Image by the brilliant Stuart F Taylor
I talk about sex more than the average person. Hopefully that’s not a shock to any of you. Even before starting this sex blog, I was well-known in my friendship group for being the one who Talks About Sex. If someone asked me what I got up to at the weekend, and ‘what I got up to’ included some kinky roleplay with my partner and a friend, I’d probably include that in my roundup of life updates. Sex is part of my life – an important part – and if someone wants to be friends with me, they have to accept that when they ask me ‘how are you?’ the answer might come back: ‘horny!’. This isn’t something I think about very often, because I’m rarely prompted to consider it until I meet new people. At that point, when they ask what I got up to at the weekend, I have to temper my instinct to reply ‘eating crisps and wanking’ or whatever it might be. But a while ago one of my excellent Patreons asked me if I ever get embarrassed when I talk about sex, and it felt like a great opportunity to get nerdily detailed about the answer.
Embarrassed in general vs embarrassed to talk about sex
When they initially posed the question, they put it more broadly – do you ever get embarrassed? – and the answer to this question is ‘yes, all the time.’ I live in an almost constant state of being embarrassed and ashamed of myself: I have anxiety. And although my anxiety waxes and wanes depending on a number of factors, at the time of writing this I feel anxious pretty much constantly. I wake up each morning with a cold, horrifying dread that I’ve said or done something unforgivable. Every single encounter with another human being leaves me feeling raw and hyper-alert in some way, like someone’s applied a cheese-grater to my nerve endings, or given me a double-shot of adrenaline. This is true whether I’m speaking in front of an audience or having beers with a really good friend.
In the immediate aftermath of any social interaction, I usually feel buoyed and happy – especially if I think I have done well. And by ‘well’ I mean ‘completed the interaction without having someone yell at me or tell me I suck’. Bonuses include: I managed to have some fun conversations; I made someone laugh; I listened to a friend’s woes and provided useful support; I got banged by a hot date; I scored a new commission… anything. In the immediate moment I will usually feel pleased with myself. Then – either later that night or first thing the next morning – the embarrassment hits. Was I too loud? Too annoying? Did I dominate the conversation? Did I make a terrible joke that was somehow insensitive? Did I, in my excitement, miss a key piece of information or social cue that has rendered my interlocutor somehow… mad at me?
This embarrassment/anxiety/shame sometimes manifests in a full-on panic, other times it’s just a low-level background fear, humming through my brain and resonating in those raw, grated nerve endings I mentioned earlier.
I am explaining my baseline levels of embarrassment and worry only so you understand the significance of what I’m about to say next:
I am not embarrassed to talk about sex on the blog.
I am who I am
I have sat with this answer for a while and tried to examine it from a few different angles – can I really, hand-on-heart, say I’m not embarrassed to talk about sex? I still get the same grated-nerves worry about sex chat as I do with all my other chat. Did I spend too long telling that story about getting strugglefucked? Did I not leave enough space for my friend to tell me her story about trying dick toys for the first time? Did I accidentally say something a little mean-spirited when I relayed that dating mishap to my pals? But the focus of my worry is always on whether I have spoken too loudly, or unkindly, or for too long. About whether sex chat was appropriate for that specific moment, rather than whether it was acceptable at all. It’s about delivery, not topic: I do not get specific shame/embarrassment because of The Sex Thing. And here on the blog, where it’s specifically labelled ‘sex’ and you can opt out of it by clicking away, I feel genuinely free to talk without embarrassment or shame.
This is a gut feeling rather than a rational one, but here are my best guesses as to why I’m not embarrassed to talk about sex.
Firstly, I’ve gone way beyond the point of no return when it comes to being an open and honest pervert. I’ve been talking to my friends (and family – more on this later) about sex for many years, and the point at which I turned Talking About Sex into a job rather than just a hobby was the moment when openness and honesty went from being ‘part of who I am as a person’ to ‘actually kind of necessary if I want to enjoy rich connections with my friends.’
In short: if I can’t talk to my friends about sex, I can’t really talk to my friends. Sex is my job, and my hobby, and my passion. It’s what I think about for most of the working day and a lot of my resting time too. So I tell my friends about it because I trust that when they ask me ‘how are you?’ they want an honest answer. Talking about sex to my pals is a necessary condition of our friendship. If people don’t want to hear this kind of stuff, that is absolutely their prerogative, but then they definitely need to choose friends other than me!
When it comes to those with less choice in whether and how they interact with me – family, for instance, or partners-of-friends, or friends-of-partners – I am a bit more circumspect about what I choose to share. They don’t get the same opt-out, after all, so I don’t just launch into wank chat if they ask me what I got up this Bank Holiday. And people I’m meeting for the first time get a vague ‘freelance copywriter’ if they ask me what I do.
But this isn’t really a question of embarrassment, it’s more about basic issues like consent. We live in a society that expects us to be shocked by sex, and so hurling dicktales into casual conversation with people who don’t know me well might cause them some discomfort. I definitely fuck this up sometimes because I am so used to talking about sex that my dial on ‘what is appropriate’ is not always calibrated the same as other people’s. When something I say is met with raised eyebrows I might internally cringe, and recalibrate my dial for this particular social scenario, but I’m cringing because I’ve been insensitive, not because I’m embarrassed by how much I love dick. If a stranger were to be open about their own sex life, I’d greet that conversation with pleasure and enthusiasm, and be more than happy to share some of my own stories to make things equal.
We’re back to the opening disclaimer though: general shame. I am often worried I might have misjudged something, or spoken too much or out of turn, so I would definitely be embarrassed to realise I’d said something that had caused harm or even upset to an innocent conversational bystander. Yet still, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with talking about sex, so again it’s not about topic but context.
I wrote about this many many years ago in my first book:
“If we’re talking about shame, I’m more likely to cringe when I remember times I’ve lied, or deliberately hurt people, or growled at tourists who stand on the wrong side of the escalator. Over the past 29 years I’ve done many things that are cruel or stupid or misjudged – things that have upset complete strangers, made friends miserable, or hurt the people who care about me. With all that sadness sitting guiltily on my shoulders, why would I ever be ashamed of the love?”
In the moment, when I tell someone I had a threesome last weekend, it doesn’t feel like something to be embarrassed of: it’s just a thing that happened in my life. If it makes a good story, I’ll tell it, just as I’ll tell someone about the fight I’m having with EDF Energy over bill refunds if I reckon I can rustle up a punchline that makes it worthwhile. I think there’s value in acknowledging and embracing sexual discussion as something that doesn’t have to come with a side order of bravery or embarrassment: just presenting sex as something that is. That exists. Part and parcel of my life, a moral equivalent to how I pay my bills or where I’m going on holiday.
Talking about sex without shame is a moral good
I am definitely embarrassed by what I’m about to say next, because I think it makes me look like a righteous wanker but let’s do it: I believe that talking about sex without shame is not only a positive thing, it is actually a moral good. In a society where we weren’t ashamed of sex it would be a morally neutral act, but given that sex has been steeped in stigma for centuries, right now I’m going to say it’s outright good.
Shame helps abusers cover up their abuse. Shame helps bigots push vulnerable people back into closets, or persuade them they need to be ‘converted’ into someone other than who they really are. Shame is a powerful social tool, and it can be used to do immense harm.
Shame is what embarrassment becomes if you give it enough food and water.
So talking about sex without embarrassment is good, I think. We should do more of it. You should do more of it, if you can and you want to.
The harm that has been done to people – is still being done to people – because of silence (and silencing), shame (and shaming) around sex is incalculable. I am in an extremely privileged position, having been raised in a family that didn’t force me into religion or tell me my body was wrong. I was never made to feel unworthy for my sexuality, rarely told by my family that I had to express my gender in specific ways.
I am a woman and, naturally, that comes with baggage and bullshit. I’ve experienced a tonne of pressure from all corners to behave in a ‘ladylike‘ way or perform femininity to please those around me. I’ve been slut-shamed, pressured to use my body to bear children even though I don’t want them, belittled and patronised and bullied/teased/shamed for lots of things – including my sexual desire. But I’m (mostly) straight and (definitely) cisgender so I’ve suffered far less harm through shame than someone who isn’t those things. Society has done a number on me in a variety of areas, but talking about sex seems to be one area in which I’ve remained comparatively free from the kind of shame that might otherwise shut me up.
What’s more, I have been lucky enough to know people – partners, friends, friends’ partners – who have helped me explore my desires in ways that are safe and fun. I have had more freedom to be who I am than most other people I know. I’m extremely lucky to be standing here today, unashamed of the fact that I really love wanking. What a treat! Honestly, what a fucking privilege!
Perhaps this is my superpower?
I don’t have many gifts or talents, but I do have a general lack of embarrassment about sex. Used in the right way this feels like it might be my superpower. After all, if most people are weighed down by shame and I am not, then it truly is pretty powerful to be able to talk about the things that others can’t, for fear of reprisals. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, etcetera.
So I want to make the most of it! Talk about fucking, welcome others when they come to me with sex questions or stories or jokes or tentative exploratory ideas… you know the sort of thing.
When this lovely Patreon initially asked me the question, I took a long time to think about my answer. There is definitely a lot of stuff on the blog that I’m embarrassed of, mainly old takes that I wouldn’t write in the same way today. Things which are clumsy or ignorant or badly-written. Posts which might hurt people – including me, because the knowledge that I’ve written hurtful things makes me hurt in turn. There’s always plenty of stuff in my past to be embarrassed about – that’s growth, isn’t it? If I stood by every single post I’d written fifteen years ago, that would be a profoundly miserable thing. It would mean I was still the same person, and that nothing in the intervening decade-and-a-half had sunk into my obstinate brain. Growth is good. Change is good. Embarrassment about our past actions helps us become better people tomorrow.
But while the clumsy and hurtful stuff makes me cringe, I don’t feel embarrassed for the fact that I’ve talked about sex. Even when what I’ve told you is that I got a butt plug stuck up my back alley, or chewing gum stuck in my pubes. Or about that time I vaginally ingested a bedpost or cried in the kitchen after a fuck or sucked a guy off out of awkwardness because I didn’t know how to say ‘no’. Sex is an important part of my life, as it will be an important part of many of your lives too, and sharing stories about it – horny, emotional, funny, frightening, real – can be a good way to show other people that they aren’t alone.
At best, ‘talking about sex openly’ feels like the right thing for me to do, at worst it doesn’t feel like a harmful thing to do. So I tell you explicit, sometimes dark, often quite mad-sounding things, because I feel like with a lot of this stuff it’s… better out than in? Discussing a problem is sometimes enough to make it go away, or at least make someone else hurt less when they realise they’re in the same boat. Talking about joy is sometimes enough to help other people recognise similar joys in their own lives, and allow themselves to embrace and revel in those joys with more gusto.
Love me love me love me
I do feel embarrassed about some things, let’s be clear on that. Embarrassed to reveal my own insecurity, my own incompetence. Embarrassed to realise that I don’t have all the answers, embarrassed to admit that – yeah, fuck – I genuinely do care a lot what people think of me. I need… and desperately want… your approval. I admit to these things not because I am devoid of shame but because shame is a very human emotion, and being honest about the things we feel ashamed of can sometimes lead to greater connection and less shame in the future. I think I have a greater connection with you, the reader, if you understand that I am often abject and flailing and uncertain and desperate for love. I might be a little embarrassed to say it aloud, but that embarrassment is outweighed by the knowledge that somebody reading it might see themselves here, and feel like it’s done a little good. Acknowledging my own cringe could turn the dial down on yours, and if you connect with what I write then we can both breathe a sigh of relief together.
But even this low-level embarrassment is far greater than any I might feel just from talking about sex, especially here on the blog. In fact, I am deeply grateful to have a space like this where I can let my horny slut flag fly without the pressure to overanalyse how and when it’s appropriate to fly it. If my stories about getting jealous during a threesome or spitroasted by a sex machine aren’t harming anyone, and the audience is free to look away at any time, that’s literally the best possible way for me to let this stuff pour out without boring my friends or harming conversational bystanders.
It’s not even that I don’t care whether it’s embarrassing – I find it funny/joyful/fascinating that other people might think it’s embarrassing. I get off on the fact that people might wonder at my lack of shame. It makes me feel special, like I have a silly little power that can be useful in banishing stigma as well as bringing pleasure to those who get off the way I do. Besides, I love a performance: I’m horny for a performance. And this is my favourite one to give.
You can read me and laugh at me and think I’m pathetic and boring and embarrassing or whatever, but you’re always welcome to leave. And in the meantime if I can conjure one single laugh, one grin, one desperate wank, one sigh of relief as someone realised they aren’t the weirdest pervert on the block?
I will never be embarrassed about that.
Super grateful to the Patreon who asked this question, they are one of my favourite Patreons and always contribute brilliant Qs to the Q&A on live hangouts! This one gave me tonnes of food for thought and then became a reading that I did during our last live call. People in the chat asked me to turn it into a post, so here you go! If you also wish to make me dance like I am your puppet, then come join the team for £2/$2 per month (£20/$20-ish per year) and you’ll have access to these hangouts, early access to new audio porn, and monthly updates where I read you previews of upcoming posts and give fun behind-the-scenes info.
