This week a rather lovely and polite person from a TV agency asked me to promote a casting call for a new sex programme. It sounds like exactly the sort of sex-based reality TV that I enjoy watching, although the jury is out on whether it will be an enjoyable watch or a troubling one. Anyone who’s played Bad Sex Media Bingo with documentaries on porn will know that the media doesn’t always deal with sex in a sensible way.

Still, some do, and I have no issue in principle with posting a casting call, just in case any of you perverts would like to get on telly for a bit. However, I do have an issue with this one in particular. Can you spot why?

Sex at different ages

If you said ‘the age limit’ then you’d be absolutely correct. Of course, as a show that is about sex, the range has to begin at 18. But why have an upper age limit of 35?

Full disclosure: I’m 30. I have no personal experience of sex over the age of 35. For all I know it might be the case that, upon hitting that magical birthday, I suddenly lose all interest in any kind of sexual activity. Wanking goes out of the window, oral gets ousted, and fucking fucks utterly and irretrievably off. Maybe the instant rejection of all things sex at the age of 35 was the driving force behind Kirstie Allsopp’s recent comments that women should have babies much earlier in life. Maybe there is a whole new genre of life that I had previously not imagined: the Dry Years. After fucking oneself raw as a youngster, the more mature adult puts sex to one side, and begins filling their time with visits to garden centres and discussion on house prices instead.

I fucking doubt it though.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the idea that older people cannot have and enjoy sex is bollocks. What’s more, the idea that the sexual cutoff point would be as ridiculously low as thirty-fucking-five is phenomenal. Your genitals don’t fall off when you hit 36, and nor do you suddenly change your attitude towards something that fundamental.

Older people in sex programmes on TV

I asked the person who contacted me what possible reason there could be for such a low cut-off point (or, indeed, why there was a need to have any upper age limit at all). She didn’t know, and to be fair I am guessing it wasn’t her decision to limit things, so I said I’d post the call (see above – voila!) but also that I’d call attention to the fact that the age limit on this was incredibly restrictive.

Look: I know that TV companies often equate youth with beauty and sexiness. The idea of deliberately seeking out older people to be on a TV programme about sex probably has producers screeching with terror. But older people do have sex. Older people can be sexual. As someone for whom the vast majority of my crushes are on men who are well over the age of forty, and as a woman who is constantly reminded that to wrinkle is to fail, I utterly despair at the thought of a programme about sex being artificially limited to exclude a huge proportion of the sexually active population.

TV sex programmes that don’t limit based on age

I have also had contact recently from the company that makes ‘Sex sent me to the ER’. Their casting call is below.

Can you see an age limit there? I can’t. Although in the email exchange the casting producer told me they were looking for couples ‘aged 20-50’, on the ad itself there are no limits. You know what that means? It means they may well get applications from people aged over 50, and I suspect that if their story is interesting then the number of birthdays they’ve had will be deemed irrelevant. As it should be in these situations.

When I am old…

I understand that as we age we change – we might be less interested in sex, just as we might be less interested in clubbing. Moreover there will be some people under the age of thirty five who are wholly disinterested in doing things with their genitals, and have much more fun doing other things. But none of this is necessarily the case for all couples. There are plenty of older people (and yet again I smash my head onto the keyboard at having to include people in their late thirties as ‘older people’) who are sexually active. Personally, in five years time I plan on being one of them. When I am an old woman I shall wear purple thigh-high socks and a black velvet strap-on belt. I will tie my partner to the bed by the ankles and ride his dick with just as much joie de vivre as I did last night. I shall wank on the sofa in the lounge and lick my fingers afterwards.

What’s more, it may well be the case that there are people who feel uncomfortable about older sex, or disgusted by it, who wouldn’t be so if so much of the media didn’t insist on painting older people right out of the picture as soon as sex comes into play. So much of our view on sex is dictated by what society tells us is and isn’t OK. What is and isn’t erotic. What is and isn’t beautiful. Those who portray sex on TV – especially on reality shows – have an opportunity to make things as ‘real’ as possible.

I’m sad that in this case they haven’t taken it.

Some people think that because I’m a feminist I must hate men. I definitely, truly, genuinely do not. So here’s an open letter to them all… Dear men,

(more…)

A couple of weeks ago Geraldine O’Hara wrote a warm, personal article about what life was like for her as an erotica author. Initially I leapt with delight at someone being so open about their writing, but my delight quickly turned to frustration and disappointment when I read on – it seems that even as she works hard to cater to her reader’s passions, she’s squeamish and pretty judgmental about them.

In the Telegraph article, Geraldine takes pains to explain to us that she doesn’t do ‘the things in [her] books’, and that she’s not a ‘sex maniac’ – the unspoken implication being, of course, that her readers are. Her worry is understandable: despite the explosion of erotic writing, many of us are still either giggling in a corner about sex or condemning it as something corrupting and vile. But how depressing when even those who produce porn feel compelled to protest: “Oh, I write it, of course. But I’d never think about doing it.”

It’s good to talk

I write filth, and the thing I enjoy most about writing is that I know I’m describing things that people actually do, and thoroughly enjoy. They email me their stories, and comment to say “oh God I did this once and it was spectacular.” I know it can be spectacular because I’ve done it too.

But as much as I’d like to think everyone’s becoming more open about their sexual needs, I still get a surprising number of emails from people saying ‘thank God it’s not just me’ or ‘I like [insert deliciously hot sex act here] too – I was worried that there was something wrong with me.’ These emails usually come from women, and they always make me sad. Men are equally likely to email, but their “oh yeah I love throatfucking” is more likely to come with a “lol” than a lament about how they’re probably sick and dirty.

You’re probably normal and it’s fine

Few of the acts I talk about here are particularly unusual. Even if the majority of people don’t enjoy these things, they’re relatively common fantasies: being spanked, enjoying giving head, having sex with groups of men instead of just one at a time, that sort of thing. And yet while we’re happy to accept male sexuality as a storming force of nature (often to the detriment of men), women’s heartfelt and lust-inducing fantasies are often treated as either faintly embarrassing or downright obscene: things we can write books about but never actually admit to ourselves.

I write mostly non-fiction. That is to say that almost everything I describe actually happened. I slept with that hot stranger. I had that threesome. I went to that bondage club. I didn’t do it because I was ‘curious’ about how other people got off: I did it because I, along with thousands of other women, enjoy it. I’m not ashamed of any of the sexual things I’ve done – I’m far more ashamed of times I’ve lied to people, ignored important phone calls from friends, or said cruel things to loved ones in the heat of the moment. The sex I’ve had isn’t just a collection of sordid fumbles which I’ve later come to regret: it’s sociable, heartfelt fun with adults who I like and respect.

Evil shameful deliciously hot sex

In her article, Geraldine explains that “I don’t write erotic fiction to satisfy any urges. I write it because readers want it.” I’m sorry to have to break it to Geraldine, but urges are definitely being satisfied – those of the readers. And alienating those readers by discussing their sexual fantasies as if they’re the deviant lusts of a sex maniac shows a stunning lack of understanding about sexuality, not to mention a lack of respect for the audience.

I’m not arguing that Geraldine should have to experience all the kinds of sex she writes about – far from it. I’d no more tell her what to do in the bedroom than what not to do, and if her imagination’s good enough to float people’s boats then I wish her the best of luck. But when she explains that

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking Stephen King if he’s murdered anyone lately”

it makes me want to laugh, then cry, then cry some more, then fight a rabid dog like they do in Cujo.

Sex is not murder. Not even if it involves whips, chains and squealing. An unusual type of sex might not appeal to you personally, but to compare consensual sex between adults to murder frames people’s fantasies as devious and evil, and makes me think that the author has fundamentally misunderstood that sex is a good thing. A more accurate comparison, surely, would be:

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking a romance author if they’ve ever been in love.”

Look: we’re all adults. We know that across the spectrum of adult humanity there is a veritable rainbow of sexual tastes and desires. There are those who would frown upon BDSM, pornography, threesomes, or anything that came with even a whiff of the sexually unusual, and they are well within their rights to do so. But for someone who creates porn – who actually makes money from the people whose fantasies she portrays – to compare those fantasies to an act of calculated evil? That’s just perverted.

Telling us we’re unhealthy is unhealthy

This sex shame is damaging and unnecessary: it leads to people (and women in particular) feeling like they should suppress their genuine desires for fear of looking deviant or freakish. In turn, the fact that there are few women publicly willing to admit to ‘this sort of thing’ means that younger women are more likely to feel guilty about their own (perfectly healthy) fantasies and desires.

It leads to the double-standards we apply to women and men (when was the last time you heard a male pornographer declare that of course he wouldn’t watch his own material?). And, of course, it creates an odd dilemma for people like me: unashamed to write about sex but preferring to write under a pseudonym lest future employers are horrified to find I’m not a sexless work-robot. It leads to those awful articles in magazines in which self-appointed ‘experts’ explain to strangers exactly how to please your lover in bed, because you’re scared to ask for what you actually want in case you’re branded a pervert. Above all, it leads to a hell of a lot of bad sex.

It’s not fair to lay all of this at Geraldine O’Hara’s door – it’s not her fault that we, as a society, are weird about sex. But as someone who writes about sex, and makes money from catering to people’s sexual fantasies, it would be helpful if she remembered that these are actually real desires – these fantasies take place in the heads of real people, who will (quite rightly) be offended when they’re compared to murderers. We aren’t perverts or souls to be pitied: we’re adults who are making informed choices about our sexuality. I’m not a bad girl who needs to be punished: I’m a woman who knows what I want.

This week I got an email from a guy who is a virgin. In his words:

!’m 28, male and a virgin. I got brought up religiously. I so wanted to lose my virginity – but it didn’t happen. Let’s just say meeting girls wasn’t something I did. I went to university when I was 20 and well, it didn’t happen. Then I came home and it didn’t happen and… well, although I’ve never seen it, I’m like that 40 Year Old Virgin guy.

Long story short: he is worried that being a virgin makes him less attractive to women. A sticky problem, because if it’s true then being a virgin beyond a certain point means you fall into a vicious circle of not-getting-laid, making you less attractive to potential partners the longer it takes you to get laid, and so eventually diminishing your chances of getting laid to almost zero.

Scary stuff. Luckily, the world is not such a bleak and awful place that women will, en mass, refuse to sleep with you if you haven’t hurled your virginity away by your X-teenth birthday.

What’s the right age to lose my virginity?

The answer to this question is “literally any age you feel comfortable losing it.” Fun fact: this might mean ‘never’, if you never feel the desire to. Before I wrote this blog I Googled “ages to lose virginity by country” and came across this excellent map. The link to the original source is broken (if anyone’s got updated links do let me know in the comments) but I’ve no reason to believe it’s not true – it lists the average age for people to lose their virginity by country, with the ages ranging from around 15 to over 20. The overall average is 17, which would probably surprise the British teenagers I went to school with, who seemed to think that if you hadn’t rid yourself of your virginity by the age of 16 you were definitely frigid and/or ugly.

I digress.

The most important thing to note is that these ages are average: they are the age arrived at when, on balance, everyone’s experience is taken into account. If we all lost our virginities on or before the average these figures would plummet, so from this we can deduce that there are plenty of people losing their virginities much later than the average age, as well as people who lose it before.

Will girls not want to sleep with me because I’m a virgin?

Sadly I can’t answer for all girls, no matter how much I’d like to have an ‘official spokesperson’ badge. But what I can tell you is that there are definitely some girls who will want to sleep with you even though you’re a virgin. Moreover, there are girls who will find the fact that you’re a virgin a distinct turn on.

Over the course of my life I can count the number of virgins I’ve slept with on one hand. Or, to be more precise, one finger. The sex was stunningly hot. Absolutely, achingly, delightfully hot. His nervousness and desperation to do the deed combined to produce a tension that was utterly unique: never before or since have I felt someone trembling so violently as he touched me, or moaning with such beautiful, lustful agony as he slipped his shaking fingers into my knickers. You can read more about him here, or [SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT] buy my book for the full story.

So, in answer to your question, I certainly wouldn’t be less likely to sleep with someone if I knew he was a virgin. On the contrary, I’d be more likely to savour the moment, flattered in the knowledge that he’d probably remember me for the rest of his life. Not all women will think like this, of course, but those that do will appreciate you so hard they’ll make up for any other judgmental ones.

If all this is true, why do I feel bad for being a virgin?

Because some people (I like to call them ‘fuckwits’) speak and act as if your virginity is a troublesome mess to be disposed of. Like you’ve been carrying a used tissue around with you since you were born, and when you hit sexual maturity you must dispose of it as quickly as is humanly possible.

Whether it’s the arsehole kids at school calling you a virgin because you’re not behaving like a sex pest, to the adults who really should know better using ‘virgin’ as slang for ‘pitiable loser’.

Like those who think sleeping with more than the ‘average’ number of people makes you a reprehensible human, some people act as if ‘losing your virginity’ is a chore you need to get out of the way before you can become a fully functioning adult member of society. It’s balls, of course. I remember the night after I lost my virginity lying in bed thinking “huh. So that’s it. I’m not a virgin any more.” I expected to feel different: more grown up. I’m not sure how exactly – I don’t think I expected flashes of light or a tingling cunt or a sudden and comprehensive knowledge of the Kama Sutra. But I didn’t feel different at all: I felt like just the same slightly clumsy, neurotic twat that I’d been before, just with a new experience to hold onto.

I’d rather be a virgin than a bastard

In my experience sex is a very nice thing to have, and if you want to have it and haven’t yet then I understand your desire to hump things, in the same way as I understand why people want to go to Disneyland, or stay at the Ritz. I’m not going to patronise you and assure you that “it’ll definitely happen one day” or that you just have to wait for the “right” person – these things will depend utterly on how you feel about it, what you do, and who you end up meeting.

What I will tell you, though, is that not everyone is going to think badly of you for being a virgin. And I can assure you that the people who make you feel shit because you’ve missed out on a life experience they happen to have had are probably not worth fucking. They’re like braying gap-year-ites who tell you you’ve ‘never lived’ because you haven’t been to India, or got off your tits on mushrooms at a beach party in Thailand. Like arrogant city boys who brag about their salary in front of lower-paid friends. They are the the cool kids from school who never grew up, and remain convinced that happiness can only be measured in comparison to other people.

There are plenty of people for whom your virginity will not be an issue – there are many who will actively find it a turn on. There will be a few – and I suspect it’s only a small proportion – who will judge you for it. Don’t worry about whether these people will fuck you: if they judge you for being a virgin then they don’t deserve to have nice sex.