I don’t want you to hug me in the office. In fact, unless we’re pretty damned close, I don’t want you to hug me at all.

I’ve been called ‘standoffish’ because I’m not the sort of person who responds well to being hugged. I dread that bit at the end of parties, where everyone’s just pissed enough to think they’re better friends than they actually are, and some person I’ve spent about twenty minutes chatting to screeches “Byeeee darling, it was amaaazing to meet you” before forcing me into an awkward cuddle.

Maybe this makes me odd, but I don’t actually care. Whether my aversion to being grabbed by random acquaintances is odd or not, you need to respect that. And I mean respect it properly, not just acknowledge and then ignore it. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said to me:

“I know you don’t like hugs so I’ll just do it really quickly.” or even “Hey, come on, it’s only me. Gizza hug.”

I don’t want to. I’ll do it if you make me, but I’ll hate it, and I’ll resent you for thinking that our acquaintance counts for nothing if I’m not willing to awkwardly squash my chest against you at the end of a night out.

Back to the office.

The rules about touching your coworkers

You don’t need to be told not to rock up late for an interview to know that being late for an interview is a bad thing. Likewise, you don’t need to be told that stroking a colleague’s thigh, patting them on the arse, or putting your arms around them might make them a tad uncomfortable.

I’m writing this blog as a plea for common sense. Because since the ex-chief-exec of the Lib Dems has been accused of inappropriate workplace touching (an accusation which, for legal reasons, I shall point out he has denied) there’s been a lot of bullshit spoken about how difficult it is to know when a touch is inappropriate. A few guys have plaintively cried for guidance.

“But how do we know?” they say. “How can I possibly tell whether one of my work colleagues wants me to touch her, or whether she’ll be offended?”

The answer to this question is: you don’t, unless she expressly tells you. At no point during the working day can you be 100% certain that a female colleague wants you to touch her. Whether she’s in the middle of an email, chairing a strategy meeting or – like me – trying to inch her way closer to the biscuit plate during a particularly long PowerPoint presentation. It’s not like a green light goes off over her head if she fancies you and is up for a quick squeeze.

But, and I cannot possibly stress this enough, the fact that you don’t know is inconsequential. You hardly know anything, none of us do. The boundaries of our knowledge are tiny and the realm of the unknown is vast. Yet somehow most of us manage to get through every day without sexually harassing random members of the opposite sex. We’re not special, we don’t have knowledge that you don’t, and nor are we telepaths; we’re just not arseholes.

To use the ‘we can’t possibly know’ defence for any kind of inappropriate touching, whether inside or outside the workplace, is the largest pile of bullshit I have ever scrolled angrily past on the internet.

The impenetrable mysteries of how not to be a creep

We don’t go through life understanding exactly what other people want from us at all times. Sometimes we take risks, and do things that might get us into trouble, and other times we are cautious. The key thing is to assess whether a risk is worth taking – not just for you, but for the object of your affection as well.

That girl sitting at the bar might reject you, or burst into tears if you go and chat to her. But the risk of these things is minimal, and you’d be unlikely to offend or harm her by saying ‘hello.’ So you don’t grab her arse. You don’t call her ‘babes’. You don’t shout ‘OI OI!’ from the other side of the room. Because all of these things are high-risk, potentially high-harm situations. So you just say fucking ‘Hi.’

Likewise, you don’t offer to spank a woman on a first date. You try and ease the conversation round to spanking, in a non-threatening way, to see if she might be up for it. You don’t grab a girl’s arse on the tube. You talk to her, try to work out if she fancies you, talk to her some more, and then ask for her number if you get the right signals.

In any of these situations you might fuck up – go in for a kiss at the bar and watch as she leans away and says ‘I’m sorry, I’m not that into you.’ Bring up spanking and have her tell you you’re not her type. And this is fine – these mistakes, while embarrassing, don’t actually cause any harm.

Whereas if you just go up to a girl, grab her tits and then cry ‘how was I supposed to know?!’ when she runs for the hills, then you are a stupid, stupid cunt.

To err is human, but to pretend that women are so complex that you can’t even try to empathise? That’s pathetic.

Work is a non-contact sport

In my ideal world no one ever touches work colleagues. But that’s because I am ‘standoffish’, and would rather find my fun outside a building in which I’m supposed to act like a professional. I wouldn’t ban workplace touching, because I’ve witnessed office romances that have worked. At some point during the blossoming of that relationship someone laid a hand on someone else’s knee, or leant in for a kiss at a Christmas party, and took a small calculated risk.

But you know what? That successful person, who ended up marrying their office sweetheart and living happily ever after? That was almost certainly the person who held back, who waited, who had enough respect for their colleague not to gamble on a fumble before they could be sure the touch was wanted.

The successful person was patient, respectful and empathetic. He certainly wasn’t the kind of twat who’d jump on a woman in the stationery cupboard, get sacked, and then whine about how unfair life is, and how hard things are, and how he’ll never understand just what these fickle women want.

We’re all squeamish about certain things – some people hate the sight of blood, others can’t cope with injections, or the possibility of disease, or unclean kitchen worktops. There’s nothing wrong with a certain amount of squeamishness, but I’m surprised at the number of people I’ve met who are – to one degree or another – squeamish about sex.

Sex, by its nature, is quite messy. Even at the most basic level (quick missionary hump for the purposes of procreation) both of you have to emit certain juices and fluids: sweat, jizz, quim – even saliva, if you’re feeling particularly romantic.

And so, unless you have a lot of equipment and a shedload of wet wipes to hand, when you fuck you’ll get dirty.

Ultra-clean sex and a tip for Dommes

If you want to avoid all possible sexual juices, the only way I can think of is to cover your partner head-to toe in a plastic sheet (ensuring that he has a suitable mouth to breathe through but, crucially, maintains a safe distance so that you can’t kiss each other) then stick his cock through a carefully-cut hole in the middle (protip: cut hole before cock is anywhere nearby), slip a condom on him, and hump away. Not particularly sexy, but it essentially eliminates almost all skin-to-skin contact. Were I a dominant lady I would certainly consider using this during sub play – you can have this idea for free.

However, although it’s excellent for people who have a fetish for sterile sex, it’s not great for those of us who revel in the smells and juices and general slipperiness of the whole scenario. To be honest, it’s not great for any of us if we don’t happen to have plastic sheeting in our sex toy drawer.

The point I’m trying to make is that we have to go to extremes to make sex un-messy, so any squeamishness we have about the exchange of particular fluids necessarily needs to be laid to one side if we want to really get on and enjoy things.

Let’s talk about menstruation

Number one (that number, for new readers, denotes the first guy I slept with) did not like shagging while I was ‘on.’ A couple of tentative attempts while I was bleeding lightly went OK, but an energetic, doggy-style hump during my heavier days proved disastrous.

Once he’d come, he pulled his dick out and made a slightly high-pitched squealing noise.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you OK? Oh Jesus, are you having a miscarriage?”
“I’m fine – what’s up?”
“You’re bleeding!”
“Of course I’m bleeding, I’m on my period.”
“But this is worse than that.”
“No it’s not.”
“It’s… it’s… it’s got chunks in.”

I calmed him down with tea, a cuddle, and a long explanation of the fact that yes, sometimes it has chunks in. We never did it again, and I spent a good few years avoiding sex during my period, worrying that the guys I shagged would react with similar horror upon discovery that menstruation isn’t just the occasional leaking of a thimbleful of blue water, but often a gushing onslaught of not just blood but genuine, honest-to-goodness gore.

It’s totally fine to be utterly disgusting

So what changed my mind? Because, of course, my mind has been changed: I’d no more refuse sex during my period these days than I’d give up wanking for lent. Period horny is the horniest type of horny. About halfway through my red week I’m jiggling my knee and rubbing my thighs together and picking the bumpiest seat on the bus. What changed my mind about relieving this urge the old-fashioned cock-based way (as opposed to the ‘frantic clit-rubbing under a duvet’ way) was a couple of other guys I met.

Poor number one was quite naïve about periods, and a few other things for that matter – he didn’t like the idea of kissing me after a blow job (unless I’d brushed my teeth) or even giving me head.  But his horror at the more slippery aspects of sex was by no means a benchmark for how every guy would feel. Although I have met guys since who aren’t keen on period sex, or oral, or indeed anything that might require a deep clean afterwards, I’ve met far more who could give less than an iota of a fuck.

In fact, for adult men, ‘on’ fucking has proved to be much the same as ‘off’ fucking, only with a towel put down to catch the drippiest bits. One guy went so far as to remove my tampon with his teeth during a particularly feisty session. I appreciate this. I don’t have a particular fetish for sex that’s blood-drenched – apart from anything else I simply don’t have the time or inclination to soak that many bedsheets. But I love the ‘I don’t give a fuck about your menstruation’ attitude that means I can stop panicking that the guy will get his dick covered and run out of the room squealing ‘why can’t you just be clean and sweet-smelling like the girls on telly?’

So if you’re squeamish, especially if you’re a teenage boy with limited knowledge of the mysterious workings of the female uterus – I understand. But I’d love it if you could lay a bit of your squeamishness to one side when you’re stripping down and getting naked with someone. What prompted me to write about this was a bit of browsing on ’embarrassing bodies’ forums, and other related sites. There are a hell of a lot of young girls and boys howling desperately into the online wilderness: ‘am I weird?’ ‘am I wrong?’ ‘am I grotesque and disgusting?’

The answer is almost certainly no, but it can be bloody hard to hear that answer sometimes. The sixteen year old version of me would have given anything to experience the genuine liberation that comes from realising that these juices I leaked and these noises I made and these weird spots that insisted on growing in seemingly random places on my body and subsequently leaking juices of their own: these things were pretty normal. Let’s embrace the leaking, juicy, weird bits of ourselves, love the leaking, juicy bits about other people, and commit to having some thoroughly messy sex.

Addendum, because I know I’ll get emails: if your period is especially painful, or you’re experiencing a significant change in blood loss and/or consistency, speak to a doctor.

Someone once told me that sex without orgasm is completely pointless – like a party without booze. My response was that there are many different kinds of party.

Sex without an orgasm is like wine without cheese. Celery without hoummous. A massive fuckoff slab of cake without a cup of coffee to wash it down – these things might be better when they come together, but they’re undeniably fun to have even without the extra.

I don’t always come when I’m fucking. Likewise, believe it or not, guys don’t always come when they’re fucking either.

Almost every single thing we see and hear about sex tells us a story that begins with a male erection and ends with a male orgasm. From biology classes at school which focused on fucking as a disgusting yet crucial baby-spawning activity to the mainstream porn films which fade out about five seconds after someone’s jizzed on someone else’s tits/face/arse/knickers/feet. In fact, porn is a classic example – the fact that male porn stars who fail to ejaculate are nudged to one side by willing and jizz-ready ‘stunt cocks’ shows that we generally view orgasm (or rather – male orgasm) as a rather crucial part of sex.

How do you know when you’ve stopped?

I suppose the key reason we believe this is that a spunk-stream in your eye acts as a handy visual and physical point at which to show the coupling had ended. Like a full stop. It’s as good a point as any in which to roll over and fall asleep, because it’s trickier for men to keep going after they’ve come.

But although feeling someone’s prick twitching a couple of spoonfuls of jizz into your aching cunt is by all means a nice way to end sex, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

In the past I’ve had sex sessions aborted (or aborted them myself) because:

a) he’s just too fucking knackered to come. At which point I will either render blowjobs or solitude, depending on how pissed off he looks.

b) I’m too twitchy to continue. It’s often the case that if I come a few times in a row, my thigh muscles start contracting like some phantom clit-genie has attached electrodes to me, and my cunt freaks out. At this point any further sexual contact is a bit like being tickled, and not conducive to further fun.

c) my cunt is sore. No guy has ever been upset to stop for this reason – usually because he doesn’t want to inflict genuinely uncomfortable pain, but partly because it’s a well-earned badge of honour.

d) he just can’t come. Whether the mood’s not right or he’s fucking too soon after a wank or he caught a glimpse of my face in the wrong light and I looked startlingly like his sister – there have been a fair few occasions when a guy has just stopped and decided we’d be better off playing Scrabble for a wee while until he gets hard again.

In these instances, one or other party often feels the need to apologise. I’ve heard occasional apologies and, slightly rarer, admissions that ‘I’m awful’ and ‘you must be so angry with me.’

This is not in any way a sexy thing. Giving it ten minutes then guiding my head back down to your dick is a sexy thing. Growling in my ear that you’ll take your frustrations out on me later is a sexy thing. Spanking me to let me know that you’re displeased is a sexy thing. Begging my forgiveness? Not so much.

My orgasms aren’t 100% crucial either

Likewise, whether I come or not is not an issue at the forefront of my mind when you’re pounding seven shades of fuck into me. It’s something that will probably happen, because I’m lucky enough to find it relatively easy to come when I’m being fucked. But that’s not to say that if it doesn’t happen I’m going to cry in a corner until you see the hurt you’ve caused me – I doubt that would stand me in good stead for the next time I wanted to sit on your dick.

If I’m honest, I’m far more likely to actually come – you know, for real – if you chill the fuck out about it. I’d prefer a quick, messy, satisfying, grunting, orgasmless fuck which leaves us both grinning like teenagers in a sex shop than a long, drawn out shag during which I can feel you thinking ‘why won’t GOTN come? What’s wrong with her? What am I doing wrong? Oh Christ I hope she comes soon I’ve got cramp and my dick’s going limp and please please please just come on my fucking cock you fussy bitch’, at the end of which I might end up coming but only out of a weary desire to get things over with and put you out of your misery.

Disappointing parties

My opinion might be freakishly abnormal, though – I occasionally find I that it is. Being unable to enter other people’s minds I am depressingly restricted to judging solely based on what I think and what other people have said to me.

There might be people out there for whom sex without orgasm is a horrible, horrible thing. For them, sex without orgasm may well be like a party without booze, and they may think both of those scenarios sound completely pointless.

But for me there are many different types of party, and many different types of fuck.
Having sex without an orgasm isn’t pointless, odd, or even particularly unusual. It’s actually reasonably common – whether through a difficulty orgasming during sex, through tiredness or, most frequently in my experience, because I occasionally find it hilarious to edge a guy until he almost comes then leave him writhing in erect discomfort for a couple of hours until he begs me to suck him dry.

It’s not a party without booze, it’s a party which ends early: still fun while it lasts, and at least when it’s done you can rub one out in the kitchen.