I’m sitting on the sofa and I’m horny. Not just horny in an abstract ‘quite fancy a shag’ sense, but in the throbbing, aching way I get horny when I’m hungover. My knee’s jiggling – a painfully obvious sign that what I need is release rather than affection – and I’m idly browsing through the lovely Sinful Sunday images that are guaranteed to provide a satisfying wank.

I could, of course, simply go through to the bedroom and wake someone up. He’s not only incredibly horny 99% of the time, he is also generally happy to have his sleep interrupted as long as there’s either coffee or a fuck waiting when his eyes open.

But I’m not going to do that. Because, lovely though sex is, it doesn’t always scratch the right itch.

Admin wanking

I’ve waffled on about wanking before, frequently, and I’d hope there’s nothing surprising about the idea of a woman treating herself to a hand job on a lazy Sunday morning. But I think there’s often an assumption that wanking is a substitute for sex – something you do because you can’t get laid at that particular point in time.

On the contrary. It’s not even something you do because you’re feeling deeply aroused and have a particular image or fantasy in your head that requires special attention. Often I masturbate simply because it’s something I have to get out of my system before I can get on with my day.

The admin wank, if you like. This is one born of a vague sense of hungover-horniness combined with the knowledge that sex will take too long and there’ll be no porn that satisfies my particular mood. In these instances, shoving my hand down my knickers and frigging myself for a maximum of 60 seconds will usually do the trick.

This doesn’t mean I like sex any less, this doesn’t mean I fancy him any less – it just means that, right now, that’s the most suitable way to get what I need.

A long time ago…

It’s stiflingly hot, and I’m lying awake in a single bed in a villa in Spain, listening to my boy frantically rubbing himself under the duvet of the other bed, on the other side of the room. I am trying very hard not to cry.

This is unusual: normally the idea of boys wanking nearby me is enough to make my knees go funny and give me that lustful borderline-crosseyed look that I reserve for exceptionally arousing situations. I love both extremes of boywanking: the times when I’m not just present but involved – when he’s touching my tits or gripping my arse as he pumps his fist up and down his own cock, preparing to cover me with jizz when he reaches the climax. And the other kind: when he has solitary, private wanks that he tells me about afterwards – sending me links to the videos he was watching so I can imagine at just which point he was pushed over the edge.

Both of these things are hot, and amazing. Part of me is getting tingly – the sound of this guy wanking purely for his own physical pleasure, letting out small sighs or suppressed grunts as he gets close makes my head spin. But part of me wants to weep at the sheer waste of it. In the villa I’m absent: not included or involved, just in the same room by chance, not as asleep as he thinks I am, torn between feeling voyeuristic and vulnerable, telling myself that his furtive release is a necessary tactical manoeuvre rather than an implicit rejection of me.

I try to control myself and fall asleep, but I fail, eventually storming out of the room in a huff just as he twitches to mark the conclusion.

It’s not about sex versus masturbation

That incident happened a long time ago – when I was younger and far less used to the kind of admin wanks that are one of the easiest and simplest sexual things adults can do. The masturbation that isn’t a performance, just a quick solution to an immediate problem: like going to the toilet, or quenching your thirst.

I used to see sex as something I should always be striving for: with a partner one of the boxes I ticked when calculating whether I was happy was looking at how many times we’d fucked. The quality was always good, but what really mattered to me was the quantity. Naïvely, I saw every wank my partner had as a fuck I’d missed out on, failing to realise that masturbation isn’t always a substitute for sex: sometimes it’s a snack that keeps you going until the next meal.

The day I got back from that Spanish holiday I had a chat with the gentleman in question. I explained how his furtive hand-shandy had made me feel left out, miserable and unwanted. Reading the story back now, I’m having a serious chat with myself – explaining that the way I reacted makes me look like an inconsiderate arse.

It should never be about sex versus masturbation – there’s no either/or. You can love sex and love your partner and think they’re hotter than the sun, but still find yourself occasionally needing a bit of alone time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me for a couple of minutes…

Every now and then Twitter goes on a nostalgia trip – everyone starts using the hashtag #TweetYourTeenageSelf to dispense wisdom their real teenage self would never have listened to.

But I’d have liked it, I think. Even if I didn’t take the advice. We’ve all got wisdom we’ve love to impart to our younger, less knowledgeable selves. And I’d certainly pay big bucks now to hear from GOTN aged fifty, and find out what I should or shouldn’t do in the next twenty years to avoid being a spectacular fuck-up.

This post is a bit saccharine, bordering on the cheesy, but anyone who has read my book will know that although I come across as a sex-crazed harpy, there’s an emotional romantic underneath. She’s just quite deep underneath.

So, in no particular order, here are the top five things I wish I’d known as a teenager.

1. There’s no such thing as ‘good in bed’

Really. I used to believe that being ‘good in bed’ was like having decent hand-eye coordination: a skill that you either had or didn’t. The nervousness that accompanied my first few fumbling shags was made more terrifying by the knowledge that This Was It – the time when I would find out whether I was part of team Goodshag, or team OhChristThatWasShocking.

It turns out that’s not the case at all: one person’s Goddess is another’s Godawful, and there’s no one holding up scorecards when you’re lying in a postcoital sweat. Sex isn’t a skill that individuals have or don’t have: it’s a skill you learn together.

2. People you fancy rarely notice the things you hate about yourself

I say ‘rarely’ because there are some things – being overweight or excessively tall, for example – that have attracted the odd comment from guys I’m attracted to. But in general, the worries I have about my appearance are things that my loved ones only notice if I point them out myself. For instance, I’ve got a slightly dodgy tooth that prevents me from smiling too often, but people are far more likely to notice that I’m not smiling than the reason for my grumpy face.

So, I’d tell teenage me: there’s basically nothing wrong with you, because there’s something different about everyone.

3. Your cunt is actually something straight guys like looking at

Ah, youth. That period of time when all the things about your body that are usually hidden under clothes suddenly become fixations for your own self-disgust. I remember being quite unnaturally scared of what my cunt looked like when I was younger. It looked a bit like the cunts in porn, but not exactly the same, even when I tried to shave it so I’d look more grown up.

The first time a guy went to go down on me I leapt away in terror, begging him to turn the lights off lest he see the actual lines and curves of it. I’d probably have enjoyed teenage sex more if I could glimpse the future: a future in which I’m lying on a bed in my own grown-up flat as a boy I love runs his hands over it and tells me, for the millionth time “you’ve got a pretty cunt.”

4. Those douchebags don’t actually care what you wear

Like most people I know, I had a fairly rough time in school. I was tall, broad, scruffy, and not very good at makeup. What I’d loved to have known is that the people who laughed at me for being a goth didn’t actually give a flying fuck what I wore. I could have come in dressed head to toe in designer gear, with hair dyed blonde and swishy, heels that rapped a sexy rhythm as I sashayed down the corridor – they’d still have said the same old shit.

Because real life is nothing like an American teen movie. No one changes their place in the hierarchy just by getting a makeover, because the cool kids’ disgust has nothing to do with what you wear or look like – those are just easy things to get bitchy about. Their opinions are actually founded on some arbitrary moment in the past where people were divided into cool and not-cool. These labels stuck

But don’t worry – your label will expire the second you leave the building.

5. There is more than one love of your life

That guy you’re head over heels for? He’ll go. Then there’ll be another, and he’ll go too. Then there’ll be more who – you guessed it – will go. And each and every time it’ll feel unjust and impossible. You’ll want to scream and cry and tear the world apart because you just loved them so much and you’ll never find someone like that again and oh God how can you survive this pain? This misery feels utterly unbearable.

But don’t worry: you’ll bear it.

You’re all brilliant. I mean it – you’re gold-plated, top-of-the-range fantastic and I love you all. A month ago I asked people to have a go at describing their orgasms, in the form of some sort of competition (I haven’t decided the prize yet but trust me it will be highly desirable and worth at least a tenner).

There are still two days left to enter, so if you want to have a go, please leave a comment below describing your own orgasm (or do it on your own blog and send me a link so I can link to you, or email it to me if you’re shy), and I’ll include it in the final roundup. We’ll give people a chance to vote/comment on the final roundup then I’ll pick an overall winner. Finally, we will throw a street party in their honour (or, more likely, just have a bit of a love-in on the social network of their choice) and I’ll send them an awesome prize. Join in – you know you want to.

Describe your orgasm entries – round two

Rosa’s entry is an excellent place to start…

“I start to become really sensitive and twitch beneath my own hand, and I don’t know if I can handle such an intense sensation. It feels as though I am about to die, or come alive, or explode.” You can read the rest of the comment here.

Mal explains how hers almost always come from penetration…

“It begins as a series of long, sharp prickles around the clitoris, or as this unbearable hot sensation in my g spot and then, if it’s a gentle orgasm, feathers out delicately and I sigh and enjoy it with a soft smile.” Read more to see why she feels like she’s falling off a cliff.

The always-excellent N.Likes hits the ‘moment’ nail on the head:

“The first sensation was of a momentary vacuum of pressure – it was like that moment when you’re on a swing set and you reach the absolute peak of your arc: the swing isn’t going up any more, but it isn’t falling yet – it’s just hanging, suspended, momentarily immune from gravity or momentum.” His full description is worth a very thorough read.

Self-described ‘penis user’ (I love this phrase) Nick gives an incredibly vivid picture of how ejaculation feels:

“If you want to know what it feels like to ejaculate the best image I can give is to think of blowing bubbles into milkshake through a straw. That delightful welling up and out with occasions where you blow too hard and get it down your dress.” He then goes on to explain what makes the magic happen.

Ian’s got the build-up down beautifully:

“Something inside that makes me more sensitive, that makes every movement filled with a little more joy, and in amongst that an urge for something more: to increase the pressure, to keep increasing it, with each increase feeling better and better, until you reach the point where the only thing that would feel better than holding this delicious pleasure is releasing it.” Read the rest of his comment here.

Simon took a slightly different route and tried to describe a female orgasm:

“Those quiverings and tightenings deep within

The warm tingling that you can notice down below

As the hornier you get, the more this heat spreads

Imagining a fire burning deep inside you” His entry was submitted via email, but you can read the full thing here.

Inspired? Enter the orgasm competition

There’s still time to enter – I’ll close the comp for entries at midnight on the 26th of July. Leave a comment below, post your entry on your own blog, or email it to me hellogirlonthenet at gmail dot com and I’ll add it anonymously.

Summer’s come around, eventually. Time for us to run to the park to play cricket badly, burn things on barbecues while sipping lukewarm Fosters, and – if you’re me – growl with resentment at the fact that you have to show people your shaving rash if you want to go swimming.

I shave my crotch sometimes. Not all the time – in fact, one might say I’m reasonably lax about the removal of body hair. Ultimately, shaving things takes time and effort that I’d rather spend on having fun. However, I don’t mind the occasional shave because I like it when people come all over my cunt, and I get to rub it in. I’m gross like that.

So I have no problem with shaving, or hair removal, if it’s something people want to do. What pisses me off, though, are situations where I feel uncomfortable if I don’t. Situations in which I feel singularly incapable of channeling all of the angry liberal feminist rage I feel most of the time, and simply end up looking wistfully at my crotch and wondering why I give such a massive and disproportionate shit about how it looks. In this case, the thing that has made me angry is the prospect of swimming in the sea.

Caught between a rock and a hairy place

I understand that aesthetically some people prefer smooth thighs and a bald crotch, with no pubic hairs poking out of the sides of a swimming costume, but unfortunately for me (and, I suspect, a hell of a lot of other women too) this isn’t actually an option.

The choice for me is between a hairy crotch or an ugly shaving rash, ingrowing hairs, and a desire to scratch myself that’s likely to get me arrested in public places.

When I’ve confessed this to people before, their response has usually been ‘well, why don’t you wax?’ Great thinking, kids, but unfortunately waxing makes no discernible difference to whether my cunt turns bright red and causes me immeasurable discomfort for a week. What’s more, it hurts like… well… like a sadist ripping hairs out of your pudenda.

I got my crotch waxed once, so I know what it feels like. Anyone who suggests that I do this, in the same casual tone as they would if they were recommending a certain film, needs a quick, sharp lesson in empathy. Because my God, people, it hurts. A lot.

When I regaled my Mum with the horrible tale of my inaugural cunt-waxing, she summed up pretty much how I felt about the matter.

“I had it done once,” she said “and it hurt, but only slightly more than childbirth.”

I would probably have been less upset by the pain if it turned out there was a ‘gain’ from it afterwards, but unfortunately the very next day I was nursing bright red patches and itching again, still unable to wear a bikini in case people on the beach thought I was contagious.

How do you solve a problem like a hairy crotch?

I challenged myself to write this entry without recourse to my usual rage-fuelled bile-spitting about society’s expectations of presentation and body. Not because it’s unimportant (it’s very important) but simply because I recognise that no amount of raging and ranting and writing empowering blogs on the internet can magically stop someone being bothered about crotch hair.

If someone gives you an odd look when you stand on the beach, straggling pubes waving in the breeze, your discomfort won’t be lessened any by knowing that I wrote a feminist blog about it the week before. Knowing that I shouldn’t care about this stuff – that I’m intrinsically happy in my worth as a human being whether my crotch is bald or not – doesn’t make the slightest difference to my irrational, emotional insecurity about it.

When we arrive in Utopia, no one will ever have to worry about whether they have crotch hair, or a shaving rash, moles in unusual places or stretchmarks or cellulite or any of the other things that cause us to panic. We’ll all be far too busy swimming to give even the smallest flying fuck about anyone’s perceived imperfections.

But right now that’s not helpful or comforting. Right now I’m preparing for a holiday, staring mournfully at a bikini and dreading the moment I have to show it – and whatever state my crotch is in – to the world.

There’s no conclusion to this that’s in any way satisfying. In the short term I’m buying shorts. Long shorts. Swimming shorts. The really baggy ones that go down to my knees. Twinned with a bikini top and an angry stare, they should get me through this summer, at least.

And in the longer term, well. There’ll be more angry blog posts and rants about what is not wrong with you and why no one should feel compelled to shave their body hair. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we reach our Utopia before summer 2014, when this whole charade begins again.