Let it henceforth be known that you may do anything you like with my friends, or my casual fucks. If they consent to it then you may touch them, kiss them and shag them in whatever depraved manner and in whatever tantric position gives the most pleasure to the two of you at the time.

But if you touch the boy I love I will tear you into a billion pieces. I will scatter those pieces across the globe, then spend the rest of my life retracing my steps so that I can stamp on each individual one of them until you are ground into a shower of dust.

Jealousy isn’t as bad as we think

The key argument against jealousy is that it implies ownership. I don’t think that’s true. Ownership of a certain kind is good – whether your relationship is open or monogamous there’s a delicious thrill in being able to say “he’s mine.”

It doesn’t mean that you own that person completely, and feeling jealous does not in fact give you any rights at all over the other person. But part of mutual love is giving a tiny bit of yourself up to the other person. And being jealous is your way of saying “I give a shit about this. This is significant.”

But there’s a world of difference between being a bit possessive – “I want you all to myself you scrummy pile of gorgeousness” – and being so jealous that it becomes destructive – “I don’t want you to see your best friend any more because I’m worried that you fancy them.”

Jealousy is still really fucking bad

The key problem with jealousy is that it is arational. There’s nothing inherently green-eyed-and-evil about getting angry with your monogamous partner for snogging someone else – they broke your agreement, so you have a right to be angry. Your possession of this person extends up to (but not beyond) an expectation that they don’t have sexual contact with anyone else.

The problem with real, steaming, burning jealousy is that it is prompted by things that – to a rational observer – are not a cause for rage at all. Some wholly innocent events have our inner Iago stampeding out from the recesses of our brain screaming “I like not that!”

The receipt of a flirty text. A look interpreted as meaningful. A feeling that your partner’s too close to a certain person. A desire – a need – to know not just what they want to tell you but all the private things in their head as well.

And some people feel this more than others – some have a tendency to quiz their partners, go through pockets and trample on their privacy to get at whatever their gut tells them must be the truth. So as kind, understanding humans we need to try and comprehend why our partners feel this way. I’m not talking about giving in and letting them strip-search you because you were late home from work, but having patience and being willing to discuss the issue can – in my experience – do a hell of a lot to assuage the arational anger that is jealousy.

You’re probably better than I am

I am a terribly jealous person. I’ve destroyed nights out because I worried that boys weren’t paying me enough attention. I’ve ranted about that bitch from their work who won’t stop flirting. I’ve – oh God, my blood runs cold to write the words down – I’ve read a boy’s emails.

As expected, none of these things did me any good. Because at the end of the day, although it’s nice to know you’re wanted, no one’s partner ever said “hey, do that cute thing where you interrogate me about my close friends again, before reading my text messages behind my back.”

So just as we have a responsibility to be faithful (whatever ‘faithful’ means within your relationships), and a responsibility to be understanding when our partners occasionally swerve into unnecessary jealous rages, those of us who do tend towards jealousy also have a responsibility to be rational.

Our partners have chosen us, and that’s really significant – they’re not going to un-choose us in a hurry. And the majority of people are more likely to stumble into an innocent situation that causes one’s jealousy to flare up than they are to casually fuck a passing stranger. Boring, I know, but it’s the rational truth.

So, in relationships as elsewhere in life, we need to ignore our emotions occasionally and examine things with a rational head. Consider whether an innocent explanation is more likely. Step away from our partner’s phone and avoid reading their texts. We need to listen to our brain rather than the seething rage in our gut. When our inner Iago says “I like not that” we need to tell him to fuck off.

As a woman who has had sex with a man on more than one occasion, I felt like I might be well-placed to give you some advice on how to become sexy. Here goes.

When I’ve asked men I’ve slept with “what makes me sexy?”, answers have ranged from ‘your enthusiasm for dick’ through ‘your big, fat, argumental mouth’ to ‘the fact that you live quite close by and I’m incredibly lazy.’ But luckily we don’t have to rely on flattery dished out by men I’ve known – FHM has the answer.

Today FHM released its ‘100 sexiest women’ edition and I, completely unscientifically and with pint in hand, logged the key things that stood out about the women in the top 100. See my ‘methodology‘ for more info.

I then spoke to the collection of liberal, pervy, lovely people who follow me on Twitter, and asked what they thought was sexy. The results are in:

What makes a woman sexy, according to FHM

 

What makes a woman sexy, according to Twitter

Quite the difference, no? It turns out that becoming the sexiest woman in the world might be more difficult than I originally thought.

What does FHM say about ‘sexiness’?

Most of the things mentioned in the bios of FHM’s top 100 were career-related. In fact, almost all of the copy focused either on what the lady had featured in (TV shows, films, magazines, adverts) or songs she had sung. Curiously, although many of them mentioned the women’s careers, there were only 11 mentions of specific achievements – ‘breaking a Guinness World Record’ or ‘kayaking the Amazon’, for instance.

Although there were a few glimpses of their personal interests and passions (one of the top 100 sexiest women campaigns to save Great White Sharks, another is a noted philanthropist) the majority of the copy focused, unsurprisingly, on dribbling odes to their ‘legginess’ or bodies ‘sexy enough to bend time and space.’

What does Twitter say about ‘sexiness’?

Twitter, on the other hand, focused far more on a girl’s attitude – her individuality and confidence were key indicators of sexiness, as were wit and intelligence.

Special mentions go to words like ‘edgy’ and ‘ballsy’, which I personally appreciate in a woman. One enthusiastic gentlemen assured me that the sexiest thing in a woman was her offering ‘even the slightest indication that she’d be willing to touch me.’

But the overall prize goes to the four people who pointed out (though no doubt most others were thinking similar things) that it’s all completely subjective. Personally, I love a girl with attitude – a loudmouthed, argumentative, filthy creature who could beat me in both a fist-fight and an argument. Someone with pretty eyes, a huge arse and spectacularly hard nipples.

How to become the sexiest woman in the world

Depressing though it is to read FHM, it does help you to understand the tedium that comes with consensus. Yes, most of the women in the top 100 were similar – they all had jobs in the public eye, so were presumably quite outgoing, they were all slim and feminine, with lovely tits. Most of them had long hair and almost all of them were wearing clothes even my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house in.

But that’s just what happens when you get thousands of people to choose sexiness based on pictures of women they’ve seen in magazines. Their sample is limited, for a start, and there are so many people voting that things will eventually work their way towards a democratic middle-ground – the breadth and variety of human sexual preference won’t get a look in. You’ll inevitably end up with 100 beautiful yet very similar singers/models/actresses in their pants.

When you ask people a question – an open one – about what they find attractive, ‘sexiness’ becomes far more inclusive. Suddenly to become the sexiest woman in the world you no longer have to choose from a limited range of careers, associate yourself with someone famous or freeze your arse off in cheap lingerie.

If you can be confident, intelligent, make someone laugh or melt at your smile, you’re onto a winner. If you have a twinkle in your eye or a penchant for filth or even just a special something that makes you different then someone – somewhere – will probably want to fuck you.

Well, someone on Twitter at any rate.

Methodology: Let it not be said that I am not a rigorous motherfucker. What was my methodology? I logged things that were mentioned in tweets, using what I believe is technically described as a ‘tally chart on the back of an envelope.’  I then logged things from the descriptions and accompanying photos that appeared in FHM’s ‘100 sexiest women’ supplement. If it wasn’t mentioned, it wasn’t logged. For example, I know that at least three of the people in the supplement have had a sex tape/sexy pictures leaked, but it was only mentioned on one occasion, so was only counted once.

This might sound callous, but I don’t care if you break up with me by text message. Same goes for email. Sod it – text the ‘letters’ section of the Metro for all I care. If you’re going to dump me, just dump me.

Yes, I’ll be sad. But I’ll be no more sad than if you – quite literally – made a meal of it. Took me out for dinner, had a long discussion prompted by occasional irritating sighs, ending with The Chat: ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t fancy you any more/we have nothing in common/I’ve met someone infinitely more likeable.’

It hasn’t been emotional

People say that the reason they wouldn’t break up via text is because it’s cold-hearted. But the problem is that few of the relationships I get into are emotional enough to require a drawn-out conclusion. Most of the ‘break-ups’ I have been involved in recently have happened either because

• he’s found a girlfriend who’d rather he didn’t fuck anyone else
• he lives outside Zone 3 and so I am far too lazy to see him regularly

And so in this context, a break-up text will do just as well as a long conversation. If he’s a boy I’m shagging he’s a boy worth shagging, so naturally I’ll be sad that I can’t fuck him any more. But I’m not going to cry my face off over a tub of Häagen Dazs – we were probably never that close.

More importantly, it takes me just five minutes to read an email, less than one minute to read a text, but it takes an entire evening to have the break up chat. A whole evening. Think of all the things I could do in an evening! While I’m listening to you tortuously apologise for ending something that was inevitably going to end anyway I could instead be dying my hair, writing another blog, livetweeting The Apprentice or – crucially – finding someone else to fuck.

There is nothing more valuable to me than time. And giving me more of it, even if it means swallowing your natural desire to project emotion onto sex, is a wonderful thing to do.

Just tell me

But the main reason I think text break-ups are fine is because very occasionally, because of the way I meet and interact with guys, I end up in a weird limbo where I’m not entirely sure if someone is still with me. In the last year I have had three guys who have broken up with me by just ceasing all communication.

Two guys stopped fucking me after a few lovely evenings which I’m reasonably sure they enjoyed. One guy stopped fucking me shortly before we were due to go away together for a weekend.

This isn’t a rant about getting dumped. I’ve been in many ‘things’ that have ended, so I don’t get particularly upset about the endings themselves.

But what I am emotional about is not knowing. Because I like to plan. I like to know. Just as I like to know how you like your blow jobs and whether you’re into spanking, I also like to know exactly where you stand on the issue of whether you are or aren’t willing to put your dick into me.

It’s not you, it’s me

And it honestly is. I think I’m alone in this, because I’ve told other people about my preference for rapid-fire, heartless relationship comms and had them weeping over my cracked and battered soul. But a text or email at least has an immediacy and honesty that I wholeheartedly respect.

You might wait for weeks for the right moment to have ‘that’ conversation and (in the case of some of my past boys) end up never having it at all. So if your mind’s truly made up, and you really really mean it, what better way to tell me than to bleep it to my phone?

Not only will you have furnished me with useful information, you’ve also saved me time. I’ll be able to read it, digest it, mourn and move on in less time than we’d have spent on pre-dinner drinks.