If you missed the first part, here’s an overview: I had a test date with a blog reader, “Jack”, who took me up on my offer to do a phone chat and message exchange then give him feedback on where he might be going wrong. It was also a challenge for me. I am prone to avoiding constructive critique because I’m a rampant people-pleaser who never wants to upset anybody. Would I be able to tell Jack where he was going wrong without burying anything useful in a torrent of consoling positivity? Let’s see, shall we?

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There are two things I adore about today’s guest blog. Firstly its celebration of something that is so often shamed. I’m a sucker for a change in narrative, especially one which helps to brush aside societal norms that can be harmful and irritating. I’ve always found hairy armpits wildly sexy – watching a hot guy lie back in bed with his hands behind his head makes me want to do feral, torrid things with his body. But I always struggled to find pit hair sexy on myself, until I stopped shaving back in 2020 and never looked back. The second thing I love about this guest blog is the way it captures something I’ve tried to articulate myself, but never so clearly: the way that desire can mould and shape itself to the things in your life at this moment. Your partner’s quirks and mannerisms. Their specific body, and how it changes over time. This post is an ode to hairy armpits, but I think it’s also a love letter to this kind of desire. And I adore it.

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As a massive hedonist, I want you to find your joy. No one else in your life can ever have your happiness as their top priority (which is right – only you can truly know all the things that will bring you pleasure), so it probably needs to be a high priority for you. Around this time of year, some of you will likely have broken – or be about to break – one or more of the punitive resolutions you set yourself on the first of January. Restricting pleasure or causing yourself pain in the name of self improvement. I’m not qualified to tell you how to live a healthy or virtuous life, but if you want to make resolutions you can stick to, I have a few tips from the hedonist gutter that might help you set ones you’re less inclined to break.

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Usually when I split up with someone, I’ll wallow in wistful nostalgia and take a little time to say goodbye. I’ll be gutted, of course, but sadness is familiar and life has helpfully taught me that it will pass. This time it’s different: I’ve found myself frightened and destabilised – turning fear and despair inwards till the panic of it starts to choke me. Life goes on, though! Unfortunately, it kind of has to! Despite my most fervent wishes, I am not allowed to just shut down all my organs and give up the ghost! This is partly because my lovely friends won’t let me. Here are eight things I have been offered by kind people who want to comfort me in the darkness.

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I’m absolutely gleeful about today’s guest post, team! And not just because it has one of the best closing lines of any guest blog I’ve ever published, but also because the message is something we could all do with hearing. We have all been given various cultural scripts about what sex is and how we should be doing it, often feeling like we’re ‘doing sex wrong’ if things don’t happen for us the way they do for characters in porn, TV, films, and elsewhere in our cultural stories. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you’ll know that un-learning these scripts (unpicking, unpacking, dismantling, rewriting) is a valuable thing to do in order to embrace our true desires. But how the hell does one go about doing that? Today’s fabulous guest blogger explains her search for good sex…

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