I know someone who does not kiss on a first date. It’s a shameless and transparent ploy, because he tells the woman at the start of the evening that he doesn’t kiss on a first date, effectively setting up a challenge. I assume he has to play this game to concoct the frisson that other people… Continue reading Boring in bed: on sex, desire & vulnerability
Category: sex education
Call it what it is
I wish they’d just be honest, you know? I wish the 25 Alabama senators who voted to pass a bill effectively banning abortion could just be honest about their reasoning. Because of course, they say it’s about protecting the unborn child. Protecting a potential new life. They turn it into an argument about defending the defenceless,… Continue reading Call it what it is
Tumblr-ing down
A few weeks ago, Labour MP Jess Phillips commented that one of the ways sex education could be improved is by discussing female pleasure. “We should be telling girls about orgasms during sex education,” she said in an interview with Grazia. “I’m not suggesting we teach children how to masturbate, I’m suggesting we talk to them… Continue reading Tumblr-ing down
Behind closed doors
Hello, people I’m related to. Sorry about this. I’ve never had sex, ever, but please feel free to not read on anyway. In the summer, I went to one of the events Caitlin Moran did to promote her latest book, How To Be Famous. And something she said that night, during some chat about the #MeToo movement,… Continue reading Behind closed doors
On mixed signals
In the 2012 film Mud, the eponymous hero – played beautifully by Matthew McConaughey – utters the line: “a boat in a tree – hell of a thing, ain’t it? A hell of a thing.” A hell of a thing. “Mixed signals” – hell of a phrase, isn’t it? It can mean whatever the person… Continue reading On mixed signals
On choosing ignorance
Imagine for a moment that History was made an optional subject for schools to teach. “You can teach them about the past – tell them about world wars, and uprisings, and revolutions and dictatorships. Like, if you want. If you’ve got a spare hour or two in the timetable to fill, that’s cool, revisit the… Continue reading On choosing ignorance
Girl problems
What’s wrong with this poster? So this is festive. I wrote about sex & relationship education relatively recently, but in the last week or two, I’ve stumbled across a couple of articles that only reinforce the worry that our whole attitude to teaching young people about relationships is dangerously out-of-touch. Firstly, there was this, which… Continue reading Girl problems
Bad education
You know what distresses me? I mean, other than the price of Dermalogica products, the situation in Syria and people to whom the words “please” and “thank you” are alien concepts? Well, this. (If you can’t access it, it’s a Telegraph article about the government’s proposals to drop sex and relationship education from the curriculum… Continue reading Bad education
Inbetween Girl 