Love, sex and interminable pop-culture references

Category: Memes (Page 2 of 6)

ILB’s contributions to various memes

Soft Porn Sunday: Nikita Cash & Craig Stepp

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised.

Romans 1:24-27

Admit it, you’ve never heard of Sinful Desires, have you? Maybe you have – it sounds very much like one of those ’90s erotic thrillers you saw on late-night cable as a teen; then again, they’re all called things like Sins of the Night II and Indecent Behaviour IV: The Search for Clothes. This could just as easily be one of them. A reader of this here blog suggested I do this review and it took me a few minutes to identify which one this is.

I think I’ve seen it…

Appearance: Sinful Desires (2001)
Characters: Lorena Collins & Jonathan Taylor

The first thing that jumps out at me is the actors involved. Lorena is played by Nikita Cash, of whom I’m actually aware – I’ve seen her in things before – and Jonathan is played by Craig Stepp, who is credited here as “Craig Field”. A steppe is a bit like a field. Please tell me that’s deliberate.

The back story…

Sinful Desires is a standard – but solid – erotic thriller whodunnit thing which is mainly focused around an American-style late-night call-in show hosted by Gia (Jacy Andrews) – real name Angelica. Gia begins to get a caller dropping hints as to her true identity, and slowly comes to realise that she is being stalked.

Hence the name of the film, Intimate Secrets, as that is what the caller is sharing.

And yes, I know the film isn’t called Intimate Secrets. It just… should be called that.

Gia’s boss Jonathan (Craig Shrubland) is mostly interested in making money from her show, and her best friend Lorena (Cash) works in the local bar where Gina drowns her sorrows. Quite why Jonathan and Lorena end up having sex I don’t recall, but hey ho.

The scene itself…

This scene is about three minutes long and doesn’t waste a lot of time getting into the action. It does briefly start with a kiss – a genuine-looking one – but three seconds in there’s a mix fade to both Cash and Savannah naked and already doing a lot more than kissing! Way to economise on screentime, movie!

Lorena and Jonathan about to kiss. Lips in odd positions and all.
Stepp down on it…

Something that I’m noticing is that, in the first thirty seconds, nothing is wasted. It’s all very fast – kisses, frottage, breast sucking, stomach licking and “good ol’ soft porn cunnilingus” (you can tell, because Lorena moans a lot) – and it comes at you with such a speed that you genuinely can’t get bored with this. Cash is doing quite a lot with her body, as well – grabbing her boobs and rocking back and forth – rather than just making a face while Grassland’s head is between her legs. It’s more realistic, and I like that.

At around the one-minute mark, sex starts. The scene takes place on a sofa (with exotic fake plants in the background, to make it more porn-y) and leopard print cushions (taaaaaaaasteless!), but it’s a good prop for which bouncy cowgirl sex to happen, and that’s what Lorena is doing.

Jonathan giving Lorena oral sex. Complete with visible bikini tan line.
Can’t stand pat, swear you gotta Stepp it up and go…

In fact, we get Lorena riding Jonathan for a while, from a number of angles – plenty of variety of facial expressions (including some very funny ones from Plateau!), lots of hair action from Cash (she has very good hair in this flick), and some very fast and very hard action that quite closely resembles actual sex. You know that moment during sex when you sort of lose control and just go for it? Yeah, this is that moment.

We also get missionary from about 01:47, which has just as much energy (even if the sofa is too small and Jonathan has to be standing up for some of this: a curious bit of design). Once again, there are a lot of quick cuts between angles, but the few seconds of sex at each angle are long enough to clarify what’s happening, so you don’t lose focus.

Lorena riding Jonathan, who is doing his best frog impression.
Drums bangin’, steel twangin’, two Steppin’, end to end…

In fact, towards the end there’s a “this is an orgasm” moment, where Jonathan pauses and lets out a “hyah!” sound, and then they both kind of ride it out to the end of the scene. Job done.

The verdict…

There’s a lot to unpack in this scene. It’s certainly full of desperate, horny energy (although it lacks the intensity of something like Lisa Boyle in Elke, it’s close) and both Cash/Lorena and TemperateBiome/Jonathan are giving it a lot. There’s a lot of movement, a lack of control – in fact, the whole thing looks messy at points, which sex is – and they both make a good sound.

I also quite like the fact that the character of Jonathan is a little older. Throughout this, Prairie has greying hair, so they haven’t tried to make him a little younger. As someone who’s beginning to feel his age, I appreciate this!

Jonathan, probably with very sore knees, having sex with Lorena, probably with a very sore back.
Every time I see you in the world, you always Stepp to my girl…

If the moans are overlaid in post-production, they’ve done a good job. These look live. The music, sadly, is bland and uninspired, but it’s not so intrusive as to be a distraction. Overall, this is a good scene.

Strangely enough, however, if the reviews are to be believed, this is one of the worse scenes in Sinful Desires. Everything I’ve seen suggests that the main draw is the star, Jacy Andrews, and that her scenes are the ones you’re watching this for. I haven’t actually seen anything with Jacy Andrews in before, and since I think this scene is hot, the prospect of something better is an intriguing one.

So let’s get the whole film, then. I mean, I’m not doing anything tomorrow, am I? Why not?

TMI Tuesday: Pain and Pleasure

You’ll be a dentist
You have a talent for causin’ things pain
Son, be a dentist
People will pay you to be inhumane

Time for another meme to blow the cobwebs away. I have a few things to write this week, but let’s start with this.

This is TMI Tuesday again and it’s about pain and pleasure during sex… which isn’t something I have a lot of experience with. It’s also a complete retread of a previous set of questions by former (but now inactive) sex blogger Bi Likes Sci-Fi (who I remember!).

I may have to dig into my memory for this. It’s a challenge, at least.

1. Which do you enjoy more in bed: pain or pleasure?

This is a complete no-brainer: pleasure.

I’m hypersensitive, and although I feel a lot of things, I’m particularly sensitive to pain. I can’t stand it. This may sound odd from a former self-harmer who occasionally walks into walls and has spectacular falling episodes, but I really can’t handle pain.

You also may have to take into account that most of my sexual upbringing involved softcore porn, which always highlights pleasure above anything else. That was, in my mind, what sex is.

2. Do you like being tickled during sex, and where?

No, I can’t stand it!

I am incredibly ticklish. Mostly around my midriff, under my arms, on my neck and the soles of my feet. I can tickle myself, too, which is something you’re not meant to be able to do. Being tickled completely disables me; I flail and crease, but I can’t do anything else.

47 and H will attest that I make noises when tickled – something between a laugh and a scream. I will admit that it is amusing, but probably more so for them than it is for me!

3. Have you ever used feathers during sex?

Once.

My girlfriend, now my wife, once bought a feather to stroke me with (the term they used was “sensation play”), although not a real one – rather a vegan alternative they got from a sex shop.

I quite enjoyed being stroked, but as a more relaxing sensation than a sexy one; eventually, however, it strayed into Tickle Territory, and I had to call stop with a fair amount of urgency!

4. Do you like to be blindfolded during sex?

No.

Not me, anyway. I’m not sure I could handle being in the dark so much – I’m afraid of the dark, and I’m too curious. I’d want to solve the mystery.

I have blindfolded people, though. I once went through a whole session – fingers, tongue, cock, orgasms – with my ex as she was both tied to the headboard and blindfold (with two bits of different cosplay outfits: check me out, Mr Resourceful), and she was really enjoying not knowing what was coming next!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

5. Have you ever used cold or heat as part of your sex play? What provided the cold or heat?

With my ex again. We used some massage melt products by Durex (there’s a review here if you’re interested!) and they were Cold AF. But I’m not sure that really counts.

I’ve also once lit candles and dropped hot wax onto my wife, but again, that was for decoration purposes rather than heat play. And very colourful it was too.

I don’t recall having ever used, for example, ice, or hot stone, or anything. As I said before, I’m hypersensitive, and none of my eight sex partners have ever indicated that they have ever wanted to use such a thing.

Or, if they did, they never said!

6. Do you enjoy being spanked, giving spankings, or both?

Neither, although I’ve got a few stories about this.

My ex-lover Alicia used to spank me very hard while getting railed by me – both as a way of telling me to keep going and for want of something to do with her hands, I suppose. The pain was, of course, almost too much to take, but she was so enthusiastic and the sex was so good I didn’t really care. Catherine, my ex, did much the same sort of thing in a way that left a distinct handprint on my arse.

I even took a picture of that once.

The only real forays into planned, fully consensual spanking I’ve ever done have been with my wife, although as I’ve said, we haven’t had sex for a very long time and this has also fallen by the wayside a little. I don’t like dealing pain almost as much as I dislike receiving it, but they went though a phase wherein getting spanked was the main way to help them feel relaxed.

So I did so. Mostly with my hands, but I even used a few implements now and then. Mostly freebies from Eroticon, BUT STILL…!

7. Do you have a safeword? Have you ever used it?

“Stop!”. It’s very effective.

Bonus: Tell us in 3 to 4 sentences the most painful or pleasurable sexual experience you have had.

Late night in Bristol. Lots of pent-up energy. Girlfriend on ceiling. 😏

Boingy

“Boingy, boingy, boingy, boingy...”

The fallen tree had been there for quite a few years, but clearly part of it was still rooted, because the branch was very much alive. Every time we’d been to camp (residential trips notwithstanding), we’d ended up pitching our circle in the field next to that section of the woods.

The tree branch extending over the little stream was the most recognisable part of Epping Forest. As we grew, it stayed the same. The stream started to dry up, and ended up as little more than a trickle, but the branch remained in situ.

The years wore on, and eventually, we were all in our mid-teens when one of our number decided to shimmy along to the end of the branch.

“Hey, it’s springy here,” she said, straddling it and giving it an experimental bounce. “Boingy.”

More of us decided to join in. I’d been hesitant to do so, but on account of the fact that this was basically a conga line of friends on some wood – and we’re called Woodcraft, so it seems appropriate – I joined at the back, sandwiched between my friend-who-is-a-midwife, and Robinson, who was so far back he was almost standing on the bank.

It was incredibly springy.

“Boingy, boingy, boingy, boingy…” one of us started, and the rest of us gradually joined in. “Boingy! Boingy! BOINGY! BOI…”

I don’t know who slipped first, or what started the domino effect. The worst part was looking down and knowing we were going to fall.

*

One of us ended up in hospital with three stitches in her arm. The rest of us were covered in bruisy cuts, but mostly unharmed (well, we did fall into water). Despite the very short walk back to the campsite, it seemed much longer when we were all soaked. I was trying my best to style it out when it came to the girl I fancied, but I was clearly upset. We all were.

There were some comments from the adults when we got back as to how we’d just been communing with nature, and isn’t that the point of camp? Robinson, who hadn’t fallen because he was so far back, hadn’t stopped laughing for the past fifteen minutes.

We all dragged our arses to the mess tent while one of the leaders started handing out bits of the first-aid kit.

I don’t know who laughed first, or what started the domino effect. The best part was looking each other and knowing we all looked as bedraggled as each other.

Fuck those fake army recruitment ads. This is what belonging looks like.

Kink of the Week. Boingy!
Peripherally for KOTW, although that’s largely coincidence.

TMI Tuesday: Doin’ it on the line

On LiveJournal, LiveJournal
Makin’ fun of your friends behind their back
LiveJournal, LiveJournal
Chronicle your gerbil’s heart attack on LiveJournal

Oh boy, oh boy, oh (innocent lover)boy. This has been a really busy week so far and it’s only going to get busier. Bashing out a few blog posts was something on the back of my mind – say, one every day leading up to my wedding and one the day afterwards – but that may not be the most realisable thing. We shall see.

Anyway, here’s the meme I’m using in lieu of writing any real content. Today’s TMI Tuesday is almost entirely about online dating.

LiveJournal: Because you can't masturbate all the time.
My first
relationship
started here!

I’ll point out here that I haven’t actually done a lot of online dating. It is true that I have met all four girlfriends online, and even then it’s been via blogging rather than dating sites – LiveJournal, Blogger and WordPress are my dating sites. In a few days’ time I’m marrying someone I nominally met on Twitter.

But I have set up profiles on dating sites – mostly adult ones. I’ve also had a stab at some of the more conventional ones. Were I single now, I’d almost certainly be trying one of the hookup apps… but then, I’m not single, am I?

1. What is your go-to question to ask in online dating?

This is difficult, because I don’t like asking questions; I’m much better at answering them. That’s not just an excuse to talk about me, it’s just something I’m more comfortable doing!

I like popular culture, so sometimes I’ll ask a question in that direction. The French au pair I once met on a dating site wasn’t very forthcoming with conversation until I asked her if she had seen The King’s Speech. She hadn’t, but she liked Natalie Portman and wanted to see Black Swan.

In the end I went to see Black Swan on my own. She moved back to France shortly after this.

2. How old is the picture you use for your online dating profile?

Since I don’t have an active profile, I can’t really answer that fairly.

Here’s something fun. When I was about 25, I got a picture taken of me in which I looked perhaps my best ever. It wasn’t truly representative of what I actually look like, but I did look pretty good in it, so for a while I used it for everything – Facebook profile picture, MySpace avatar, LiveJournal icon, and, yes, dating site image.

On my about page is a digital recreation of that very picture – it’s the one I sent to Boots for reference. I even once tried to use that as my profile picture on FUCK.com (but they weren’t happy about that!).

So, yes, that was my dating site image.

3. What is your biggest dating pet peeve?

Ghosting. I can’t stand it.

I’ve been ghosted many, many times – by people I’m talking to online, people who I’ve arranged to meet and haven’t turned up, and of course I’ve been a jobseeker, so I’m used to potential leads just vanishing into the ether.

It probably isn’t too difficult to say something like, “I’m sorry, but I’ve found someone / I’m not interested / I’m too busy / You are about as attractive as a buffalo’s bum,” or maybe that is difficult (I’ve never turned someone down so I wouldn’t know!), but it’s much politer than to just leave someone hanging.

I tend to invest a lot in romance, and I put a lot of effort into this sort of thing, so to be casually cast aside without being told I was cast aside did a massive number on my self-confidence.

At one point in my life I was responsible for hiring. I wrote back to every single applicant, even if they were applying on-spec when there weren’t any vacancies. I felt like I should be able to do for them what I wish had been done for me.

4. What are your goals with online dating?

Yeah,

So.

On the few times I set up online dating profiles, I was really just looking for sex. Anything else would have been a bonus.

This was, once, relatively successful. The… whatever I had… with Alicia was the result of flirting on an adult dating site. We had great sex and shared good company with nice food. It was never going to be a long-term thing, but for what it was, this was a brief success story for me.

It also broke my years-long dry spell, so I was grateful to find that I still had the knack.

5. Have you ever slid into a stranger’s DMs? Did they respond?

“Slid” sounds wrong. I’m aware that “slid” is both the simple past and past participle of the verb “to slide”, but it sounds wrong. Mind you, so do “slad” and “slud”.

What was this question about again?

Oh, yes. I’ve never sent a DM to a stranger with some sort of ulterior motive, and never really to flirt, If I want to talk to someone I know on social media, I’ll follow them first, at least. If I’ve got a lot to say, e-mail is there for that purpose!

mIRC logo, complete with Pac-Man-lookin' smiley face thing
I didn’t use this to date. But to flirt, sure…

When I used to spent a lot of time on sexchat, I got a lot of unsolicited DMs (known as “PMs” or “queries” on IRC), mostly from angry, horny men who didn’t realise that I wasn’t a lady, since I had a fairly gender-neutral IRC handle and was both chatty and smart in the channels, which was usually a sign of someone not being a dude looking for cyber.

These I mainly ignored.

Bonus: Do you think a couple’s finances should be together or separate?

This question came up recently. I was aghast at the assumption that my fiancée and I had a joint account.

I’ve actually got three: my current account (which is always overdrawn), my savings account (empty), and a third account to pay rent and bills with (which is – as of today – also empty). My other half has two, although I’m not sure how much is in either of those.

We’re going to need money for our honeymoon. I’ll puzzle that one out later.

I genuinely don’t see the point of going through the rigmarole of setting up a shared bank account for two people earning different amounts of money at different times. Having separate accounts, where one of us bails the other out, has saved our lives at a few points.

Plus, I don’t think I’ll ever do it. My sister did it with her ex, and they broke up shortly afterwards. She lost a lot of money from that.

Keeping the British End Up: The Ups and Downs of a Handyman (1975)

Since I started this meme, I’ve always kind of assumed that this film would come along at some point. Not that it’s particularly well-known, or memorable, or even particularly good… but I do remember it by name. Handyman. I also remember watching it, in full, on TV late one night, and then going to bed questioning my life choices.

VHS cover featuring a cartoon of Bob looking like an idiot.
My Glod! There’s a VHS release?

In fact, since then I’ve found out that this was meant to be the start of another franchise of British sex comedies – in the vein of the Adventures of… or famed Confessions series – but, due to the failure of this first instalment, it never quite got off the ground.

Let’s find out why.

The Ups and Downs of a Handyman (1985)
Director: John Sealey
Starring: Barry Stokes, Penny Meredith, Gay Soper, Sue Lloyd, Bob Todd, et al.

It’s not difficult to see where the idea for something like this came from. Written by Derrick Slater from an idea by the director himself, it takes a trope that works (working-class salt-of-the-earth type attempts to do his job; ends up in bed with beautiful women) and runs with it. The problem here is that it doesn’t appear to know where it’s running to.

I shall explain. Although the film itself starts in London (indeed it has a montage of the London traffic as the opening sequence), it quickly transpires that Margaretta (Meredith), a faithful wife, has inherited a little country cottage in the fictional village of Sodding Chipbury…

…no, wait, I haven’t finished laughing yet…

Husband having sex with wife while she chats to her mother on the phone.
Marital bliss, with added phone.

…and transplants herself there, taking with her her husband Bob (Stokes), who takes on a job as a handyman for hire in order to pay the bills. This is a British sex comedy, though, so of course you know where that’s going.

My memory of this one may be sketchy, but a few things I remembered before viewing this again were:

– a catchy theme song (written by Vic Elms, as it turns out, and sung by Stokes himself. I also remember it being more catchy than it actually is.)
– a title sequence in “British seventies sex comedy yellow”, which is definitely very much there
– a frolicking haystack sex scene
– lots and lots of casual nudity but practically no sex
– and not much else!

I wasn’t far off. For what it’s worth, Handyman does contain all those sorts of things. It ticks a lot of by-the-numbers boxes as well: dirty old men with pretty young wives, a hapless wide-eyed policeman, broad physical pratfalls played for cheap laughs, lots of scenes in double time (seriously, they Billy Whizz half these bits) and a protagonist who is physically unremarkable but seemingly irresistible to women.

Three nude people in some black-looking water,
Bath threesome. The water here looks filthy!

Yes, I said that last bit. The problem here is with the main actor. Stokes isn’t unattractive – he’s a decent-looking enough bloke – but the character he’s playing definitely is. He’s mostly completely gormless, seemingly completely unaware of what’s going on, sporting this look that’s reminiscent of someone who’s just been struck over the head with a metal pipe! He has none of the cheeky charm or the innocent-but-keen attitude of the other male protagonists of the time, and the script isn’t doing him any favours. In fact, the best lines go to the women…

When we get to the bathroom, you pull it out!

pretty young woman

…but, bear in mind, the fact that they’re the best doesn’t really mean they’re any good.

What I did get wrong was the amount of sex. It isn’t particularly explicit, but there is actually quite a lot of this – brief though the scene may be (the longest sex scene is right at the beginning, between husband and wife). There’s a threesome in the bath at one point, the aforementioned frolicking haystack scene, sex with the squire’s wife, sex with Maisie, sex in a car with the blonde, and…

…yeah, let’s go through these,

Threesome in the bath: This happens during Bob’s first handyman job, with the pretty young woman quoted above (whose dad owns the village shop) and her boss. There is genuinely no introduction to this – Bob trips and falls into the bath on top of her, and it just starts!

Incestuous threesome on top of a haystack! Yes, really!
The haystack scene. Bob is on the right; Polly is under him, but you can’t really tell.

The haystack scene: This has some sort of precursor, insofar as Bob comes across Polly, a woman sunbathing nude, who puts him to work shovelling hay and then does a striptease for him basically because she can. Her mother then turns up(!), who appears to be about the same age(!!), and they all have sex in the hay(!!!), and nobody appears to see the problem with this?

Sex with the squire’s wife: After a meeting of classy ladies, Bob gets hired by the squire’s wife. The squire himself is only interested in spanking (in fact, there’s a whole spanking scene here!), but she’s more interested in having sex with Bob. As with the aforementioned two, this doesn’t really have any buildup – she just disrobes and they get on with it!

Sex with Maisie: Maisie (Soper) is presented as a woman with strange fetishes – a few Gothic artefacts on the wall, some BDSM gear, that sort of thing. Again, this is all some sort of hint that the women in the village are both sexually starved and a little odd, but the handyman sleeps with her anyway. The BDSM subplot doesn’t go anywhere, by the way.

The car scene: Bob doesn’t even take his clothes off for this one. While he and the car’s owner are in flagrante delicto, the car’s brake comes off and it careens down a flat road (although quite how…), flattening Fred (the cop)’s bike and initiating a trouble-with-the-law subplot that also doesn’t go anywhere!

Old man spanking his pretty young wife. The idiot forgot to take his hat off.
The squire forgot to take his hat off. Tch, how careless.

In fact, none of these subplots do. Fred has his own which only really amounts to following Bob around. There’s a subplot involving indecent literature in the shop, the spanking squire having a completely topless maid who otherwise wears traditional “French maid” dress, some very ill-advised fox hunts during which young ladies appear intentionally, and the aforementioned incest and BDSM references, and none of them bear any relevance to the main plot…

…BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ONE!

And that’s not hyperbole. Handyman is incredibly episodic and could have just as easily been a miniseries of short sketches. It doesn’t even have a real ending; it just kind of finishes, leaving it open for a sequel which never happens. It’s also badly lit, badly edited, badly directed, and there’s one scene where the spanking squire’s mouth moves but no dialogue whatsoever is heard! Nice one, movie!

I’ve seen in several places that this is “the worst of the worst”, and while it isn’t – there are worse, and this has a good helping of nudity, so at least it delivers on that front – it’s definitely not good. It’s got a lot of what makes a British sex comedy in it, but it completely becomes unstuck, and the initial set-up may as well not have happened when you consider how all-at-sea this ends up being.

And now to try and get that theme song out of my head.

TMI Tuesday: Costello

Look at this sandwich! It’s made of cheese!
Cheese is the best kind of sandwich!
(We do not have toasting facilities.)
SANDWICH! SANDWICH! SANDWICH! SANDWICH!

Stephen Colbert and Elvis Costello
Two people I don’t know much about.

I have lots to say, but very little time to say it. In the meantime, please make do with this here meme.

A bit of trivia before we start. I actually have the complete works of Elvis Costello. My parents bought me a box set for my birthday once (and, if it wasn’t the complete works, it was damn well near, even including B-sides and the like), despite me not really knowing who he was. A couple of weeks later the box set vanished, and I only found out where it had gone when Elvis Costello songs started appearing on my parents’ mix tapes.

Today’s TMI Tuesday is lifted entirely from questions asked to Costello by Stephen Colbert. I don’t know who Stephen Colbert is either.

1. What is the best sandwich?

Here’s another bit of ILB Trivia: cheese sandwiches are my favourite food.

I will diversify, of course. Cheese and tomato. Cheese and spring onion. Cheese and chives. Cheese and (vegan) ham (alternative). Cheese and egg. My very favourite treat in the world, surpassing even my beloved sherbet lemons, is an honest-to-God cheese toastie.

Harris + Hoole do a really good one, but the sandwich shop just around the corner from us will do basically the same thing at a fraction of the price,

And now I’m hungry. Obviously.

2. Scariest animal?

I like all animals, and I can’t honestly say that I’m scared of any of them.

When I was a very young child, I was scared of spiders, or at least I thought I was. I had a quasi-nightmare once in which I would see a crowd of spiders and shout “SPIDERS!” at them until they ran away. I was once asked why I was scared of them and said, truthfully, that I wasn’t; I was just scared that I might hurt them if I got too close.

I was also terrified by the animatronic dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, even though I like animatronics, I like dinosaurs and I like the Natural History Museum. Again, I was very young at the time.

3. Ever asked someone for an autograph?

Yes. I will admit to being a bit of an autograph hound, or at least I was in my teens and early twenties. I’ve got the members of James several times, plus Mark Lamarr, Skreen from the Cuban Boys, Phillipa Forrester and CJ de Mooi.

My favourite experience of collecting an autograph was from Mel Smith. I was at a West End musical for my 18th birthday and he was in the audience. I asked him for his autograph and explained who I was and why I was there. He signed it with, “Happy 18th, from Mel Smith.”

I also once got one of the Jedwards at the premiere of Keith Lemon: The Film. As the signature was an illegible squiggle, I’ve still no idea which Jedward it was.

4. Favourite action movie?

Despite the fact that I’ll always tell you first that I prefer comedy, fantasy and sci-fi, I do have a lot of love for action as a genre.

Jason Statham vs. a shark. Yes, really.
Sharkboy, sans Lavagirl.

But there’s a lot of crossover there. Sci-fi films have a lot of action in them, usually. Are superhero films action, or are they fantasy or sci-fi themselves? What is Deadpool if not a comedy? Avengers: Endgame has a time travel plot, so is it more sci-fi than action? The live-action Cutie Honey adaptation is fun, but is it just that: fun?

For that matter, where do the Star Wars movies go? There’s plenty of action in them and I could watch all nine over and over again.

In fact, the only movie I can think of which is “just” action that I enjoy the most is the Jason-Statham-versus-shark flick The Meg! And even that’s funny!

5. Favourite rom-com?

My first instinct is to put Four Weddings and a Funeral, because my uncle is in it, but then again, my uncle’s been in a lot of stuff. Anyway, it’s not really my style.

I quite like When Harry Met Sally, Love, Simon and Warm Bodies. But I’m going to go for Muppets Treasure Island. Yes, it’s totally a rom-com. I’ll be taking no further questions.

6. Window or aisle?

These questions don’t give a lot of detail, do they? They may as well be asking whether I prefer the aesthetics of the word “window” or “aisle”.

Assuming that this isn’t the case and that I’m meant to be thinking about seats on public transport, my default answer is probably “window”. Whether I’m gazing dreamily out of a coach window, seeing the only oxbow lakes I’ve ever been aware of while speeding through countryside on a train, or even on a bus to work, I like to see the rest of the world from my little travel bubble.

Last week I took a plane (for the first time in years) to Germany and back. On the return trip I had a window seat. I intended to spend the flight looking down at Germany and France, then the Channel, until I touched down in Stansted. This worked well enough until clouds got in the way.

I’d forgotten about clouds.

7. Favourite scent?

I have a few of these, and some are the classics – fresh bread, newly-cut grass, brewing coffee, that sort of thing. I also like lemon, as I’m a citrus person, and wood smoke, as I’m a camping person! It’s very calming to me!

My favourite perfume is Flower by Kenzo, although that’s probably bias because the Seamstress used to wear it (she probably still does!). It’s a nice scent nonetheless.

But my very, very favourite scent is new books. I love it, and I especially love it when I’ve bought some to breathe in as well!

8. Least favourite scent?

Cigarette smoke. I genuinely can’t stand it.

The Seamstress (again!) once accepted a cigarette from a friend when offered one, a decision I found difficult to parse since she was, nominally, a non-smoker. Her rationale was that it was difficult to say no to a friend, which I also felt sounded weird – even if it’s a friend, what you’re saying no to is sticking a roll of burning leaves in your mouth, pouring tar into your lungs and dramatically increasing a risk of several interestingly-named deadly diseases.

She didn’t see it this way. It was only years later that I realised that, for a person who spent a lot of her time telling me to be more assertive, this was a moment of weak will from her, for the sake of something she probably didn’t enjoy anyway!

9. Most used app on your phone?

Twitter. I don’t really use my phone for anything else. I keep in contact with people, mostly, through WhatsApp, but Twitter is genuinely the app I’ll open first, even if purely by habit.

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t game on my phone. I’m a console gamer, mostly, and can’t really justify paying even a small amount for a momentary distraction when I could be playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land on my Switch, which is about two metres from the place I usually use my phone!

10. You only get one song to listen to for the rest of your life, what is it?

Wow, this is a long meme.

I genuinely can’t answer this question. I’d get sick of any one song, even one of my favourites, if I had to listen to it over and over again for however long I’ve got to live. I’d probably end up choosing one of my own, if I had to, as long as I didn’t inflict that on anyone else, as being in my presence they’ve probably suffered enough!

Bonus: Describe the rest of your life in five words.

“The rest of your life” already is five words, genius.

#FiveThings: Stripped

“Mum,” I said to my mum over dinner, “can I start sleeping naked?”

I was 12. Up until that point I had been wearing the same glow-in-the-dark Super Mario Bros. pyjamas since the age of about six. I hadn’t ever considered wearing anything else in bed, and wasn’t even aware of the concept of sleeping naked, which is why I was surprised when Robinson mentioned it.

I ploughed on with my reasons before she could answer:

1) I wanted to be more efficient.

I would have a bath most nights just before bed (these days, with my bad skin, I have a shower, but the principle is the same). Towelling off, drying my hair and getting straight into bed would be practical – see also getting up in the night to use the loo, and getting dressed in the mornings. It saved precious seconds.

2) My pyjamas were getting a bit old.

I’m very fond of wearing the same clothes for years on end (as I’ve mentioned before, I still have some of my clothes from my teens), and – fond though I was of my Mario pyjamas – they were beginning to wear a bit. I didn’t have any other pyjamas. Hypothetically, I could have just asked for more, but I didn’t think that f ahead.

3) This was a totally new concept to me…

…and I can’t leave anything that new alone.

But there’s another reason. I was going to a walking weekend with Woodcraft soon afterwards and I was only planning to take one item: a map of the area (or any area, I wasn’t actually going to use it) with the lyrics to the Pinky and the Brain theme tune hand-written on the back. You know, this one:

When Robinson pointed out that I’d at least have to take nightwear with me, I waivered a bit, until he added, “or are you going to be sleeping naked?”.

Thanks, friend.

4) I wanted to sleep naked at the Woodcraft walking weekend.

So I didn’t need to take anything other than the map-and-Pinky-and-the-Brain-lyrics combo. It only occurred to me later on that I would also need to take a couple of changes of clothes, a warm jumper, a raincoat, a pair of sturdy walking boots, a water bottle and a backpack to carry it all in.

My mother predictably said no to this. When the first day ended up being 22 miles, including through a dark forest, as opposed to the 15 they first mentioned, I was actually quite fond of my warm jumper and raincoat.

5) I was genuinely really lazy.

Okay, there are other reasons.

A couple of years later I would start to notice my body changing. The body heat you generate from sleeping naked is more noticeable than that which you do in pyjamas, so I found myself sleeping warmer. Until the age of about 16, I slept with my head under the covers too (so that my attackers wouldn’t notice me), and that was bare, so it was much easier to co-ordinate.

At the age of 17, I started having sex, and obviously then wearing anything else was completely out of the question. At university, it was much easier to have a morning orgasm (or one later in the day…) if I wasn’t wearing anything to begin with.

But at 12, I didn’t think of any of this. I just had the idea, so I asked my mother over dinner.

So I slept naked. I started that night and have done so almost every night since. Two years later, my parents bought me a new pair of pyjamas for Christmas (which I still wear now, for staying at others’ places or at camp or pyjama day at work – they never get any other action!), and then a few years ago a Mario onesie (as a kind of nostalgia effort, perhaps?).

If it’s really cold, of course, I’ll wear my Mario pants.

KOTW: Yaaas, Queen

So it’s eleven o’clock at night and I’m on my knees. Joni Mitchell is playing on the stereo, as appears to be customary now when we have sex. Each of my hands is placed on her hips, steadying my balance, and I’m beginning to work my own like a piston.

The seamstress is making agreeable noises. I can feel her muscles tighten around my shaft, and the familiar quiver that means her orgasm is coming soon. Keep going – maybe a little faster. I feel like I’m in porn.

There’s a mirror in the room.

It’s not very well lit, this room. Nowhere in the house is – it’s an older house, relatively small and without central heating, but a nice one. I think back on it, now, fondly. It’s not even the seamstress’ room, either; it’s usually her brother’s, and still would be were it not for the fact that he now lives elsewhere and it’s become the de facto room in which we sleep, and cuddle, and fuck. In any case, the only light is from a bulb without a shade hanging loosely from the ceiling. It casts a faint yellow glow around most of the room.

There’s not much to it, but as I rear back to deliver the last few blows, I catch sight of myself in the mirror.

I really don’t like the way my body looks. I never have and I never will; there are all these weird bits that I’m never going to sort out. But, at that moment, on my knees with my hands on her hips and my cock deep inside her… and the semi-shocked, semi-concentrating look on my face… I look better than I have in a very long time.

I’m doing well.

As the seamstress screams an oath and begins to have her third orgasm of the night, I give myself a wink and a double thumbs-up…

…and then return to the task at hand.

Music Video Sunday: Billie Myers

Tell me who would you be?
Would you be me?
The woman in me?
Would you like to be under my skin?
I will let you in, yeah yeah yeah

Hello, internet! Do you want to know what I just found out about Billie Myers? Have a guess. No, go on. Not about the fact that she’s bisexual; I knew that already. Or that she used to be a nurse. Or that she criticised Obama for failing to mention marriage equality in a speech. Or that she has a remix album. Or that she’s from Coventry. No. None of them.

What I just found out is that she sang Kiss The Rain.

I genuinely didn’t know this. I remember the song being on NOW That’s What I Call Music! 38, but I don’t remember ever being into it. What I was into was her 1998 follow-up Tell Me, which reached number 28 in the charts and was also probably responsible for my entire sexual awakening.

I shall explain.

Black-and-white shot of a couple kissing.
This is the sort of screenshot I’d expect from a normal Soft Porn Sunday!

I was 13 in 1998. Having tried to convince myself for the past two years that I wasn’t actually interested in sex had proved to be a fruitless endeavour. I was now getting more interested in my body and what made it tick, and certain words or phrases (or ideas) did so. Making love was certainly one of them, as opposed to the shorter, four-letter words that the rowdy boys in my year used as punctuation. I was also aroused by various odd ideas like being encased in a sex machine or staying at school overnight to have sex with the girl I sat next to in French.

And Tell Me by Billie Myers.

For those of you that don’t know, Tell Me is a song about sex. More specifically, it’s a song in which Billie envisions as herself as the person with whom she is having sex, while having sex with them. In it she entreats the person (who doesn’t have a specific gender) to tell her

Oh, how does it feel
Making love to me like you do?

and even freely admits that

Naked, oh, I like you naked
And when I fake it, you like me more

To a thirteen-year-old, this was nothing short of a revelation. A song about having sex, by a woman who’s probably at some point had sex, who clearly enjoys sex, and is comfortable enough to admit so. What is she, some sort of goddess?

And then we have the music video.

Billie Myers with her shirt half-undone, exposing her bra, in front of a multicoloured background.
Billie’s audition to be the next Max Headroom was met with mixed reviews.

I’ve been watching porn for a long time now and I still don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite as sexually charged. The video is – there is no other word for it – HOT. There is a kind of plot, I suppose, but the majority of it is disconnected shots of moderately sexual activity happening in various places (centred around a strip club, which is where the video’s prologue starts). Throughout its 4:50 runtime, we get:

– people getting frisky, both with Billie Myers, and each other
– people getting frisky, both in pairs and in threes, and occasionally in groups
– occasional shots of an Indian goddess doing a belly dance
The Matrix-like spacey black outfits
– Max Headroom-ish kaleidoscopic backgrounds
– women wearing nothing but a bra
– strippers wearing very little on their lower half
– everyone being really sultry and nobody actually giving a fuck
– a couple towards the end possibly actually having sex on the bar

A couple in skintight black catsuits in front of neon lights on a dark background.
Hey, this new TRON remake looks good.

Billie spends the entire video in various states of undress, possibly doing a striptease herself (or is it a sort of “exposing my vulnerability” thing? Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it), and in fact the final shot is of her, slightly abashed, putting her clothes back on and fading out.

It’s all very clever, very tantalising, incredibly sexy, and it’s underscored by the song itself, which is great in its own right. Add the lyrics to the excellent music and there’s very little doubt as to why this was my gateway drug back in 1998.

*

Billie Myers doing her shirt up at the end of the video.
Don’t cover your modesty, Billie. You have nothing to hide.

“I wonder what this song is called?” said my dad, jocularly, as Billie sang “tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me…” while gyrating on Top of the Pops.
“Hnnnnnnnnnnnngh,” I said unhelpfully, before realising he’d made a joke.
“Anyway, I’m going to make dinner. Do you want to help?”
“Would I have to stand up?”
“…I expect so…”

Throb.

“I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

#FiveThings / #KOTW: Clothes

Since I’ve been struggling to think of things to write, I’m once again grateful for the existence of Five Things. MPB has been unwell for a while, which means that the meme appeared to have stalled for a while. It’s back tomorrow, and there’s an accidental crossover with an upcoming Kink of the Week, so I can be a massive troll and take part in both memes before the link parties open.

ILB, you crafty little rascal.

Anyway, so, clothes. I can do that. I wear clothes.

1) My Look

I don’t really have what could be termed a ‘look’. Throughout my life I’ve stuck to casual wear as often as possible – ranging from tracksuits to combat trousers. I wear T-shirts most of the time, as well, as opposed to shirts – which I wear to work – and I’ll generally put on the first thing I can find, without making some sort of attempt to co-ordinate.

I also don’t tend to source my clothes from any particular place. I hardly ever buy any – I sometimes get a few for Christmas. Some of my favourite clothes have been in my possession for as long as I can remember, and some I’ve owned since I was 14!

If you’ve met me at Eroticon, you’ll probably have noticed that I turn up in a flannel shirt. Rose once tried to talk me out of wearing it to Erotic Meet, so I didn’t. I tried to stop her, but she overpowered me!

2) Not My Look

I strenuously resist, and will continue to resist, fashionable clothes. Despite knowing people who work in the industry – and I even went to a Viktor & Rolf exhibition once – I’ve never become attached to the idea of being a fashion victim.

Throughout my adolescence and young adulthood I made a conscious effort to not appear fashionable. I wore the most outdated things I could find and, if something suddenly appeared to be ‘in’, I stopped wearing it. Until the age of about 12 or 13 my garment of choice was an oversized Super Mario Bros. 2 tee, often coupled with blue shorts.

I’ve never been cool and have no desire to be, so why try?

3) Rock ’em, sock ’em

In an attempt to placate the vague implications of participating in KOTW.

When I was a child I never wore socks. I once asked my mother why African tribesmen in TV dramas never wore footwear and she said something about having tough feet due to walking through deserts. While I’m not sure that was actually true, I spent years attempting to toughen my feet by going barefoot while playing my adventure games in the garden or alleyway behind my house.

Cartoon of ILB wearing nothing but a pair of blue pants and bright green socks, typing on a laptop.
Green socks.
I’m not even sure if I own any.

Which is ironic, really, because socks are my favourite clothes. I don’t have any special ones – they’re mostly black, grey, or blue. But I like the way they feel – they keep in the large amount of heat one loses through the soles of one’s feet, they are pleasantly soft and comfortable, and the few times I’ve had sex wearing them, it’s always been pleasant…

I’ve also appeared in ES Magazine wearing nothing but pants and a pair of socks! (I’ve tried to tell my family this, but they didn’t believe me.) It’s not a fantastic likeness, though; a quick glance at the issue reminds me that I look more like the bloke on the next page whom GOTN is trying to seduce.

4) My Colour

I don’t have a colour, as such.

Some people do. My fiancée wears nothing but black (yes, I know black isn’t a colour); my youngest cousin favours vibrant colours including bright green hair and yellow nail varnish. My uncle wears Hawaiian shirts. I don’t really do any of those.

Most of my clothes are blue, grey, blue-grey, dark green, or khaki. It’s not a deliberate attempt to do anything, but it does tend to suit my mood. I’m struggling now to think if I’ve ever owned anything yellow. I don’t like red (the colour; I don’t care what I wear), but I once owned an oversized red jumper with a white stripe down the middle.

Which I’ve just realised is the Austrian flag. Fantastic.

5) …and a sex thing.

Basically in order to fit this into what is ostensibly a sex blog.

I’ve very rarely had sex with any clothes on, although it’s occasionally just happened. My favourite trope, despite this, in soft porn is for people to have sex with some of their clothes on – often just their shoes – and my favourite look on a woman is for her to be topless but still wearing blue jeans!

Before I had sex for the first time, my girlfriend and I used to engage in dry sex – that is, the movements (and some of the noises), but with clothes on. It was fun, cheeky, and now that I think about it, probably quite cute.

“Do you know what the problem is?” she said once, as we lay in a tangle.
“No,” I said, worried that she genuinely wasn’t enjoying herself.”
“Clothes,” she said simply.

Five Things
Kink of the Week
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