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.

According to some people who give way too much of a shit, Jeremy Paxman has grown a beard.

Think what you like about it, but by God you have to think something. Today the internet has been bubbling with chatter: are you for or against the beard? Does it look good? Does it look scary, because for some reason someone once decided that all bearded men are Harold Shipman? Has your attitude towards Paxman’s hard-hitting interview questions changed because he happens to have some hair on his face? Let’s do a sodding online poll about it, shall we?

Anyway. Because I’m fucking contrary and annoyed, I’m going to weigh in to the beard debate with the definitive answer as to Whether Beards Are Good. Ready? Here goes:

Growing a beard is good

I’m a fan of beards – they’re often a pretty sexy way of framing and defining a man’s face. I’ve been with a few guys who have had some sort of facial hair, and with one guy who found facial hair so amusing he would regularly grow a beard just so that when he shaved it off he could experiment with various comedy styles.

They’re occasionally a bit scratchy when you’re kissing someone, and might irritate you if you’ve got sensitive skin, but the same can be said of a particularly coarse jumper fabric.

I love running my hands over a guy’s beard, feeling the scratchy texture of the hair on my palms. I love watching him trim the edges, that ‘I’m so grown-up’ feeling I get when I think about him doing something so adult. I enjoy the way it frames his face, and the variety – the different stages of beautiful he looks as it gets longer, shaggier, and eventually gets tidied up.

But the best thing, I think, about men who have beards is that they are clearly capable of making independent decisions about what to do with their own face.

Not growing a beard is also good

I also, though, like clean-shaven dudes. There’s a certain elegance and beauty about a really smooth shave. Again, I like to watch men do it, particularly the bit where they tip their head back to get at the hairs on their neck. I love the slight scratch of stubble as it starts to push through in the evening. I utterly adore the smell of a freshly-shaved guy when he rubs his face up next to mine.

But again, the best thing about a clean-shaven gentleman is that he is capable of making independent decisions about what to do with his own face.

Growing a beard is your own decision

I’m surprised at the number of people who would respond to the ‘should women shave their legs?’ question with a loud and decisive ‘it’s none of your fucking business’, yet are happy to pass judgment on a TV presenter just because he has chosen not to shave. I wouldn’t bother writing about this issue if it were just Jeremy Paxman – I appreciate that people are having a bit of fun and Paxo isn’t going to be sobbing into his autocue because some people on Twitter said his beard was shit. But the beard vs no-beard debate leaks awkwardly into a lot of our sexual discussion in a way that is pretty offensive to men, and this seems like an appropriate time to tackle it.

People say things like:

“I just couldn’t kiss a man with a beard”

“Men with beards just look untrustworthy”

Or even, in a move designed to hit not one but two of my ‘rage’ buttons: “The only thing worse than a beard is a ginger beard”

I’m not making these up, incidentally, these are all things people have said to me – the latter prompted a bollocking in the form of a tedious drunken lecture. Mumbled apologies ensued. Awkwardness happened. Lessons were probably not learned.

Preference vs pressure

I understand that people have personal preferences: some gentlemen really do prefer blondes, and some people really can’t get aroused unless their partner is clean shaven. Fair enough – passions like these are hard to control, and there’s no rule that says we must bestow equal lust on men no matter what their facial hair situation. However, there certainly is a rule that states we must avoid pressuring people to do certain things to their bodies just for our aesthetic pleasure. It’s the ‘don’t be a total arsehole’ rule.

Most adult men, in their natural state (and most women, come to that) will grow some hair on their faces. It might be dark, light, thick, coarse, downy or patchy, but ultimately most people will grow some hair on their faces. Having some hair on your face is the natural default for the majority of the adult population. The decision to remove it is one that can only be made by the owner of that face, and making them feel bad about their decision based purely on your aesthetic opinion about beards makes you a total arsehole.

So, just as it’s none of anyone’s business whether I shave my legs, wear make-up at work or wax my pubes into the shape of a lightning bolt, likewise it’s not for us to decide what hair Jeremy Paxman should or shouldn’t remove from his face.

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.

Cocks are beautiful. There – I said it. I think they’re not only hot in the traditional sense – i.e. in their potential to be used for doing sexy, sweaty, hot things – but in a more aesthetic way too.

I like the smoothness of the skin, the unique shape, length and girth of each one, and I think that the contrast in colour to the rest of a guy’s body highlights perfectly something that is worthy of individual attention.

The ‘last turkey in the shop’

The idea that the cock is a beautiful thing seems to be a relatively controversial one. On the one hand, there are people who are so enamoured of cocks that they’re willing to collect, curate and rate images of them. On the other hand, there are those who – when presented with these images – say that there’s something inherently hilarious about dick, or that it’s a shame the male sexual organs are either laughable or ugly.

Naturally, what someone finds beautiful is an incredibly personal thing. I, personally, don’t think that cunts are particularly pretty, but I accept that countless thousands do. One person’s work of art is another’s pile of rubbish. If you don’t want to sit down with me and scroll through hundreds of images of erect dicks, admiringly complimenting the features of each one, then I don’t think you’re a bad person.

But I do find it uncomfortable when people say ‘God, aren’t penises hilarious!’ and I look like a humourless arsehole for saying ‘no.’

Penis appreciation

There are a million different pressures put on women – be thin but not too thin, be sexy yet modest, remove some types of hair but not others. Similar pressures are creeping up on men as well – as is evidenced by the large number of guys on the lovely site of cocks who have completely shaved their testicles.

But I can’t think of any part of the female anatomy that is subject to the same treatment as the penis. Women are judged, certainly. But is there anything about us that is assumed to be universally funny? When we get out of the shower are our partners thinking ‘god, it’s hilarious how her tits, when not pictured in a sexual context, are comically ridiculous’? Are there people across the world flicking through Playboy going ‘I know it’s supposed to be sexy, but I just can’t look at a female arse without giggling’?

There’s no conclusion to this blog post, really, other than to say that I think cocks are beautiful. Whether they’re soft, and waiting for a gentle cupping hand to start massaging them to rigidity. When they’re being gripped firmly during a particularly powerful and sexy piss. Or whether they’re rock-solid and glistening slightly with pre-come, red and tight and thick and twitching…

OK, especially that last one. Seeing a glistening, naked cock makes me want to do many things:  laughing isn’t one of them.

Let us discuss the word ‘ladylike.’ This word conjures the idea of demure high-society women nibbling on tiny sandwiches before patting daintily at their unsullied lips with napkins. Sorry, serviettes. Or whatever one calls them in order to avoid a terrible faux-pas.

The word ‘ladylike’ can, in my opinion, be applied to anyone – female or not. The key is ‘is your behaviour a type which the Victorians deemed acceptable for high-society ladies?’ These days we don’t expect anyone (male or female) to behave in the ways the Victorians deemed suitable for high-society ladies – we’d all be fainting and gagging for a pasty before you could say ‘I take my tea with lemon, Jeeves’. Hence why the word is useful, because it can be funny when applied to people who are being disgusting. Downed ten pints then puked in a gutter? Not very ladylike. Eaten an entire packet of Cadbury’s Twirl Bites then burped loud enough to disturb the neighbours? Unladylike. Shat your trousers on a rollercoaster? Likewise.

I don’t personally think the word ‘ladylike’ itself is necessarily misogynist – it’s just an outdated label that can be applied in various ways. So, as with all words – slippery little bastards at the best of times – I think a lot depends on context and intent.

Bodily functions

Unfortunately for the word ‘ladylike’, it is most frequently used in contexts which make me want to hurl large blunt objects at delightfully shattery china. It is often used for comedy, but more often used as a reminder to women that they shouldn’t admit to having any bodily functions at all.

There are two reasons I’m writing this blog. Firstly, because I overheard a conversation in a restaurant recently that went something like this:

Small girlchild: burp
Second small girlchild: giggle
Mother of aforementioned small children: Don’t do that, it’s disgusting.
Small child 1: Why?
Mother: We’re at the dinner table. Besides, it’s not very ladylike.

When I was a little girl I loved many things that I considered ‘ladylike’ – tiny china teasets, huge frilly dresses that I could spill Ribena down at parties, and (please stop laughing at the back) ballet pumps. But if someone had told me then that in order to maintain a veneer of ladylike charm I’d have to not just acquire these frilly things but also refrain from doing other things I liked – making mud pies, burping, running along the landing naked after a bath with a towel streaming behind me while I shouted “Der ner ner ner ner ner ner ner BATMAN” – I’d have hurled my cup of Ribena into their stupid narrow-minded face.

The second reason I felt compelled to mash wildly on my keyboard in barely-disguised and possibly excessive rage is that I read this interview. Take your time, have a read, and come back when you’ve reached the point that you think my head exploded.

Anyone who guessed ‘some time during the first question’ is correct. The woman being interviewed is a science writer. I’m not familiar with her work but it sounds brilliant, not least because she’s written a book about sexual arousal called ‘Bonk.’ However, rather than ask her something about all the fascinating things that she’s studied, or what drew her to the subject matter, the interviewer instead jokes that it’s not ‘ladylike’ for her to wonder what happens to the anus when it has a cellphone inside it.

I’m not saying the interviewer is an evil person and needs to be crushed, but were I to meet them in person I’d certainly be tempted to ask the startlingly obvious question: “would that have been your first question to a man?” Would the first thing they probed be whether the subject matter was a bit inappropriate or un-dainty? I doubt it.

It’s my body and I’ll piss out of it if I want to

I’ve frequently heard grown adults talking about women’s bodily functions in ways which imply that we, as women, have some sort of superhuman level of self-control which means we are never scruffy, pissed, obnoxious or irritably-bowelled. I’ve met girls who’d be horrified if they accidentally farted in front of a boyfriend, or boyfriends who would be disgusted to walk into the toilet post-shit and smell something other than roses.

Sure, burping might not be polite. Farting, swearing, talking loudly about getting fisted or accidentally pissing your knickers on the night bus: all of these things can certainly be considered rude, or gross, or inappropriate. But the idea that they’re more gross and inappropriate just because a woman is doing them is ridiculous.

Women are brilliant, I’ll grant you. But we’re no more skilled than men when it comes to being able to control our bodily functions. We’re disgusting and messy and we smell. We leak strange juices, burp when we’re windy, get rolls of fat when we sit down wearing tight jeans. We’re curious about what people put up their arses. We sweat and we swear and we get drunk and fall over. Occasionally we even shit in the woods.

So I think what I’m trying to say is that there are certain rules of politeness that I’m happy to adhere to: I won’t burp at the dinner table or do the Batman-towel thing in polite company. But I’ll only follow these rules if they apply to everyone. I’m not going to sit demurely in a corner stifling my farts if you’re allowed to trump with gay abandon in the seat next to me.

I am woman, hear me burp.