OK listen up, lover/fuckbuddy/casual shag. You want us to get our sexy fuck on, and that’s delightful. I would very much enjoy milking your dick/being ruined by you/tying you to the bedframe/getting spanked in the hallway/sucking you off/finding a secluded park where we can bang up against a tree/whatever it is that both of our little hearts crave. But in order to do this, and do it well, I need you to give me some guidance. Tell me what you want and why you want it. Talk about your desires and needs and likes and dislikes. Communicate with me – not just once, at the start of our connection, but constantly. Before, during and after sex. It’s not a one-shot thing, it’s a permanent responsibility. You want to eat the cookies? You have to help make dough.

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Do you have a ‘good’ sense of humour? I reckon most of us want to answer ‘yes’ to that question. Myself very much included. If I’m going to shag someone, not only do I want them to make me laugh but – crucially – I want them to laugh at my jokes too. And although ‘good sense of humour’ is a useful shorthand, because humour is so personal, you’re better off hunting for someone who has a compatible sense of humour, rather than what they describe as a ‘good’ one – I mentioned this in an older blog post about writing the best online dating profile. Most people love to laugh, but not all of us find the same things funny. Someone you think is hilarious might be tedious and irritating to me, and vice versa. I’ve been thinking on this a lot recently, about the ways in which humour can not only entertain us and sometimes laugh us into bed, but also indicate compatibility and green flags in potential partners.

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I don’t do choking any more. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, it turns out that something I have loved for many years is far less safe than I realised. It’s too much risk. I’m not going to order you not to do choking play, but I will tell you that this breath play article by Jay Wiseman is worth a read – it gave me useful information in a way that genuinely changed my mind. As I’ve said to a couple of dudes since I stopped being comfortable with choking: “sorry to be a buzzkill, but we’re gonna need to do something different.” I’m no medical expert, so I don’t think it’s my job to explain the detail of the risks involved with choking and asphyxiation, and I wouldn’t expect you to trust me as a source on that anyway, but here’s what I am an expert in: making shit horny! Instead of scolding you for enjoying this particular kink (I enjoyed it myself for a very long time), I’m going to share some safer alternatives to choking. Activities that – for me – capture a similar vibe to being choked or having my breath restricted, but without the underlying dangers.

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“I wish I could take it away,” he says. My friend who doesn’t know what to do with my sad feelings. He tells me, with sincerity: “I wish I could take some of this away for you.”

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Sorry to be blunt, but I don’t need advice on my feelings. I don’t want to be rude or cruel here – I fully understand the desire to give advice, if you think you can be helpful. And I recognise that your desire to help comes from a lovely place. Occasionally I will make very specific requests for advice or input, but the vast majority of the time, I do not write my sex blog in order to gather advice from strangers.

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