Friday 10 October 2014

Rose in AdultLand

Sometimes I forget that not everyone deals with sex on a daily basis like I do. Recently, I've had conversations where I've been reminded that the sexual revolution is still a work in progress. People are still catching up to the idea of sex, sex toys, watching porn, gender fluidity and sexual orientation becoming a bigger part of our mainstream culture.

I nearly used the phrase, "that these things are becoming 'normal'", but as there is no "normal" when it comes to sex in my opinion, maybe a better phrase is that "these things are becoming more accepted by the majority".  That said, I still forget sometimes that we're not all there yet and like Alice coming out of her dream, I'm reminded that there is a world outside the wonderful AdultLand rabbit hole that I fell into five years ago.

A perfect example is a conversation I had during a meeting today regarding a project for the Harmony site. The guy that I'm consulting on it hasn't done any work around adult products ever before. He wasn't sure what to call a 'vibrator'. He tried 'tool' and 'implement', but didn't seem comfortable with either of those, so I offered up "vibrator", or "rabbit" and even "massager" as options to hopefully help put him at ease with something he clearly felt very unsure about.

By the end of our meeting he did appear to be getting the hang of it. Similar to that whole debate around "what should you call a penis or a vagina when talking to a child?", if we start labelling sex toys with daft words then it doesn't help get rid of the stigma around using them, or talking about using them. 'Massager' and 'love ring' are the limits of my prissyness and I only use those when totally necessary on social media.

The chap today certainly wasn't the first person to say, "Before I started working with you, I had no idea about all this stuff. I feel kind of naive, but I'm not a prude!" and I doubt he'll be the last. Undeniably, I do get a kick out of going to meetings with non-AdultLand professionals and see their faces light up when they get to say the words, "dildo", "butt plug", or "cock ring" in front of their CEO/manager in a meeting and it be perfectly acceptable.

Besides this, the real point to be got at here is but I think it's important that us sex writers, journalists - whatever you want to call yourself - do poke our heads out of the rabbit hole every now and then, because it's so easy to take for granted that we're all reading from the same page.

As we burrow through the latest sex science and psychology research, have our heads down writing endless reviews or product copy on yet another slimline silicone vibrator to be "the next big thing", but we're bored to the back teeth with yet another one that, actually, there are still tons of people that are only just coming into contact with this world. It certainly refreshed my view today and reminded me to look up from my porn infested computer from time to time.

So, yeah, that's all I got after being away for a few months writing about nothing but sex toys. Try not to judge me harshly!

RoseC

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Blog on tour

When the internet was first invented and not long after everyone got an email address, it quickly became apparent that there was a dark side to connecting people and friends from all over the world so easily. Electronic evil came in the form of chain emails and letters. 'FORWARD THIS ON OR YOU WILL DIE!' shouted the subject headers. 'Send this to 10 friends you love as much as me or I'll assume you don't love me, you're a bad friend and you will die,' others stated.

I always deleted them. I fucking hate anything chain-related.

However, there is usually an exception to every rule and this is mine. Two weeks ago I was asked by fellow blogger and journalist Catriona Innes to take part in a blogging tour. The idea is you answer some questions about your writing (as you'll soon see), then nominate a fellow blogger who's posts you enjoy, then they answer the same questions and so the chain goes on. For audiences, it'll hopefully introduce you to something new and for us writers it gives us a moment of reflection to contemplate how we do words and stuff. Good all round.

So, like I said, I was nominated by Catriona (Katie), who is author of the wonderful blog Crocuses In The Snow. I first met Katie when I worked at Scarlet magazine and she came to an internship for a month. We've remained in touch ever since and her journalistic career has continued to flourish.

My nominations will follow at the end of this post, but first here are the Q&A's...

What am I working on?
At the moment there's a lot of copywriting going on for an adult brand's website, which is due to launch very soon. That's taking up the majority of my time. In terms of writing for consumer publications I have my regular four columns for top shelf men's mags, which puts me in a constant writing loop as they roll around one after the other. There there's my events page for the gardening website, which gets uploaded weekly. These are my biggest 'day job' paid commissions, but I do let myself have fun with my writing too.

Away from the pressures of deadlines (and writing to pay the bills), I've started typing out my first book about sex (sorry I'm reluctant to give too much away) and am working on a website idea with fellow writer, blogger and friend Faye Dalgleish. I'm especially excited about the latter project as it should be a lot of fun and will give me a bit of a break from writing about relationships and shagging all of the time.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?
In the last year or so it feels like there has been an explosion of young women writing about sex. It feels like we've reached a point where we've become fed up and frustrated with what mainstream media portray as good sex advice and we're beginning to rebel against the candy-coloured ideas presented in SATC or Cosmo or whatever and are calling bullshit on what is considered "normal" or "healthy".

I like to think I have a place in this group of 20-something women, just trying to tell it like it is, be honest and sift the truth from the crap. The fact I was once called "disturbed" by someone on-staff at a women's mag, for simply being honest about sex and the fears some women feel around this subject, just proves my point. Sadly, there are still too many titles and writers that continue to try and dictate what we should consider regular and what is too out there.

My work differs from others because I like to have fun with what I write. So often (and I know I'm going on about sex writing a lot, but at the moment it makes up the bulk of my work load), matters of intimacy are over analysed and picked apart and although there is very much a time and a place for that and it's important we look at trends and issues within sex and sexuality, I sometimes feel we forget that sex should be fun and enjoyable too.

For me, I like to take the more light-hearted line when I can (but still get the facts right of course) and leave the serious analysis and reporting to others. Maybe this is why I enjoy writing for the men's mags so much? I know I can be cheeky, sarcastic and much ruder than any of the mainstream women's mags would ever allow. Having said that, I'm not afraid to throw my two cents in on issues around the rights of sex workers and comment on how sex is reported in the media.

Why do I do what I do?
The brutal and totally unromantic answer to this question is: so that I can pay the bills. Well, writing is my living, so I do what I do because I prefer this profession to any other. See this earlier post about how and why I got into freelancing specifically.

Going down the more abstract, 'writing is my art dharling' route, then I do what I do because I've always enjoyed telling stories. Ever since I was at primary school I loved using my imagination and writing things for others to read and enjoy. When my school got a computer and I'd learnt how to use Publisher, I got a few friends together and created a school newspaper. It was only one sheet of A4 and it was called Goss (short for gossip). We ran three editions, ever, and then I think we got too into playing kiss chase, or using the new skipping ropes, or something.

Since then I always knew I wanted to be a journalist: print, or documentary film (maybe I'll still try this one day) and uncover and write interesting articles. I've always been a pretty social person too, so a career where I get to talk to people, pick at their stories and makes contacts is very attractive to me.

Studying media from GCSE up to degree level taught me so much about the industry and how clever it is. I find it all fascinating. That's what drew me into it and then the sex writing kind of happened by chance: partly because of working at Scarlet and the subjects we'd write about, part because of who we shared an office with (Paul Raymond Publications) and part because the more I read in other women's media, the angrier I felt myself getting and the more bored I became, so made it a personal mission to write something better. I hope I'm achieving that.

The bottom line is, I write because I enjoy it, I give a shit and I believe there's a lot to be said and I want to put my voice towards that.

How does my writing process work?
Geez, this is a tough one, because every article, press release or copywriting job requires a slightly different method, or it does for me. Broadly speaking I'll get an idea for a feature or article after I've read/heard/watched something in the news, or if I've been chatting to friends on the phone, or down the pub. The thing with writing about sex is that (almost) everyone is at it and everyone has such vast and varied experiences of what it's like for them, so there's generally something to comment on, or another angle to find. Anyway, once I've grasped at an idea, I'll do the research to figure out if it's something workable, i.e. can it be turned into 500, 1000, 2000 word feature and then I'll think about where best to pitch it. Sometimes it's a goer, other times ideas fall flat on their arse within minutes of thinking them up.

For the more rigid stuff, like copywriting for a company, it involves doing a lot of reading about the brand, maybe speaking to the CEO and noting down good phrases and words which you can use later. Although it might not look it on the surface, copywriting still requires just as much creativity as penning an entertaining feature on spanking (or something).

So, that wraps up my contribution for the blogging tour. Now to the nominations of who's next...

Laura Lexx: We've heard from lots of authors and journos, so lets spin this blog tour into a slightly different direction by visiting the highly amusing world of stand-up comedian, actress and presenter Laura Lexx. Can't wait to hear about her writing process!

Faye Dalgleish: Erm, ok, so Faye may have only just discovered I'm nominating her to do this, but I reckon she'll only be annoyed at me for a few hours (I can deal with that). My partner in crime at uni and much talented writer, Faye blogs here. Discussing everything from jogging to overheard homophobic diners in a restaurant, Faye's honest approach to blogging about every day occurrences certainly makes for an entertaining read.

Enjoy!

Monday 28 April 2014

The inevitable 'I'm ill' blog post

I have a really shitty cold. It's only a head cold - scratchy sore throat, sneezing, runny nose, blocked ears - which is even more annoying as the rest of me feels fine(ish). To put it into perspective, annoyingly it's one of those colds where you're not quite sick enough to justify a day in bed feeling sorry for yourself, but you're also not feeling up to scratch and as you sit at your desk working and really all you want to do is go back to bed. I'm so conflicted right now.

However, I am trying my best not to be totally pathetic (which I usually am when I'm ill), so have endeavoured to see the bonuses in my current not-so-healthy state. Here's what I've come up with...

Hot Toddies
Bollocks to mugs of sickly tasting Lemsip, the only drink worth having when you're ill is a hot toddy, preferably just before bed as the shot of whiskey/brandy/gin (that's right, you can make them using gin as well) will mean you sleep just that little bit easier thanks to the warm booZZZe. Lovely.

Stuff Yer Face
It's a well known medical fact (maybe) that you should 'feed a cold and starve a fever'. I'm not one that's usually conscious about my calorie intake anyway, but for those who are on a health kick, here is your perfect excuse for a guilt-free face stuffing opportunity. Eat, eat and eat some more until you feel better! It is for exactly this reason that I am allowing my friend to cook me a lasagna tonight and I intend to eat the majority of it (sorry fellow dining-friends). On the down side, I've found chocolate doesn't help, it just makes your throat feel worse: why is that, when obviously it's supposed to be the ultimate comfort food?

Do Those Little Jobs
There's no way that when you have a head stuffed full of cold that you can tackle that big assignment/project/annual report, so leave it to the side for a day or two until you're less fuzzy feeling. However, we're not slacking, there's still work to be done! Instead let yourself finally get round to doing all those little, less important admin jobs you've been needing to do for aaaages, but can't justify the time. It's still getting work done, so that's definitely a win.

Use A Nasal Spray
Honestly, they're just hilarious and make you pull the stupidest faces (or, is that just me...?).

Early To Bed
Being sick is a great excuse to be tucked up in bed and watching crap on NetFlix by 8pm and asleep by 9pm. Usually you can't get away with this, as your so-called "friends" refuse to believe you're getting old even though you've explained time and time again that "things are different when you reach your late twenties. I like being in bed and sleeping for longer on a school night."

*Le sigh*      

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Ah, Nuts!

So, Nuts magazine is apparently closing after over a decade of offering us boobs, boobs, tits and a smattering of sport and 'news'. Admittedly, I've not picked up an issue of Nuts since Johnny Vaughn's celebrity was considered worthy of being on the front-cover. That's right, a long time ago. This comes only a month after the announcement that Front was to shut-up shop too. What's happening to the male magazine market?! More importantly, should I be worried?

Erm, well, yes and no.

There are many things the closure of Nuts could signify - another nail in the coffin of "lad culture"; a "win" for those radical feminists (a.k.a rad femmes) that believe these magazines existed only to objectify women; proof that if you fuck with the Co-Op then they will break you.

Personally, I was never that bothered by Nuts, or Zoo for that matter. As a woman that writes for a handful of well established porn magazines (good grief, don't let too many women's magazine commissioning editors hear me say that!) it would be difficult for me to say I was ever offended by them, but nor was I aroused. It was just a bit of titillation, a bit of fun. Bear in mind I write this from the point of view of a body confident female, that has the luxury of not being swayed so much about how my body should look compared to that of the women in the magazines. Anyhoo, the models I met that shot for them were always happy, contented and excited about being in the magazine, so fair play. However, I did always think Nuts were a bit in limbo after the height of laddishness had passed.    

They weren't welcome on the middle-shelf, because kids might see cleavage, but nor were they really welcome on the top. Compare an issue of Nuts to the latest copy of Escort that I got through the post and it's fairly obvious why the two shouldn't sit next to each other. As a friend of mine so eloquently put it when she saw the pornography lying around my office: "This is well in-yer-face stuff. Don't see that in Nuts!"

Correct, you don't. If lad mags started showing full frontal pussy in their pages I don't think they would have got within 10 feet of the Co-Op. Ever. Let alone being taken off the shelves just last year. (That was the "no" I'm not worried part of the answer, they're just too different areas of the market to really compare them, alas people do, which leads me on to...)

I find it odd, then, that there have been (mostly feminist-led) suggestions the reason Nuts is closing is because of that cliched argument: there's too much free porn on the internet. Cue next wave of internet porn hysteria in a few days time (this will be the "yes", get worried, part of my answer).

In advance of the "too much porn" debate being raised for the umpteenth time, and while I don't want the magazines I write for to be the next target for feminazis, I'd like to say...

Stop grabbing on to the sad demise of one magazine to stir up more arguments about our supposed porn saturated culture. What young 20-something men want today isn't the same as what the 20-something lads of 10 years ago wanted from their media. Quite why we jump to the conclusion that it must be sex related is beyond me? Men stop looking at tits in magazines, so it simply must mean that they're replacing it by watching hardcore online? Give over.

Show me the definitive proof that's where their readers have gone before we start pointing the finger.

Also, if online porn is to blame for the closure of this magazine, then why haven't actual porn mags become extinct? Surely that should have happened long ago?

It's the fact that the publishers are running at a loss. It comes down to cold, hard facts and figures that generally speaking, as the internet grows, you're print figures are going to decline. It's then up to the publisher if those figures keep them happy or not. Realistically, I suspect the decision and reasons to close had very little to do with where blokes go these days for their wank-fodder.

Whatever may have caused the circulation to drop doesn't compensate for the fact that around 30 people, plus all of the models that posed for the magazine, are currently at risk of loosing their jobs and a form of income. As someone that has been through redundancy consultations, where the life of your much-loved magazine is hanging in the balance, I can say that it really does suck. Hugely. Try to explain to any one of them, "internet porn made you loose your job" and I think they're well within their right to tell you where to stick it.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

#Nomakeupselfie update

So it seems that vanity does pay. To be more specific it pays for 10 clinical trials to go ahead, which a week ago didn't have money for funding.

According to the latest statement from Cancer Research UK, the #nomakeupselfie trend has raised £8 million from people texting BEAT to 70099 or donating at www.cruk.org, which, as much as I snubbed the trend and continue to question the narcissism behind it (especially even after all the publicity I am still seeing people simply posting 'here's my selfie, I nominate X, Y and Z #cancerawareness'), it can't be doubted that it has achieved something amazing.

The trials that now get the go ahead are nine clinical trials and one tissue sample collection. The trials will look at new treatments for sarcoma, acute myeloid leukaemia, abdominal neuroblastoma, liver, head and neck, breast, prostate, bladder and oesophageal cancers.

Friday 21 March 2014

Not so made up about #nomakeupselfies

What the hell is all this #nomakeupselfie thing about? I was nominated in a Facebook post to take a photo of myself without any make up on and plaster it all over social media to help raise awareness of cancer, although, how exactly this will help to beat cancer was beyond me?

Having recently lost someone very close to me to cancer, I am all for active promotion of cancer awareness and fund-raising initiatives, but I failed to see how this social media trend would help to make a difference. Looking through my FB feed there was image after image, but very few of them at the time contained any information on how to donate, or any knowledge of how doing this will actually help to raise cancer awareness in a positive light.

Before taking a snap and adding myself to the #nomakeupselfie #cancerawareness trend, I wanted to check the background. Where had this come from and in aid of what exactly?

WHERE'D IT START?
The idea of the 'selfless selfie' was capitalised on by act!onaid. The idea was to buy a t-shirt, the funds of which went towards the Typhoon Appeal, then take a selfie while wearing your charity t-shirt. Escensual.com beauty retailer also launched a selfiecampaign back in September 2013 to help raise money for Breast Cancer Care. This seems to be the most similar campaign so far to the trend we've seen in the last few days. Elsewhere, it's reported that the viral trend began when author Laura Lippman posted a photo of herself without make up as a way to support actress Kim Novak, who was slammed in the press for how she looked at the Oscars.

There has also been the launch of a new app this week, Put Yourself In The Picture, by Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust - the only dedicated cervical cancer charity in the UK - encouraging women to take a selfie with their reminder to go for a cervical cancer test. The app has been launched following new research* which looked at the reasons why women in the first (25-29 years) and last (60-64 years) screening ages had delayed or not been for their cervical screening. Thirty percent said that a friend reassuring them about the procedure would encourage them to attend. 

I get this, more than I initially understood the social media selfie trend.
Like with most internet virals, it's hard to pin point where it began. I did double check with Cancer Research UK (CRUK) press office, thinking Perhaps this was something they started? Carolan Davidge, director of communications at Cancer Research UK told me: “The #nomakeupselfie Twitter trend isn’t something Cancer Research UK started – but it’s great to see so many people getting involved to help raise awareness of cancer amongst their friends and family. If people would like to choose to support our work to beat cancer sooner, they can visit www.cruk.org.”

Please note the last bit about where to go to donate, because the odd thing with the current trend is that people were forgetting to actually do anything. It became, for some, an exercise in narcissism: taking a photo without make up and posting it and putting the correct hash tags doesn't mean you've done your bit for charity. You've aided nothing. Added nothing. It's just a picture and a comment that (well done you), you know cancer exists. Text a donation, go out and buy a Marie Curie daffodil; buy a pink ribbon; donate some clothes to your local Cancer Research Shop or hospice; donate some money to the cancer ward at your local hospital, because that's when it starts to make a difference.

HAS IT ACTUALLY HELPED?
Luckily, in the last 12 hours and since I've started writing this blog, many people realised the flaw in the plan and (finally) started to post details on where and how to donate to various cancer charities – the most popular being CRUK. Many cancer charities aimed to capitalise on this awareness viral too and began to promote all the ways and means people can actively donate. Soon, selfies were appearing with people adding in a snap of their text confirmation to show they'd donated.

The latest update I have received from CRUK says, “Thanks to people choosing to donate to us as part of the #nomakeupselfie trend, we’ve been overwhelmed with donations and support in the past 48 hours. We’ve raised over £2m so far, and the #nomakeupselfie is still going strong! If people would like to choose to support our work to beat cancer sooner, they can text BEAT to 70099 to donate £3 or visit www.cruk.org.”

SO, WHAT'S MY PROBLEM?
Although the money raised is staggeringly amazing, there is one particular aspect about this whole thing that really grinds with me: the use of the word “brave”, the wider issue of how much attention is created when a woman publicly appears without wearing any make up and then the crude link of associating it with 'cancer awareness'.

It's a sad sign of the times when women after posting a photo of themselves sans slap were being told how “brave” they are. I couldn't agree with this more if we were having a conversation about the societal conditioning of women and what is 'expected' of them in terms of appearance. It's crap that it's surprising, 'not normal', or brave to see a woman without foundation and blusher. But that's not the debate we're having. We're discussing cancer and I believe the word “brave” means a lot more than the choice of whether or not to forgo wearing make up for a single picture.

Some context of what brave and cancer means: brave are the patients that have to undergo painful treatment, sometimes trying new, mostly untested drugs; brave is finding the words to explain to your loved ones that you might have less than a year to live; brave is the word to use to describe those carers that do all they can to make sure the person suffering from cancer is as comfortable as they can be, despite how painful it is for them to watch a loved one slip away.

One friend I was discussing this issue with summed it up well: “To me, 'bravery' or looking like yourself, vs what someone with cancer goes through is staggeringly offensive comparison.” Like I said, I'm all for raising awareness and the promotion of fund-raising initiatives, but why in this way? Why when cancer is such a degenerative disease that strips away and changes the appearance of someone, sometimes to the point where they no longer look like the person you know, did this have to run?

Think I'm being over sensitive? Please take a minute (literally) to watch the following video: a series of selfies taken by EmilyHelck who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012 and took a photo each week for a year while undergoing treatment. This is why I will not be posting, because my face without make up is not a big deal. 



* Research conducted by Censuswide, with 2,021 women aged 25-29 and 60-64 during 6th-12th December 2013. Surveys were conducted from a random sample of a representative panel across the country. Censuswide employs members of the Market Research Society and abides by its code and rules.


Tuesday 11 March 2014

What's In A Kiss?

Kissing is one of my most favourite things. A kiss can be loaded with so much, or so little. Kiss for love, kiss to greet someone, or to say goodbye, or goodnight. You can kiss anyone: a lover, a friend, an acquaintance, a baby on the head and even a stranger as this really touching, smile-inducing short film by Tatia Pilieva shows. 

Posted yesterday on YouTube and with over six million views already you may well have spotted this on another site, so I apologise if I'm repeating it. However, last week I was writing a science based article which included some research on how a first kiss can make or break the chances of a relationship, so this film was too beautiful a thing and too relevant to what I read last week to not comment on. Pairing up 20 strangers, they were asked to share a kiss and it was captured on film. It's super interesting to see which type of kiss some of those couples chose to share. Enjoy.     



Tuesday 25 February 2014

3 Sex Facts I learnt Today

Some days it's a complete pleasure to be a journalist, because all you have to do is sit, read and immerse yourself in research to prep for an upcoming feature. Today was one of those days for me and it probably won't come as much of a surprise that what I was researching involved sex.

Here are three tid-bits of super interesting sex things I learnt today, that sadly won't make the feature, but I didn't want to let them go to waste!

1. Sharks and vagina's - like two peas in a pod
Well, sort of. Very vaguely. Luckily it doesn't have anything to do with razor sharp teeth and vagina dentata. Both contain squalene: a substance found in shark livers and natural vaginal lubricant.

2. How To Make Fake Spunk
Sometimes scientists need to make artificial semen. Masters & Johnson reportedly did this to try and disprove the 'up-suck' theory (which they did). Apparently to make something of the same consistency of actual semen you need a cup of flour mixed with water, although, apparently, cornstarch works just as well.

3. Discovery of Human Sex Pheromones
Knowledge of animals using pheromones to attract a mate has been known to scientists since the late 70's, but it wasn't until 1986 that they discovered that humans give off pheromones too. That was the year I was born and is a super cool fact. I'm miffed as to why that was never included on my "year you were born keyring"?!


Thursday 20 February 2014

The Perfect Mess

I am in turmoil. My other half has just cleaned the office, thus affecting all of the positive creative energy within the room, which I use to feed off and come up with all of my wonderful, world-changing ideas. As he faffed and put-away, I felt myself getting more anxious. I need that magazine there, and leave that bit of paper so I know where it is and yes, I do need that receipt. ARGH!

The (intelligent) git has just pointed out the paradox of the situation: that by cleaning and "ruining my creative environment" he's just given me something to write about in this blog.

What a bastard.

We have a "shared" office space. It's not equally shared, it is more mine than his. He only works from home once a month for a week, whereas I am here all of the time and even the week that he does work from home, he only uses it in the evenings when a work related call comes through. Essentially, it is my office and in my office I like a certain amount of organised mess. It's nothing OTT, it's not like I have coffee cups piled high or newspaper clippings everywhere. It's more just a few magazines dotted about the place that I haven't got round to putting away, or am constantly referring to in the week that I have a deadline, and the several notepads - each assigned a different feature - that I need to have on the desk at all times until my deadline for said feature has been met.

To the untrained eye, it may look messy, but it's organised mess and there's actually some positive research about organised mess.

Take this 2012 study for example, where a group of two students we're placed in two different rooms: one insanely neat and the other with a bit of chaos. Asking the students to dream up new uses for ping pong balls, the ones in the messy room came up with much more imaginative uses (and no, I'm sure none of them had anything to do with popping out of body parts). Just one example that mess equals creativity.

Or this book, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. It argues that too much neat encroaches on productive time. "If you devote all your time to organizing, you won’t get anything done. If you don’t spend any time organizing, the resultant mess bogs you down completely. When you find the ‘sweet spot’ between messiness and order, then you have a perfect mess," explained Eric Abrahamson, one of the book's authors. That's what I have...sorry, had! A perfect mess.

Tomorrow could have been the day that I sit in my organised messy office and dream up my blockbuster novel. I guess now we will never know!


Tuesday 18 February 2014

Pink Toys For Tomboys: does colour really matter?

One of my best friends had a baby girl today. It's her fifth child. Her first four children are all boys, so when we found out that she was due to have a girl everyone was pleasantly surprised and, if we're honest, the conversations quickly turned to theories of how this little lady is going to survive in a house full of lads.

Personally, I reckon she'll be fine and will no doubt grow into one of the toughest tomboys I'll know. I'm already assuming that's what she's going to be, especially as the mother (my friend) has put the kibosh on anything pink and she's going to grow up in a house full of cars, trucks, Lego, sports gear, DS and computer consoles that her older brothers adore playing with. Geez, I'm jealous.

This is fine by me, because I have a real issue with pink toys, especially pink toys that try to be “boys toys” aimed at girls, like this recent offeringfrom NERF, which I spotted an advert for while on holiday in France.

I hit on something similar with my first tomboy blog post when I found the god-awful Tomboy Tool Kit. My issue is thus: why does something which women are more than capable of using, because after all a hammer is a hammer, a NERF gun is a Nerf gun, then need to go and be painted pink in order to make it somehow more legitimate for women to use? If a woman, or young girl is in a hardware/toy shop and they are faced with two products that are exactly identical in every way except colour - lets say one is grey and the other is pink - would they choose the pink one because it somehow means that it is more tailored to a woman/girl using it? That somehow the manufacturers have gone the extra mile to produce something specifically for women because they have made it more stereotypically feminine by painting it that colour?

It's a sure fire way to tap into the psyche of women, I'll give the marketers that, and I think this is when the debate around colour really becomes an issue as it somehow implies that 'specialist' pink things should be used by females as a non-gender alternative is somehow inferior or not suited to the female form.

Of course, this is bull shit.

However, this led me to think more about the recent debate around the need for gender neutral toys and question whether I was actually being a total hypocrite for secretly wanting my friend's little girl to turn into a tomboy and therefore avoid pink completely?

The idea of genderneutral toys has been a hot topic recently, thanks to the comments made by the Education Minister, Elizabeth Truss calling for 'gender neutral toys' in nurseries and parent-led projects like Let Toys BeToys and PinkStinks campaign. I fully agree that separating toy sections into “boys” and “girls” should be abolished. No more should a girl be discouraged from playing with a toy tool kit, than a boy should be prevented from pushing a doll around in a push chair. By doing this you'd hope the debate about girly colours and boyish colours would also become null and void, because is it really the colour we have issue with, or the act of the play that the child is performing?


A really interesting article is this on The Telegraph by June O'Sullivan, chief exec of London Early Years Foundation, who argues that indeed toys need to be toys and kids, both boys and girls, should be able to pick up with and play with whatever they feel comfortable with. Reading this and the subsequent comments, certainly made me re-evaluate my opinion on pink toys, because if I think back honestly to when I was younger, whether something was blue or pink mattered less to me. What was important was how I could fit it into my pretend story and if it didn't work, I wouldn't play with it. So, really, apart from doing away with the idea that 'this is just for boys' and 'this toy is just for girls', does colour actually matter?

Monday 20 January 2014

Something New - Hot Yoga

My motto for this year is "be better". It's nice, and broad, and can cover a lot of aspects of life without too much room for error. I can either be a little bit better at something, or be loads better at it. It works on so many levels, see?

So one way I'd like to "be better", is by being a little bit healthier and trying new shit, you know, putting myself out there a bit more and seeing things from a different perspective. I did just that today, because this morning I tried hot yoga.

Usually, I scoff at yoga. My boyfriend has had to endure taunts from me about how it's all "hippy shit" and not a real work out. How it's all "ohmm-ing" and "woosah" and all that jazz. I've probably just royally pissed some of you off by saying that, but hear me out and stick with me. So, with that attitude, just how in the hell did I end up in a yoga class, I hear you ask?

Well, I have a friend to blame for that. Not just any friend, a friend that gets way too Groupon happy sometimes. Before Christmas, she got especially Groupon happy and because she knows I do Pilates, when she saw this Hot Yoga class deal, she couldn't resist and signed us up.

PAH! This would be a doddle. It's all slow, flowing, om, om, stretchy movements. I can do that. I do hardcore Pilate stretching that has toned my abs to not quite rival that of Jessica Ennins, but they're still looking damn good. And it's in the heat? No problem! I love heat. I've been to Australia. In the summer and I survived, but hey. I'm "being better" and I should give this a go and it will be a doddle anyway, right?

It wasn't.

Within the first three minutes I was sweating and having to stop to take some water and all we'd done were a couple of cobra's and a lot of downward dogging (I lost count of how much dogging we did in class today). The teacher was relentless. We were up, down, sideways warrior-ing, doing the [funky] pigeon, happy babies and there were a load of words I didn't understand, but sounded totally "woosah" and like the hippy shit I was expecting. There was no clock in there and I didn't have a watch, but the class was only meant to last an hour. It felt like we were in there a lot, lot longer.

Apart from not understanding a lot of the words coming out of the nice-teacher lady's mouth and being told to not look to see if I'm doing it right, but instead just "listen to the instructions and the flowing movement of [her] voice," after a while I did start to get the hang of it. That was only after I had the rebellious thought of, "fuck this, it's all too fast, I'm going at my own pace," and I'm pretty sure that's not the right attitude, but whatever. After I thought that, it got better, I got better and actually started to enjoy it.

I liked the breathing. Who knew that breathing in a hot room with other super sweaty people could be so chillaxing? I also liked the balancing. I was good at that and the sequences of balances we did was probably the only point in the class when I didn't look like a total beginner.

The bastard class left me feeling, what I'd like to call, 'yoga-happy'. Yes, I felt all floaty and smiley inside. It's only after I've come down off that inner-tranquillity high and had a cup of toxic coffee with extra sugar that I've been able to write this blog about how pigging irritating it is that I'm going to have to eat my previous words about yoga. It was tough. It was hot. I sweated like a bastard and couldn't keep up, but goddammit, my balancing tree-pose looked beautiful and I didn't wobble once. NOT ONCE!

And yes, if you must know, I am looking forward to next week's class and being just a little bit better than this week.    

Tuesday 14 January 2014

How to knock a country's sexual confidence

It's a sad fact that there is some really terrible sex writing out there. While I can't claim that everything I pen in relation to sex is "sparkling copy", at least it generally doesn't make people feel like shit (I hope), like I think this article would.

Titled, 'Why are British men so bad at sexting?', my major gripe with Rebecca Holman's piece was the total man-bashing of British men and the use of cliches and stereotypes to do this. Specifically, it was this paragraph that really pissed me off:

"Sexting is awkward, bad, sexist and never sexy. It’s the natural progression of a nation who once thought Benny Hill to be the height of sophisticated comedy. If a French man were to send me a sexto, it would be a perfectly worded combination of charm, smarm and sex, leaving me in a puddle of lust, excitement and shame on the floor."

Note the use of the word "if" in this paragraph, confirming that she doesn't actually have any hard evidence. I wouldn't mind so much if she didn't go on to write this: 

"I don’t know what it is, but in the UK, even the most articulate of chaps is reduced to the same combination of sexual clichés and inexplicably terrible spelling."

But hang on, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU JUST DID! Or, did Rebecca use that sexual cliche and stereotype of a French man to be ironic? I doubt it.

I don't intend to be bitchy and I'm not out to criticise anyone on a personal level by writing this. It simply makes me sad (and angry) to see an article like this when considering the bigger picture about the UK's attitude towards sex.

Going on my experience, adults in this country worry a lot about sex. They worry about whether they're good enough, if they're saying the right things, if they're satisfying their partner, if they're "weird" for having a particular fetish, or whether the sex they're having is "normal", whether they come too quickly, or take too long. Sadly we're in a society that has a big fucking fear about how good they are in the sack (a lot of the time) rather than remembering sex should be fun, and why do people worry so much? Partly because bullshit articles such as this get published, where a hugely uncorrelated link is made between how well someone can spell and text and how well they might be at sex (see third paragraph from the end).

*Sigh*

Monday 13 January 2014

First study of sexual health among UK Male sex workers

While male sex workers may be getting more of a voice in the popular press, there is still one area of their work that is totally in the dark: their sexual health. Touched on partially in the BBC report I analysed last week - the reporter asked whether any of them would be willing to have unprotected sex with a client, some of them confessed they would at an increased cost - there are obvious conversations happening around the health of male sex workers (MSW), but surprisingly there has been very little research by the medical profession into the male sex worker community. Until last month.

A study published in the online edition of Sexually Transmitted Infections, has attempted to establish a picture of the characteristics and sexual health of men that are selling sex in the UK. A team of investigators studied the 2011 records of men that visited GUM clinics. In total 627,780 men attended sexual health services, but only 411 were identified as being a MSW. That's not many at all, but the authors of the study believed the true figure is higher, however, many MSW's don't feel inclined to disclose their profession when getting tested.

Ok, so this doesn't leave the study with a huge number, but you have to start somewhere and considering no one had attempted to make any sort of document of the health of male sex workers previously (maybe because they felt there wasn't enough data?), then this is the best snap shot we got of how guys working in the sex industry are looking after themselves.

Despite only having a small sample to analyse, it appears that most sex workers are taking their health seriously, visiting sexual health services more than twice as many times as other men (4.5 vs 2.3 visits respectively). Taking that a step further, migrant MSW's are more likely to get tested more often than UK-born MSW's.  

Reading the results, what surprised me the most were the findings about age and where the majority of UK male sex works are from originally. Reading between the lines, it seems that UK punters have a preference for 35 year old South American guys Most MSW in Britain have migrated from South America. So, can we deduce that UK punters have a particular thing for Latino men?

Read the full report here. 

Thursday 9 January 2014

The BBC on gay male escorts

From female prostitutes in Tatler, to male escorts on the BBC website, it's refreshingly impossible to keep a certain credential of sex worker out of mainstream media at the moment. Hurrah! You'll see why I say "certain credential" momentarily.

Hang on though. What was that? A story on the BBC about male escorts? WTF? 

I know, I found it double blinkingly amazing too! It's mostly positive and I love how it has gone for the business angle as a hook - as in the practicalities of how male escorts market themselves - rather than sticking a figure on the work to "wow" readers. Having said that, the Beeb can't completely help themselves and chuck in a quote in paragraph seven in which the interviewee, Brandon, says: "The most I've ever made is £30,000 in a month. When I work that hard, the money can be great." I'm glad they kept in the fact that Brandon had to work hard for that money and not insinuate that sex work is a piece of piss and that figure probably isn't every month, unlike the £20k-a-night female sex workers piece, which made it sound like it was a) easy to achieve that kind of status and b) made it sound like that happened all the time. The BBC even keep up the positivism highlighting the fact that his career choice has afforded him a living space in the heart of London. Well jel!  

It doesn't last though, because, naturally, this lifestyle has to come at a price:

 "
I was seeing an arms dealer."

Wow, what a BBC-esque way to take the escort profession down a peg! 'You can have all this great stuff, but you have to cosy up to some pretty undesirable characters that might throw your ethics into whack.' I suppose that's one way to read it. The other is that it could possibly feel very James Bond. Now that is sexy.

Interesting that yesterday, for the ladies, it was all talk of rich oil tycoons, royals, bankers; there was nothing so controversial in there as servicing arms dealers. This is BBC's first stab in the article at reinforcing to readers that maybe this career path ain't so glam after all and just to hammer that home they have the story of Nico: a depressed, drug-taking male escort with family issues. Obviously, as it's the BBC, they need to show both sides of the coin. That's what they're famous for of course: unbiased. However, kudos to them that they didn't stick that right at the end of the story and the feature's parting words actually appear quite liberal and open minded towards male escorting.

Right, that's the bulk of what I wanted to say. Now onto what I meant by "certain credentials". The only other thing to highlight is that this is about gay male escorts. Again, it's excellent that this stem of sex work is getting a voice within mainstream media at all, and that is a positive, but with this article and the one from yesterday it's only progressive to a point.

'There has been a slow societal shift in the acceptability of sex work, says Del Campbell from the Terence Higgins Trust.
"There is a lot less stigma for men who sell sex," he says. "Often, the women are still seen as victims but for some gay men, escorting is now a normal job. You could mention that you're an escort at a dinner party and in some circles, no one would bat an eyelid."'

While it's apparently becoming an accepted profession within the gay male community, what about out of it? What about the men that offer escorting services for women? How often do we hear them, or see them in the media? In this scenario, the focus of the articles are often shifted to be about the women that are doing the buying, because that's the "shock" value. That's still the taboo. The guys get lost in the media storm around "her". Examples here, here and here.

So, my (sweeping) assumption from what I've seen in the last two days is that unless you're a gay male, a high-end expensive female escort, or a woman paying for a male escort, you're going to find it tough at the moment to make it into the popular press.    

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Fascinated by Hookers

Did you see the Evening Standard on Monday? No, me neither, but luckily a friend of mine did and spotted a feature titled, 'Call me a courtesan, a call girl, an escort...whatever. But basically I was a £20,000-a-night hooker'. 

He spotted it because practically every woman in his tube carriage was reading it, totally engrossed in the story. My male friend found this fascinating. It would certainly be very telling to spy so many professional female city workers, all on their way home after a dreary day in the office, doing the nine to five loosing themselves in a story about jet-setting, dates and dinners with some of the richest men in the world, sex classes in Paris and then getting a comfortable pay cheque at the end of it.  

The figure certainly makes it an attention grabbing headline. Twenty-grand a night? Fuck me! (Not literally.) Wonder how many women in that carriage had the same initial feeling I did when reading that: one of sheer envy. I imagine it's a wage many of the women reading could only dream of. 

It's not just about the money though that makes this article so interesting, or surprising that so many female readers became hooked on it. It's about gossip. Lets face it, one of the best topics of conversation when a group of women get together is sex. Now, imagine one of those friends is a sex worker that travels the world and her sexual partners are often blokes off the Forbes rich list. Of course you'd want to know what they're like in the bedroom!

Personally, I think that for women outside the sex industry, there is a healthy fascination with those that work within it. Since the revolutionary Belle de Jour blog, we've become much more accustomed to hearing the voices of sex workers and what they're terms of employment are really like, and rightly so for so many reasons - not just for a quick fix of gossip, I'm aware.

As with any reported story on sex work in main stream media, there are, of course, a few points that grind and questions to be raised. Like I said, the sum of £20k for a night of sex is certainly attractive in appearance, but how much of that does the escort see? How much goes back to the Madam running the show and, realistically, how often do those bookings come about? 

The figure later in the story, that most women are around the £5,000 mark (even typing the idea of putting a price bracket on the company of a woman like that makes me feel a bit funny). Don't get me wrong, that's still a huge amount of money for one night of work, it's pretty much what I'd make in half a year, but after you've read the £20,000 marker, anything less kind of takes the shine off the idea.

Perhaps that's the authors intention? Yes, we have become more accepting of interviewing and writing features about sex work in consumer press - 5 or 10 years ago it wouldn't have been touched with a barge pole I'm sure - but can Tatler magazine (where the feature was originally published) really promote sex work to the masses so positively? 

Of course not. Pfft...women's consumer media isn't that progressive yet! 

It certainly tries to emphasise the perceived seediness of the industry towards the end of the article so, you know, they're the thoughts your left with and leaving your nine to five suddenly looks a lot less attractive. Examples of how the piece hammers this home:

'Are the girls nervous? She laughs. “You can’t have nerves! These girls are tough. And there’s a numbness — it’s work. We don’t care about clients.”'  

Or

'“The very least you’ll be paying is £1,000 a night — those are the get-’em-in, get-’em-out service girls.” They’re booked for events like weekend shoots, or to sit in a nightclub making some sleazy guy look good.'

Or

'The top 10 are “champion racehorses”. (Great, compare female sex workers to animals that are ridden [commonly] by men).

Or 

'They want a beautiful girl they can lock in a room and bang, bang, bang.” She pauses. “But they pay well.”
Does that mean other clients treat girls well? “Yes, but...” She takes a deep breath. “A lot of these guys are seriously f***ed up. Their wives don’t do what they want. No woman in her sane mind would do half of it.”
She remembers being put in “an exceptionally expensive outfit so that the client could urinate on it”. One European royal “who has hookers all the time” is so rough that Lauren’s madam refuses to send her best girls.' (Two potentially, consenting fetishes are somewhat slated here.) 

I'm being presumptuous here, but I would assume judging by how high-end this establishment is supposed to be, there would have to be consent from the female sex worker? There must be some pre-agreed T&C's between the escort and the madam as to what services they are willing and able to offer. For this urination story to happen, Lauren (not her real  name) may have consented to water-sports being a service she offers. Having spoken to many escorts and looked at many of their websites, I'm yet to come across one that doesn't include a comprehensive list of services they do offer and just to be extra clear many of them go on to outline what they definitely don't offer to clients.

I don't know these people, or this organisation, so I might be wrong, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't something like that in place in order to match the right escort with the right client.

Fascinating piece though.