This week’s guest blog is by a fantastic fellow blogger – Isabelle Lauren. She writes with touching candour about sex and libido after having a hysterectomy. It’s a brilliant piece, and it gave me an insight into not only one of the ways in which sex can be a struggle, but also about how vital patience and communication are when dealing with sexual difficulties. Check out her brilliant blog (and in particular this recent piece on the sex/violence distinction for over-18 content, which I really enjoyed) and follow her on Twitter @RomanticIsa.

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Every year I try to write something about how Valentine’s Day is mostly a bundle of gendered expectation and obligation wrapped in a parcel of guilt. That doesn’t stop it being fun for some people (and nor should it), but hopefully it does help people who feel shit about the whole thing to feel a little less shit and a little more like it doesn’t really matter. But I’m a sex blogger, so if I don’t write anything about Valentine’s Day I’ll get letters. So, as a compromise I’ve written a guide to things you can buy as Valentine’s Day gifts for yourself. Hoard them, enjoy them, publicly propose to them if you want to, just don’t give them to anyone else: there are other gift guides for that.

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I’m kind of obsessed with door cuffs at the moment. Simple velcro handcuffs that come attached to short metal poles, which you use by hooking them over the door. They mean you can effectively tie someone’s wrists up high while you tease them, and my partner uses them to make me beg for it.

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Good sex writing should – in my opinion – make you do something. Breathe a little faster, maybe. Reach into your pants, sometimes. Get in touch with someone you’ve been lusting after for ages… Well, this week’s guest blog made me squirm and wriggle and blush a bit while I was reading, then crave a little of this kind of scene myself. So please give a blushing, warm welcome to today’s guest blogger – international Mistress and courtesan Valerie August – with a story about how sometimes even a professional Mistress might need a little nurturing and discipline to guide her…

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I’m a big fan of build-up and anticipation. This period of time just before Christmas is often more fun than Christmas itself for me, because while it exists only in my mind it can pretty much always be perfect. The coolest Christmas presents look brilliant under the tree when they’re wrapped, but in the afterglow of the opening frenzy there’s always the worry that the amazing thing you picked out to give your special someone will end up disappointing them. Without the shiny paper it’ll be mundane and obvious. Potentially even embarrassing. The same is true of sex fantasies.

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