I’m the worst student. When I’m not cocking up the task you’ve set me, or getting stroppy because I don’t understand, I’m struggling to concentrate because – God damn my juvenile brain – there’s a teacher, and he’s got such sexy hands and commanding presence and I want to know what it would be like for him to put me over the desk and spank me.

Don’t get me wrong – I listen, I do. But I have such strong connections with school and arousal that there’s an unavoidable physical reaction I get that prevents me from always being the model student.

Teenage kicks right through maths class

Most people have a teacher they used to crush on. I’ve told you about mine before, and the feelings I had for him sit heavily in the back of my mind when I’m in any situation that involves sitting down and listening to a speaker.

But there’s more to the learning/sex association than a hot teacher and my own fluttering eyelashes – school itself was deeply hot.

I was a nerdy child. The one with greasy hair and crap glasses, who sat aching on the sidelines at the school disco, desperate for a boy to rub herself against but never quite cool enough to be asked. Interactions I did have with boys were usually furtive. Geeky guys drew the line at being associated with me and I, keen to ape the mysterious heirarchy of popularity, didn’t want to be too publicly associated with them for similarly misguided childish reasons.

So: furtive secrecy all the way.

A touch under the desk. An elbow brushing my chest when a boy leant across to get a pen. A five-minute grope behind the sheds on the playing fields until the bell rang for the end of lunchtime and I groaned and nearly melted into a puddle of my own frustrated angst.

Maths class was the best. I sat sandwiched between two friends, who used my desperation for in-class touching as an outlet for their own rampaging hormonal curiosity. We’d flirt. We’d touch. We’d scrawl notes to each other in the back of workbooks:

“I had a wank about you last night.”

And all the time knowledge was being hurled at me. Equations, formulae, words, techniques, answers. I wrote it down. I tried to focus. And I tried to wrench my brain away from the fact that oh God his hand was on my thigh and his fingers were so close and if I just shift a little bit to the right he’ll feel the wetness seeping through my knickers.

The hotness of learning doesn’t go away

I’m not young any more, and I can make it through a conference call or a powerpoint presentation without dripping concentrated lust through the crotch of my jeans. But the association, now made, cannot be broken. I’m the one sitting at the back noting down words and feeling hot with the physical memory of classes in which the boys deigned to touch me. The rigid stiffness of sitting still gives me an awareness of all of my muscles, my limbs, the rise and fall of my chest, the pulsing throb of my heartbeat kicking against the seams of my clothes.

It can’t just be me – it’s definitely not just me, right? The combination of youthful memories and adult fantasies means that when I’m at the back of the room I’m more vulnerable to instinctive arousal than ever. I’ll take notes, listen, and ask pertinent questions, but when I shift in my seat it’s not always because I’m uncomfortable.

Eroticon 2014

As you might have guessed, this weekend I was at Eroticon – a spectacular sex writing conference. I kept a bit quiet about going because I don’t like to broadcast where I am at any given point, but this post won’t go live until I’ve left. Alongside writhing in exquisite horniness for two solid days, I learned many fantastic things from some truly brilliant and lovely people. I’m sure I will miss some people off the list because I am fallible and useless and editing this on my phone – but thank you to everyone I met for being kind and putting up with my anxious mumbling.

Ruby Goodnight, Cara Sutra, Emily Dubberley and Mia More – all incredibly lovely people who taught me many things about online writing, press, and working the machine.

Molly and DomSigns – they are like the Sid + Nancy of sex blogging. Follow both of them, and if you get to meet them one day then you are incredibly lucky – try not to be as inarticulate and starstruck as I was.

Pandora Blake, Myles Jackman and Zak Jane Keir – they talked very wisely about censorship, and taught me things that scared the crap out of me. Zak wins the award for ‘quote of the weekend’: “If censorship is the answer, then it was a fucking stupid question.”

Victoria Blisse, KD Grace and London Faerie – sometimes you need to step outside what you know, and these people all taught me really interesting things about perceptions of sex outside my own limited experience and opinions.

The lovely people at Belle de Soir and Doxy who gave me one of these incredibly powerful fuckwands. I have never had a sex toy that comes this close to being an actual power tool, so expect a post soon in which I describe, in excessive detail, the terrifyingly awesome things I expect it’ll do to my cunt.

The excellent and hilarious HarperElliot and Gryphon taught me how to read porn out loud, so if you’re interested in hearing a blog post rather than reading it, let me know and I’ll try to record something using their excellent advice.

And a final, most heartfelt thank you to the awesome Ruby, who is the hard work and exceptional organisation behind Eroticon. You are spectacular, and thank you so much for having me.