As a childless sex blogger, I’m prone to getting stuck in a bit of a bubble, in which I assume that any ‘sex issues’ are most likely to be about protection from STIs, dealing with weird fetishes, and other things that have affected me throughout my life. I forget, of course, that there are a million and one sex issues outside my direct experience which are massively important to highlight.

This week’s guest blogger, Danielle Meaney, has something really important to tell you about sex after a C-section. Something that her doctor didn’t mention, that I’d never heard of, and that she’d never been told before she gave birth.

Sex after a C-section

I have had one baby and one emergency Caesarean section. The two things are not unrelated.

I had wanted to give birth to my son in an all natural home birth, so having him delivered with the intervention of a scalpel and what felt like eighteen pairs of hands was something of a disappointment. However, I consoled myself throughout the entirely necessary surgery by loudly pointing out that at least my vagina would still be intact; nothing like fear and morphine to remove those inhibitions.

Imagine my horror then, when my husband decided to take it for a spin six weeks down the line, only to find that, never mind intact, the bloody thing had all but closed up. I had done this incredibly grown up thing in bringing a human into the world, and had had The Super Virginity bestowed upon me as a reward. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of my virginity the first time around; I certainly didn’t want it back now that I was a wife and mother. Yet here I was, on the sofa with my legs in the air, and feeling a deep, shooting pain in my pelvis that suggested my husband was trying to enter me with nothing short of a battering ram. Wincing with pain, I pushed him away from me and told him that I needed more time to heal. He’s a patient man and tearfully agreed before locking himself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes.

A few weeks later, we tried again. The pain was still there but I insisted that we push through it. I assumed that the pain was a result of tension in my muscles – it had been months since we’d had sex at this point, I was nervous – and that once we got going, everything would eventually loosen up. Only it didn’t. The pain continued every time we had sex, regardless of position or wine consumption, for a couple of months before I finally gave in and went to see the doctor. She helpfully told me that she had no idea what was causing my discomfort, but that it was more than likely as a result of some infection or another. With that firmly in her mind, she had a speculum up there before you could say “feet together and drop your knees”. After taking approximately one hundred and forty two swabs, she informed me that I may have to have the tests repeated as the light in her office wasn’t much good.

Sure enough, a week later I was in with the nurse and her head torch, explaining every symptom again in painstaking detail. She looked up at me from between my legs and sighed.

“You do know this is normal, though, right?”

I wouldn’t have thought that the position I was in at that moment particular suggested that I was aware of it being normal, but I bit my tongue and kept my knees relaxed. She finished what she was doing and clicked off her head lamp, before informing me that painful sex after a Caesarean was absolutely to be expected. I was slightly flummoxed; why hadn’t the doctor mentioned this to me instead of poking my cervix with cotton buds? Did she just not know herself?

Here’s the thing about Caesareans: they’re usually the last resort to a problem that is making a vaginal birth difficult. Quite often, they’re performed unexpectedly, as in my case, and in those situations you don’t really have a lot of time to research the future effects on your sex life. In fact, I think that us women give so much thought to what happens to our vaginas once when we push a human through them, that we completely neglect to give any thought to what happens if one comes out of the sunroof. Like me, I think that most women assume that everything below the incision will remain completely as it was before, and that just isn’t the case. The lovely nurse at my surgery explained that the incision is actually very low – my scar is about an inch below my bikini line – and goes through seven layers of abdominal tissue. Not only that, but they make it as small as possible and then stretch and pull until it’s big enough to get a small head through. How on earth did I ever expect for there to be no effect on my lady parts, sitting mere inches below and connected internally?

More alarming than my own ignorance is the fact that none of this was mentioned to me by any doctor or midwife. After a cursory search online, I found that I am far from being alone. In fact, many women report far more difficulty with sex after a C section than with a vaginal birth, and yet it is a subject that isn’t being discussed by the professionals. Instead we are left to worry that we’ve somehow been left damaged or infected, suffering hideous speculum examinations and endless trips to the toilet with sample pots.

It’s now eight months since I had my baby, and sex is just about back to normal, albeit with the addition of plenty of lube. If you’ve had a Caesarean and you’re worrying – you’re not alone. You haven’t closed up, your bits aren’t broken and you probably don’t have infection, but at least now you’re armed with the facts if you do need a check up from your own doctor.

Take your time and ease back into it; I promise you, it will feel good again.

If you’re struggling to have sex after a c-section, Dani’d provided a couple of links that explain the issues, and give you some tips on how to ease back into sex. Please do check out Dani’s parenting blog too, because it’s ace.

Today I have a BONUS GUEST BLOG. I know. It is literally more excitement than I can handle and I have had to go for a lie-down. Luckily, I can hand over to the more-than-capable TNW, who is here to talk to you seriously about nude selfies.

I didn’t write anything about the recent ‘Fappening’ because, in all honesty, I found the whole thing so miserable that I just wanted to cry, and then punch internet twats, and then cry again while punching internet twats. As someone who has taken nude selfies before, and been torn with the panic that ‘oh God someone will find them’ as well as banging the drum of ‘it’s your right as an adult to take pictures of your body if you wish‘ I just couldn’t bring myself to wade into the murky mire of sex shame surrounding the debate. However, TNW has picked up the mantle, and written a comprehensive breakdown of just what is wrong with the ‘fappening’ and some tips for your own nude photos.

Editor’s note from GOTN: I don’t agree with his third tip, but that’s only because I have received so many cock shots in my time as a sex blogger that if I sent as many as I received I’d be the most documented person on the planet.

How not to be a dick about nude selfies

When I was 19 years old, I used to send off my camera rolls to a company who would process them, and post them back. They would send you a normal print, and a smaller print attached. My then partner and I decided to snap ourselves whilst having sex and we could split the photos like trophies with each other.

With some considerable pride, we got our photos back with a warning slip, which flatly stated that some of the photos we’d taken were illegal to send in the post, as it was tantamount to the developers “distributing pornography.” That was trophy enough for two little show-offs like us.

Later, with a different partner, we took some dirty photos and brazenly got them developed at the local camera shop. On picking them up, the developer winked “you might want to get a couple of those enlarged.” The absolute cheek. We later bought a Polaroid.

Of course, people wanting a record of their sex, proof they were good-looking or just the thrill of wanting to do something risqué, is nothing new. A lot of people have indulged in their exhibitionist sides, from sending photos to Reader’s Wives or fucking outdoors on the promise that there’s a chance they might get caught. People go dogging or attend sex parties. It’s all great if you’re into it and tutting in disapproval just makes you a shit-wipe.

The element of being caught has been a titillating thrill since someone invented shame.

When digital cameras became commonplace, things changed. People were now allowed to have some fun without the need of getting caught. There was no need to include anyone but yourselves. Computers with webcams, phones with camera’s built-in – there was now a whole new crop of people wanting to get naked and shoot the results.

Soon enough, everyone had an email address and rudimentary photo-editing skills. While many still hide under the bedsheets and fuck with the lights off, there’s an entire generation of people who now completely accept that naked photos are part of a healthy sexual life. You can now creep off to the toilets at work, take a naughty photograph and send it to the object of your affections through Snapchat or WhatsApp without anyone noticing you’ve been away from your desk. Couples can now make short movies with their phones and watch them back together.

Naturally, some of the more shy people get a flash of panic at the very idea of it, which is fine. Nothing is mandatory. The more conservative will wag a finger of disapproval at anyone who dare mention that they might indulge themselves in this way. Quite why, is something to scratch your head over.

It is with the latter that things get ugly.

With the ‘Fappening’ that took place recently, where a lot of young, female celebrities had their naked selfies stolen from them, there was an idea that they were somehow to blame. “If you don’t want people seeing them, don’t take them in the first place!” Of course, no-one ever applied that judgemental, dim-witted logic to having your money stolen from your bank account. “If you don’t want people stealing your money, don’t get a credit card – you should hide all your money under your bed where only you can get at it.”

What is particularly odd about this kind of Mary Whitehouse response is that there’s an incredibly positive thing in all of this. People are much less Catholic than ever, no longer believing that they have to be chaste and pure for no good reason. People are getting more and more expressive with their sexuality, which can only be a good thing.

There’s millions of Tumblrs where people proudly show off what their momma gave them. Some stay anonymous by leaving their faces out of shot. Other men and women don’t care – they’re proud of what they’ve got and are Teflon to any potential leaks because they were public all along.

However, for those more reluctant, there’s a very real worry. While the ‘Fappening’ was dismissed as only a problem for the famous, and celebrities deserve everything they get (they don’t), there’s been a dreadful rise in ‘revenge porn’. Sites are dedicated to bitter exes or flat-out arseholes who completely betray the trust of someone by sharing their naked bodies with anyone who wants to look.

Predominantly a problem among young men, there’s a competitive element to gathering naked photos. They’ll bark at people with sex Tumblrs, saying exactly what they want and throwing hissy fits when they don’t get it. They’ll slut-shame someone for not spreading their holes open, when they should’ve been grateful for the photos they did get. They’ll try and amass as many naked selfies as possible, rather than getting turned-on by the few who wanted to send them.

See, it isn’t the naked photo that’s a turn-on. We’ve all seen enough nude bodies online to be desensitised by that. The real thing that gets your blood moving more quickly is that someone actively wanted to send you a naked photograph. There’s many people who have a folder of pre-taken photos ready to send, because sharing cheeky photos is so commonplace in 2014. However, the thing that makes your heart leap and your groin tighten is when, after the initial flirt, they take and send photographs just for you.

Sadly, in all of this, a lot of men have an attitude that is utterly dumbfounding, and it goes like this:

“You’re a slut for sending naked photos and you get what you deserve if someone sees them and you’re a bitch for not sending me a photo of you out of your underwear and I’ll share these photos online if you piss me off… but please, please, please, please, I’m begging you, please, please send more nudes.”

One of the most fulfilling things about sharing naked photos together is the exchange of trust. I know that, should someone send me nudes, one of the things that makes me dizzy with excitement is that they trust me enough to do so. I won’t betray their trust. Partly because I’m a decent human being, but if I’m being brutally honest, I don’t tear their trust apart because I’m greedy. I’m greedy for more photos from them. I’m excited and want to send more back. I’m absolutely consumed by the experience. It’s foreplay. It’s the tease. We might never even meet up in real life, but there’s this thrilling, abstract intimacy with someone wanting to show me their tits or dicks. Two people, showing themselves off to each other. It’s incredibly exciting and no-one should ever be burned by it.

Through this, I’ve developed amazing relationships with people. With that trust comes bucket loads of other amazing things. Sometimes there’s a hook-up. Sometimes you end up being much closer to someone that you imagined you ever would. Often, because they trust you with their naked body, they’ll also load you up with enviable or embarrassing sexual anecdotes.

Sadly, the ‘Fappening’ has underlined that women are still treated with a huge unfairness when it comes to sex. Women are still not allowed to own their lust. Even in 2014, you’ll be drowned in clucks of disapproval from all sides. Women shooting other women down for having the temerity of being sexually confident. Men laughing along at a woman being violated, even though it actually makes them feel uncomfortable, but they’re blighted by an old-fashioned masculinity that really needs to die off now. Some of the men who have laughed in the face of women during these photo-leaks are the same shits that send ugly, badly-lit, unsolicited dick pics through Tinder. If someone shared those with their parents, you imagine they’d be suddenly more reflective of the whole thing (but alas, women are so weary of these types of messages that they simply delete them because getting revenge on them would be a full time job).

Collectively, humans have always wanted to show off to each other. They’ve always wanted reassurance that they’re vital objects of desire. The only difference now, is that the process and technology has changed behind it. For the most part, people play nice and quietly get off on each other without fucking it up. Sadly, for the Fappeners and the Dick Shot Crew, they’re taking the whole process two steps back. People will never stop taking nudes – I know I won’t – but sadly, we’re in a situation where it is going to take twice the reassurance to actually enjoy the process.

Here are some tips for nudes:

• Be grateful for what you receive and don’t pester someone for more than they’re comfortable sending.
• Never, ever, ever, ever share them with anyone under any circumstance. Seriously. There’s no reason where it is acceptable.
• Try and send as many nudes as you receive. It’s only fair. Don’t demand a dozen when you’ve only sent one.
• Only send sexual photos to someone you’ve struck up a rapport with and even then, ask. Sending unsolicited photos is akin to walking into a pub with your junk on show and saying “GET SOME OF THIS!” If you think that’s funny, try it in your local and see how long you last without someone smacking you in the mouth.
• Don’t shame anyone if you don’t get your way. Life doesn’t work like that and something as delicate as sex certainly shouldn’t. Tantrums never result in anything good. What are you? A baby?

I’m going to put it out there: I don’t mind if you fake your orgasm. No, really, go right ahead. What’s more, I’ll tell you that I’ve faked orgasms in the past, and if you think that makes me a bad person, or a pitiable sex-deprived creature, then you can fuck a thousand miles off.

In general, if you’re engaging in safe and consensual acts, sex positive people will cheer on your lubed-up love with an open heart and a total lack of judgment.

Unless you fake your orgasms.

Why do we think it’s bad to fake an orgasm?

This blog was prompted by the revelation today that men fake orgasms too. Cue tortured commenters screaming ‘how the fuck is that possible?’ and the inevitable smackdown by sensible people saying ‘well, duh, of course men do this sometimes – they are human.’

Whenever the subject of faking orgasms is raised, the general consensus is that it is a bad thing to do, for one of the following reasons:

• If you fake an orgasm, how is your partner supposed to know how to give you a real orgasm? You’ll be giving them the wrong impression, making them think that fumbling half-heartedly with your clit is the most surefire way to send you to heaven and back. Ergo you end up in a vicious cycle of rewarding poor performance, until your entire sex life consists of limp clit-fumbling gand your own exaggerated screams.
• If you fake an orgasm, it’s because you don’t realise that actually it’s perfectly normal for people not to orgasm. Thus, when you fake, you reinforce society’s ideas that orgasms are de rigeur, even if the shag you’ve just partaken in lasted less than the time it’d take for the kettle to boil.
• If you fake an orgasm, you are tacitly supporting the idea that orgasms are the Only Possible Goal Of Sex, and so both you and your partner will fail to spend time on the non-orgasmic things you enjoy. Like beating each other with wooden spoons or licking cream cheese from the inside of their ear canal, or whatever it is you get up to.

Faking orgasms is not as bad as people say it is

While the arguments above all have some basic merit, I strenuously object to the way they are often used, not as a piece of general advice but as an absolute decree: Thou Shalt Never Do This. Yes, faking orgasms can lead to trouble, or be symptomatic of problems if you’re doing it on a daily basis, but there’s a big difference between accepting these things and acting as if those who fake orgasms are bad at sex, and must be either pitied or corrected.

Realistically, people fake orgasms for a whole host of reasons. Some good, some bad, some practical, some habitual. You know, like many of the sex things we do. Sometimes I’m not up for a long make out session, but my partner is and I know that if I do it chances are I’ll get his hand down my knickers at some point – the jackpot I’m actually angling for. Sometimes I’ll suck a dick not because I’m desperate to get it down my throat, but because it just feels like the natural next step in a fuck I’m playing jazz with. Often we do things because they make us wet and hard and throbbing and horny – occasionally we do them for other reasons.

I’ve faked orgasms

Although the vast majority of it has been spectacular, there have still been occasions where I felt like faking an orgasm was the right thing to do. I’m lucky enough that I usually find it easy to come during a shag, and right now I’m with a long-term partner who has a thick cock and a good rhythm, and who knows me inside out, as it were. I also have a Doxy and my own two hands, should things prove more difficult on a particular occasion, so I haven’t faked one for a good long time. But have I faked orgasms in the past? Goddamn right I have.

Not because I’m tired, or because the sex is appalling and I can’t quite bring myself to say so: I’ve faked orgasms for the simple reason that coming represents the nuclear button in my sexual arsenal – when I come, he is more likely to come.

Six pints into a very late night, if we’re having an exciting fumble followed by a sticky and determined hump, it’s probably going to be tough for both of us. I’m deeply horny, and shivering with lust, but I know that it’s just not going to happen. The one thing I want right now is to feel the twitching throb of his cock pumping spunk inside me. I’m faced with a choice. Do I pull out one of my just-about-adequate sex moves? A hand gripping just the right place, an arched back, a filthy sentence or two to help him on his way? Or do I pull out my ultimate sex move – clenching my cunt nice and tight and moaning like I’ve sat on a washing machine?

Faking orgasms doesn’t make you a bad person

Conclusion of this unnecessarily sweary rant: you’re not an awful bastard if you fake orgasms – no matter what your gender or your reasons, this is a choice that you get to make for yourself. I’m not going to pass any judgment on what it says about your sex life if one day you want to twitch your genitals, roll your eyes, and Meg Ryan your way to climax. Even if you’re fucking me – if you fancy putting a bit of AmDram into it, go right ahead. I’d like to think I can tell, but wouldn’t we all? If you know the end’s a long way away, but you also know I love it when you make those moany noises, then just make the fucking moany noises already. It will, in all likelihood, bring my orgasm closer, and even if it doesn’t then at least we can put a full-stop to proceedings, albeit a jizzless one.

I care about this quite strongly because, as a young-un, I used to fake orgasms quite a lot. Almost every single time. I probably faked more orgasms than I had actual orgasms, even during a period when I was wanking so frequently you’d have thought I had eczema of the clit. I faked, and I pretended, and I loved every second of every minute of every fuck I was having. But every time I scanned an article on sex tips it screamed at me: “do not fake your orgasms! You are ruining your sex life! You are teaching your partner to do the wrong things and basing your love on a lie!” So I’d fret and I’d stress and I’d worry, and in the end I’d fake it anyway, because while I hated feeling like a liar I loved it when he came.

One day, while I was making the noises and twitching my legs and clamping my cunt down hard on his cock, it actually happened for real. The climax started and I felt hotness swell from my knees to my crotch, waves of happy-horny-oh-yes-don’t-stop-fuck-nnngggghhh-jesus-yes crashing hard up to my chest, enveloping me in pleasure and surprising the fuck out of me.

He couldn’t tell, of course, but then I don’t think I really needed him to.

There are some things that you deserve in virtue of the fact that you fulfil a set of criteria: get all the answers right in this test, you deserve an A. Spend fifty quid at a nice restaurant, you deserve a decent meal in exchange for your money.

There are certain things that you deserve simply for being alive, and human: the right to liberty, equality before the law, a certain level of privacy, etc.

Into which of these categories does sex fit? Is it something you have a human right to, like justice, or is it something that you deserve if you have done certain things to earn it?

The right to sex

If you answered ‘neither’ then you are correct. The problem is that while on the surface most decent people can see why sex is not a human right – it’s blindingly obvious that you don’t ‘deserve’ sex just because you are a living human who wants it – there are many people who feel like it falls into the first category – that if you do X, Y and Z you somehow deserve to get laid. Someone withholding your justly earned sex is like a teacher withholding an A, even though you got all of the answers right.

Something awful happened recently that caused a few things to fall into place in my head. I’ve long had a sense of creeping dread about pick-up artists, Nice Guys, and a whole host of other things that I want to put under the blanket label ‘misogynist’. They make me uncomfortable, not just because they are misogynist, but because they have a skewed and unusual view on sex that I’ve struggled to put into words.

You’ll probably have seen the recent news that a young guy went on a shooting rampage after having pledged to punish women for not sleeping with him. Please read the story if you haven’t already, but here’s a quote from the shooter:

“College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure, but in those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness, it’s not fair … I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it.”

Yes, it’s misogynist. But there’s a very particular type of misogyny that this represents, and I feel like it is becoming  more common. There’s an old-school prudish misogyny that is often the preserve of darkly religious types: a fear of women with their soft bodies and their Eve-like temptation, who will compel men to sin because we’re wicked and evil and beautiful and charming. There are a million and one reasons why that type of misogyny is terrifying and awful. I think this type of misogyny is different, though. No less terrifying, but different. And I want to explain why.

First category misogyny

What makes the shooter – and many other pick-up artists/men’s rights type people – stand out from the old-school, ‘fear of women’ misogynists, is the fact that he doesn’t hate women because they might tempt him into sex, he hates women because he thinks he deserves to have sex with them.

Many people have expressed a worry that he is looking on sex as something in category two – an absolute right. Equally you could read some of his chilling pronouncements on women and think he sees sex as a category one thing – something that, if he follows a certain set of rules, should be handed to him on a plate. Like an A grade. Like a decent meal. Like something he has earned.

The problem is, of course, that sex is not a right at all – earned or absolute. It isn’t like an A grade. No matter how hard you work, what rules you follow, or how desperately you want it, you are never entitled to sex.

The right to refuse

The obvious reason is clear: you never have a right  to sex (absolute or earned) because there’s a much more important human right that trumps it: the right to bodily autonomy. You would only be able to exercise any ‘right’ to sex if you removed someone else’s right to refuse it. That’s not going to happen, and naturally no decent person would ever want it to. Your rights can never come at the expense of someone else’s.

Hence why it’s obvious that sex never falls into category two – it’s not a human right.

Necessary versus sufficient

The slightly less obvious point, that seems to be made less frequently, is that sex cannot possibly fall into category one (earned rights), because there are no conditions you could ever fulfil that would be sufficient to ‘earn’ you some sex. We know that there are certain things that are necessary in order to have sex, but we often confuse the difference between ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’. Necessary conditions: things you absolutely have to do in order to put yourself in the running for something. Sufficient: something that – on its own – is enough to guarantee you that thing. The difference between ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ conditions is vital, often confused, and frequently ignored.

Let’s go back to the A grade again. In order to get it you need to write all the correct answers. That’s a necessary condition. But it’s not sufficient – if you write down all of the correct answers but don’t hand your paper in on time, you no more deserve the A than you deserve to fly to the moon.

The problem with a lot of the discourse around sex is that many many people confuse necessary and sufficient conditions – they know that they should treat someone nicely if they want to have sex with them, then they make the erroneous leap of assuming that because they’ve been nice they have somehow earned the sex.

That’s the key difference between sex and an A grade: although there absolutely is a set of necessary conditions, you can fulfil every single one of them and it can still not be sufficient.

It’s not just the bad guys

The reason I’m writing this, rather than any other blog, today is because I wanted to pin down the problem beyond just my general rage and discomfort. I could talk about misogynist extremism, and how it’s wrong for men to think they are ‘entitled’ to sex. I could rage out about the prevalence of men who hate women and the easy excuses we try to give them when what they’re saying is awful and unforgivable. But the vast majority of men would respond with “so what? I don’t feel like I’m entitled to anything. I’m not like those other guys.”

And sure, most men aren’t going to shoot women because of an openly-held belief that they have a right to women’s bodies. But many people do make the mistake of assuming that – if you have fulfilled a certain set of necessary conditions, then that in itself is sufficient to have earned some sex. It’s incredibly apparent in so much of our discourse, and being able to formulate exactly why it’s wrong (beyond the statement ‘it’s hateful’) means we can apply it to broader scenarios, and explain to people exactly what it is about their attitude towards sex that needs to change. Most people don’t relate to the bad guys, but most people are influenced by these common mistaken beliefs.

Whether it’s problem pages that tell you how to ‘get’ your partner to fulfil your fantasies, pick-up artists (or agony aunts/uncles) that tell you a certain set of rules will guarantee you get laid, or telling someone that their partner is being unfair when they don’t do a particular thing: we talk like this a lot. And we need to stop.

If you think you have never been guilty of these assumptions, think again. While considering examples for this blog post, I came up with a fair few times when people I know and like have been guilty of this error one point or another. In fact, I am sure that I have – when sympathising with friends who have been recently rejected by someone they’ve tried really hard to impress, for instance. I’ve probably done it here occasionally too – while I will never tell you that you deserve sex from someone, I do sometimes offer advice on how to encourage someone to fulfil your fantasies without adding that extra caveat: ‘you can try this, but you might still fail, because no one is ever obliged to do what you want.’

So no, men aren’t all buying guns and getting ready to shoot women: but it’s not really helpful to state that as a response to this particular incident. A more complicated and urgent truth is that we often discuss sex as if it’s an earned right, that you achieve by fulfilling a set of conditions. And while you do need to fulfil certain conditions in order to have sex with someone, assuming these conditions are sufficient as well as necessary is incredibly dangerous.

We’re not all picking up guns, but many of us are discussing sex as if it’s a just reward for hard work. An earned right. An A grade.

Earlier this week, something bizarre and horrible popped up in my facebook feed: the Metro’s list of “27 things men do in bed that women hate.” That link goes via DoNotLink, so shouldn’t give them traffic.

The article in question lists 27 things which women hate men doing in bed. Normally I’d expect an article like this to raise my hackles because it would probably tick off a few things that I bloody LOVE guys doing in bed but which don’t happen to float everyone’s boat. It’d be the universal generalisations that get me, and I’d probably give it a quick mention in passing, before stamping off to get enraged at HuffPo’s shit dating advice or something.

On this occasion, however, it was far worse than that.

Normally I’d write an angry, sweary rant about how appalling it is in the hope I could whip enough people up into outrage that they’d kick off about it. But I’m very tired and very ill and far too late to make a significant difference with this, so I’m kicking myself. A couple of people asked me to write it up, though, and I feel like perhaps a voice or two shouting into the ether might help a tiny bit in getting the message across that this is totally unacceptable, so here goes.

 The following content comes with a massive trigger warning.

Things not to do in bed because they’re annoying

There are some things in the article I agree with – things that guys have done with me in the past, and I can understand why they might be irritating to some. These include such side-splitting classics as:

“When you’re on top and they’re just staring at you and it’s like, ahhh what face do I pull?”

and

“Trying to remove underwear with their teeth.”

I’m quite partial to the latter, but I can see why it grates on people. I’ll still quibble about the idea that all men should stop doing it ever, but in principle there’s nothing appalling about this. Unfortunately, in its other tips, this Metro list takes a turn for the much more fucking appalling.

Things not to do in bed because they’re assault

These are all direct quotes from the article, sold alongside the points above. Sold as ‘irritating’ behaviour at worst. Presented as tricks that women have cottoned on to, and which they laugh about with their mates while wishing you’d just cut it out:

“Pulling your hair so hard you scream and your eyes water.”

“Being so aggressive with their hands during foreplay that they pretty much give you internal bleeding and bruising.”

What. The. Fuck.

These things are not annoying, as the article presents them. They are assault.

Now, as one who engages in BDSM activity a lot, it would be remiss of me not to mention that I play like this quite frequently. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that within the context of a trusting relationship, in which I am consenting, and in which my partner fully understands what I love him to do, neither of those specific physical actions is bad per se. However – and it’s a ‘however’ written in such gigantic flashing lights that you can see it from the fucking moon – this is not stuff that it is ever OK to just surprise your partner with. And, like any other sexual behaviour, it is never ever OK to keep doing it after your partner has indicated they don’t like it.

If you accidentally pull someone’s hair too hard: that sucks. If you deliberately pull someone’s hair so hard that their eyes water, if it is something that they explicitly hate and especially – as is heavily implied by the title of the article – you do it repeatedly?  Then that is assault, and you are an appalling, horrible gutter-scraping of a person.

You know this already, of course, but Metro clearly doesn’t, because it gets worse.

Things not to do in bed because they’re rape

“Casually trying to have anal sex without asking and without lube. It does not just slip in there.”

Yeah, that says what you think it says. Again, here’s the thing: I’m up for my partner having a go (although not without lube – he understands the laws of physics and realises that friction there isn’t sexy at all), but only because I have fucking told him I am. He understands what I like and what I don’t, roughly when I like it (and how), and because we have had lots of conversations before about the fact that I bloody love it when he slips my knickers down and lubes me up.

Most importantly, he knows all the signs I give that mean I’m not up for it on a particular occasion. The only reason I can trust him to play in the way we both enjoy, and the one reason I trust him to fuck me in the arse, is because on countless occasions in the past he has recognised my stop signs, abided by them, and put his fucking dick away.

There’s a subtle and nuanced debate to be had about safewords, hard play, bondage, and power exchange. I love having that debate with people here all the time. But this, Metro, is nothing like that fucking debate. It is an overt list of things that women have told you they hate, and I think in that instance you have a responsibility to present ‘unwanted sex’ not as an irritation or a frustration but as what it very plainly is – rape.

Things not to do in bed that you might not have realised were offensive

Here’s a more subtle one: can you spot it? Having listed the many different ways in which guys can ‘annoyingly’ assault girls, they throw this ‘annoying habit’ in:

“When they just stop, and it’s like, “hello? Did you hear me orgasm?” No.”

This is something women find annoying. Fair enough: it is a bit annoying. But the implication here is that men should stop doing that, and I’m afraid to say that is just not an OK thing to ask of someone. Why? Well, the speaker is essentially saying that it’s not OK to stop during sex if your partner hasn’t come yet. Still not sure why that’s dodgy? Let’s gender-flip this bad boy:

“Man, I was having sex with my girlfriend the other day and she stopped halfway through. I hadn’t come. How annoying. Obviously she’s obliged not to stop before I’ve come.”

Unfortunately, no matter how annoying it is not to come during sex, and how selfish it might be if a regular partner doesn’t put in the requisite effort to make you come, they are never obliged to continue having sex with you. No matter what their gender. No matter whether you’ve orgasmed yet. No matter how close you might be. Anyone has the right to withdraw their consent at any time. I shouldn’t have to say this.

Things not to write in the paper because they’re irresponsible

The Metro claims that the points on their list came when they ‘threw the question out to facebook.’ I’ve looked at their facebook page and can find no trace of them asking this question, so I’m a bit curious as to whether they asked, then deleted the answers. But that’s by the by.

The fact is that if you ask people what they ‘hate’ their partner doing in bed, and you’re fishing for amusing anecdotes, you have a responsibility not to lump assault in with those roll-in-the-aisle gags. You’ll make it look like it is merely an inconvenience – something that just happens to people, and to which the best response is a giggle, an eye-roll, or a quick click of the ‘share this article’ button.

The vast majority of men aren’t ignorant of these issues, but in publishing this you might make some men think it’s OK to surprise their partner with anal that she expressly doesn’t want. You might give more people the idea that their partner has an obligation to make them come. And you may well give women the impression that they should just put up with physical assault, and cross their fingers in the hope that their scum partner happens to chance across a Buzzfeed-style list of sex tips and eventually check his shit behaviour.

If you want some more informed advice on these issues, visit Rape Crisis, or any of these places that give support for men and boys.