt like turning round to them and asking just which century they were living in. Perhaps people’s squeamishness about internet dating is a hangover from a time when, in the infancy of the internet, those brave enough to use it to meet potential partners were people of a slightly pervy persuasion, who’d find it hard to meet a match anywhere else. For these people, patiently waiting for a dial-up connection seemed a hell of a lot easier than polling everyone in their local pub to find out who had a matching balloon fetish. But internet dating, while perhaps a novelty ten years ago, is now not only an acceptable way to meet someone but a borderline necessity, especially in a city like London where people you meet on the street are as likely to spit on you as chat you up. Laughing at someone for meeting their squeeze online is like laughing at commuters who trust the mysterious forces that power tube trains, or refusing to visit a doctor in case they might be a witch.

Where else does one possibly meet people? There’s work, I guess, but the idea of having loud, angry, jizz-dripping sex with a colleague then subsequently having to take them seriously in meetings brings me out in a cold sweat. What’s more, you can never quite guarantee that when you break up with each other—as you almost inevitably will—they won’t go showing Dave in IT those photos you took in the bathroom.

How about on the way to or from work? After all, American sitcoms are teeming with people who are willing to stride nonchalantly up to an attractive stranger and ask them for coffee. It’s something I’ve considered before, particularly when there’s been a guy on the tube wearing a tight t-shirt and sporting tattoos that I just want to lick. But this sort of behaviour will probably have to remain in America, at least until we have a huge cultural revolution. Approaching an English person on public transport is not the best way to kick-start a sexual relationship: they assume you’ll either rob them or introduce them to Christ.

So how about a pub? English people are at their most gregarious and cheerful when ever so slightly pissed. But unfortunately with drunkenness comes a serious lack of coordination, making even the most graceful people look like clumsy chimps. More importantly, being drunk affects your own judgement, making you more likely to cop off with people your sober self wouldn’t look twice at. I’ve attempted pub chat-ups before, but the vast majority of them have ended either in someone backing away, terrified, as I regale them with tales of my previous fucks, or red in the face as I rail at them having realised that the Man of My Dreams is vaguely pretentious, worryingly rude or, on one notable occasion, racist.

Nightclubs are barely worth mentioning: the possibility that you’ll accidentally screw a bigot is much higher, given that you are unable to hear a bloody word anyone’s saying. Moreover, the only nightclub approaches I’ve witnessed have involved one person dancing seductively towards another and attempting to rub their genitals on their leg. This is exactly as sexy as it sounds, i.e.: not.

So where else but the internet? The internet is by far and away the best place to locate people who seem like your type. What’s more, it’s useful for screening out those who definitely aren’t your type, those who’d either annoy or terrify you. No more bombshells at 2 a.m., when you’ve been chatting up what seems like a hot person for an hour only to hear them say, ‘I actually find sex hotter when neither of us orgasms.’ Or ‘You know, I think it’s important that the man retains the role as head of the household,’ or even ‘You know, you’d be really pretty if you lost a bit of weight.’

You can cull people without having to go through the tedium of an initial conversation. Did you shorten ‘your’ to ‘ur’? We’re probably not going to get on. Listed ‘clubbing’ as one of your hobbies? No thanks. Included a hilarious joke about how ‘fat chicks need not apply’? Even if I’m not having a fat day, you’re definitely on the ‘no’ list. Sure, I’ve probably ended up ditching a few potential partners with whom things could have worked out, but there’s nothing like a search list full of new opportunities to make one realise that there are plenty more hot nerdy guys in the sea.

And, of course, the same is true from their point of view as well. No man I meet online need worry about whether I’m too tall, too loud, or, as one guy rather excellently put it, too ‘drinky’—I most definitely am all of those things, and I state it up front in my profile so as to avoid that awkward moment when we meet in a bar and he looks around for a discreet window to escape through.

If I were to distil what I’m trying to say in this blog, in my book, in articles and guest posts I write elsewhere, it’s this:

“Don’t make assumptions about sexuality.”

Don’t assume everyone’s the same. Don’t assume women are all looking for excuses to get out of sex, or that straight men are on a relentless quest to penetrate any female hole. Understand that people are complex, difficult creatures, and if we all acted the same not only would sex and relationships be seven billion times easier, but the world would be an unconscionably boring place.

And yet, when I write an article about female sexuality – that it’s complex, that some of us lust after dark and sordid things, that some women pursue sex with a drive that’s not easily explained by the ‘I’ve got a headache’ narrative – one of the most common responses is this:

“You obviously haven’t met my wife.”

Sigh.

My wife hates sex

I haven’t met your wife, and it’s likely that I won’t. It might be the case that your wife/girlfriend/mate/girl you met down the pub detests sex. It might equally be the case that she wants a very different kind of sex to the one you’ve got on offer.

But I’m not talking about your wife, because I’m not talking about all women. I never am.

I get this criticism a lot, and to be fair I understand why – the things I write here can sometimes sound a bit prescriptive. And I’m confident enough in my own experience to put forward arguments like “women don’t all want X” or “men aren’t always like Y.”

However, there’s a subtle difference here. Just because men and women aren’t all X and Y, that doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re all definitely Z. They might be A or B or even – if they’re particularly filthy – J. In order to agree with me you don’t have to think that all women want exactly the same – that would be illogical, terrifying, and clearly contrary to the experience of any person who has ever met women. All you have to understand is that people, bless their incomprehensible selves, are all different. 

Although it might upset you, some women like sex more than your wife. Some women like sex less than your wife. Some women, if they were married to you, would be a bit pissed off with you moaning on Twitter about how infrequently they want to fuck.

Unique and beautiful snowflakes

Women aren’t all the same. We never have been. Some women will be pretty similar to me in terms of outlook, sexual taste, etc. Others won’t.

I know you know this, of course. Chances are if you’re seeing this just after it’s published you’re a regular reader, subscriber, or someone who follows me on Twitter. You probably understand well the vast spectrum of human sexuality, and that people – no matter what their gender, sexuality, etc – have vastly different and fascinating needs and desires.

I’m not writing this for the people who understand. I’m writing this so that I have a link ready for the next person who doesn’t. So the next time someone says ‘hurr hurr, you haven’t met my wife’ I can send them here, and try to explain.

Just because I like sex doesn’t mean everyone has to. Doesn’t mean everyone does. I might sometimes be clumsy with my words, I might conjure up images that don’t fit with your worldview, but – like every single other blogger out there – I am utterly unqualified to speak for everyone.