We’ve all got things that we fantasise about which, were they to happen in real life, would disgust or annoy us. Things that might get our genitals throbbing but which cause the moral part of our brains to rebel, and give us a post-fantasy stern talking to.

My most embarrassing fantasy isn’t sexual – it isn’t even exciting. But it’s the one I have spent the most time on in the last week. I close my eyes, block out all the things I should be thinking about, and spend a few minutes on my idle dream.

What’s my most embarrassing fantasy?

I dream of being saved. Not in a knight-in-shining-armour way: it’s far more tedious and practical than that.

I retreat to this shameful fantasy when I’ve had a bad week and everything seems to be going wrong. When I end every day miserable and exhausted and knowing that the next day will be the same. When I sit at my laptop, babbling nervously into a to-do list and panicking about all the things yet to be crossed off, I dream that – corny as it sounds – my prince will come.

He won’t marry me and whisk me away to a suburban idyll, he’ll just come to hold me, let me sob dramatically and unnecessarily on his shoulder, before making a few phone calls that melt all my troubles away.

When I’m down, and sad, I dream of a man who can do all the things I just don’t want to do. Ringing insurance companies, rewriting my CV, replying to emails that have languished unhappily at the bottom of my inbox. My prince: the pragmatic multi-tasker.

Because of all the things someone could ever give me – money, power, a nice thick cock and a regular eye-rolling fuck, the most valuable thing they could ever give me is time.

Why is this an embarrassing fantasy?

I am a capable, reasonable, competent human being. Honestly. Last year my boiler packed up and I managed to get a replacement without either

a) getting ripped off

b) leaving it so long I had to shower in freezing water or

c) sobbing wildly on my kitchen floor shouting “why won’t you just WORK you dogshit arsewipe pile of metal bollocks?!”

OK, maybe I did a teeny bit of c).

I’ve made it twenty nine years so far with only the occasional need of outside help – someone to show me where the stopcock is, the odd spider that I just can’t handle, that sort of thing. And yet despite my pathetic pride and determination to do nearly everything myself, I occasionally let my mind wander off into dreams of men who’ll do these things for me. Bleed radiators, clean kitchen cupboards, instruct solicitors and other such tedious bullshit.

I feel dirty and wrong for this, not because it’s sick or unusual in the way that many of my fantasies are. Not because it’s demeaning or degrading, but because I feel like this makes me a bad feminist. I mean, it’s not very independent, is it? The Suffragettes didn’t go through hell just so I could get a man to deal with my paperwork when I get too flustered. It goes against principles that mean a lot to me, and much of what I’ve worked for.

But still. When things get tricky, and I find myself wading through the mountain of DIY, admin and “please hold for an operator who can explain to you why we’ve suddenly doubled your gas bill” I’m not wishing for more internal strength, but for someone who’ll be strong on my behalf.

Fantasy vs reality

I’ve voiced this fantasy a few times – usually over a pint or two of gin and one of those terrifying crying attacks where your friends either cuddle you so no one can see the state you’re in or push you into the toilets to ‘get it out of your system.’

And occasionally, when I confess my fantasies of being saved, people have commented on the fact that it’s at direct odds with what I actually want in life. That if a guy came through for me on this kind of fantasy – if he cleared up my messes and cleaned my to-do list and took hold of the reins of my life, I would scream blue murder and banish him forever.

To which my reply is: of course. Of course. It’s a fantasy. Just as I don’t really want guys to beat me – I want them to spank me in a very specific way, with a very specific degree of pain, to the point where it’s hot and sexual but no further – I also want them to support me to just the right degree without ever taking away my own agency.

The most enjoyable thing about many fantasies is that if you really wanted to, you could make them come true: as with this one. But I haven’t made it come true – I just like to wallow in it. I like to sit and think and dream of my practical prince, while eschewing any kind of assistance that might make me look less than competent. So by thinking this I get to find out what my little heart actually desires – the difference between what I actually want and what I think I want.

He can still do the washing up though. There’s no shame in letting him do that.

Communication: it’s bloody hard, right? You just never know what’s going to offend people and whether your words will be hurled back at you in a storm of rage and misery, leaving you cowering in a corner nursing your hurt feelings.

The above is only semi-tongue-in-cheek: I know that words – while they’re sometimes our friends, are often crude tools with which we dig ourselves a massive hole into which we accidentally spew things that we probably shouldn’t have said. Hence: communication’s important, but we all get it wrong sometimes.

It’s hard to give advice to people on the right things to say – although plenty of Pick-Up Artists will try, and tell you that there are specific rules and lines that are scientifically proven to impress strangers. However, usually the only thing anyone can advise is to try and be empathetic, listen to the other person, and for the love of God don’t say anything awful like this. To cover this last category, I’m handing over to the excellent @halfabear, who has some very strong and hilarious opinions on the questions people ask about her sex life.

Sexual questions

Since becoming paraplegic I’ve become very used to being asked questions about my health; friends asking how I’m getting on and if I’m in pain, strangers gently prying and trying to find out what’s wrong and how it happened. Nosey but innocuous questions that I generally don’t mind answering, providing that it’s not done insultingly and they understand I won’t answer if a line is crossed. I’ve been quite endeared over the years by the sensitivity that people have approached the subject with.

Well, most of the time.

There is one subject where it appears that all boundaries and sensitivity go out of the window in a heartbeat. Be it friend or stranger, it’s a subject which arouses such curiosity that no answer is simply not good enough, and there really is no way to tread carefully. Sex.

Read about awkward sexual questions, and the hilarious answers she gives people, over on her own blog…

According to some people who give way too much of a shit, Jeremy Paxman has grown a beard.

Think what you like about it, but by God you have to think something. Today the internet has been bubbling with chatter: are you for or against the beard? Does it look good? Does it look scary, because for some reason someone once decided that all bearded men are Harold Shipman? Has your attitude towards Paxman’s hard-hitting interview questions changed because he happens to have some hair on his face? Let’s do a sodding online poll about it, shall we?

Anyway. Because I’m fucking contrary and annoyed, I’m going to weigh in to the beard debate with the definitive answer as to Whether Beards Are Good. Ready? Here goes:

Growing a beard is good

I’m a fan of beards – they’re often a pretty sexy way of framing and defining a man’s face. I’ve been with a few guys who have had some sort of facial hair, and with one guy who found facial hair so amusing he would regularly grow a beard just so that when he shaved it off he could experiment with various comedy styles.

They’re occasionally a bit scratchy when you’re kissing someone, and might irritate you if you’ve got sensitive skin, but the same can be said of a particularly coarse jumper fabric.

I love running my hands over a guy’s beard, feeling the scratchy texture of the hair on my palms. I love watching him trim the edges, that ‘I’m so grown-up’ feeling I get when I think about him doing something so adult. I enjoy the way it frames his face, and the variety – the different stages of beautiful he looks as it gets longer, shaggier, and eventually gets tidied up.

But the best thing, I think, about men who have beards is that they are clearly capable of making independent decisions about what to do with their own face.

Not growing a beard is also good

I also, though, like clean-shaven dudes. There’s a certain elegance and beauty about a really smooth shave. Again, I like to watch men do it, particularly the bit where they tip their head back to get at the hairs on their neck. I love the slight scratch of stubble as it starts to push through in the evening. I utterly adore the smell of a freshly-shaved guy when he rubs his face up next to mine.

But again, the best thing about a clean-shaven gentleman is that he is capable of making independent decisions about what to do with his own face.

Growing a beard is your own decision

I’m surprised at the number of people who would respond to the ‘should women shave their legs?’ question with a loud and decisive ‘it’s none of your fucking business’, yet are happy to pass judgment on a TV presenter just because he has chosen not to shave. I wouldn’t bother writing about this issue if it were just Jeremy Paxman – I appreciate that people are having a bit of fun and Paxo isn’t going to be sobbing into his autocue because some people on Twitter said his beard was shit. But the beard vs no-beard debate leaks awkwardly into a lot of our sexual discussion in a way that is pretty offensive to men, and this seems like an appropriate time to tackle it.

People say things like:

“I just couldn’t kiss a man with a beard”

“Men with beards just look untrustworthy”

Or even, in a move designed to hit not one but two of my ‘rage’ buttons: “The only thing worse than a beard is a ginger beard”

I’m not making these up, incidentally, these are all things people have said to me – the latter prompted a bollocking in the form of a tedious drunken lecture. Mumbled apologies ensued. Awkwardness happened. Lessons were probably not learned.

Preference vs pressure

I understand that people have personal preferences: some gentlemen really do prefer blondes, and some people really can’t get aroused unless their partner is clean shaven. Fair enough – passions like these are hard to control, and there’s no rule that says we must bestow equal lust on men no matter what their facial hair situation. However, there certainly is a rule that states we must avoid pressuring people to do certain things to their bodies just for our aesthetic pleasure. It’s the ‘don’t be a total arsehole’ rule.

Most adult men, in their natural state (and most women, come to that) will grow some hair on their faces. It might be dark, light, thick, coarse, downy or patchy, but ultimately most people will grow some hair on their faces. Having some hair on your face is the natural default for the majority of the adult population. The decision to remove it is one that can only be made by the owner of that face, and making them feel bad about their decision based purely on your aesthetic opinion about beards makes you a total arsehole.

So, just as it’s none of anyone’s business whether I shave my legs, wear make-up at work or wax my pubes into the shape of a lightning bolt, likewise it’s not for us to decide what hair Jeremy Paxman should or shouldn’t remove from his face.

There’s a lot of bullshit spoken about lots of things, and never is the quantity of bullshit larger than when it comes swiftly behind a statement that ‘all’ people of a certain type are a certain way, or have certain problems. Sure, catch-all statements are often a handy shortcut, but the more you try to crowbar into that statement the greater the chance of it stinking like a dungheap.

So, in light of Some Things I Have Seen On The Internet Recently, I feel compelled to highlight a few things about feminists. Specifically, things that – while true of some of us – are categorically not true of all of us. Here are some things that ‘all feminists’ are not:

Subject to unrelenting abuse

Some people are showered with quite horrific and appalling abuse on the internet. One of the many things that ignites the ire of a miserable and hate-filled human is a woman who not only has some opinions but has the temerity to actually say them out loud. Why, it’s enough to make them want to commit a criminal offence on Twitter. This behaviour is, naturally, disgusting.

However, I’m worried that the total shitstorm of the last few days, while fantastic at highlighting what is a genuine problem for many people, has been painted by the media as a problem for ‘feminists’ (as evidenced by the fact that articles on the topic nearly all seem to refer to a ‘feminist journalist’ or ‘feminist MP’, as if a feminist is a surprising and unusual thing to be). People behaving appallingly to each other is not just a problem for feminists – it’s a problem for our entire society. Moreover, although many of the most prominent victims of Twitter threats are loudly and proudly feminist, there are many people who receive this kind of abuse who are not.

Additionally, I want to point out that although being a loud, stampy feminist might mean you’re more likely to be targeted by a subset of antisocial cockwipes, you aren’t guaranteed to get this treatment just because you are a feminist. Why is it important to say this? Two reasons:

– I don’t like the implication that you could make the abuse stop by just calming your feminist views down a bit, or shutting the hell up.

– I don’t want to think that there are people who’ll be too scared to talk about their opinions because a few unconscionable cunts fire all-caps hate-tweets at prominent women.

You might get shit: you might not. I just want you to know that it’s not guaranteed, and it’s not something you can prevent just by not having an opinion. On to the next thing ‘all feminists’ are not:

Women

Some of my best feminist friends are men, and all that. More importantly, these feminist men fall into the same camps as the people in the previous category: some of them get awful abuse and threats on the internet, others don’t. There is no way of predicting or preventing this stuff on an individual basis. Whatever your views on how we, either technologically or as a society (or both) deal with the problem of online harassment, there’s never a way that you, as an individual, can prevent this.

Fighting all of the time

Another thing ‘all feminists’ aren’t doing. There’s a big discussion going on about how we deal with internet harassment. I’m undecided on the best solution because – as with most complex issues – there is nothing that leaps to the front of my mind and screams “BUT THIS IS SO OBVIOUS AND HAS LITERALLY NO DRAWBACKS.” Naturally, there’s debate – sometimes heated. However, it depresses me that the nuanced, carefully thought through arguments from a number of intelligent people have been boiled down into either ‘feminists are fighting with each other over a Twitter button’ or, even more worryingly ‘feminists are fighting everyone else over a Twitter button.’

It’s a fucking debate – we’re all supposed to be fighting. And I think, when this many people are involved, you can reliably say that this isn’t a ‘feminist’ issue – it’s a ‘people’ issue.

The same

As evidenced by the fact that a feminist can be male or female, pro- or anti-Twitter button, troll, trolled or indifferent, it’s fairly safe to say we’re not all the same. I appreciate that ‘feminist’ is a handy catch-all for some issues, but this definitely isn’t one of them.

It’s a people issue. It’s not a niche interest or campaign that we can cheer on from the sidelines but ultimately will never affect us: it’s about how we as a society behave towards each other, and we all – feminist or not – need to get stuck in.

David Cameron must take action on the tidal wave of filth that is flooding our homes and polluting our children’s minds. I’m talking, of course, about books.

Look at them, sat there on the shelf, looking innocent. Some of them might be educational and useful but if my nephew (an actual child, for the love of Christ) entered my house and asked to borrow a book, there’s a fairly strong possibility that he might stumble across something that would warp his tiny mind.

I had a quick look on my bookshelf and found quite a lot there that warrants inspection:

“’What if I gave you a spanking?’ she teased, still fingering my pussy as she used her free hand to hitch my skirt up around my waist and smack my pert, round rump.”

To be fair, that’s in a book called ‘Sex & Submission – 20 erotic stories.’ That sits right up on the high shelf so that children can’t get to it. But dammit – can I trust myself not to leave it lying around on a coffee table or even (because it’s not that great) in the recycling bin?

“And quick as a shot, holding me with my back turned to him and my breeches pulled down, he sets to frigging and rattling himself, presses against me, and spurts his fuck upon my beshitted behind, the while driving his tongue into my mouth.”

That’s not suitable for children, right? It’s from the longest nightmare I’ve ever read – 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade. Unfortunately, it’s also a literary classic, and I’d bet cash money that a 16-year-old would have little trouble buying it from a bookshop right now.

As I head deeper into my shelves, I discover more descriptions of the sexual act.

“I stretched him out on my bed and lowered myself on to him but within seconds his hips were arching upwards and his face was contorted…”

That one’s by Marian Keyes – the Mystery of Mercy Close. I’d never have thought it of her – she seems so nice. In my ‘horror’ section I find myself having to bin most of the Stephen Kings, which is a shame because I loved them when I was fourteen, and even livened up a year 10 English essay with the quote “he spat semen onto the bedspread in a convulsion” (from Cujo, if you’re interested).

Stephen’s gone now, though. What’s next? Ah, this looks pretty sexual:

“They make entry sex look dead easy in films – one person gets in between the legs of the other and easily slides into them – but it’s not as easy as it looks. If you’re doing it for the first time then it’s a good idea to masturbate each other for a bit first. You could also insert a wet finger inside your partner.”

Sex, again, but here is a sex book written specifically for young teens (Sex Explained by Bish, it’s excellent) – it’s not porn, it’s educational and supportive and encouraging and all the things that an excellent sexual education should be. But if we’re just looking for sex books, it’s probably going to end up with the Marquis.

Here’s something from a book I wrote with my own fair hands:

“I shouldn’t have prayed for a dribble, really, because eventually a dribble came out. A tiny, less-than-thimbleful of piss trickled slowly onto his waiting face, and he grinned.
‘Is that it?’
I wanted the ground to open up, swallow me, and then send vengeful demons out to punch him in his smug, not-quite-piss-covered face.”

There’s even a bit in it later about threesomes. I sicken me, I really do.

How do we solve a problem like a desire for erotic material?

The only solution for this is strong and immediate action from the government: ask everyone whether they have any disgusting books that might need to be hidden behind lock and key, and provide those who admit to such filth with lockable bookshelvcs.

Mandatory training for book shop staff, charity shop staff and those people who sit at the desks in hostels with a ‘free book exchange’ shelf. Scour every bookshop for signs of depravity, and insist on those books being placed high out of reach. This will serve the dual purpose of making them hard for children to obtain while also making those adults who enjoy ‘that sort of thing’ have to work a bit harder to get at it.

When you say ‘porn’…?

I cannot bear the thought of someone stumbling across this blog having utterly misplaced their sense of irony, nuance or context, so here’s what I’m saying:

• At no point has anyone successfully defined ‘porn’, or what exact material Cameron’s proposed block will affect.
• Even if we can draw a distinct and clear line between ‘porn’ and ‘not porn’, it’ll be impossible to make sure a filter gets it right every time.
• Porn is not just found on the internet.

It’s in bookshops, on TV, in magazines, in films, stored in our mobile phones, video cameras and above all in our heads. Porn can be disgusting, uplifting, beautiful and scuzzy.

To claim that porn is ‘bad’ is like claiming that food is ‘delicious’. Let’s not let people get away with trying to ban an entire genre of stuff on the flimsy basis that a bit of it is nasty.

Think of the children

I implore you all to think of the children. Not just the little ones you have now but the grown-up ones you’ll have in ten, twenty years time. At the beginning of the current porn furore David Cameron issued a statement that said:

“The safety of our children is at stake – nothing matters more than that.”

Well, that sounds like a nice platitude. But I think our children’s liberty matters too. Don’t get me wrong – we should do everything reasonably possible to keep children safe, but we also need to be aware of the impact that some of our actions have on their liberties and personal freedoms.

Because one day those children will grow up. And just as we want to bequeath them a world in which the environment isn’t fucked, in which the NHS hasn’t been sold off, and in which they have a welfare state to support them should they fall on tough times, likewise we want them to have free and open access to the internet.

Given how much love our society claims to have for children, it’s odd that we rarely give them credit for having opinions, needs, and intelligence of their own. Children aren’t just passive information-hoovers, sucking up what we feed them and no more. They are not all victims-in-waiting. They don’t sit around until the age of 18 waiting for us to tell them what to think and say. They are miniature versions of humans, with their own thoughts, desires, needs and opinions.

And when they grow up they won’t thank us for having taken a red pen to half of the internet.