When I fuck up, I apologise. The apologies are always heartfelt, but rarely ever sufficient. I’m sorry anyway.

I’m sorry that I am a desperate, horny, sexually incontinent bastard. And I’m sorry that I am apparently incapable of saying ‘no’ when my blood’s up and I’m pissed. That the voice in my head which tells me ‘this is wrong’ whispers so quietly next to the roar of the voice that says ‘touch me touch me touch me oh please touch me.’

There’s no excuse, because there’s never an excuse. There’s something horrible and bad inside me that encourages me to do awful things that will hurt guys I love, and I’ve come to the rather worrying conclusion that the bad thing is just ‘my personality’. I am just the sort of person who does bad things: a bad person, if you will.

I did some bad things. I didn’t fuck anyone, blow a guy in a doorway, or get into the exact kind of trouble I’ve been in before, but I did things bad enough that they required confession and flagellation.

I confessed because – like all naughty schoolgirls – I know that if you lie about something it makes it worse. Because I’d promised never to lie about this… this ridiculous inability to say ‘no’ when a certain type of guy asks if I want to sneak off to a quiet place with him. Because there was a boy I liked and, Christ, he was hot and hard and needy and strong and had big hands and wet eyes and all the things I can’t resist.

And we did stuff. Like teenagers covering up for the fact that, underneath the playful euphemism, there was a very real and potent lust, I’m going to use the phrase ‘did stuff’. Clumsy, awkward, unspecific, slickly wet and angry. Stuff.

When to beg forgiveness

There’s a certain level of idiocy that I don’t have to confess. For instance – I got pissed and told a guy I wanted to suck him dry: textbook, easy, and powered by the clumsy and inappropriate section of my brain. Fell down a staircase. Wanked on a train. Said someone’s dick was pretty. Held a friend too long in a hug because he smelt so fucking good and I just didn’t want to let go.  Ate the last Creme Egg. Wanked in the shower. Put this guy’s boxers on my face and breathed in until I felt lightheaded and wet.

These things don’t require confession because the confession would be met with an eye roll. A “fucking obviously” that recognises just how much of a cunt-dribbling sexual glutton I always am. But other things do require it, because they involve much more than me. They involve me, and someone else, or two other someones, or three, doing stuff. That exclusive, behind-closed-doors sweaty betrayal of things that are far more important than my brief pulsing lust.

I know what I have to confess: it’s the things I know I don’t really want to tell him.

Why am I such an incorrigible twat?

I’m not addicted to sex, I’m not smashing relationships like someone else would smash windows and nick box-sets to sell for crack. I just… choose sex. I do it because it’s more fun than not doing it. I’m not making a selection between two different kinds of soup – I’m choosing whether to eat or not, at just the moment my stomach starts growling. Because some fucking random guy says ‘can I slap you?’ and my immediate answer is ‘oh God yes please’.

These are the things that require confession: the things I do that no amount of joking or playing will render unsexual. The things that he wouldn’t want me to do on the grounds that I so desperately want to do them. The things that require actual willpower to stop.

So I confess. And I tell him. And in telling him I break his heart a bit, and hate the heartbreaking more than I hate the deception that would have come otherwise. And he says thanks, and that it hurt him, and that I’m not a bad person. He strokes my hair and sits next to me, and chokes down the pain so he can make jokes and pretend it’s OK.

Worst of all, worst of fucking everything – when I confess to him that “I did bad things” he responds with a calm and measured:

“I thought you might have.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me for being such a pathetic horny slag. And fuck me twice for being so depressingly predictable.

He’s not angry: just disappointed. But I’m angry. And although sackcloth and self-flagellation might feel punishingly good against my skin right now, it won’t stop me from doing it again. Because, as noted, I am predictable. And angry. And horny. And… fuck.

 I’ll get letters about this, so just FYI – when I write stuff that’s super-personal like this I usually leave a big gap between when it happened and when I publish. The guy involved has given his consent for me to write it.

When I do the washing up, I sing. It makes the chores less painful, and it means that for ten minutes or so, I can flush out the bit of my brain that won’t usually shut up: the bit that tells me I have a million things to do and that I shouldn’t be wasting time on showtunes.

Sometimes I can hit the high notes, and sometimes I wail off-key. The quality of the singing is not important: it’s about the fun.

And so, when my partner opens the kitchen door and pops in to put the kettle on, I need him to do something which goes against all of his immediate gut instincts at the time: I need him to not make me stop singing. No ‘cut it out’ gestures, raised eyebrows or putting his fingers in his ears: I need an absence of mockery or distaste. To not just to tolerate my fun, but to love it. He knows how to be the best boyfriend – he doesn’t have to sing along, or tell me I’m good enough to go on Xfactor (I’d be one of the people they feature in the ‘you’re having a laugh’ section early on in the show), because it’s not about the singing. He just has to love the things that make me happy, even if they make me look like a dick.

I appreciate that, when I’m halfway through the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, that is no mean feat.

Sing like no one’s listening

It’s really important though, because if you can love my enthusiastic singing, you can love all the other bits of me that might be annoying or tricky or unphotogenic. The way I snore and talk in my sleep, the panicked way I run through the station to make sure we’re ten minutes early for a train, the way I come home late at night and fling my shoes across the room before lying face-down on the carpet.

The way I fuck.

If you want me to fuck you like I really really want to, I need to be comfortable that you’re going to embrace it. No ‘euurgh’s or ‘what the fuck?’s or ‘I don’t think you’re doing that right’s. Embracing and loving the weird things as well as the standard ‘suck dick, sit on cock, orgasm, high five‘ things.

Sometimes men ask me how they can find a woman who is kinky and imaginative and open to lots of new things in bed. I have a much much longer post coming on this at some point, but my initial gut reaction is to tell them this:

You may already know one, but it’s possible she doesn’t want to tell you about her passions. Maybe she wants to sing loudly in the kitchen. Maybe she wants to dance at that wedding. Maybe she wants to get naked and hump you with enthusiastic passion in the middle of the living room floor. But she’ll struggle to do any of these things if she’s heard you laugh too loudly when she’s fucked something up.

A long time ago someone asked me if he should tell his girlfriend that she was bad at giving blowjobs. No – God no. Never. Because saying ‘you’re bad at this’ is the exact opposite of encouraging. We get told all the time that certain things are ‘not good enough’ – as well-meaning friends and relatives take metaphorical red pens to half of our lives. Don’t tell someone what they’re doing wrong – tell them how to do it right.

‘I love it when you do X’ will always be more effective than ‘you’re bad at Y.’ Because if you hurt someone over Y, they’re unlikely to try Z.

How to be the best boyfriend (partner, lover, whatever)

So, what’s the most important quality in a partner?

I think it’s enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for me and what I do, even when I do it wrong. Enthusiasm for trying again, and failing again, and laughing together on the sofa. Being as comfortable with someone’s quirks as you are with their successes. Let me sing in the kitchen, lie face-down on the carpet when I’m drunk, and whisper my weirdest fantasies in your ear.

Syrupy e-cards encourage us to ‘dance like no one’s watching’, but we know that someone usually is. If you want someone to really open up about their deepest fantasies, their most exciting secrets, and all the fun they’ve dreamed of having, you need to smile even through their fuck-ups. Don’t wince, or groan, or imply that someone’s failure means they should never have tried, or that their fun is less important than the way they come across: enjoy the times when they let themselves go, and do something for the sheer, sparkling fun of it.

No matter how bad I am at it, make sure I always want to sing.

I have a huge amount of admiration (and, OK, a dash of envy) for people who can do open relationships well. I’ve tried, and failed, to come up with a long-term open solution that works for me, and have come to the conclusion that I’m perhaps not sensitive or competent enough to do openness well.

Which is why I love hearing from people who do – who have found a good balance of communication, enjoyment and honesty that allows them to balance the feelings of a few different parties. If anyone says it’s easy I struggle to comprehend, because for me it’s always been a mountain I couldn’t hope to climb. So above all I love hearing from people who’ve recognised the obstacles, worked through the difficult bits, and come up with something pretty damn special. This week’s guest blog is from Jenny, who’s got a story about open relationships and kink, as well as some great advice for those who might be struggling with similar worries.

Open relationships and kink

Communication in a relationship can be tricky at the best of times, and things only get more difficult when one of you is kinky. Asking for something in bed can be tough. Asking for something outside of your relationship feels impossible.

If you don’t ask for what you want, you might never get it.

I wanted to share my story because it’s a positive example of an open, kinky relationship which I am very proud of.

I’m happily coupled up with an incredible woman. We were friends before we started dating and are closing in on our first year together. On top of all the stresses of a new relationship, I had the added concern of telling her about the other important person in my life: my very close friend who happens to be my dominant.

He has a girlfriend too and they’ve been together for years. After much discussion about sex, BDSM and our respective love lives, we came to the conclusion that we’d like to explore our kinky bucket lists together. His girlfriend wasn’t into submission and I prefer being topped by men, even though I’m a lesbian. We get on and find each other attractive, but we’ve no romantic chemistry at all. We were confident it wasn’t going to get awkward or messy: we knew what we wanted from each other right from the start.

With this in mind we set about asking for our partners’ permission to get together every month or so and indulge ourselves in play.

It was a scary thing for both of us: his relationship is long established and he didn’t want to jeopardise their future together, while I‘d just started dating my girlfriend and didn’t want to scare her away. It was something we both wanted, however, and we didn’t want to impose our niches on partners who weren’t into it. Equally, we didn’t want to do without for the rest of our lives. So we asked them.

I wanted to be completely honest in starting our relationship. I told my girlfriend that I’d spent our first few dates secretly hoping she was kinky, which was a disservice to her. I wanted to appreciate her for who she was, and she is truly fantastic. I’m a firm believer that it’s very tough to get everything from one person. It’s too much pressure. So I wanted to have a romantic relationship with her and be kinky with someone who wanted it as much as I did. She was understanding and patient and after hearing all she needed to hear from me, gave me the permission I had asked for.

In return she is allowed to know as much or as little as she likes about our scenes, and to request certain acts are off limits. The same goes for my dominant’s girlfriend, who also gave her permission a few days before.

We got permission about nine months ago, but it wasn’t a case of getting an “ok” and then skipping off to the dungeon whenever we feel like. My girlfriend and I are in constant communication about our arrangement. Each time I schedule a scene I check in with my girlfriend, that she’s still ok for this to happen and each time I come home we spend time together as a couple and check in again. I remind her that I love her and if she wants me to stop, I will. She tells me she loves me and trusts me to remember her even when I’m with someone else.

Part of the agreement is that if either his partner or mine gets uncomfortable and asks for us to stop playing, we will without question. We enjoy playing and exploring our niches, but our commitment is to our girlfriends. We appreciate that what we’ve been given is something special, something that strengthens our relationship with our partners all the more.

Juggling both romantic and kinky relationships is tough – and not just practically. Scheduling a scene when we’re both off work, both our partners are busy or out of town and when one of our houses is free is almost impossible.

We have to keep talking about the arrangement all the time. Everyone has to be clear and what they do and do not want and how to communicate that. We are each responsible for our own thresholds and protecting them. We also have to trust that everyone else is aware of their own limits and will communicate them clearly.

None of us have been in an open relationship before so we’re working it out as we go. The two of us have never been in a Dominant/submissive relationship either. There’s a lot of chat involved every which way. It’s hard work but it is worth it.

The one thing I’ve found the hardest is asserting my needs when it comes to negotiating between romantic and kinky relationships. I have no intention of being prioritised over my dominant’s girlfriend, but during D/s scenes, the circumstances are altered slightly.

In one of our earlier scenes my dominant received a phone call from his girlfriend, which he took. The feeling of abandonment was compounded by my already vulnerable state in the scene and I was incredibly hurt. I did not feel empowered in the scene to ask that he not take the call. After thinking about it, and even discussing it with my girlfriend and getting her opinion, I asked for us to turn our phones off when playing. Now, when our partners call on a day we’re playing, if they get answer machines they know why they can’t get through and that we’ll contact them as soon as we turn our phones back on. This rule makes me feel more secure when I’m being submissive.

Having rules like this does not mean we love our girlfriends any less, but it is part of the responsibility we have to each other as play partners. Both relationships are significant and require communication and effort. Neither can be taken for granted.

As previously mentioned, I often involve my girlfriend in my D/s relationship. If something is playing on my mind it shows and she is gracious enough to ask if I want to talk about it. This shows a great deal of trust and patience, which is a beautiful quality in the woman I want to spend my life with.

By some miracle, the four of us now socialise as well. We don’t discuss the arrangement, but it isn’t ignored. The fact that we can share a meal together and enjoy each other’s company as two couples is something that’s very precious to me. There’s no tension or jealousy; we all know where we belong.

It is scary to ask for something you really want, but if you’re ready to have an honest conversation about it, and keep having those conversations, there is always a chance that it can work out.

Sometimes, better than you’d hoped.