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
Tag: sex
Dragging hidden things into the light
Sometimes in the comments below an online feature about, say, a new crime drama, you see people complain about the amount of sex and violence on TV. “Why can’t they make programmes about something nice? Where the characters are pleasant to each other and no one gets killed?!” moans Gladys from Hampshire, and you find… Continue reading Dragging hidden things into the light
Lines on lust
The thing about being both insecure and perhaps a touch self-involved is that when someone sends you a 4,000-word email explaining what they think of you, you find it more compelling than creepy. I received one such missive fairly recently, and it contained – among a host of other wildly incorrect things – a line… Continue reading Lines on lust
29 things
I turn 29 at the end of this week, and are you even a writer on the internet if you don’t publish a list post around your birthday? Here are 29 things I’m fairly certain I know for sure. But ask me again in half an hour a year’s time… 7 things I know about life… Continue reading 29 things
Flirting with writers
Or: Woman, 28, in ‘modern dating is awful’ shock If you’ve read Dolly Alderton’s beautiful memoir Everything I Know About Love, you’ll join me in a sharp intake of breath when I mention the ‘guru chapter’. For the uninitiated: a few years ago, Alderton conducted a phone interview with a man who billed himself as… Continue reading Flirting with writers
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
Criminal heart
You can admit to a lot of things from behind a screen and a keyboard. You can disclose weird and inappropriate crushes, your most self-sabotaging habits, your pettiest rage triggers and the most niche of kinks. You can confess to, say, an addiction so toxic and devastating, you sold your first-born to facilitate it. And… Continue reading Criminal heart
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
Inbetween Girl 