‘At Least You’re Young Enough to Start Again’: What Not to Say to a Friend Getting Divorced at Thirty
‘How Are You Supposed to Feel Sexually Liberated with Mum in the Room Next Door?’: Sex While Living at Home as an Adult
Constantly thinking about how loud my partner and I are or how much noise the bed is making takes me out of the moment. Living at home makes it so much harder because you’re not trying to hide it from friends or strangers but from family, and I for one didn’t have a relationship with my mum that extended to her having to listen to me having sex…
‘Everyone Deserves Representation’: The Dynamics of Queer Sex and Intimacy
Queer people typically define sex outside of the usual, heteronormative consensus that sex is only penis-in-vagina penetration! Rather, as Hannah (She/They), who identifies as queer, answered, ‘Intimacy is any intimate contact.’ Meaning, foreplay becomes defined as sex, as well as general touching, kissing, etc…
Praise or Degradation? What Exploring My Kinks Has Taught Me About Sex and Relationships
Who would have thought that having to strive for academic perfection for about seven years gives you a praise kink? Or that reading toxic hate smut has you considering degradation? I’ve been hogtied (not for me; I don’t bend that way), and I’ve even had hot wax poured on me (that is for me)…
What I’ve Learned Dating Multiple Genders
It took me an entire lockdown to finally accept that I was not 100% straight. I put this revelation down to too much time alone with my thoughts. Lockdown crawled by. Eventually, I went back to university. In other words, to a big, anonymous city with thousands of young, cabin-fevered people within easy swiping access. I took the plunge and set my dating preferences to ‘everyone’…
‘I Don’t Care that I’ve Always Been Single’: Why I’m Twenty-Five and Have Never Been in a Relationship
I don’t really care that I’ve always been single. I’m used to it. It’s my normal. My attitude is, ‘it might be nice to find my person, but I’m an introvert who is socially awkward, not the biggest fan of people and has a chronic fear of intimacy. So, logically, it kind of makes sense’. What does make me feel abnormal is the way other people view me when they find out this information…
‘The First Time I Tried to Have Sex, I Had a Panic Attack’: Overcoming the Fear of Vaginal Penetration
My exes didn’t seem too interested in finding other reasons for our bedroom issues. They were perfectly content to let me believe that sex wasn’t working for us because my body was flawed. Why is it that women always have to take responsibility for things that might not actually be our fault?
Zoned Out: Why the Traditional ‘Friendzone’ is Overly Berated, Outdated and, Frankly, Underrated
There is much discourse online to be found from petulant incels about how infuriating it is to be friendzoned, but I would argue that there is nothing more painful than having a breakup (yes, a breakup) with a friend who never really was. Whose care for you was reliant on a reciprocation that you weren’t even aware of…