A couple of weeks ago Geraldine O’Hara wrote a warm, personal article about what life was like for her as an erotica author. Initially I leapt with delight at someone being so open about their writing, but my delight quickly turned to frustration and disappointment when I read on – it seems that even as she works hard to cater to her reader’s passions, she’s squeamish and pretty judgmental about them.

In the Telegraph article, Geraldine takes pains to explain to us that she doesn’t do ‘the things in [her] books’, and that she’s not a ‘sex maniac’ – the unspoken implication being, of course, that her readers are. Her worry is understandable: despite the explosion of erotic writing, many of us are still either giggling in a corner about sex or condemning it as something corrupting and vile. But how depressing when even those who produce porn feel compelled to protest: “Oh, I write it, of course. But I’d never think about doing it.”

It’s good to talk

I write filth, and the thing I enjoy most about writing is that I know I’m describing things that people actually do, and thoroughly enjoy. They email me their stories, and comment to say “oh God I did this once and it was spectacular.” I know it can be spectacular because I’ve done it too.

But as much as I’d like to think everyone’s becoming more open about their sexual needs, I still get a surprising number of emails from people saying ‘thank God it’s not just me’ or ‘I like [insert deliciously hot sex act here] too – I was worried that there was something wrong with me.’ These emails usually come from women, and they always make me sad. Men are equally likely to email, but their “oh yeah I love throatfucking” is more likely to come with a “lol” than a lament about how they’re probably sick and dirty.

You’re probably normal and it’s fine

Few of the acts I talk about here are particularly unusual. Even if the majority of people don’t enjoy these things, they’re relatively common fantasies: being spanked, enjoying giving head, having sex with groups of men instead of just one at a time, that sort of thing. And yet while we’re happy to accept male sexuality as a storming force of nature (often to the detriment of men), women’s heartfelt and lust-inducing fantasies are often treated as either faintly embarrassing or downright obscene: things we can write books about but never actually admit to ourselves.

I write mostly non-fiction. That is to say that almost everything I describe actually happened. I slept with that hot stranger. I had that threesome. I went to that bondage club. I didn’t do it because I was ‘curious’ about how other people got off: I did it because I, along with thousands of other women, enjoy it. I’m not ashamed of any of the sexual things I’ve done – I’m far more ashamed of times I’ve lied to people, ignored important phone calls from friends, or said cruel things to loved ones in the heat of the moment. The sex I’ve had isn’t just a collection of sordid fumbles which I’ve later come to regret: it’s sociable, heartfelt fun with adults who I like and respect.

Evil shameful deliciously hot sex

In her article, Geraldine explains that “I don’t write erotic fiction to satisfy any urges. I write it because readers want it.” I’m sorry to have to break it to Geraldine, but urges are definitely being satisfied – those of the readers. And alienating those readers by discussing their sexual fantasies as if they’re the deviant lusts of a sex maniac shows a stunning lack of understanding about sexuality, not to mention a lack of respect for the audience.

I’m not arguing that Geraldine should have to experience all the kinds of sex she writes about – far from it. I’d no more tell her what to do in the bedroom than what not to do, and if her imagination’s good enough to float people’s boats then I wish her the best of luck. But when she explains that

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking Stephen King if he’s murdered anyone lately”

it makes me want to laugh, then cry, then cry some more, then fight a rabid dog like they do in Cujo.

Sex is not murder. Not even if it involves whips, chains and squealing. An unusual type of sex might not appeal to you personally, but to compare consensual sex between adults to murder frames people’s fantasies as devious and evil, and makes me think that the author has fundamentally misunderstood that sex is a good thing. A more accurate comparison, surely, would be:

“asking an erotic romance author if they do everything in their books is like asking a romance author if they’ve ever been in love.”

Look: we’re all adults. We know that across the spectrum of adult humanity there is a veritable rainbow of sexual tastes and desires. There are those who would frown upon BDSM, pornography, threesomes, or anything that came with even a whiff of the sexually unusual, and they are well within their rights to do so. But for someone who creates porn – who actually makes money from the people whose fantasies she portrays – to compare those fantasies to an act of calculated evil? That’s just perverted.

Telling us we’re unhealthy is unhealthy

This sex shame is damaging and unnecessary: it leads to people (and women in particular) feeling like they should suppress their genuine desires for fear of looking deviant or freakish. In turn, the fact that there are few women publicly willing to admit to ‘this sort of thing’ means that younger women are more likely to feel guilty about their own (perfectly healthy) fantasies and desires.

It leads to the double-standards we apply to women and men (when was the last time you heard a male pornographer declare that of course he wouldn’t watch his own material?). And, of course, it creates an odd dilemma for people like me: unashamed to write about sex but preferring to write under a pseudonym lest future employers are horrified to find I’m not a sexless work-robot. It leads to those awful articles in magazines in which self-appointed ‘experts’ explain to strangers exactly how to please your lover in bed, because you’re scared to ask for what you actually want in case you’re branded a pervert. Above all, it leads to a hell of a lot of bad sex.

It’s not fair to lay all of this at Geraldine O’Hara’s door – it’s not her fault that we, as a society, are weird about sex. But as someone who writes about sex, and makes money from catering to people’s sexual fantasies, it would be helpful if she remembered that these are actually real desires – these fantasies take place in the heads of real people, who will (quite rightly) be offended when they’re compared to murderers. We aren’t perverts or souls to be pitied: we’re adults who are making informed choices about our sexuality. I’m not a bad girl who needs to be punished: I’m a woman who knows what I want.

This week I got an email from a guy who is a virgin. In his words:

!’m 28, male and a virgin. I got brought up religiously. I so wanted to lose my virginity – but it didn’t happen. Let’s just say meeting girls wasn’t something I did. I went to university when I was 20 and well, it didn’t happen. Then I came home and it didn’t happen and… well, although I’ve never seen it, I’m like that 40 Year Old Virgin guy.

Long story short: he is worried that being a virgin makes him less attractive to women. A sticky problem, because if it’s true then being a virgin beyond a certain point means you fall into a vicious circle of not-getting-laid, making you less attractive to potential partners the longer it takes you to get laid, and so eventually diminishing your chances of getting laid to almost zero.

Scary stuff. Luckily, the world is not such a bleak and awful place that women will, en mass, refuse to sleep with you if you haven’t hurled your virginity away by your X-teenth birthday.

What’s the right age to lose my virginity?

The answer to this question is “literally any age you feel comfortable losing it.” Fun fact: this might mean ‘never’, if you never feel the desire to. Before I wrote this blog I Googled “ages to lose virginity by country” and came across this excellent map. The link to the original source is broken (if anyone’s got updated links do let me know in the comments) but I’ve no reason to believe it’s not true – it lists the average age for people to lose their virginity by country, with the ages ranging from around 15 to over 20. The overall average is 17, which would probably surprise the British teenagers I went to school with, who seemed to think that if you hadn’t rid yourself of your virginity by the age of 16 you were definitely frigid and/or ugly.

I digress.

The most important thing to note is that these ages are average: they are the age arrived at when, on balance, everyone’s experience is taken into account. If we all lost our virginities on or before the average these figures would plummet, so from this we can deduce that there are plenty of people losing their virginities much later than the average age, as well as people who lose it before.

Will girls not want to sleep with me because I’m a virgin?

Sadly I can’t answer for all girls, no matter how much I’d like to have an ‘official spokesperson’ badge. But what I can tell you is that there are definitely some girls who will want to sleep with you even though you’re a virgin. Moreover, there are girls who will find the fact that you’re a virgin a distinct turn on.

Over the course of my life I can count the number of virgins I’ve slept with on one hand. Or, to be more precise, one finger. The sex was stunningly hot. Absolutely, achingly, delightfully hot. His nervousness and desperation to do the deed combined to produce a tension that was utterly unique: never before or since have I felt someone trembling so violently as he touched me, or moaning with such beautiful, lustful agony as he slipped his shaking fingers into my knickers. You can read more about him here, or [SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT] buy my book for the full story.

So, in answer to your question, I certainly wouldn’t be less likely to sleep with someone if I knew he was a virgin. On the contrary, I’d be more likely to savour the moment, flattered in the knowledge that he’d probably remember me for the rest of his life. Not all women will think like this, of course, but those that do will appreciate you so hard they’ll make up for any other judgmental ones.

If all this is true, why do I feel bad for being a virgin?

Because some people (I like to call them ‘fuckwits’) speak and act as if your virginity is a troublesome mess to be disposed of. Like you’ve been carrying a used tissue around with you since you were born, and when you hit sexual maturity you must dispose of it as quickly as is humanly possible.

Whether it’s the arsehole kids at school calling you a virgin because you’re not behaving like a sex pest, to the adults who really should know better using ‘virgin’ as slang for ‘pitiable loser’.

Like those who think sleeping with more than the ‘average’ number of people makes you a reprehensible human, some people act as if ‘losing your virginity’ is a chore you need to get out of the way before you can become a fully functioning adult member of society. It’s balls, of course. I remember the night after I lost my virginity lying in bed thinking “huh. So that’s it. I’m not a virgin any more.” I expected to feel different: more grown up. I’m not sure how exactly – I don’t think I expected flashes of light or a tingling cunt or a sudden and comprehensive knowledge of the Kama Sutra. But I didn’t feel different at all: I felt like just the same slightly clumsy, neurotic twat that I’d been before, just with a new experience to hold onto.

I’d rather be a virgin than a bastard

In my experience sex is a very nice thing to have, and if you want to have it and haven’t yet then I understand your desire to hump things, in the same way as I understand why people want to go to Disneyland, or stay at the Ritz. I’m not going to patronise you and assure you that “it’ll definitely happen one day” or that you just have to wait for the “right” person – these things will depend utterly on how you feel about it, what you do, and who you end up meeting.

What I will tell you, though, is that not everyone is going to think badly of you for being a virgin. And I can assure you that the people who make you feel shit because you’ve missed out on a life experience they happen to have had are probably not worth fucking. They’re like braying gap-year-ites who tell you you’ve ‘never lived’ because you haven’t been to India, or got off your tits on mushrooms at a beach party in Thailand. Like arrogant city boys who brag about their salary in front of lower-paid friends. They are the the cool kids from school who never grew up, and remain convinced that happiness can only be measured in comparison to other people.

There are plenty of people for whom your virginity will not be an issue – there are many who will actively find it a turn on. There will be a few – and I suspect it’s only a small proportion – who will judge you for it. Don’t worry about whether these people will fuck you: if they judge you for being a virgin then they don’t deserve to have nice sex.

New year’s resolutions are generally a bit crap, but as it’s timely I’m going to tell you about a resolution I’ve been working on for the last month or so, which I’ll carry through into the new year because time is linear like that.

I need to lose some weight.

It’s not urgent, but I’ve decided that my happiness depends on shaving off a few pounds so I can jiggle around the house to showtunes without feeling my tummy wobbling out of sync to the rest of me.

There are three things I hate about this, and believe it or not none of them have anything to do with diet or exercise. Sure, I prefer cider to soup, and running my arse round the block is about as tempting as queuing for One Direction tickets, but these are just things you have to do to lose weight, so I bear no grudges against biology. But there are some things about dieting that bother me.

The detox bandwagon

The first and most obvious thing is the patronising, sexist market that surrounds female weight loss. Don’t get me wrong, there’s an irritating market surrounding male health too (Get ripped in 8 weeks, lads, with this one weird old trick). But given that I am a woman, the female stuff leaps out from the shelves and smacks me in the face more forcefully.

Magazines trumpet ‘detox time’, as if it’s a long-established calendar event: that all women, for the month of January, will eschew booze and munch salads. Because if we don’t do this there’s a very real danger that we’ll just disappear into a fatty swamp of chemicals.

It’s bullshit, mostly. There’s really no such thing as ‘detoxing’, and if we didn’t consume any chemicals we’d die. But since the first marketeer sat down and said “hey I’ve got this great new product it’s like water but better because it costs two quid a bottle” we’ve been dragged into thinking that ‘detoxing’ is not only a real thing but something that all women should do throughout the month of January. Unfortunately, the more of us do it, the more it reinforces the idea that we should all be doing it.

So now I am in a position where I feel guilty for dieting in January, because I am propping up a ridiculous ad-driven concept of the New Year detox, but similarly guilty if I don’t, because I am a woman and therefore should be thinking about calories every single minute that I am not either buying shoes or tearing hair from my pudenda. It’s a pickle.

The ‘oh but you’re not’s

Why is it that, when I mention the fact that I’m a bit chubby, people feel compelled to tell me I’m wrong? Seriously, why?

I’m wrong about a million and one things. Once I argued that the battery life on an iPhone was shorter than the time it’d take me to commute to and from work, and the other day I spent a good twenty minutes insisting that Brad Pitt couldn’t be a day over forty. Wrong on both counts, of course, but not everyone feels compelled to point that out: often they just roll their eyes and let me continue down the path to future embarrassment.

But when it comes to weight, people are keen to insist I’m wrong even when I’m plainly and clearly right. When I say I’m trying to lose a bit of weight (usually in response to someone trying to guilt-slip yet another mince pie down my throat), people leap insistently out of their seats crying “OH NO YOU’RE JUST BEAUTIFUL AS YOU ARE”, as if the world will stop spinning if they let me believe I am anything other than perfect.

Why do we do this? It is, of course, mean to walk up to a friend and announce “you could stand to lose a few pounds, mate.” But I’ve got a mirror – I can see what I look like. And what I look like is an averagely attractive person who could do with losing a bit of weight. You’re neither evil nor a bully if you let me get on with it.

To add insult to injury, although gentlemen friends are allowed to make self-deprecating jokes about their weight, as a woman any mention of weight gain is treated as blasphemy. The poor gents who actually do want reassurance are left out in the cold, listening to the lilting sounds of “who ate all the pies”, while girls hiss “blasphemy!” at each other if one raises the possibility of dieting. This situation sucks for all of us.

Will you still love me when I’m thin?

“I love you no matter what.”

It’s a lovely sentiment, designed to elicit the same warm fuzzy feeling people imagine they’re conjuring if they tell you that you don’t need to lose weight. And yet it’s rarely evoked the other way around. Someone who goes on a diet is rarely reassured “I’ll still love you even when there’s slightly less of you filling those knickers.”

Loving someone when they’re fat is seen as a noble and beautiful thing, as opposed to just something that happens when someone you love piles on a few pounds (or, indeed, if you fall in love with someone who doesn’t have the proportions of a runway model – i.e. almost everyone). If we really meant it then there’d be no question whatsoever about whether we’d stay with a partner who weighed more than average: therefore no need for any reassurance that our deep and true love transcends weight.

Moreover, as I’m confident the sun will rise tomorrow, I know that if I woke tomorrow lighter and tighter your love would not wane. It’s not my weight that’ll put you off, but the things I have to do to stay like that – the act of losing weight itself. You’ll love me when I’m fat, sure, but I think loving me when I’m calorie-counting might be more of a challenge. Will you still love me when I ask you to eat salad to keep me company? When I swap my legendarily awesome macaroni cheese for quinoa? When I neglect your blow jobs to go to the gym?

We’ll see.

A member of my family is expecting a baby: cue applause, coos, expressions of delight, and the sound of excited aunties scrabbling at wallets to go and pick up the cutest, tiniest booties from a nearby branch of Mothercare.

Exciting though it is for some (the pregnant couple are clearly ecstatic about it), there are others who are tempering their squeals of joy with mutterings: “when’s the wedding?” they ask, with pursed lips and a sour expression.

The answer, in this case, is that there isn’t one.

Traditional family expectations

Perhaps it’s the season: a couple of weeks of touring relatives can give one an unnecessary burden of expectations. Where’s your boyfriend/girlfriend? When are you getting married? Where are the grandchildren with which you’re obliged to provide me?

There are some things we’re expected to do that are fair enough: respond to a nice gift with a thank you letter, help with the washing up so the cook doesn’t have to do it, smile at the Jeremy Clarkson book that Gran thought you’d like even though any decent human would rather eat it than read it. Sometimes we’re expected to do things because they’re just decent things to do, which is fine. But there’s more that sneaks over the line, laying expectations on individuals that are either impossible or undesirable to carry out.

Perhaps it’s families: older relatives are so used to passing on their wisdom that when advice turns to expectation we barely notice the difference. “You’re a lovely girl, you can find a great partner” easily melts into “you’ve got a lovely partner, you should marry him” and onward to “where’s the baby?” fairly naturally. There isn’t an obvious stopping point, at which relatives prompt themselves to step back.

We all do it

I understand why grandparents think a wedding should happen before a birth: it’s how it was in their day, and it’s what they’re used to. Luckily, though, not everyone shares the opinions of those born eight decades ago: we get less prescriptive, society becomes more liberal… it’s how progress happens.

But it happens much more slowly because so many of us stick to the status quo – we expect things of others because it’s the easy thing to do. Far simpler to join in with teasing loved-up friends about marriage and babies than to leave well alone and let them make up their own minds. Far easier to frown at people who choose something different than to celebrate their choice and show interest.

I’m sick of these unnecessary expectations. Not just the ones about marriage and babies, but the other ones too. Losing weight, going on dates, earning money, buying a house, having exactly the right amount of fun but not so much you appear out of control. Have the right kind of sex (fun, varied, but not too kinky) with exactly the right people (ones you love, ideally one at a time). We expect people to be bright and eager, but not desperate. To have a plan, but not too much ambition. To make money, but in ways we approve of. To live, achieve, then die to order.

The rebellious ones

Perhaps worse is that even when people reject these things we still paint them into a corner. As the one who rejects stuff. The one who isn’t traditional. The one who’s rebellious. So-and-so will never get married because she’s always been the odd one out. That boy will always sleep around because he always has. Rejecting the traditional trajectory doesn’t send you on a whole new journey, without any expectations at all, it just lumbers you with a new set.

So while the pregnant couple grimace through questions about weddings, others are expected to never get married, or at least to do something wild and reckless before they don a ring and a dress. Still others have to grin and bear a grilling on why they haven’t got a boyfriend yet, when the answer may well be ‘I just don’t want one‘.

I’m guilty of this too. For all the ‘live and let live’ ranting on this blog, Christmas with relatives has led me to deduce that although when pressed I’ll tell you I have no expectations, my default position is to assume everyone’s similar. That we all want more or less the same things, and that my own route to happiness is the best one for us all to take.

My resolution for 2014: expect nothing.

Nothing kills my mood quicker than a genital close-up. I have no problem with people’s bodies, and I think that there’s a distinct type of beauty in a nice, solid cock, but I find it pretty difficult to find porn with hot scenarios that isn’t going to cut to a gynaecological close-up just as I’m getting to the juicy bit.

I know some people love it – most gentlemen with whom I’ve watched porn have expressed a strong desire to look not just *at* someone but *up* them, so I can see why these shots are included: they clearly please a proportion of the crowd. But they don’t please me.

To clarify: this isn’t a disgust reaction – I am not horrified by genitals. Nor am I shaming the spectacular men and women who show them off on screen, and fuck like champions for an audience of internet wankers such as myself. I’m just lamenting the fact that so many directors insist on close-cropped shots of trains going into tunnels, disembodied vulvas being rummaged at by strangers’ hands, or those same hands pulling butt-cheeks apart until all you can see is a gaping void. And these things usually happen during the climax of the scene – at just the moment when the sex is getting hottest and most furious, when the actors would be building to a moment of exquisite lust, our director cuts away from their faces and straight to parts of their body that are far less capable of expressing emotion.

What I’m saying is this: I’d like to see something super-hot that doesn’t turn into a medical documentary just as it’s getting to the good bit.

My porn wish list

I’m not saying that people who like this are wrong/evil/stupid, and that everyone should be forced to watch only porn that comes from a set-list I’ve prescribed. I’m just having a general moan about the number of times I’ve had to cut short a wank to find a video that’s got more fucking and less fanny.

Perhaps the kind of porn I like (lots of kinky, rough, angry fucking) leans more towards these gyno shots, because that’s what directors feel the audience will want. Or perhaps I’m just crap at finding good porn. So, in case any awesome pornographers are watching, or you’ve come across any videos that show shagging without an accompanying smear test, here are some things I’d love to see more of in porn:

Lots and lots of long shots of people fucking

I like watching people actually fuck. Although head and handjobs are fun to have, I find them far less fun to watch, because there isn’t nearly as much action. Jiggling tits, pounding arses, hands gripping squidgy flesh, sweat dripping from people who are really getting into it? Yes. Fumbling and rubbing? Meh.

While we’re at it, that thing that porn stars do where they push a cock into the side of their cheek? It reminds me of the standard childish symbol for ‘blow-job’ where you’d make a wanking gesture near your mouth while sticking your tongue sideways. I get why it’s more visual than other suckoff techniques, but I’ve never met a guy who has expressed a desire that I do that to his penis.

Noises

I’ve waffled on before about how noises are hot. Not fake noises – I don’t need scripted, efficient ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s. I want genuine noises – the ‘unnggh’s and ‘aaargh’s that people make when they’re fucking like they’ve really let go.

Especially – and I cannot stress this enough – from the men. Men in porn are often strangely silent, as if they’ve expressed opinions on the sex before and have been told to keep their mouths shut. Those that do talk often say things that don’t necessarily correlate to what’s happening on screen, as if the guy is just reeling off a list of accepted phrases like a politician at a press conference spouting ‘hard-working families’ over and over again with no discernible relevance.

Faces

If you’re going to give me any sort of close-up, I would like it to be of someone’s face. Ideally, because I am straight and female and pervy, the dude’s. In fact, if I’m completely honest, I have a deep and abiding preference for porn in which the women look a bit bored – in which they’re either idly or sarcastically pandering to the dude’s insatiable lust while they earn a paycheque/watch themselves in the mirror/wait for the washing machine to finish a spin cycle.

I appreciate this specific kink isn’t for everyone, but I know a hell of a lot of people who’d like to see more face. There are, of course, millions of porn videos that show faces, but my main issue with them is that they are not the faces of hot people reacting to orgasmic delight, but usually faces that are being jizzed on. Pop shots are, of course, a porn staple, so I don’t expect this to disappear any time soon, but we could do with more of the other: if you’re the one jizzing, it’s your face I want to see.

Shameless plug: if you want to read more about dirty fucking, and thoughts on porn, my book is currently ridiculously cheap on Amazon (59p in the UK, 96c in the US). I have no idea how long it’ll be on offer for, so if you want it then now’s a good time to get a copy.