All Posts – Page 251
Biased, obviously, but I’m sad about the demise of FHM
I’m gutted that FHM is going to suspend publication. That might sound odd because I’m a feminist, and surely I should be ready to dance wholeheartedly on its grave, the way some people were accused of doing when Nuts magazine folded. It should also – to those who read FHM – sound perfectly natural for me to be sad, because for the last few months I’ve been a contributor.
I’m gutted on a simple level: I won’t be able to write things for them any more. But I’m also gutted for the other people who work there, many of whom were publishing some good stuff. Looking back on the FHM I first pored over in my teenage boyfriend’s bedroom and its more recent editions (October’s issue, for example, had an awesome feature on ‘rule breakers’ including interviews with a female CEO, a North Korean defector, and a 95 year-old sprinter), there’s a world of difference, although I appreciate that many of you might disagree.
I’ve been critical of some things FHM has done in the past (like their ‘sexiest women’ in 2012), but I’ve also been fairly open about the fact that I don’t think we should ban lads’ mags, or even imply that there’s no place for them in a society that has healthy views on sex. Sex is not the opposite of feminism, and being a feminist doesn’t mean ignoring or quashing straight male sexual pleasure. What it means, I think, is pushing for a broader representation of sexual pleasure – making it clear that the glossy magazine pictures are just one of a million things that might turn some people on.
SAS: Who Dares Wins kicks off a lot of filthy sex fantasies
“Tell me a sexy story,” I asked him, and he thought for a full three seconds before saying:
“OK. Picture the scene: you’re wandering past a bar, and inside there’s a raucous group of guys out on the town for a stag do…”
Although the reality of the British Stag Do is often cunt-witheringly unsexy, there’s potential there that he recognises as something I may well enjoy. It’s not just the fact that there’s a large number of men, although naturally I am a fan of any situation in which I am the sole sexual outlet for a gang of eager guys. There’s something about the stag do specifically that flicks that switch.
It’s often taken as a given that straight blokes will be keen on cheerleading squads, women’s hockey teams, and all the rest of it. They want to see the cotton-panty-clad pillow fights and soapy shower scenes that definitely happen when women get together (and they do, I promise. Like, that is literally all me and my mates ever do when we get together. Pyjama-clad romping, excessive giggling and showing each other our fannies). Yet when I have, on occasion, mentioned my desire to be wined and dined and slapped and tickled by an entire university rugby team, men I am with have expressed some degree of surprise.
I am thinking about this a lot recently, because I have got very solidly into a brand new trashy reality-TV show called ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’ and apparently my overtly sexual running commentary on the programme is somewhere between ‘dogged’ and ‘aggressive.’ Long story short: I want to fuck all the men who are in it, over and over, until their dicks are raw and they can barely muster a single drop of wrung-out spunk.
Guest post: Why do I get nervous before a BDSM scene?
I panic about everything, regardless of whether it’s actually worth panicking about. Good friends, acquaintances and even my own Mum: all these people are in the dark about the terror I have when I hit ‘send’ on an email to them and then immediately imagine everything collapsing around me, when they interpret a casual joke as a genuine insult. Don’t get me started on the times I have to assert myself or the things that actually matter…
Because of my permanent ‘red alert’ anxiety levels, when this week’s guest blogger got in touch with an idea about getting nervous before a BDSM scene, I leapt on it.
January Chopin is here to give you a gorgeously personal, amazingly hot, tinglingly nervewracking account of a BDSM scene. And I think a lot of people will see themselves in it…
Teenage kicks versus having sex in your thirties
As a certified grumpy bastard, I can tell you that it’s always much easier to be negative than positive. As someone with access to web stats I can also tell you that if you want to get clicks, and you’re not writing porn, you’re always better to be critical than optimistic. I’m throwing all that out of the window today, though, because of a conversation I had the other day that went a little something like this:
“Know what’s brilliant?”
“What?”
“We could have sex now if we wanted to.”
“I’m not really in the mood, but…”
“Ah, but you don’t have to want to, you just have to appreciate how cool it is that we totally could if we wanted to.”
Sometimes I go through miserable phases when I look down at my body and think ‘huh, there are some things that have happened here that are basically irreversible.’ I worry about stretchmarks or consider the fact that I’m no longer able to do the things I did when I was eighteen. I may still be able to get my ankles behind my head to brace against the bedposts, but I’ll no longer do it without a groan of effort. I can bend over sexily, but I’ll say ‘oof’ when I get up. Cramp is not so much an occasional visitor as a permanent unwanted house guest.
But, while it’s easy (and certainly more clickbait-friendly) to snark about the negatives, it’s also worth remembering the benefits of having sex in your thirties. This post is about giving credit to all the things I often take for granted…
Guest series: 24-year-old-virgin (part 3) – The climax
A few weeks ago, Mary wrote the first in her three-part story about virginity. It began with A, a guy she met on Tinder, moved swiftly through some sexy outdoor fumbles, and into a Travelodge with lube and sandwiches.
Now she’s back with the third part of her story, to let you know what happened next.
Massive thank you to Mary for writing the series: one of the reasons I love hosting guest bloggers is that it shows me a whole bunch of different perspectives. While I can bang on about what ‘virginity’ means to me, or tell you stories about first times of my own, I don’t own a monopoly on sex, and if it were just me shouting my fantasies into the void then this blog would be a really boring (and probably slightly creepy) place.
So. Read parts one and two of Mary’s story, get stuck in to part three, and if you have an experience or perspective on something that you’d like to share, please do pitch me a guest blog for 2016.