It seems that no matter what time I leave work my bus is full of teenagers. No matter if it’s girls or boys, they’re always talking about girls: who’s a slut, who’s a priss, who’s not even worth mentioning. On and on and on. I feel like I know about the sexual lives of every teenager in Dalston at the moment. No matter how hard I bury my nose in a book I hear them, “She slept with him yesterday is it?” “Oh, my, god! What a slut!!!” Nice girls, nice.

This is something that I guess I keep going over on this blog: what the fuck is a slut? What does that word even mean? As I’m too much of a nerd to ask the teenagers themselves I turned to the next best thing: Urban Dictionary.

This is by far the most popular answer. A slightly confusing backhanded compliment, but hey, it’s not terrible just sort of shitty.

Things get worse however…

Leaving aside the idea that someone could disassociate from their body quite at will (can someone teach me that?) this is a textbook definition and raises so many questions. Why does engaging in sex frequently and sharing your body with more than a handful of people make sex less special? What makes someone’s sexual preferences discriminatory? What about all those girls who make their boyfriends wait and wait and wait and then get cheated on, treated badly, and dumped? Should they have worked harder beforehand? Probably not. If you give it up on the first date or after the wedding it doesn’t make a shit of difference. Some people are douchebags, some people will be horrible to you. Sometimes you can sniff them out in seconds and sometimes it takes years. The amount of time you wait between meeting them and getting acquainted with their genitals makes no damned difference.

Now for ‘meaning and significance’. I think that often sex can be likened to food. Some meals you wolf down, on the run, barely tasting them or appreciating them, others, like Christmas dinner, leave lasting memories each time it’s consumed.

Sex is the same. Sometimes yes, it has meaning and significance, the first time you have sex after you fall really truly in love with someone is magic. For me in that moment the whole world seems to stop and there’s a lightbulb over head feeling: this is it, this is me and the person I love being totally, utterly together. It’s one of the most precious moments you’ll ever have, I think. I don’t know what having a baby is like, but I guess it’s like a non sexual version of that. With added pain.

But yes, sex can have meaning it can have significance, it can be an exploration of trust, an episode of mutual discovery, and a fun filled rollercoaster ride, sometimes all of the above at once. And other times it can be like scratching an itch. An itch you just can’t let alone. Do you have to scratch that itch with someone who understands you? Who likes you? Who thinks you’re hot? One out of 3 generally isn’t bad, but no, not really. Sex is sex, a strange, heady concoction that  can be tied up with emotions and meaningfulness, but mostly is about being in the moment and something going on around your genitals.

Firstly: chill the fuck out! That guy was being nice to you, and you just pissed on his dreams!

Secondly… what people say about sluts, and by extension sex, says so much more about themselves than ‘sluts’. Here we have someone equating sex with personal validation. The intricate way that her self-view is built into her idea of sex makes me think that for her having sex is a minefield: she at once wants to be accepted and loved and sees sex as a way of expressing this, but is also caught up in the idea that to give it away means that she doesn’t respect herself. She’s trying to withhold sex in order to get sex. Confusing? You bet.

FYI ‘man’ next time you see that lady give her a hug, she needs it.

SHIT! WE’RE ALL SLUTS!!!! Not you men. Don’t worry, you’re safe.

Amen. Read it, memorise it, and if neccessary tell people it, but in a more condensed manner because it’s kind of long, and leave out the bit about nipples showing, because sometimes we just can’t help it ok?

Stop calling other girls sluts, stop judging people by how many people they’ve slept with, and stop using it as a catch all insult. If you must call someone something nasty, and sometimes you must, then get creative! Call them a slinky eyed bottom feeding mouth breather, a higgedy piled rust bucket of pity, or a banana split on a cupcake, whatever feels right!

Or just move to Sweden and start confusing people.

Between the ages of 12 and 17 I was kissed precisely three times. First after my 12 birthday by my childhood crush (I screamed and kicked him in the legs) then aged 17 at a party where I got so drunk I passed out face down on the grass. The third time was by the person I would later lose my virginity to.

Most of my teenage years had been spent wondering why no-one wanted to kiss me. Ok so I was spotty and had bushy hair, but around age 15 I’d tamed my eyebrows and shrugged off the thick tortoiseshell glasses in favour of contact lenses, and yet offers were still thin on the ground. When I met my first boyfriend 3 weeks before my 18th birthday I realised he didn’t just want to kiss me while I was sloppy drunk. He wanted to hang out, talk rubbish, and watch telly with me. While we’d talked about lots of things on our 3 dates, but we’d not talked about whether I was virgin or not; it just hadn’t come up in conversation. For two whole weeks I thought about whether we would do it soon or not. If I told him that I’d never done it before I was worried he’d want to make it ‘special’ and there was nothing worse in my mind. Rose petals and candles might do it for some girls but even then I knew they’d just make me laugh. Though the majority of my friends weren’t doing it I wanted to. I knew it was going to be great: adults never stopped talking about sex. There was a big secret in the world and I wanted in on it.

Providence was on my side.

My parents inexplicably went to Brazil for two weeks just after I started dating the boy. I called all my friends and told them that I was home alone and having a party. On Saturday night teenagers turned up in droves, clutching corner shop bottles of vodka and Panda Pops, and we drank ourselves silly. Sometime around 2am half a dozen of us were left to sober up and clean the house. After a cursory tidy we decided to heat up a pizza from the freezer. Everybody, minus the boy and I, went to the kitchen to figure out how exactly this would happen. We looked at each other and got down to some hardcore making out. As he scrabbled at my top I suddenly thought to myself “Oh my god, we could do it right now. Here. In my front room. On the sofa.” I pushed the door shut with my foot. We had sex.

For the next few days I wandered round thinking even harder than before. So that was sex. It must get better. Maybe I would figure out what to do, or he would, or maybe something would change inside me and it’d be like all those late night movies: thrashing, hair gone wild, screaming, that sort of thing. I still didn’t tell the boy it was my first time, I didn’t really care if he knew or not. He was my boyfriend, he cared about me and we were still going out. I figured adult life was going to be pretty awesome. I think I was right.

(Picture from Radioactive Lingerie)

Reading Platform’s piece on one guy’s distinctly unsavoury experiences with threesomes got me thinking about how shitty threesomes are. Logistically they’re a total nightmare: who has the time and resources to arrange one with three sane flexible people? And once you’re in the swing of it who’s going to be the facilitator making sure everyone’s having fun? Despite my total disinterest in these sordid situations being someone who is fairly obvious about wanting to have sex, and lots of it, I’ve come close way too often. I won’t go through them all because most attempts were just pathetic and boring, (touching my knee, then my boyfriend’s knee and then grinning like a maniac and saying you’re too drunk to take yourself home is NOT sexy thanks) but here are my worst moments:

• Candy and I had spent most of the night getting totally trashed at The Dolphin when an incredibly good looking bloke came over, flirted ineptly for a bit, then he invited her back to his. For some reason she invited me and soon we were watching the sun rise from his amazing flat. Smoking weed, drinking ice-cold pear schnapps: everything was brilliant. Then he started massaging my foot. Being a fucking idiot I thought I’d let it go as I was so mashed it felt pretty good. He lent over my lap and started talking to Candy then suddenly they were snogging. I watched them while his hand travelled slowly up my leg, totally paralysed with awkwardness. I blinked and saw him looming towards me lips puckered. The next few minutes are hazy,  I remember shrieking “No!” in his face, and Candy shouting at him before running off to vomit. She was adamant that she didn’t want to go back to “the Marquis De fucking Sade’s brothel” and so we snuck out while he looked for my jacket. Annoyingly we ended up trapped in his apartment complex for so long that we resorted to lying on the tarmac in the car park crying until someone came and unlocked the gates an hour later.

• It was my first year at uni and my roommate Brigid had a totally hot boyfriend Gerard. Brigid and I got drunk, made out a bit, and she asked me if I fancied Gerard, which I did. So we walked over to his and tried to get something going. I learned a few things that night: the threeway kiss from Laurel Canyon is totally rubbish, no matter what they say it is never ok to crush on a friend’s boyfriend, and that when your friend walks out saying “I’m not cool with this.” that’s your queue to follow. Thankfully/sadly it all finished rather early on while we were all mostly clothed, I mean I definitely still had my tights on. In fact I think this is my least sexy moment ever: sitting in my undies, ringing Brigid’s phone, and smoking a roll-up as she’d taken all my clothes, my coat, and my bag with her when she stormed out, while Gerard made a cup of tea.

It’s funny isn’t it how in your head the whole thing seems to move so seamlessly from ‘oh look me and my friends are by the pool and it’s far too warm’ to ‘hello!’ whereas in real life things seem, well, so horribly real and much less pretty. Everyone’s hairier and pastier, and boobs didn’t feel like I thought they would. Having said that to counter these two rubbish moments is that time when Sigrid crawled into bed with Evan and I that morning and… ahem. Yeah, maybe I’m not that disinterested in them after all.

Photo of the amazing Lara Stone from French Vogue.

1. Always wear a condom.
Like duh. Duh duh and OHMYGOD DUH. There are so many freaking things that can infect, inhabit, and eat away at your genitals that it’s just not worth taking a chance. Also, if you get a scary sore on your genitals go get it checked! Alexi Wasser’s awesome blog reminded me of this recently and it is so so true. Who cares if it turns out to be an ingrown hair? Better that than ignore it till your lymph nodes start exploding out of your skin.

2. Don’t take a rock-a-billy guy home. Ever.*
Pomade is really hard to get off bed linen.

3. You are better than that shit.
Sometimes ‘that shit’ is the douchebag you’re with, the insane behaviour you’re exhibiting, or the shitty job you’re in; whichever it is you’re better than that! Think about it! Putting up with a ‘alright’ or downright cruddy life, or partner, means that you are saying that you’re not worth any more. Don’t you deserve to live your best life now? (I love you Oprah!) Aren’t you the most amazing person you know? Why not? Everyone has ugly bits of their body, have you ever seen Megan Fox’s thumb? Everyone is an annoying, nagging shrew sometimes, it’s ok! Flaws are what make us adorable! I hate to go all summer of 69 on you all but seriously you are amazing. Maybe you’re not all amazing all the time but it’s like Dr Manhattan says: “Millions upon millions of cells compete to create life for generation after generation until… against unfathomable odds it’s you, only you, that emerged to distil so specific a form from all that chaos. It’s like turning air into gold.”

4. Revenge is neither satisfying nor dignified.
One of the all time lows in my life was having a friend wrestle me to the floor to take my phone away while I screamed profanities into it. This was after an ex made the mistake of leaving me an abusive voicemail then not picking up when I called him back. The message I left him? I don’t even want to think about what it said but it definitely involved the words ‘fuck you you fucking motherfucker I will cut your head off and spit down your neck if you ever call me again’. It didn’t make me feel any better by the way, I just felt depressed that I’d let him get to me, and annoyed I’d recorded something so utterly mortifying.

5. When times get bad sing Jennifer Juniper to yourself.
It’s better than valium I swear.

Photo by Matthew Feyld. *Advice by Money For Jam

Back in the day, which was a Wednesday if you check, men assumed their wives were virginal, and women that their husbands were super studs, so I hear. Blissful sexist ignorance it may have been, but everything changes with time. These days everyone wants to know what came before them (literally and figuratively) and so the dreaded ‘number’ conversation comes up.

Everything will have been going swimmingly, you might even have changed your Facebook relationship status (!!), and then he asks you, “So, how many people have you slept with?” Maybe it’s just me, but that question always feels like a punch to the gut.

Firstly it’s so open to interpretation. What does ‘slept with’ mean? Are we just counting full penetrative sex? What about if you were naked but didn’t get round to that? What if you had your clothes on, things got a bit heated, but again, no actual penis in vagina action? Why is the term so loosely defined? There should be rules so we don’t have to get bogged down in semantics like this.

Then there’s idea that there’s an ideal number. Unless you are both virgins (and if you are, you’re not having this conversation, duh) it’s unlikely your numbers will match up. Who’s will be greater and by how much? Will telling him change his opinion of you? Should you lie? So many questions!

As for what counts as sex it’s up to you. Sometimes it’s easier just to say that if a genital didn’t go into another genital area then it wasn’t sleeping with someone, no matter how intense or moving the experience was. It just makes everything easier; that’s the scale I’m using anyhow. I mean of course it’s easy for me to say that being a straight girl, but hey, I can’t solve everyone’s dilemmas, sorry! Just decide on something and stick to it. Easy.

Now then, as for the ‘correct’ number? There isn’t one! Come on, you knew I would say that, right? If you’re worried that one of you will be more experienced than the other then remember it’s quality, not quantity, that counts. Whether you’ve slept with three people or three hundred you can still be crap in bed. What matters is listening to the other person, asking questions, and giving a shit about their enjoyment; otherwise you might as well just have a wank.

If the number thing bothers you because you think he’ll think you’re a slag then who the heck are you dating that is so narrow minded? When someone asks you a personal question, and you reply honestly, throwing the answer back in your face is cruel. In fact why does it even matter? As long as you’ve been careful, (or even if you haven’t yet you’ve managed to miraculously avoid any STIs), it just isn’t relevant how many people you’ve shagged. A high number doesn’t mean you’re going to cheat on him, and a low number doesn’t mean that you’re going to get obsessed and turn into a bunny boiler. They’re just fucking numbers!!

You and he are here and mad about each other in the here and now which is all that matters. Sure you are an amalgamation of everything you have seen and done before today but the you that is standing in this moment is the most important one. The reasons someone fell for you still stand true. After all no-one falls in love with someone because they’ve slept with exactly 15 people, so to fall out of it for the same reason is stupid.

There is one minor exception to this rule: when someone tells you a number over 100. At this point I’d be wary. Once I met someone who claimed they had slept with 500 girls. Five. Hundred. I mean the logistics of that alone are mind boggling, the only person I know who’s slept with more (around 600 at the last count) is seven years older than that bloke, and one step away from Sex Addicts Anonymous. Either way both of them have such sketchy dating habits that I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy. But I’m sure there are some people who’ve slept with a thousand (Peter Stringfellow maybe?? Gag.) who are absolutely lovely, just beware of the rest.

Anyway the moral is that it’s just a fucking number! A number which means nothing! A number you don’t really even need to know! So don’t ask the question, and if you do, don’t get upset by the answer. The person answering it is still the same as they were five minutes ago, nothing has changed, so just let it go and get back to making out!

Photos by Michela Heim and Kelley Smith.

It was a party in Peckham, I think I was wearing a ruff, and I know was drunk. On the other side of the dance floor was an attractive young man. He smiled at me, and I ambled over. We chatted about whatever it is two people witter about at 5am in a freezing cold warehouse. He said his name was Patrick and touched my arm for emphasis every other word. As we said goodbye at the bus stop I was on cloud 9. His pretty, funny face filled my head for days.

Maybe a month later I bumped into him. This time he was with a friend, also called Patrick. We chatted again for ages, hidden in the corner of a noisy bar, whispering in each other’s ears, and I fell head over heels in like with him. When I got home I told my Best Friend Forever about this guy who I’d met who was super cute and had a friend with the same name as him. The BFF stared at me. “Are you joking? Do you really not remember that you slept with some called Patrick, who has a friend called Patrick, a couple of years ago? At that house party in Notting Hill?” In an instant the memory rushed back to me. Me and Patrick sitting under a blanket snogging, then, well I’m sure you can guess. I couldn’t believe what a moron I’d been. Surely he was laughing about this right now. He and all his friends probably thought I was mental. I wanted to cry.

For a blissful while Patrick dropped off my radar and I brushed aside those horrible blush inducing thoughts. It wasn’t until Christmas when I saw him again. This time, worse than a ruff, I was wearing what will go down in history as the worst outfit ever: black boots, black tights, a grey leotard, and an acrylic jumper with stars and moons knitted into it. What possessed me I will never know. Anyway I was wearing this horrific outfit and walked into Patrick.

“Oh hiiiiii!” I squawked, shame filling up every pore.
“Hey,” He smiled blithely. “How are you?”
“Um. Fine, yeah whatever. Look, I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, what?”
My best friend was stood behind Patrick shaking his head.
“Well, this is going to sound really odd, but um, I think we’ve met before.” I may have winked.
“Yes, I know, we’ve met lots of times before.”
“No, no, you’re not listening. We’ve met, like before then.” I definitely winked this time.
“What are you talking about?”
My BFF leapt up and down. ‘No! No!’ he mouthed.
“Well. There was this party… and I met you. It was like 2 years ago. And we sat under a blanket…”
His face turned ashen.
“And then, you, and I,” My hands started making strange gestures that could only mean one thing.
The BFF slumped into a chair.
Patrick grabbed the arm of a girl who had been standing by him. “This is my girlfriend.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” I turned around and walked away into the crowd hoping they would engulf me like grey goo. They didn’t.

Soon after I started working in a bar. Patrick would drop in occasionally only to avoid me at all costs. On a rare night off I decided to take advantage of my co-workers’ generosity and get some free drinks. Patrick was there. He came over, was extremely affable, and told me that he had split up with his girlfriend. Later that night, after watching Mondo Topless at my flat, we ended up sleeping together again. It was fun, but when he didn’t call I decided to let it go. Things quickly went back to being awkward. That was fine by me.

But no, it didn’t end there. While working in the bar on a quiet Sunday afternoon other Patrick and a girl came in and sat at the counter. They were whispering and nudging each other while I made a cocktail with a co-worker. We shuffled down the bar to listen in better.

Patrick was using a stage whisper so was pretty easy to hear. “… so he and she slept together, and then they both forgot about it. And then they slept together again.”
The girl giggled.
“I know, but that’s not the best bit! The other day,” Patrick paused for effect. “He told me he still wanks about her.”

My co-worker dropped a glass and it smashed. All four of us stood frozen in the moment. I heard Patrick and the girl leave. And then I laughed till I cried.

Photos by Holgabot, and Ryan McGinley. P.S All names have been changed, obviously!