Category Archives: Unsolicited advice

Shameless promotion: my new book

My new book is (nearly) out! If you like you can pre-order it here. And if you’d like a signed copy there’s a link for that too. I know, exciting! I spent Friday in my publishers’ office signing things, and doing interviews, and being a bit overwhelmed about the whole thing.

I suck at publicity, because I get shy and go ‘oh I wouldn’t want to trouble you’, but this post is here to give a bit of info and to say that if you’re a journalist/writer/blogger and you’d like to talk about my book, or interview me or what have you, that would be amazing. Just get in touch.

For those of you who are just bloody lovely and want to buy it when it’s out, please do subscribe to my blog – I’ll send an email out on 10th March when the book launches officially. You can also win one of 10 signed copies if you subscribe – details, Ts and Cs below.

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Emotional labour: how much can I ask of you?

I’ve always been the one who gets to hear people’s secrets. Maybe I’m great at keeping them, or perhaps I just have the look of someone who’s keen to hear all the dirty details. Maybe both – I hope so.

Even before I started sex blogging, I’d have friends email or text to say ‘I did something super-hot yesterday and I’m not sure who else to tell so…’ We’d chat about it together, swap stories and share experiences, and give each other the best non-judgy advice or support we could muster.

Then I started a sex blog.

I still chat to friends about sex secrets and details, but I’m lucky enough that I have an outlet for it here. You read and respond and share and chat, and we have a special club where we can talk about this stuff. It’s awesome. It’s reciprocal. It’s simultaneously a shared joy and a shared burden – depending on what we’re talking about.

It also means that lots more people confide in me privately.

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Foreplay for people who suck at foreplay

I’m not very good at foreplay. In fact, on the scale of ‘things I am incredibly bad at’ it ranks below even running, remembering birthdays, and ‘not eating the second half of an open tube of Pringles.’

But, as with most sexual things, I’m willing to learn. After recently being berated for the fact that my seduction technique often involves me stripping to my pants in the bedroom and shouting ‘DO YOU WANT SEX?’ so loud that he can hear it from the kitchen, I am working on getting better at it.

Touching, hinting, saying sexy things: you know the drill.

Here’s how my foreplay lessons are going…

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All the love except eros

I’m not going to say the word. The V word. The one that’ll have half of you clicking away and the other half vomiting copiously onto the carpet.

But what I am going to do is write about non-sexual love. The love that I usually ignore here in favour of hot sex or wanking or – very occasionally – posts about men who give me that warm feeling in my chest.

Other kinds of love are often neglected – it’s the topic of one of my favourite posts over at BishUK: more than one love. He talks about everything and everyone we love but we never send cards to or buy roses for. Friends, family, community – the people who support and inspire and care for us.

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How to get over heartbreak

Start with a super-sad song. One you’ve played over and over before, but never fully wept to. Put it on loudly and sit somewhere you usually don’t. The carpet. The bath. The filthy kitchen floor.

Then, grab something comforting. Chocolate, biscuits, wine, all of the above. Consume them while staring blankly into space, imagining that somewhere someone else is doing the same. Feel the weight and pain of all the shattering hearts that exist on the same planet.

Cry.

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