Tag Archives: communication
How do I get my partner to like Marmite?
If you’re not British, you might not be familiar with Marmite. It is either:
- a delicious brown substance created during the brewing process, which you spread on toast with butter before having a mouthgasm OR
- diarrhoea brewed in the anus of Beelzebub.
For me it’s the former, for others it’s the latter. I pick Marmite because not only is it a great example of something that has divided a nation (their literal slogan is ‘you either love it or you hate it’) but also because there is no moral value in either liking or disliking Marmite: you’re not a better person if you choose to try it. However, you are a bit of a dick if you try to sneak it into someone’s breakfast without them noticing.
Pretty much all sex acts are like Marmite. Oral sex? Some love it, some don’t. Probably a larger group of the former than the latter, but whatever. Likewise hand jobs, using sex toys, doing anal, bondage: any act that two or more people can take part in.
Here’s where sex acts diverge from Marmite: sometimes you really want your partner to try something. No one really cares if I like Marmite or not. It won’t break my heart if Jon Hamm announces, on our wedding day, that he won’t be eating any of the brown stuff. Sex, on the other hand, is something you can enjoy with your partner, and so if you have a particular kink and your partner’s not keen, that can be pretty gutting. If Jon Hamm tell me that he really hates spanking, I’ll be very upset (as well as surprised, tbh, given how much he loves spanking in all those dreams of mine he’s shown up in).
Anyway, given the Marmite nature of various sex acts, I can see why people often ask me the following question:
Watch your fucking language
Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letters S. L. U and T.
Let’s talk dirty, and then let’s talk about whether ‘dirty’ is an appropriate word to use when describing something that is – at best – morally neutral. One of the constant struggles of being a lefty (weep for me) is that I frequently embrace things in the bedroom which would, in real life, horrify me. Words like ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ used in the street? Fuck you and goodnight. Used in the bedroom? Get fucking in me right now.
I like to be degraded, and used, and treated as if I’m nothing. And in the process of that, guys I’m with often use words which are pretty powerful weapons. Words can be incredibly hot, and incredibly offensive, and sometimes both these things at once.
Guest blog: how to take photos in fetish clubs (and how not to)
I am really excited about this week’s guest blog, because it is written by the brilliant Zak Jane Keir, who I met at Eroticon and who gave me all the sexy shivers with a short story about nerdy dice, strip games and blow jobs. She is a writer and editor who has been involved with erotica for over 20 years. She has written countless articles (for magazines such as Penthouse, For Women, Swingmag and Desire) short stories and several novels, both as Zak and as Sallyanne Rogers. She currently runs the Dirty Sexy Words erotica slams in South London. You should check out her blog (which is on hold at the moment but there are plenty of past entries) and follow her on Twitter, as well as buy some of her lovely smut.
Today she’s here to talk about something very close to my heart – the ethics of taking photographs at kink/sex events, and how to do it without being a massive arsehole.
Things I do that are sexist
The other day, I was playing Magic: the Gathering online, like one of the cool kids. I like to play it in the evenings, because I find it relaxing to scream ‘Fuck off with your TWATTY DRAGONS’ at the telly while glugging wine. After half an hour or so of being repeatedly beaten by a bunch of cheating nobheads, I realised that I’d been horribly sexist.
“Oh look,” I’d exclaim when my opponent brought out a ridiculously overpowered beast which which to savage me. “I imagine his bastard ogre will decimate my teeny elf in a manner of seconds.”
And it did. But that’s not the point. The point is I was playing against someone with a generic, genderless username, and yet I’d repeatedly referred to them as ‘he’. In fact, almost every Magic opponent online is a ‘he’ in my mind, despite the fact that I would rage against anyone who told me any given game was for boys or girls.
I love women, I’ve seen all of their films
“Oh actually I think women should run the world. There’d be fewer wars, for sure!”
Oh do you? Thanks. I’ll get cracking then, shall I? You pop over there and sit in a corner and I’ll roll my sleeves up and apply my tidying skills to the world’s problems. For I am woman: meek and mild and gentle and peaceful yet also great at multitasking and international diplomacy.
When you think about it, it’s weird that women haven’t been running the world all along, isn’t it? When so many men in power think we’d do such a bang-up job. After all, they’re really keen for us to take over the world, so why on Earth have we not yet stepped into the powerful jobs that they have no doubt left, because they genuinely believe that a woman would be better at it?
Oh, right.