I was told once, by a friend who had recently become sexually active, that one of the greatest aphrodisiacs was male sweat. It had worked, he attested, on his new girlfriend, and they were both enamoured of it when consummating their relationship, taking each other’s virginity when doing so.
I wasn’t entirely certain of the validity of this. I’ve become equally uncertain in the last few weeks of debilitating, sticky heat. Adding sweat to the unintentional beard I’ve managed to grow without particularly wanting one, the itchy red spots forming on my back as a result of whatever skin condition I have, and the sullen and complete lack of motivation that’s plaguing me right now, is not the greatest of combinations.
It’s not even as if I’m entirely sure that what he was telling me was the truth. I’m not overly a fan of the scent of sweat myself (male or otherwise) and I’m loath to test its attractiveness by skipping showers and deodorant and then turning up to somewhere full of hot people and waiting for the bonk-fest to begin.
There’s something to be said for the scent of sex, however. That has a little bit of sweat in the mix (although I’m more disposed to liken it to the scent of pee – you’re welcome for that connotation), but then it’s a very distinctive one, and usually as a result of a very pleasurable activity. You may be sweating during sex, but then if you’ve got that far, somebody probably already does find you attractive, so…
There’s nothing wrong with sweating, of course. It’s natural, and it happens all the time. I just don’t see the attractiveness. I don’t like the way it looks, or feels, and I certainly don’t like its scent.
ILB can’t speak for everyone, but nevertheless.
Anyway. I hadn’t quite formulated this post in my head until an hour ago, when I took it upon myself to don rubber gloves, get my arse outside and haul huge black sacks of refuse down the road. (Sexy, I know.) Half an hour of struggling with rubbish bags, throwing things into metal and walking back and forth… in the heat and the humidity…
…and I was definitely reminded what I didn’t like about sweat.
Blind upon blind Frequency dip Blind upon blind Frequency dip Working in different mine shifts Working in different minds
I’m waiting for a thunderstorm. We were due one last night; it didn’t happen. We were due one this morning; it didn’t happen. People are sharing pictures of storms on Twitter, and Quinn mentioned the fact that ze had been getting dressed during a storm outside. For whatever reason, and probably the fact that the meteorologists themselves may not know, the promised storm – the one that will shatter the oppressive heat and bring us much-needed convectional rainfall – is not happening.
I’ve not been sleeping well. I mean, I never do. I’m finding that, in these days – and bear in mind that I have no daily routine at the moment – of oppressive heat, stillness in the humid air, and climate change, very little compels my body to sleep. I’m not tired at bedtime, and sometimes I entertain myself with Red Dwarf on Netflix, a book in the armchair I’ve just cleared in order to read books on, or Super Mario World on the Switch.
[Sidenote: This post was originally meant to mention Beneath a Steel Sky. I did, however, finish this on the same day I got it, so I’m not sure it really counts.]
I tend to lie on my bed, naked, on top of the covers if possible, with the window wide open and the valiant fan that my dad found in his loft grinding away. Exhaustion is usually what makes me fall asleep, and then I’m just as exhausted when I wake up, with the net result of ending up lying in a pool of heat on my bed, often slipping back into an uneasy, hazy sleep with more vivid dreams. I even had a dream with Rose in it last night. Sex blogger dreams are odd.
Sex is out of the question and has been for years. My dickbrain has the tendency to come up with improbable, but believable sexual fantasies at times – from the simple yearning to the narrative – and, more often than not, it’s in these quiet periods that they come. On the rare occasions in which I take a nap in the middle of the day, I will invariably realise at some point that I am hard, and that there’s a picture in my brain to go with it.
This hasn’t been happening for the past few weeks. Lying in the morning haze, sex hovers above me like a piece of tangible glory just out of reach. Senses tell me that I could reach out and take it – in all fairness, I could pleasure myself and bathe in the gold sparkles of orgasm – but common sense tells me that this would be
(i) exhausting (ii) dehydrating (iii) yet another half hour or so spent in bed and I really ought to be getting up at some point (iv) probably the source of incredible salinisation of my mattress (v) not involving soft porn, or a toy, or a person, or something else which is better content that just “had a wank, innit” (vi) those bottles aren’t going to recycle themselves
And, frankly, I can’t. It’s too hot and I’m too uneasy. I’d rather just watch, from a distance, than partake. I mean, isn’t that the idea behind porn, that you watch?
And so I commit myself to the haze. I won’t move, or touch anything. I’ll just lie there and let my thoughts go wherever they go. If I can’t move, then I’m obviously not meant to be. So I don’t. Let the world turn without me for those lazy, hazy, heavy semi-conscious hours.
Last week, because I am a wild rebel who leads a life of extremity and excitement, I bought myself a new diary from WHSmith.
Hold your applause; I’m not quite done yet!
For those of you who have yet to discover the delights of WHSmith diaries, they contain – as well as, you know, days and shit – a tiny, almost unreadable map of the London Underground (a Herculean task to decipher at the best of times) and – and I was surprised to find this – the skeletal National Rail map which, if you’re not aware, both displays all the major stations in the UK and makes some very dubious suggestions as to what counts as a major station.
Something I’ve been meaning to do for about seven years, and only remembered to this morning, involves going through the National Rail map and circling all the places I’ve had sex. Inevitably there will be some places NR scandalously left off the map, but then I need to use my memory for those, eh? So let’s go…
…and, just to make it that little bit more difficult, let’s go in order of frequency.
If you squint and twist your head it looks like a bunny.
London This isn’t actually on the map, as they’ve only listed the major termini (terminuses? No, that looks wrong.). It doesn’t list all the bits of London in which I’ve had sex – Barnet, Brent, Camden, City, Croydon, Enfield, Harrow – but then again, the tube map lists all those more accurately. Maybe that’s another blog post.*
(*No, it isn’t.)
Oxford OXFORD! THIS IS OXFORD! THE TRAIN NOW AT PLATFORM TWO CALLS AT DIDCOT PARKWAY, READING, SLOUGH AND LONDON PADDINGTON! Though I love Oxford – the atmosphere, the shopping, the architecture, the eateries, the bikes – and the fact that I must have had sex hundreds of times in Oxford – the thing I’ll always remember about it has to be the announcement on the platform. I did start formulating a story in my head about the Oxford announcer guy banging the Paddington announcer lady… but it never got any further than what I’ve just told you. Ay me.
Birmingham, et al. Birmingham’s on the map, but the bits of Birmingham I’ve had sex in aren’t. I never managed to do so in the city centre, but I did so numerous times in Walsall, and once in Sutton Coldfield, so… you know… there’s that. I don’t actually mind Birmingham as a place. It just looks unfinished. I took the coach up practically every week for a year and a half, and the area around Toys “Я” Us continued to look like a bomb site. But maybe that’s part of the charm.
Leeds Is the closest I can get, because the little town (with a Leeds postcode) isn’t on the National Rail map. It consists mostly of charity shops and estate agents and was a bus ride away from Leeds train station. I cried in Leeds train station after a particularly difficult time in which I was convinced I had done something terrible. I’ve never been back there since.
Bath Now we’re into make or break territory, really, because I’m not entirely sure which of these places I’ve had sex in a few times is the most numerous…! But let’s go for Bath. Bath is perhaps my favourite place in the UK. I can’t really pinpoint why, but I love it. On account of the fact that I went there at least twice with a highly sexual girlfriend, I’m betting that it’s next down my list. I’ll probably end up back there at some point, of course.
Brighton Is probably next, mainly due to the same girlfriend. I like Brighton too, even though my most recent sojourn was a bit of a washout. Still, I saw Parasite there, so. Trivia tells me that it’s the only place where I’ve successfully had sex standing up, so that’s certainly worth a mention.
Bristol (Temple Meads) “TAKE A GOOD LOOK, BRISTOL!” I shouted, standing completely naked at the window in the Radisson Blu looking at the lights twinkling around the Western night. Almost exactly twenty-four hours later I was having probably the best sex of my life in exactly the same room.
York The last place I can think of, and the northernmost, in which I’ve had sex. I spent a week there in a hotel room with a hot girl who, at one point, woke me up in the middle of the night for sex. I mean, we did it a few times – once a day, if I remember correctly – but I remember the middle-of-the-night sex a lot more!
And the rest…
Cambridge, Canterbury (East), Marlow, Manchester (Piccadilly), Newport, Nottingham (I spent three years here and had sex only once!), Skipton, and Taunton all deserve a mention too; I think that I had sex once in each of these places, but I remember them all for more reasons than that!
Brandon and Stratford-upon-Avon aren’t on the map at all, but I’ve had sex there too!
Provence, France Probably doesn’t count.
Port Elizabeth, South Africa Definitely doesn’t count.
For the past month or so, I feel like I have been holding back the tears. Sometimes it seems as if the floodgates may be able to break and I’ll let it all out – collapsing as I do into a screaming, crying heap. Maybe on the bed, or on the sofa. For dramatic effect, maybe on the floor, since it’s recently been hoovered. Who knows?
Silly, really, because I don’t really have anything to cry about. My mental health has never been the greatest, but I’m not particularly sad about anything, or going through anything tough or have any major worries. I’ve even been okay throughout the pandemic, keeping myself safe while I do the shopping, et ceteri; I have, today, a pressure headache, but that’s about it. Paracetamol is helping there.
I do, however, feel as if there is something desperately wrong – something I’m not aware of. My girlfriend is in a constant state of agitation (she has been made redundant and has no idea how to make herself more employable), and tells me all the time about how sad she is, and part of me is wondering why I’m not equally as worried or sad. I can’t really bring anything up, because it doesn’t really compare, but then I don’t have anything to bring up, so wouldn’t be able to anyway.
Most of my problems are memories from my past. Yes, memories can be helpful; there are some wonderful, special ones and they’re a fantastic sourceofcontent. Then again, I have some very bad ones too, and they’re the ones that stick. They come to me when I lie in bed unable to sleep, and niggle at every inch of my brain. They’re very difficult to explain, and more so to visualise, so there’s not much I can say about them. But they are there.
Everything seems better in the morning (apart from today, where – as I said – I had a tension headache). I rarely get up in time for breakfast these days, but I can throw some clothes on and have some coffee, and that seems okay. Sometimes – most of the time – it seems like I am doing, if not fantastically well, reasonably so, given the circumstances.
But, in my quiet moments, I sometimes get the twinge. My eyes well up, and I feel my breath hitch in my throat. I sniff a little. Maybe, I think, maybe I am about to cry. I don’t know what about, really. Maybe it’s all too much, but then again, what is it?
Perhaps it’s true that, despite having the patience of a saint, I can’t really cope. But I’d very much like to know what it is I’m not coping with.
It doesn’t make it any better. But it makes it easier.
Let me be the one, Justine Let me be the first, Justine To have you, and hold you…
Justine doesn’t actually look like this.
It’s been a while – in fact, it’s been so much of a while that I can’t put a number of years to it – since I first watched the Adventures of Justine series. It was shown all of twice on L!VE TV in the late-’90s, and I once accidentally got sent a copy of a Justine flick when I’d actually ordered Emmanuelle. (I watched the sex scenes and then sent it back.) The fact that I’ve been re-watching it recently has me thinking… was I assuming it was anything other than what it actually is?
Time for AN INVESTIGATION!
For those of you who aren’t aware what Justine is – and relax, it’s in no way based on the book by de Sade; I had to look that up too – it’s another series of seven erotic adventure(ish) films made by the same people (almost exactly the same people) who made Emmanuelle in Space. By which I mean, without hyperbole, it’s got the same directorial team, same crew, same sets, same cast (with the only variation being the principals, and even then there are some returning actors), and even some of the same music, which I hadn’t noticed until rewatching the second in the series the other day.
Justine follows the traditional ASP line of having seven volumes with pretentious names, some of which being known by alternate titles because actually I have no idea why. According to the DVD cover, they are:
Volume 1: In The Heat of Passion Volume 2: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (presumably with apologies to Bill) Volume 3: Object of Desire, also known as Wild Nights Volume 4: Exotic Liaisons, also known as Exotic Liaison Volume 5: Crazy Love Volume 6: A Private Affair (written by Brian Clemens OBE, although how he got involved…!) Volume 7: Seduction of Innocence
while Wikipedia lists them as:
Volume 1: Exotic Liaisons Volume 2: A Private Affair Volume 3: Wild Nights Volume 4: Crazy Love Volume 5: Seduction of Innocence Volume 6: In The Heat of Passion Volume 7: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and there’s even some ambiguity as to when these films are dated – some are 1995, some ’96 and even some as ’97. I’m going to guess that ’95 is the closest bet, as Emmanuelle in Space is from ’94 and it’s quite clear there was very little break between filming both series.
It’d be more impressive if you didn’t have your name obscuring your entire face during the opening credits.
I’m not entirely sure what Justine is meant to be – perhaps an erotic spoof of Indiana Jones, perhaps a college girl tale with fantastical elements, or probably just “a way to use up ASP’s budget” – but the resulting product is incredibly episodic, so it doesn’t seem to matter what order you watch these films in (I’m going by the order on the DVD cover). Internally the films are also a series of individual adventurey vignettes, so one could achieve the same effect by broadcasting the Justine series as half-hour episodes. Only nobody would watch that.
So, yes. Justine Wikenson (Daneen Boone, who also appeared as “Girlfriend” in Emmanuelle) is a smart and precocious, yet incredibly innocent, college girl at an academy for gifted students (Topacre). Her best friend Ursula (Kimberly Rowe, Angie in Emmanuelle) is smart and sassy, but also incredibly sexually active – the only one to have scenes like this – while Madame Souvray (Jennifer Behr, Ursula [confusingly] in Emmanuelle) is a female teacher… possibly the head of the academy, who cares?
Robson and Justine as a medieval queen. Don’t worry, it’s all just a dream.
The male lead – Professor Paul Robson (occasionally pronounced “Paul Robeson”, amusingly – is played by Timothy DiPri, who also played Theo in Emm… you get the idea. Robson is meant to be a bespectacled, yet handsome archaeology lecturer who just can’t resist getting his hands on some random historical McGuffin, throwing him into a world of intrigue. Justine interferes and gets captured (yes, in every single film! This girl gets captured seemingly as a hobby!); Robson manages to rescue her and…
…okay, here’s the other series trope. It was all a dream.
I’m not making this up. Justine’s adventures are mostly dreams she’s having either in the middle of Robson’s lectures or while writhing on her bed in sheer négligée. They genuinely don’t need to write endings to these storylines because they’re all actually dreams!
Oh, Justine! Wake up – you’ve written an adventure film in your sleep again!
So what’s Justine studying, then, sleep? I’ve never seen her do any actual work or take an exam or anything… not like she pays attention in class, either, as she suddenly slips into an archaeological adventure seemingly completely at random!
Originally I intended for this to be a standard SPS review, where I took a scene and analysed it in-depth. I can’t bring you one, however, because the other thing I’ve managed to discover is that there’s very little sex in this sex series.
Justine is a virgin and manages to remain so throughout the entire thing (fetishisation much?), while all the kinky sex with random guys is the remit of Ursula (slut-shaming much?). While there’s meant to be a little “will-they-won’t-they?” between Justine and Robson, this never actually happens, so there’s no pay-off. There’s plenty of inoffensive nudity from Justine, as she’s particularly keen on changing into nightwear at the drop of a hat… but there isn’t an awful lot of sex.
And when there is sex, it’s often brief, poorly lit, and cuts off before any actual penetrative sex is meant to be happening! It’s very frustrating!
I suppose one positive thing about this (apart from Paul Michael Robinson, formerly Haffron, who plays a villain in this with the most lacklustre German accent I’ve ever heard – always a gem!) is that, in what was clearly quite a short space of time, ASP managed to wring seven adventure films out on what was also probably quite a limited budget. Daneen Boone tries her best, but she doesn’t have the inherent sexiness of Krista Allen as Emmanuelle, and frankly she’s such a drip that it renders her character quite unlikeable.
At least she has the impressive ability to masturbate while sleeping.
But the adventure aspect is good. I’m sure I’d appreciate this more were it not for the “it’s all a dream!” epilogue, but at least they’re trying something different with it. I’m not sure it works, coherently, as a whole – they get lost a few times with what they are trying to do – but at least it has the bare bones of a series all in place.
I just wish there were a little more sex, that’s all!
the heat surrounds me. i cannot move – it is overpowering. movement is not a possibility. i am restricted by the blistering heat
thump
someone gives the call for breakfast. i sit up and work up more of a sweat just by struggling out of my sleeping bag. all of me hurts. i am bathed now, not just in heat, but the sounds of my friends waking up all around me
i don’t want to move
i pull on some shorts and a t-shirt that i have owned since i was 14. robinson unzips the tent and a rush of incredibly great heat rolls in. everyone groans. nobody says a coherent word
thump thump thump thump thump
robinson pulls open the flysheet and the world outside fades into view through the haze. it is not fully realised. some colour. some sound. the thump, i now realise, is my heartbeat, resonating through my head
i struggle with my trainers, which i slip on
i crawl out of the tent and force myself to stand up. mane follows behind. everything is covered by a haze. warm air sinks down upon us. ahead, some of the older adults are doing something with breakfast. the kitchen tent looks too hot. i very slowly begin to tread towards the mess tent
the mess tent is slightly cooler. it’s so full of people cooling off that i don’t notice
robinson’s dad calls the younger ones for breakfast. we wait, drowning slowly in the heat and complete lack of activity. talking hurts. moving is slow. difficult. heavy
we get the call and slouch our way to the breakfast table, our clothes clinging to our bodies as we do so
there is water and squash. the food is immaterial. what we need is water. i get some orange squash. my first sip is sticky. sugary. tastes very faintly of orange. it’s the best drink i’ve ever had
robinson is drinking too mane is drinking too hairy friend is drinking too mane jr. is drinking too
we raise our plastic cups as one and head for one of the canisters of water. we refill and drain our cups. for the first time, someone makes a satisfied sound
When I was a teenager, I used to keep a list of films that I saw on a little corkboard behind my PC’s monitor, and specifically films I wanted to see again. For a while, it consisted entirely of Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (1979), until a few months later I added Rosie Dixon: Night Nurse. Presumably, at the time, I liked it; looking back on it now, I have very little idea as to why.
Rosie Dixon: Night Nurse (1978) Director: Justin Cartwright Starring: Debbie Ash, Carolyne Argyle, Beryl Reid, et al.
I’m sure it is.
ILB’s Trivia Corner: This is apparently based on a novel by Rosie Dixon, framing it as an autobiography, of sorts. You’ll be shocked, I’m sure, to find out that Rosie Dixon doesn’t exist. She is Timothy Wood, who wrote both the novel and the script for this film. He also wrote a glut of Confessions books as Timothy Lea, four of which got turned into their own sex comedy movies… but that’s for another time.
So, yes, anyway. Rosie Dixon stars Debbie Ash as the titular Rosie, who suddenly decides she wants to be a nurse, and INSTANTLY BECOMES ONE because apparently you can do that without three years of training. The general idea is that randy male doctors and characteristic old man patients (there are a lot of old men in British sex comedies, for whatever reason) can’t keep their hands off her. It’s a threadbare idea, but at least it is an idea.
It’s just executed poorly.
As an example, there is a scene where an old man in a motorised wheelchair continuously pinches Rosie’s bum, and then wheels away before she can notice it’s him. This happens a few times and, despite the fact that there’s nobody else around, she still doesn’t realise it’s him. This is, I presume, meant to be funny, but it isn’t – it’s just stupid. There are a few scenes like this, but this sort of stuff belongs in Doctor in the House. This is a sex comedy; there should be more tittilation than this.
So to the sex bits.
Rosie, Penny and some rando they put in for whatever reason.
This film has a fair amount of inoffensive nudity, including a shower scene, but unless you are a very young teenager, this isn’t really going to arouse. It’s just naked bodies; you’ve seen them before. One of the main plot points of this film, though, is that Rosie is sexually inexperienced – she doesn’t actually have any sex until the very end of the film, and that’s with one of the doctors, Tom Richmond (Peter Mantle). She’s the star, and she spends a lot of the time not getting laid.
To facilitate this, we have the introduction of Penny Green (Carolyne Argyle), who is both sexually active and very physically attractive. She even has some relatively decent lines like
Penny: I used to be a travel courier, but I had to give up. Rosie: Why? Penny: One night there were fifteen ski instructors scratching at the door of my room. Rosie: Goodness! Penny: But I wouldn’t let them out!
but those are few and far between. Her main job is to be sexy and sassy, and during both sex scenes she actually has sex and is sassy about it, so I guess that character works, insofar as she is supposed to do what she does.
So, the sex scenes. There are two (two!), and neither is particularly explicit; they always follow a certain pattern, as well, which is:
(i) seduction, although usually very brief (ii) sex begins happening with Penny (iii) sex begins happening with Rosie (although in the first scene she’s under a bed with others having sex atop it) (iv) sex intensifies by way of sped-up footage and overlaid sex noises (v) quick cuts between Rosie and Penny intermittently implying that this is all happening at the same time (vi) at some point, the theme tune comes in, so we have “Rosie, my love, don’t change a thing” sung over very unconvincing love-making (vii) everything ends explosively, in a “humorous” way
The first sex scene is actually pretty okay. Penny is being seduced by (although she actually does more of the seduction herself) Dr Seamus McSweeney (Ian Sharp). Seamus has spent a while trying to get his British end away with anyone who will be receptive, like
Seamus: With your combination of beauty and sensitivity; to be in your presence is to glow. Rosie: Well, I’ll make you a cup of coffee, and then you can glow away.
and eventually accosts Penny during a night shift, and things go from there at the speed of Billy Whizz on amphetamines… and they have sex on a massage bed. Rosie, meanwhile, almost has sex with one of the abundant old men in the hospital, but he instead ends up having sex with the matron (Beryl Reid… yes, that Beryl Reid), and we don’t even see that, so we cut between Penny humping Seamus (she is on top) and Rosie’s head underneath squeaky springs.
And that’s it.
It’s a humorous, relatively sexy diversion, and it even happens at night, which I guess means we can justify the title of the film after all. The main problem, however, which affects the whole thing, is the second sex scene.
As I’ve said before in this review, Rosie has sex with Tom in the end (in an attic; Rosie assumes he’s brought girls here before, and he says
Tom: I haven’t… but someone else may have!
which poses more questions than it answers). Penny, however, has a thing for a man in traction covered completely in bandages (Jon Lingard-Lane), who can’t move at all, or speak or do anything at all, but allegedly she is enraptured by his eyes. So it happens that, while Rosie and Tom are having cheese-sandwich missionary sex (and end up falling through a ceiling, for the lulz), Penny appears in traction, mounts the patient in plaster, and effectively rapes him.
Well, I say “effectively”; that’s, in fact, exactly what she does, and the final scene (which – spoiler alert but not really – has both main characters getting fired) has her gleefully admitting that she raped a patient – yes, those exact words. That, as you may have gleaned from my words by now, is not funny.
Skeletor was on set at one point.
And that is a shame. You see, from looking through this film retrospectively as I have, I can actually see the “comedy” in “sex comedy”. Yes, it’s crass and it’s rude and it’s blunt – they may as well have a stage hand with a neon sign saying “laugh” at certain points – but there are some funny one-liners, and the banter between characters is cheap and cheerful. The physical aspect is a little on the nose, but it’s clearly intended to make you giggle, and all the actors look like they’re having a whale of a time making this.
But the plaster scene, though. I mean, without it, this would probably be my favourite. With it, though, I just can’t get over that mental picture. Penny is naked in it, too… and that’s worse, in a way, as that’s the sort of nudity you want to see!
Overall, then, this is a valiant attempt at making something that’s sexy, funny and inoffensive, good as a distraction at midnight, but more or less completely overshadowed by a very poor decision at the end. Story of my life!
A person of interest You’re a person of interest Won’t say I’m in love, yeah But certainly impressed
It had been a long day. I hadn’t even been too interested in most of the bands playing, and in truth, I’d only really been to see the band Music Man was in. I was, to use the technical term, a fan – and he was a friend. The fact that I got to miss a day of school to sit in a theatre and watch rock bands was probably a plus, as well.
The garage crew (who eventually won the contest) were the absolute worst. I may not have been a fan of garage, but my token black friend (who was seriously into the So Solid Crew, et al.) corroborated the fact that they sucked. In fact, most of them sucked, with the exception of Music Man’s band and a couple of more punky girl bands from schools I didn’t know existed.
And then I completely forgot about everything else.
She walked onto the stage already wearing her guitar – although she was also wearing a school tie, which I suppose was some sort of attempt to look as indie as possible. For some reason, and to this day I don’t know exactly why, I was completely transfixed.
I don’t recall the name of the band, nor do I the song they played. I remember liking it, but nothing more than that. I do, however, recall staring from my seat in the raked stalls, completely oblivious to anything Lightsinthesky, Music Man, or my token black friend were saying. Rhythm guitar… she played rhythm guitar. Of course she did. I played rhythm guitar too. I just wasn’t in a band. But then she didn’t know that.
She didn’t know me. But then I could change that.
As luck would have it, she ended up standing two stairs away from me after the bands were all finished playing and the judges were deliberating their wrong decision. So I, courteously I hope, introduced myself.
“I really liked your guitar playing,” I said. It wasn’t entirely a lie; I mean, I enjoyed the performance. Her guitar playing was part of it. I couldn’t quite divine which guitar part it was, but still. “Oh! Thanks!” she beamed. “I’ll give you a hug for that.”
Oh, look at those beautiful eyes…
And she gave me a hug. I was new to hugs at that point. I’m a seasoned hugger now, but back at 16, any sort of physical contact was a bonus.
That’s so nice. So warm and soft.
And after that I just kind of… stopped. I mean, what was I meant to say then? Perhaps ask her to introduce me to some of her friends in the band? Maybe ask her how long she’s been playing the guitar for? I mean, there was a common interest. I could have even told her that I liked her style… because I did; the tie was a bit incongruous, but maybe that was the point.
And that hair. So long and so shiny. I just want to brush it.
Maybe I could say it. “Hey, I just met you, and I’ve no idea what you’re into apart from rock music, but I’ve got a crush on you, so maybe you might consider going for a…?” What? A drink? Is that a thing people do on dates? I’d never been on a date.
But I didn’t say it. Lightsinthesky pulled me onto the dance floor for a mosh to the metal band that had won the second prize. In all fairness, it was my first mosh. I certainly had something to share at Woodcraft that evening, even if I eventually had to demonstrate how to mosh by throwing myself against the wall.
As things started to dissipate and the harried security guy tried to break up what was threatening to turn into a mass crowd surf, I found myself looking around to see if she was still there. She was – on her own. On the stairs where I’d been talking to her. But the event was definitely coming to a close, and I knew that when it did, she’d walk out of my life, possibly forever.
But then I shook myself. I’d looked at someone, become attracted to her, actually genuinely had a conversation with her and got a hug in an exchange for a compliment. At 16, that was pretty much the furthest I’d gotten with anyone.
“What are you looking at?” asked Music Man, emerging himself from the moshpit. “That girl with the tie?” “I… yeah. Yeah. She…” I said eloquently, before realising he’d gone. In fact, lots of people were going, and I found myself being chivvied along with them. In fact, if I wanted to go to Woodcraft at all that evening, I’d need to go home.
On the way out into the cool, welcoming air, she looked my way one last time. I gave her a friendly wave, and in return, she gave me a big, bright smile.
What a smile, I thought to myself all the way through the bus ride home, as my heart slowly began to tear itself into a million little pieces.
First Soft Porn Sunday on the new(ish) blog and it’s one I’ve been promising for ages – months, even – without bothering to get off my arse and do so. Cracking stuff, ILB.
This is, in any case, the third in a series of four sex scenes from Compromising Situations‘ third-series episode Centerfold [insert “shudder at the American spelling” here… again…]; additionally, as with the firsttwo I reviewed, this features Glenn Ratcliffe as lackadaisical photographer Joe who… hell, just go and read the first two, okay? I’ll wait.
Appearance: Compromising Situations, Series 3: “Centerfold” (1996) Characters: Angela & Joe
I am pro-soft, so…
So, yeah. This scene takes place on an incredibly fluffy bed with a pretty blue/grey colour scheme (which extends to the curtains and whatever’s going on outside the Perspex window they have there), which both serves as a location and outside fuel for my seething internal jealousy (my bed is about as soft as one of those Whomp enemies from the Mario series). The Sully-themed duvet cover does, however, look a little itchy, so why they’re getting naked on top of it I’ve no idea.
I mean, it’s obvious why they’re getting naked. I’m just slightly distracted by the colour scheme.
There isn’t really a lot of nudity here, for what it is. The scene starts with kissing – and they’re very keen to show you that it’s kissing, judging by the fact that they’ve overlaid kissing sound effects, which cut out suddenly when we cut to Joe doing some odd kind of horizontal kiss on… her breasts? Her collarbone? Random bit of skin? It’s confusing, but it doesn’t matter, because 32 seconds in we fade to insta-sex, SO THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY.
To be fair, I do quite like the discarded clothes. Shame they vanish later on.
The sex here is positioned in an odd way facilitating it to happen neither under nor on the covers (or maybe they are just trying to avoid the itch); Joe is on top of Angela, or kind of… they are rolling around a bit, but I’m assuming this is meant to be missionary… with the covers pulled down and keeping their feet warm, but the rest of their bodies on display. One does have to wonder exactly why they’re doing neither one nor the other. Softcore doesn’t tend to have this kind of quandary.
There is evidence (or at least pervasive urban rumour) to show that having your feet warm during sex makes for a more satisfying experience. Scientifically, you can lose a lot of heat through bare feet, which lends some credence to the idea, although during good energetic sex you are building up heat, so maybe a fair outlet is beneficial. Whatever. Maybe Joe and Angela are keeping their feet warm to facilitate better lovemaking while also having their top halves bare so they can mutually admire the person they are making love to.
But. y’know, probably not.
It’s nice to see the undersheet also corresponds to the colour scheme, though.
Anyway, so yes, sex. As I said before, Joe is kind of on top here, but they are rolling around a bit so at points it’s a little difficult to tell. At 00:44 we get a quick fade to something more close-up (where we get the first good look at Beatrice Baldwin’s face, which reminds me of Salma Hayek) with yet more overlaid kissing sounds and then one of the least appetising screen kisses I’ve ever seen, but there’s still very little indication that actual sex is happening. It’s clearly meant to be, but this is much more like foreplay than sex (even by softcore standards), and even then, it’s not particularly invigorating.
“I won’t go on if I’m clawing you…”
Maybe it’s all that sex with other women that’s tired Joe out, or something.
The subsequent cut makes this all the more confusing, as Joe (who is doing something odd with his hands as if he’s trying to read Braille) is clearly not meant to be inside Angela, unless he’s somehow fucking her knee (we also get a view of his very square arse, which I hadn’t noticed before and will never now unsee!); if he was meant to be having sex with her before, why isn’t he now? Is this in the wrong order, or are they just trying to be super-realistic and have them take a quick break?
Okay, at this point I have nothing to say because there’s an over-long shot of Beatrice Baldwin’s boobs, so I’ll talk about the music, which is utterly mystifying. It consists entirely of a hi-hat rhythm with apparently random snare and bass drum hits, coupled with a strange ethereal synth line and occasional low thrumming notes (also possibly played on a synth). It doesn’t really sync to the scene, doesn’t actually have any relevance, and is scarily reminiscent of Muzak, which makes me unnerved, as it takes me back to department store lifts in my youth.
After twenty-five seconds of boobs (yes, that’s right – it’s all we see for nearly half a minute), there’s another mix to what, this time, is meant to be sex without pussyfooting around. At least, at this point Angela is riding Joe, so unless she is somehow shagging his belly button, this is full-on penetrative sex, and…
…oh, more kisses. Okay.
Look, I like kisses. They are one of my favourite things. I like to kiss and to be kissed. And I like them in soft porn because they have their place – especially when used strategically, like as a precursor, or footnote, to sex. A kiss can be very powerful. There is, however, a limit, and when you have – as with this scene in pretty much its entirety – multiple kisses of various body parts even when any other scene would have bump’n’grind at this point, that limit has been, shall we say, reached.
Sure, why not?
Scene kind of ends there with (finally) a full-body shot of them not really doing very much, and a couple of snare drum hits for good measure.
This isn’t a scene I dislike so much as I find baffling. Sex is meant to be happening at certain points, but because there’s very little movement, it’s difficult to discern exactly what those points are. There’s too much of an emphasis on kissing, which would have been fine interspersed with actual sex, but I’m left at the end of this wondering why she had let him inside her in the first place, since neither of them seem to be putting any energy into it. You could achieve the same effect with a cuddle.
And the set design is sound, and Beatrice Baldwin is pretty, and Glenn Ratcliffe is… well… Joe. It has all the makings of a good scene. It is, however, boring, stilted, and uninspired. There are four sex scenes in this episode, so maybe they ran out of ideas?
Or maybe they just had a limited amount of time to film it. I mean, that would explain a lot; we all have things to do that we occasionally run out of time on and never quite fini
I need to clarify something. I know you’re probably never going to read this; you dumped me just under a decade ago and I’m not even sure if you know I still write my blog (although I know what you’re doing). But there’s one thing I never told you, and it still comes to me in my darkest of moments, so here goes.
The night my grandfather died I got a text to tell me it had happened. I still don’t know why I had turned on my BlackBerry, really – it had been off for a few days and I didn’t really want any distractions – but nevertheless, I turned it on, and there was the message from my mother. We all knew he was dying – he was in hospital, watching the Olympics and waiting for it to happen. He squeezed my hand the last time I saw him.
I don’t think you ever met him, but you would have liked him. He was the 83-year-old who saw the sign on Space Mountain advising elderly people not to ride it and saying out loud, “right, I’m doing that.” He was in the third wave on D-Day and assumed that he could survive anything after that.
I could have cried that night, but I didn’t. You were angry with me – very angry. We had had a slight mishap (involving orgasms, in fact) that necessitated the changing of sheets. I explained, calmly I hope, that this was easy – we could take the sheet off, rinse the stain out, and hang it up to dry in the balmy Provence heat – but you told me that I was being passive-aggressive (a concept I still don’t understand). I got the spare bedding down and added the new sheet. After we hung the damp sheet up outside, we went back to bed and you threatened to slap me.
You didn’t actually slap me, but I felt you could have.
As I lay there shaken, I wondered over and over if I should have told you that he died. If I did, you might have assumed I was trying to deflect, or ignore the (admittedly very trivial) problem that had prevented itself (and that we had managed to correct, I hasten to add). You clearly didn’t want to hear me say anything, and if I had cried, you’d have assumed I was trying to get sympathy. Maybe you would have slapped me. I don’t know any more.
So I didn’t say anything. I held back the tears, and lay awake, wanting more than ever to get to sleep so it could be morning and you would have calmed down.
I hadn’t done anything wrong.
The next day, as we sat at an open-air café in the village, you decided to have a look at your ‘phone and told me that you had a text from my mother, since I hadn’t replied to hers, telling me that he had died. I acted shocked, went still for a while, and let a few tears out while you squeezed my hand sympathetically.
“I’m sorry,” you said. “Well, thank you. I knew it was going to happen; it was just a matter of when…” I started.
The thing is that, well, I knew it had happened. I found out the night before, but I was far too scared to act sad or shocked or morose or… anything other than calm and rational, really… because I feared your reaction. I didn’t want to trivialise the old man’s death, either; this was a massive thing. But we were on holiday (for the first time as a couple). We were meant to be having lots of sex, and we probably would have done, had the sheets not been stained.
So I didn’t tell you I already knew. I kept that to myself; it was all I could have done in the circumstances. We went to the cathedral in Avignon the following day and I lit a candle for him under a picture of St Joseph, saying a prayer and watching the light dance.
I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I could have told you that morning, maybe, over breakfast – the sad news might have been better over croissants still warm from the boulangerie. Or maybe when we were washing up afterwards, or taking showers, or sitting on the swing in the garden. Any of those times. But I couldn’t come up with a viable explanation for why I hadn’t told you when I actually found out.
So I didn’t say anything.
And I didn’t say anything, either, for the next one-and-a-half years of our relationship. I didn’t tell you when it ended, either, and I still haven’t told you until now, when I’m telling you in the knowledge that you probably won’t read this. You may remember me going to the funeral a week or so later, after surprising you by staying in Oxford for a day longer than I was going to. You may remember spending Christmas together and how I cried because I missed my little church so much. You may – I know I do – remember all the good times we had in Provence, even if we had better holidays later on.
But I didn’t tell you that I knew. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. And I’m sorry to my grandfather, posthumously, for keeping his death a secret. But, in all honesty, I really don’t know what else I could have done.
