Don't look back in Anger

When you look back over your romantic history: the fumbling snogs of youth, the drunken sex of your 20s (just me then?) the love affairs in your 30s etc etc - you always remember the really HOT ones, don't you? The ones that caused you to do all kinds of weird things - like pretend to be interested in a band you hated, or going to a bar because you knew they'd be there, or arranging to film a male model for a day for a feature on the fashion show you worked on, because you were basically stalking them (oh, just me again...). The ones that stick in your memory because they were so damn cute that if you didn't snog the face off them, then you would have died right there on the spot.

Now in my time, I have (thank you god) kissed a couple of hot guys. Obviously in my mind, they were all hot - or at least looked luke warm after I'd sunk enough tequila. But I have a kind of list in my head of 3 that were particularly gorgeous - whom I am most proud to have locked lips with.

I was discussing this at work the other day with a colleague, and launched into the tale of the boy I would have put at a very respectable NUMBER 3. His name was Matt, and I met him when he was 16 and I was 18 - the summer of '91. Smack bang in the middle of my A-levels. When I should have been studying for exams.  

Instead, my Mum mentioned that there was some tennis tournament on down at the local tennis club, and the books immediately took a back seat. For a hick from Belfast, to suddenly be surrounded by all these strapping tanned tennis gods from all across the globe - it was well worth chucking Hamlet to one side for an evening. I dragged my mate Jules along and pitched up at the club. I noticed him immediately. Swarthy, with twinkly brown peepers, cow like lashes, blonde hair that flopped to one side and with a cheeky grin - he was so freakin' hot! I could barely look at him. Now, around boys I fancy, I get all tongue-tied and bumbling and my palms sweat. So when he joined our table and chatted away in his soft cockney tones, I barely glanced in his direction. I seem to remember my Mum dropping him and his mates at their hotel and he asked for my number. (This in itself was a miracle - as this is me pre-dental work, with bad hair). 

We traded calls the next day - me shoving 10 and 20p pieces into the payphone at school... eventually arranging to meet that night at the Eglantine Inn - a pub across the road from my school.

He stood me up. 

I was FURIOUS. Later he told me he'd been on court until 9:30 and couldn't call me (damn those mobile phones for not being invented yet) and so had gone for a KFC bucket. This - the mere fact he chose greasy chicken over me, should have been my wake up call.

But no, I pursued him even harder. 

The day after was Saturday (oh yeah, it's all in my diary too - tragically) and I left the library and headed to the same squash and tennis club where I was working behind the bar that night. He appeared and I blanked him. That'll show him eh? He blanked me back. Hadn't counted on that one... So I hung around, pretending to chat to my friends, until finally, he apologised and I forgave him in a heartbeat. (I want to go back and slap my younger self, but that was then...).

He spent all evening propping up the bar where I served and trying to get me on the dance floor. Some girls flirted with him but he turned away quickly, focusing all his attention on me. Instead of glass collecting, i was too busy giving him free beer... He was flying back to London the following day - he lived in Woodford - and he invited me back to his hotel when I finished my bar shift. I had an A level in Eng lit that Monday to study for and he had STOOD ME UP.

Off I went. 

I kissed that boy for an entire night (but nothing more I add). He had soft stubble that eventually felt like it was scrubbing off my chin - but no matter - who cares about stubble rash when you are kissing such a hot boy!! He gave me his number, kissed me goodbye, (Ow!) wished me well and told me to look him up when I went to Uni in London the following term. 

I was smitten. Until weird blisters appeared in my chin that evening, and then more and more. He gave me what rugby players call scrum pox - impetigo. Nice. My Dr told me it was the 'kisser's infection.' I had to go into school with my chin covered in cream and my mates pissed themselves at me... Nice parting gift, I agree.

Worse still, he had given me... the wrong number. Oh yes. He hadn't wanted to see me in London again after all. Which he kind of made clear, when I bumped into him at Wimbeldon a few weeks later. He was playing Wimbeldon boys and looked surprised to see me. Not in a good surprised way either. As in a 'what the hell are you doing here?' way. 

The impetigo cleared in a few days. I got an A in my English A level. The boys in Belfast seemed dull in comparison... 

I never forgot Matt. His big brown eyes and his cheeky grin. His sharp cheekbones and his floppy fringe. Until this week. When my colleague, who heard this sad tale, decided to look him up. Bless her. 

And here he is, today, as a tennis coach.....

HE WAS MY NUMBER 3!!!!!!!!!

I mean seriously! What happened?? Who does he remind you of? Oh that'll be......

Greg Wallace from Masterchef. In fact Greg looks better!!!

The moral of the story is this: Never tell anyone about the hot boys/girls of your youth as they most certainly do not look that hot NOW. Or if they look even hotter, that is almost worse, no?

I now feel much much happier that he never gave me the correct last digit to his number, and even more bitter about the impetigo. Will I be asking him for tennis coaching? That, would be a resounding.... No. 

Bare your Bush

Is the bush back? Recently I've been reading a LOT about Gwyneth Paltrow's pubic hair: I seem to remember somewhere around 2001 her saying a brazilian wax changed her life, but recently on the Ellen show she described her lady garden as 'rocking a 70s vibe.'  Meanwhile writer Caitlin Moran has come out and said that everyone should have a 'great big hairy muff' and be proud of it. 

Now, I've got say, there is nothing groovy about being in the local swimming baths and your son telling you "Mummy, you have a spider working it's way down your thigh" - when it aint a spider... However, there is also nothing good about the pressure to be bald as a coot down there... Isn't that some dreadful porn fetish; somewhat infantilising women? Who wants to look like the last plucked turkey in Tescos on Xmas eve? Now, I'm fair haired, not that hairy - but when I had my first brazilian in 2001  it was more painful than both my C sections put together. The woman used pouring wax which she then ripped off me in huge clumps, as searing pain shot across my groin. At the end she held up a pretty little hand mirror for me to inspect my lady - not so much garden - desert. Then came the joy of ingrowing hairs, (OUCH!) and - she forgot to mention this - peeing like a watering can. Pubic hair is supposed to act as a funnel, and without it - well, you can imagine. (Sorry Matt Evans, TMI??)

Getting waxed is so intimate and embarrassing I have to talk through the whole thing. There is no dignity in slipping into surgical style knickers and then having someone bend your knees and fiddle with parts of you that rarely see daylight. I tend to rest a magazine on my stomach and babble about the article I'm reading, trying not to focus on what's going on down there. It aint as bad as my friend R, (who goes to Cheryl Cole's waxer apparently). R has to rest on ALL FOURS as she gets waxed from behind! THE HORROR. Why go through all this? To please a man? What if you leave him and get with someone who loves the full package? I read a story recently where some poor woman tried sticking false eyelashes on down there, in her quest to appease her new boyfriend - having had the whole area lazered off forever. Surely to god there must be nothing less sexy than post coital, her man wandering around covered in fluttery black lashes?? 

All this razoring off (itchy as hell in the grow back stage) or depilatory creams (smell BAD) or lasering (still grows back apparently) or waxing (ohh that STINGS) - in the quest for a full muff/porn star/hollywood/vajazzle/landing strip etc etc is frankly WRONG. I'm all with being tidy ladies, but at what cost? Financially and also personally. Can't we just all have the nether regions that we want - without feeling there is a WAY we should be?

Creative agency Mother London has launched Project Bush, where they hope to trigger "a modern day feminist debate through the lens of a Brazilian." They are taking feminism by the short and curlys and inviting women in London to get their lady gardens photographed in a custom made private 'bush booth' (isn't that name AMAZING?) on Thursday 3rd October, at their offices. Photos will be taken by top female photographer Alisa Conan and will be shown in an exhibition at a later date. If you are interested lovely readers, then check out Mother London's website or book a 15 minute slot anytime during the day or evening of the 3 October by emailing bush@motherlondon.com. As they explain, "We're not pro-bush or anti-bush. We're pro-choice." 

I totally support this idea - but am aware that whilst some will find the idea of anonymously showing off their bits somewhat erotic or hilarious, others might be horrified by it. But what I think is fab about this whole getting it on the table idea - is the range of women's triangles that they will surely see. So it doesn't matter if you are a jurassic park of bushes, or totally smooth, or all the shapes and colours in between (or even sport a merkin). What matters is, you are celebrating what is yours - and your choice. Isn't it about time it was cool to have whatever type of beaver you fancy? Now, what am I doing on Thursday??

Confession: I hate summer.

Just as felt like it was safe to chuck my fitflops back into the wardrobe and haul on my hunter wellies, the bloody sun came out again.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WEATHER? I mean come on, it is October next week - I need that cold crisp air, heavy with bonfire smoke, the sun shining only to warm the sky, on a clear blue Autumnal day. That back to school feeling. Except the kids have been back for over 3 weeks...  I need the shops to fill with Halloween tat, and for the temperature to dip enough for me to argue with husband that it is OK to turn on the gas fire that he says we 'may as well pour £10 notes on to it as it costs this much to run it.' He really has turned into Scrooge when it comes to all things gas bill...

I'm over this Indian summer. Maybe that is terribly un-British of me, to wish for colder, wintery-er (new word there) weather. I don't care - I think summer is over rated. There, I've said it.

What is so freakin' good about a sticky hot summer, when you aren't lying by a rippling infinity pool and you aren't drinking cocktails? Think on: you are holed up in a sweat box office, desperately hoping that the 'extra strength' deodorant that you bought will live up to its advert. Or you are crushed like a battery hen against some sweaty smelly man on the tube, as every other man glances at your wet cleavage reflected on the curved tube door windows. As your bosom heaves as you try to gather a morsel of air to breathe in the stagnant humid fetid tube air. Every journey becomes a bind - an epic desert cross, where you have to carry water, a change of clothing and make up supplies to get you from A to B. Because there is NO point in plastering on the slap before you head out - it will have melted off your face by the time you get to that hot date - like a victim from the House of Wax. (Good movie - honest).

Then there is ALL the pressure - to be slim, to have waxed all regions, to remember to apply fake tan (not when you're pissed so you look like marble cake legs) and all that exfoliating and toenail painting and finding a bra that works with a summer dress - it is all STRESSFUL.  Some women - the 6 foot flippy ponytail type with olive skin and a smattering of freckles, they DO summer well. California girls with their sunny sunny faces and figures. Us Brits, or lily white Irish - we do blotchy. We don't even tan after a month in Mexico. We just get weird heat rashes and red patches and the odd burnt nose that peels for eternity. Not a good look.

Plus - all those FEET on show! Now you can dress them up in a pretty sandal or two but at the end of the day - they are there, looking all crooked and dry and gnarled. Oh, just me then?

The heat makes everyone cranky and the only decent thing is being able to hide sneaky glances at hot boys (24 and up obviously) behind a pair of massive shades. No for me, Autumn is the best season. When bikini angst (because no sarong looks great - it just creams - I am hiding my large ass in this teeny bit of see through material. It is now hidden. NO babe, it isn't) has gone. When the sweatiness has subsided. When it is totally cool to wear old baggy jumpers and cashmere socks and great big stonking boots.  When lying in hot baths is important - with glass of red natch. When the dark nights march in and one doesn't feel the need to HAVE to be social. When it is ok to let your kids rot in front of the telly for a whole day. When Sunday roasts become a MUST. When mulled wine starts appearing in shops. When trick or treating comes upon us. When decent films and not blockbuster trash start hitting the flicks.

When we can all stop talking and obsessing about the weather and pretending to enjoy picnics. When we can lie in front of fires watching cracking Autumn telly and be the grouchy grumbling hibernating Brits that we love to be.

*finally takes a breath*

Things I have learnt this week...

In no particular order:

No1. Maybe it isn't the best idea to sink a bottle and a half of red at a work do, and then go up to your boss and ask them quite earnestly who they would like to shag in the room? (*I must add, not in a flirtatious way, more in a 'let's gossip about hot boys' kind of way...). Maybe keep to small talk about the weather or bitching about fellow workers. MUCH better.

No. 2 Infer and Imply. (Thanks to Thea at work, I now am totally sure which one is which). In case you are wondering, you can imply something, but only I can infer this. Someone who infers that something is the case receives information and forms their own conclusions).

No. 3 Now, I am as honest as the day. This was proved to me this week, when I met a great writer who I'd never had the pleasure of actually working with, but he said he knew all about me, as 'I read your blog.' He described it as funny and honest, which made it all the more bearable that I was looking directly at someone who knows that I never get to change a tampax alone, while to me, they are a virtual stranger. But I'm ok with that, I am the Queen of the overshare. If you gonna blog about your life, then it should be of no surprise when folk think they know you. Talking about such intimacies is always an ice breaker anyway. Here's to oversharing.

No. 4 I learnt a valuable lesson this week when I decided to rid my life of those who aren't honest with me, who don't level with me. Because I'm a heart on my sleeve kinda girl, I say it like it is. You pretty much always know where you stand with me. Husband says he can tell IMMEDIATELY when I dislike someone. I thought only he had such telepathic powers, but it turns out no, I am just wildly obvious about how I feel, about EVERYTHING. Those that lie or can't just be straight with me, have to go. In most things I am shades of grey, all 'well I can see both sides, blah blah..' But on this one thing I am black and white. It has been a while since I have enforced this rule but this week, out it came. Through my foggy haze, I saw some light and clarity and frankly, it was a relief.

No. 5 It is ok to like Miley Cyrus's new song. Not for the video, which makes me worry for her mental health - as no one should be licking DIY tools - who knows where they've been. It is ok to like the song though. Isn't it?

No. 6 I am a great wing woman. Oh yes. After aforementioned bottle and a half of red I went into cupid mode and helped score a mate a date. Just call me Cilla. I warrant that if you need a date, all you need is me with you for an evening and a credit card for my bar tab. Hot date guaranteed. Most people are afraid to approach those they fancy for fear of making a twat of themselves. That is where I come in. I am not afraid of being that twat. After I've talked their ear off for twenty minutes anyone else looks positively sane in comparison. They will be so desperate to get away from 'the mad Irish blonde woman' that they will be relieved to talk to you. Then - date. Nailed on certainty. All for the price of a few old fashioneds. Who needs internet dating?

No. 7 The character that most resembles me is the drunken next door neighbour in the sweet little film The Way Way Back. A borderline alcoholic with a penchant for younger men, and an ability to say inappropriate things at all times... Horribly like looking in a mirror. The ghost of the future...

No. 8 Another thing NOT to do, is when a concerned colleague says in the pub,  'how are you getting home, I'm worried about you?' (as you try and focus on them but fail miserably), DO NOT grab the next man walking past - a total stranger - and cackle insanely, 'With him.' Thereby confusing the poor earnest fellow who then wonders why this drunken woman is manhandling him. You may make a hasty exit, but then your concerned friends have to chat to him for 20 minutes explaining your drunkenness, and it turns out this 'stranger' is in fact a colleague of sorts. Embarrassing, well, it would be if I vaguely remembered what he looks like...

No. 9 It is OK to like Miley's new song isn't it? Well ISN'T it???

 

Get set for winter....

I've committed the cardinal sin at home, one I am hoping that Husband can forgive (fingers crossed): I've put the heating on before October 1st.

I know, I know, I'm sorry, but it is fecking FREEZING and I am unwilling to try and move around our drafty Victorian house wearing blankets, three pairs of socks and a scarf. The heating switch has been flicked and will remain on the ' ON timer' button until March. Ok, July of next year.

To be honest, this is my favourite time of year: we can at last let out the stomachs we have been holding in since June, give up on pedicures and brutal waxing and instead haul out the baggy comfy jumpers and heavy leather boots. Brilliant.

The other thing we can do, apart from salivating over the latest offering on The Great British Bake Off (it is back - much joy!) is begin nesting. Once September's cooler temperatures have made themselves known, it is utterly justifiable to start splashing the cash on throws, cushions, soft lighting and any item that will make your home that bit cosier as winter descends.  So with that in mind, I thought I'd share a few of Autumn/Winter 2013 must-have nesting essentials:

No. 1 The rug The coolest shop I have recently found on line for all things housey is this one. Currently I have two durry rugs sewn together that I sourced from Denmark, as my lounge rug. I love them/it. Husband HATES them/it. May have something to do with the vivid pink colour thrashing through it. I have promised him that I will sort the rug situation, and while he claims 'we don't need a rug at all' - he is of Australian blood, and doesn't feel the force 5 gale blowing through the enormous gaps between our wooden floorboards. The man is never cold. I am permanently freezing. He is convinced I could feel a draft in a vacuumed room - I am merely convinced that we need a new rug, of course. A winter essential if ever there was one.

No. 2 The throw Where to begin? If I had my way, we'd have a different throw thing for every day of the week. Husband calls them 'blankets' and doesn't understand my need to drop £120 for a pure wool one from Heals, because 'I like the stitching.' I am sure that if he had his way, we'd all sit in bin bags, reminiscent of Bradley Cooper's jogging outfit in Silver Linings Playbook (which I might add Husband has seen 6 times, as his love for all things Jennifer Lawrence knows no bounds). So the throws I love are here, here and ohhhhh here. You can thank me later... I actually have coveted that Missoni throw for at least a year. *Sighs.*

No. 3 Lighting - indeed, fairy lights. Now, don't tell me that you think fairy lights are very 2001. They were. Are. BUT you just haven't taken a browse through these guys. Whatever the occasion - they have a decorative light for you. (Who knew that there are USB fairy lights, but indeed there are).  I found them when I was browsing for Halloween decs (what do you mean, it's too soon to be thinking about all Hallow's eve? I start thinking about it as soon as Sproglet returns to school - when I force the kid to invite all his buddies to a Halloween party so as I can trick or treat, with a load of hip-flask swilling Mothers - but that is another story).

Don't get me started on cushions and candles. That my friends, is an entire other blog post. But do not let you other halves put you off from your purchasing. Winter is coming people and we need to saddle up. All you need is the above items and a decent bourbon and you're set. And in case you're asking which Bourbon - it can only be Woodford Reserve. Blanket or not, it'll warm your cockles, that's for sure.  Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

New housemates

So I'm house sharing. Yeah, it kind of crept up on me, but here I am - just like in certain flat sharing days, living with folk I don't want to be with. Listening to their endless complaints, having to put up with their irritating habits and their bathroom hogging. How did this happen?

Oh yes. I had children.

If only I could just change a tampax in peace, life really would be ok. But even that small dignity has been stripped away from me, as my daughter AKA The Shadow - follows my every move. Does a two year old really need to know about periods at such a tender age? Well, seems she does now.

My son meanwhile - AKA The angel - has begun to be less angelic. He answers back. Demands later bed times. Refuses meals. (This one aint so new to be fair). Every time I sit down, it appears I have lost control of the TV to either some godawful Fifa (spelling?) soccer game on the X Box, or actual football is blaring away.

My make up bag is pillaged on a daily basis by my 2 year old, who it has to be said, doesn't appreciate the cost of a Lancôme mascara - but likes to use it to streak her hair a fetching black. Regularly I look for my phone only to discover that it has gone - and so have 30% of my cherished photos on it, and half my contacts. Yep 2 year old Sproglette thinks she is fucking David Bailey - with an I phone as her camera, and insists on taking daily pics of her ears, the sink, a wall, a stray cat she has invited in, etc.

What else? These 'housemates' also like to get up early. Like 6am. And just scream at the top of the stairs for no reason. Or have dreams where Aliens take me away (I freakin' wish) and so crawl into bed beside me of an evening. They then proceed to demand Oreos for breakfast and scatter raisins liberally around the wooden floors - because standing on a sticky squished raisin is my FAVOURITE thing. Nearly as much fun as standing on a small toy car that is usually placed helpfully by them, on the stairs. At night. In the dark.

They also like on occasion to (in no particular order): piss their pants in the middle of restaurants, crap in the bath, sing nursery rhymes until they're horse, squabble endlessly, repeat requests in a Goebbel's Nazi-esque repetitive fashion until you relent, break anything within a 100 metre radius, steal copper money from your bag, eat the end of the ice cream you had hidden at the back of the freezer and draw over important documents and walls because 'I wanted to.'

Gone are the days I wake of my own accord; gone is any privacy, gone is any time to read or think without someone asking for a drink, a wipe, chocolate or a new mother. Gone is the time I used to spend alone - including in the shower - the house guests LOVE chatting to me as I try to shampoo my hair and then ask questions about pubic hair, 'why is your tummy wobbly?' and 'what is that star on your hip Mummy?' 'An legacy of New Zealand, a tattooist call Phil on the hill and too much liquor, child.'

In short: I fantasise about leaving this house share and going to live with some Kiwis who want to smoke bongs all evening and make home made potcheen (poitin). To only have to cook single girls' soup (covent garden in case you ask) for dinner and watch whatever I freakin' want on tv. To shower alone, and to never have to justify why it aint so cool to eat crap American biscuits for breakfast. And to never stand on a fucking mashed raisin again.

 

The greatest myth of all: Female Sexual Passivity

Sex, the subject on everyone's (ahem) lips...

I just read this article in Stylist magazine (a little base in some of the arguments, but in general makes some good points). The writer is at pains to point out that women do indeed like sex, and to uphold the lie that female sexuality is passive and male sexuality is active simply gives power to men, and takes it from women.  Moreover she assumes that this differentiation only reminds women their place in society is the opposite of men's and therefore will never be equal.

Then I read a male right of reply, which was written by what appears to be, a very nice bloke, who was keen to stress that not all men walk around with their knuckles grazing the floor, expecting a woman to lie back and think of England.

It got me a thinkin'. I am certain that the age old stereotypes that a man who sleeps around is a stud and a woman who does the same is a slut - are still prevalent today. I've even been in conversations with women friends who have remarked about other women 'getting around' or the like - judging them for their sexual choices. We have been conditioned to do so: nice girls keep their legs together in the hope their chastity will reward them a husband and bad girls get on with the business of opening their legs. Isn't that what we were sold?

At a young age I remember cartwheeling at the boy across the road's house - my T-shirt kept falling upwards to reveal my pre-pubescent chest (a skateboard was similar), and yet I was told off my the boy's mother. She never explained why - and I remember being confused - after all I was wearing shorts, it's not like he could see my knickers! Yet, her son could wee in the bushes - his penis partially hidden, because boys can and girls simply cannot.

As I grew up - this gender divide continued: the boys at school would get drunk at parties and kiss the pretty girls. At one such event I was kissed - and then they proclaimed the boy who did so my 'victim.' Fair enough, I was still in the ugly ducking phase of my looks, but this was unnecessarily cruel to a teenage girl, already riddled with insecurities. It never occurred to me to fight back and argue against them - as girls, you put up, you shut up.

Later working on a TV travel show, my male co presenter was allowed to make wanking jokes, even miming having sex with the female producer and all of this was accepted - virtually encouraged. Then I piped up with a little story of reaching out of my room naked to get a paper and the hotel door banging shut leaving me naked in a corridor - I laughed and was met with stony silence. They looked at me with barely disguised disgust. How one earth did I let THAT happen? Even though co-presenter had helpfully answered his door and handed me a robe without looking - they still were unimpressed. Was I that type of girl? One rule for me, one for him.

Working at a cable channel as the showbiz reporter in the late 90s, it was the norm to hit Davy's bar in Canary Wharf on a Friday. The sports boys and news lads would bray at the bar, encouraging the women to get out their chests, clearly unable to see the difference between women on the channel who read the weather in their bikinis, or presented such shows as 'painted ladies' - naked and those who wanted to report stories for a living. Even so, how dare they bray at ANY woman, regardless of how she earns her money - be it clothed or unclothed. What gave them the right to humiliate and degrade a woman for kicks? Was any of this reported, or frowned upon? Of course not! One of the four bosses there never once looked me in the eyes - he was too busy staring at my chest. And what could I do about it? The man was blatant and yet I had to take this... I did notice that if a woman tried to give it back to this group of 'men' - that she was labelled a ballbreaker, a bitch, a lesbian. Because nice girls took this abuse as a form of attention. Girls who stood up to them were clearly not 'real women.'

Not to generalise, but I think certain men can fear women's sexuality - and their honesty regarding it. Nice girls, don't talk about sex. I look back on my own sexual history and more than anything else I am so grateful to my first love - my first lover - for initiating me into a sexual relationship, without scarring me in any way. This imprinted upon me - made me less insecure about my body, made me more confident about my transition to womanhood. It made me one thing most of all - unashamed. I felt loved, protected and adored. Perhaps that is why I think how a woman's virginity passes, is important: NOT because it should be cherished like some holy grail for Mr Right - some bargaining tool in the quest for social acceptance, but because it is crucial that your early sexual experiences do not tarnish you, or make you feel uncomfortable.

Does it take shows like Sex and The City or Girls to show us that women can like sex - and we don't have to be married or in a relationship to do so? That we also don't need judgement, least of all from fellow women? That until we can applaud women for having the sex lives that they want - with who they want, we will always be the lesser of the sexes?

Women as a rule have been cornered into the role of mother/home maker/nurturer - and perhaps Mother Nature had the greatest hand in this. Any woman who deviates from this is greeted with suspicion. Women who have ambition are bitches, who remain single are spinsters, who sleep with a number of partners are sluts... etc. etc.

As the Stylist article states: Author and journalist Daniel Bergner’s new book What Do Women Want? explores recent studies about female sexual desire. What conclusions did his research draw? That women may be much more predisposed to find monogamy boring, to be sexually voracious and sexually predatory, than men.

Yet we are fed the myth that men want sex and it our job to withhold it (in and out of marriage) or at the very least use it as a weapon/reward. Who ever told us that sex should ever be used for anything other than enjoyment between two (or more if you fancy it) consenting adults?

Two single friends in the last week announced to me that they are desperate to have sex. Their singledom was fine, they just needed to get laid. After all, they individually reasoned, women have needs. Yes, yes they do. And that is totally fine. We don't need men to unleash our sexuality - it is always there. Let's debunk this scandalous myth, that women should be passive - and celebrate women who are brave enough to make no apologies for who they are and what they want.