I know I always bang on about how there aren’t any universal tricks to make your sex life better. There’s no ‘one simple way’ to please your lover in bed. But I’ve decided – after a decade and a half of sex blogging – that there is actually one change that would have a near-universal positive impact on everybody’s sex life. It isn’t something an individual can do on their own, it’s a choice we need to collectively make as a society. But we can make this choice if enough of us get on board. The one simple trick to give everyone a better sex life: Universal Basic Income.

Hear me out.

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Some people spend their spare time knitting, while others prefer more dangerous hobbies – abseiling, base jumping, exploring tiny dark caves that they might get stuck in – the kinds of activities that get their adrenaline racing. The same is true of kink. While many will be satisfied with a little light bondage and some occasional role play with a safe word, others like to dive deeper and kink things that others find far more scary. There aren’t many people I’d commission to write a guest blog about consensual gaslighting, but Jenby – who’s tackled things like surveillance, tongue-stapling and Total Power Exchange with extremely enthusiastic consent – is right up there. So! Today she’s here to talk about gaslighting as kink. And although I know it sounds like a cliché to tell you ‘don’t try this at home’, I’m going to say it anyway. As a general rule, the darker and more potentially harmful a kink is, the better you need to be at playing safely and communicating and all those important things. I would no more trust a stranger to write this post than I’d follow a stranger into a dark cave without safety rope and proof of competence. But Jenby’s written so much before from her eagerly submissive perspective that I rate her as an expert spelunker of kink’s darkest and twistiest caves, so if anyone can talk gaslighting as kink, it’s her.

Note that this piece does exactly what it says on the tin: discusses gaslighting as kink play. It also features ‘Daddy’ as an honorific – everyone in this story is over the age of 18. 

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Last week I wrote a piece about wanting to be loved. I think acknowledging the desire to be loved is useful to me, and it’s not something I’ve always been able to do. It feels shameful, somehow, to yearn for love. Like if I want it too much then I’m desperate, needy, incomplete without the validation of a romantic partner. But having thought about this a lot recently, I’ve realised that acknowledging this desire has been a net positive. Good for self-acceptance, and perhaps even for my self-worth too. Because being up front about how much I want to be loved means I also have to face the important caveat that comes hand-in-hand with that desire: I do not want to be loved at any cost.

This one’s long, waffly, and incredibly gendered. Sorry about that. 

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Today’s guest blog speaks to me deeply. As a filthy, experienced sex blogger I have dated quite a few people who have worried they’re too ‘vanilla‘ for my tastes. As if once you start trying kink, there’s no going back, and no sex will be good enough unless at least one of you ends up suspended from the ceiling covered in Nuttella. This week’s anonymous contributor gives a funny, sweet account of how she took the news that her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend had more sexual experience than she did. Is ‘vanilla’ an acceptable flavour? I’ll let her give you the answer…

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For as long as I can remember, I have yearned for a partner. Even when I was too young to understand sex or romance, I pursued boys. With a relentless, aching need. I’m sure some of them could sense it radiating out of me. As a child, when a brand new boy would turn up in whatever context – playing with my siblings and I on holiday, or transferring into my class from another school – my whole being would suddenly snap into focus, laser-targeted on whether or not this one might be a possibility. As a teenager, I was obsessed with the idea of having a boyfriend, and although there was one boy I was wildly in love with, I knew deep in my heart that any boy would do. I just wanted to be loved. When I finally did secure a boyfriend – even though he was entirely unsuited to me – there was a powerful feeling of relief and accomplishment. I’ve done it! I’ve got one! I am wanted! Go me! I yearn for a partner, I always have done. I just really really want to be loved.

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