Category: Opinions & Advice (Page 1 of 2)

ILB’s opinions and advice, in blog post form

Review: Emmanuelle (2024)

December 8, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Poster featuring Noémie Merlant in "Emmanuelle" (2024)

Those of you who have read my Soft Porn Sundays will know by now that I’m a big fan of Emmanuelle. I’ve put a lot of work into it, in any case. I’ve rhapsodised about Emmanuelle in Space and bemoaned the Troll 2 of softcore that is Emmanuelle in Rio. I’ve done a deep dive into Emmanuelle Through Time and I’ve even sometimes featured the unofficial stuff.

Having seen every Emmanuelle film by now, one would assume the franchise was exhausted, on account of the fact that it’s now featured love goddesses, nymphs, vampires, werewolves, aliens from outer space, ghosts, fairytale characters (in a musical!) and multiversal variants. And yet they saw fit to throw another film into the mix, this time with a full cinematic release and seemingly huge budget.

You can get away with this because the last film in the canon established the fact that Haffron opened a rift to the multiverse and revealed the fact that there are an infinite number of alternate Emmanuelles in their own universes, which explains why her face keeps changing.

This one is seemingly the first set in the most boring universe of all.

Emmanuelle (2024)
Director: Audrey Diwan
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Jamie Campbell Bower, Naomi watts, et al.

This is also the first Emmanuelle title since the very first not to be produced by Alain Siritzky, who oversaw every one from Emmanuelle 2 up until his death in 2014. It’s dedicated to his memory, but produced by completely different companies. Gone are the tongue-in-cheek pop culture references and the sci-fi elements; they have also dispensed with the stylised “E” that has appeared in every version so far, and – tragically – the wicker chair! They really should have kept that in, at least!

Reviews of this have been mixed, to say the least. Some people love it; some hate it. I was completely bemused by this… and here’s why.

It makes no sense

Noémie Merlant in "Emmanuelle" (2024) — Emmanuelle shown trying to decipher the script.

The plot uproots Emmanuelle’s globe-trotting adventures and places her in Hong Kong for the entirety of the one hour and forty-seven minutes’ runtime. No longer is she a reporter or a photojournalist or a diplomat’s wife; here she works for a hotel chain, seemingly here to review the hotel itself but truthfully to dig up some dirt on hotel owner Margot Parson (Naomi Watts). Her boss (voiced with malevolence by an unknown actor) wants to fire Margot for reason or reasons unknown…

…oh, and there’s some stuff about yoghurt. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention.

And that’s it. That’s the plot. There are multiple subplots involving escorts, actors, tapping rhythms and illegal mahjong, but they all come and go with such little context that they may as well be salad dressing for all the relevance they have. The main story doesn’t even have a climax, or a resolution… suggesting, that the writers changed their mind halfway through and put something else in there!

My OH would like to add that there is very little emotional truth in it, either. The film continues apace with people saying and doing things but there’s no rhyme or reason behind them. It’s like watching soulless automatons acting out a script written by AI.

The cast is odd AF

Noémie Merlant and Chacha Huang in "Emmanuelle" (2024) — Zelda’s not really into it. She’s just fascinated by Emmanuelle’s inhumanly long neck.

Let’s get this one out of the way first. Noémie Merlant is an incredibly beautiful woman. Is she a good actress? Yes. Does she have a nice voice? Yes. Does she have an innate sensuality for such an iconic role? Sure, why not. Is she Emmanuelle? No. There’s something about the character that she does not have. It’s difficult to pinpoint, but she doesn’t really have the X-factor that Sylvia Kristel, Krista Allen, Holly Sampson and Allie Haze all had.

The rest of the cast are fine. Will Sharpe is originally intriguing as the mysterious Kei, although more annoying later on as he suddenly becomes important; Bower is good as advertising executive Sir John, but he vanishes with no real explanation. Perhaps the best character, Zelda (Chacha Huang), is written out before the ending seemingly just to give Emmanuelle some detective work to do.

The problem is that practically none of them serve any purpose. There isn’t much of a story to advance and (apart from Kei) none of them are relevant to it. You may as well have a film just featuring Emmanuelle and Kei and you could still get the same film.

The cinematographer should be fired

I have no explanation for this.

I don’t know why there are so many slow zooms to end in close-up of Merlant’s head. I’m not sure why some bits are so light whereas some are so dark and there’s absolutely nothing in between. I’m clueless as to the bits where Emmanuelle’s talking to another character and you can’t see who she’s talking to.

I’m also not sure where the wicker chair has gone.

And then there’s the music. Zounds, the music. Emmanuelle films have often featured some of the best and most iconic scores softcore has ever seen. The score here is moody, dour and sparse; there’s very little to it. It doesn’t even fit the sex scenes, which is usually a big part of them. Speaking of which…

It isn’t sexy, genuinely

And it really isn’t. Yes, there is sex in this film. but for something with so much sex – and, come to think of it, gratuitous nudity – it certainly isn’t particularly arousing. Maybe it isn’t meant to be. Handled differently, or given different camera and atmosphere work, these could be sizzling hot sex scenes. But these aren’t. These are attractive enough people going through the motions, turning titillation into tedium.

And that’s really frustrating. This could have saved the film. There’s a scene partway through where a completely naked Emmanuelle masturbates to orgasm in her hotel room. There’s a lesbian encounter between her and Zelda in a shed hidden in the grounds. There’s even a sex scene with a stranger in an aeroplane bathroom…

…none of which are particularly arousing! I saw this in a cinema with an audience, so I’m not supposed to be fapping to this or anything, but why are they devoid of any emotion?

And the sad part is…

The final, most crushing thing I can say about Emmanuelle is that it has so many elements of a good film in it somewhere. It’s well-intentioned, the cast is great and trying hard, it certainly looks pretty, and some aspects are genuinely compelling. Notably a “storm” scene, which happens about midway through, is handled incredibly well, is appropriately atmospheric, and even serves to advance what little there is of a plot.

There isn’t genuinely a lot of sex, but what there is isn’t bad; it’s a little lacklustre, but they are trying. In fact, the final sex scene (also the last scene of the movie) is explicit, different, long and even managed to turn me on a little. But that was such a rarity.

Emmanuelle manages to disappoint on so many levels because it is empty. There’s nothing here: it is a hollow shell of a film which shows how little thought went into it. It is completely emotionless, limp, devoid of a comprehensible story and completely wasteful of a talented cast. It does nothing to entertain or arouse, has practically no link to the character as previously established in either movie or book, and feels nothing other than soporific at points, derisory or cringe-inducing at others.

Alain Siritzky would be insulted, I’m sure… but I most certainly am too.

Bragging on a blog

August 19, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Think about it: when, in your life, did you first know that someone in your peer group had had sex? Did they brag about it?

There’s usually at least one, although from what I hear it varies according to where you grew up and who your peer group actually was. Most people I’ve talked to seem to concur on a few basic facts, though: it happens during your teens; it may or may not be before the age of consent; it may or may not have been a “good” experience.

In two of the people I’ve talked to, they were that person.

Shocked though my classmates had been to find out that I’d had sex at 17, I was far from being that person – two of the boys in my little group had already done so at 16 and neither of them had enjoyed it – but I was certainly one of the first. To my relief, I didn’t get too many questions (beyond “what does cunnilingus taste like?”. I’ve never been able to answer that one.), but then again

It’s gross to think about your friends doing it. Difficult to visualise. At least with porn it’s actors having sex. It’s less appealing when it’s a mate.
my friend-who-is-a-nurse

not that I had much choice to begin with.

The word “juicy” still makes me cringe

Outside of people at school and in Woodcraft, there was another group of friends I’d talk to. I rarely, if ever, met too many of them, but they lived locally and were readily accessible via ICQ. My first experience with someone having sex was one of them.

To this day I’m not sure if he had full-on PIV, but his girlfriend certainly existed (her face was triangular, according to our mutual friend), and to all intents and purposes all the other things they had been doing was nothing short of an open secret. He was certainly very explicit about what the other things were, and none of us had any reason to doubt him.

“I don’t know if he’s like this at school,” I confessed to our mutual friend, “but online he’s been sort of…”
“Bragging?”
“Yes. Bragging. About, well…”
“Bragging. You don’t need to say anything more. He does that at school. Bragging. All the time. It’s quite gross, actually.”

It’s not nice to boast, although we’ve all done it at some point. Even if you say something like “I won a University of Cambridge competition that I don’t remember entering by writing a paragraph I didn’t save” in the most blasé, nonchalant voice you can muster, it’s still the most humble of brags. But we are advised not to do so from our youth. Arrogance, we are told, is rude.

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Matthew 23:12

I’ve always found it difficult to express any self-confidence, because I don’t really have any, and I don’t want to appear brash or boorish or full of braggadocio. Living through Mister “I’ve-had-blowjobs”‘ almost constant crowing three years prior had given me a good example of what not to do when I started having regular sex.

Ending screen from "Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures" for the PC. — This is the sort of thing you can brag about.

I slipped up, of course, but then who doesn’t? Lightsinthesky, who by that point was also having sex, would definitely push it a bit, but between us our sexual conversations were basic and genial – a “what’s your favourite position?” here and “have you tried this?” there, but not competitive in any particular way.

And this is how people should be talking about sex.

Lots of people have sex, or at least some sort of sexual expression. Even if you are asexual, you can still express your (a)sexuality by identifying as such. But there still appears to be a societal barrier; sex is, still, a taboo subject. People will mention it in hushed tones, do so through blushes, or go the other way and become an insufferable braggard. It really doesn’t have to be that way at all, and no other topic has such a black mark on it.

You can be as pleased as you like because you got the English Prize in years 11 and 13, but you’re not allowed to be because you’ve had sex.

There’s a problem there.

I’ve just spent a week in a country which has a much better sex education system, where sex workers are visible in windows at all hours and there are three museums dedicated to the subject. Teen pregnancy there is below 1% and, although I wouldn’t say it’s OUT THERE AT ALL TIMES, sex there is more of a part of life. I’d find it difficult to envision someone from there being anything but cheery about sex worth celebrating.

And that’s my main point, I guess. Sex can very well be something worth celebrating. It’s time we started doing that, rather than using it as an excuse to act like an insidious blackguard.

Dichotomy

July 31, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Today is National Orgasm Day (thanks Clara) and it’s the final day of Disability Pride Month (thanks Hux), so this provides me with the ideal opportunity to write about this. Then I guess I’ll have an orgasm.

Since being diagnosed with DM back in June 2021, I’ve most definitely started “feeling” my disability. Even if I hadn’t been diagnosed – and I was by accident, I was in hospital for something completely different – I probably still would have done, but put it down to being old. (Says the 39-year-old with the word “boy” in his handle.) Whether I’m at work, or resting at home, or even out in town, I’m aware of my dyspraxia, my heavy breathing and my waddling gait. I drop things, I shoulder doors open rather than using my hands, I fumble when digging around in my pockets for my freedom pass, and I scream every morning when my shoulder wakes up a few minutes after I do.

I try my hardest not to complain, though; a lot of people have it worse than I do. My mother’s disability makes her shake uncontrollably and my friend’s killed him. Mine is annoying, and restricting, and more often than not painful, but it doesn’t stop me doing anything. It slows me down a bit, but it’s never quite stopped me. I can work, I can write, I can game, I can read, I can… actually, that’s all I do, really.

And I can orgasm.

Even with occasional forays into the fringes of the same, I haven’t had PIV sex for about a decade now but I will admit to being wary of doing so if the opportunity presents itself. Having put on weight may be one thing, but losing my muscle strength? How can I finger their nipples while licking them out if all my left hand can do is flop around like a fish? How do I roll around in bed without yelling in pain? If I penetrate them, how do I thrust, considering the fact that putting socks on is a challenge for me now?

Oh, and forget 69. That’s out too. There’s no way I’m that supple.

Even though the recent summer heat is a reminder that I won’t be railing anyone in a sundress, I can still orgasm. In fact, since the age of 18 my orgasms have never really changed. The method I use to induce them is almost exactly the same, down to the same audiovisual stimulus; the amount I produce (although it varies) is the same; the time it takes is the same. I could even point out to you the places my spaff hits if you ask.

In such extraordinary times, and through everything that’s happened both good and bad, orgasms have been one of my very few constants. They are available and healthy and recreational and free, and I’m very grateful for them. As long as my penis and my hand still work, give me a while and a place to sit (or lie, or stand if I’m feeling risky…) and I’m good.

Yes, it’s messy. Yes, it’s awkward. Yes, cleanup is difficult. But it’s good. My body is failing, but this bit of it works. Frankly, it’s the best bit to work.

I may feel the worst I ever have, but I can make myself feel the best. That’a a dichotomy I can very much live with.

Burning Bridges

April 4, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

[An old friend once wrote a blog post with “Burning Bridges” as the title, so maybe the credit for the above goes to him.]

I’m not really brave enough for this.

Something I’ve noticed – mostly at Eroticon, but in conversation with others too – is that there is a bit of a difference in how European and American bloggers handle controversy.

What?

Evidently I’m not talking about everyone here, but I’m not the only one who sees this: American bloggers are zealous. They see something that needs to be called out and they’ll do so. Immediately. To the outsider it may look like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, but it’s just the blogger getting something done before it becomes more of a problem. This can be good, evidently; the now-infamous Screaming O talk at Woodhull is a great example.

But to me it seems a little dangerous. If you’e going through life constantly looking for something to call out it seems a touch paranoid. And, of course, if you find something and leap on it without any prior research, then there’s always the problem that you’ll do more harm than good.

European bloggers are a touch more reserved. If one of us seems something troubling then we are more likely to try and fix it quietly than start a massive social media pile-on. I’m a European blogger and I’ve never knowingly tried to start anything, although if there’s already something going on a few of us will probably join in (the Inigo More post is a good example of that).

But what do I, a nervous British blogger, do when I notice something that I find abhorrent? Do I fall silent in favour of silence meaning security? Do I call the cavalry and initiate a brawl I don’t wish to happen or participate in? Or do I take on the issue myself, possibly solving it but just as possibly making matters worse?

Specifically, do I want to risk burning a bridge, even if it’s one I wish were no longer there?

It’s difficult.

So what?

A couple of months ago I noticed a fellow sex blogger – one I’ve met, befriended and previously had a lot of respect for – posting something questionable on Twitter (or 𝕏 or whatever it’s called now). I scrolled through her tweets – maybe this was satire and in response to something else – but saw a few more. And then I opened her replies tab.

Oh boy.

Most direct quotes are too sickening to post here, but they are all things that make me tremble. Constant references to trans people trying to brainwash children. References to refugees as “gimmegrants” and migrants as “illegals”, saying we need to get rid of them all to “protect our country”. At one point she verbatim said that

this wokey nonsense has got to stop

in response to a story about a trans person wanting to be called by their preferred pronoun.

And then I knew I needed to do something. Other than remove them from my blogroll, of course, which I’d already done.

Now what?

It’s difficult enough to deal with this stuff from Tory bigots and you already expect it from known transphobes like Graham Linehan and JKR. It’s much more difficult, however, when it’s from someone you used to like, and even moreso when it’s a sex blogger… whatever has happened to our community, the fact remains that we were all nominally banging the same drum.

This is not what I would usually expect.

Earlier on today I finally posted on Mastodon and Bluesky saying the following:

I don’t want to stay silent any more. But I don’t want to cause a fuss.

A sex blogger most of us know has been airing and sharing abhorrent views on X and this has gone unchallenged.

Most of you are following her.

Message me if you want to know who.
@innocentlb

Some of me wonders whether or not this was the right thing to do. Part of me wanted to do the “American” thing of putting her name and details verbatim on all my platforms, but I didn’t want to do that. Another part wanted to do the “European” thing of quiet outrage and soft indignation, but ethically I felt like I couldn’t do that.

So I took the middle road: I offered the information, and to those who asked I posted her blogging pseudonym and Twitter @, offering screenshots to those who had no access.

And so far this has seemed like the best course of action. I didn’t know how much uptake this would have, but it has been more than I expected. I was envisioning one, maybe two, curious people, but as I type this, more than eleven people have asked. All of them have gone on to respond, once they’ve seen the content, in the same horrified, disbelieving way that I did.

And what?

As far as burning bridges is concerned, it’s very rare that I’ll meet and get on with someone that I’ll end up never wanting to see again. I’m a social person and I’m genuinely quite protective of the friendships I’ve made. Fair enough, it may be different with 47 or Robinson or H or Mini – they are friends in real life, there’s much more physical contact there. Nevertheless, I’ve met this blogger; I’ve talked to her; I’ve hugged her, even.

But even I have my limit, and in this case – rare though it may be for a European blogger, even more so for a British one, and perhaps much more so for me – it has been hit by this person.

I am not going to post her identity here.

But my offer still stands. If you want to know, ask. I hope you do. I hope it makes its way around. And I hope everyone ends up knowing.

Above all, I hope she realises she was wrong. If she does, and she apologises, and makes more of an effort, then maybe it won’t have been worth burning that bridge after all.

All I can do is hope, in the end.

We’re just innocent men

November 19, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

“I still don’t understand why I have to take at least one female member of staff with me.”
“All the clients working with you are female.”
“Female-identified.”
“Fine, that. It’s a matter of customer protection. You know this.”
“I’m not dangerous because I’m a boy, you know?”
“A boy? You’re not a boy. You’re a man.”

Am I? I’ve never thought of myself as a man.

Hacker T. Dog and Lauren Layfield are just normal men. They're innocent men. — We’re just normal men.

Sure, I’ve been called one by many people over time. I’m referred to as “the man” by members of the public who don’t know my name. My second girlfriend used to refer to me as a man despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly comfortable with it. I’m cisgender and male, so I’m fairly certain that various pieces of literature about me – medical records and so on – list me as a man. Back in my internet dating days, I was listed as “22-year-old man”.

And yet I still think of myself as a boy.

“I’m still a boy. You can refer to a ‘group of boys’ and they can all be adults. You can have a ‘boyfriend’ and he can be however old you want.”
“I guess…”
“And nobody seems to have a problem with the term girlfriend. Although it seems to be easier with girls. There’s a popular blogger with ‘girl’ in her name and she’s almost 40.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”

I’ve long had a problem with the term, and in particular the connotations of, the word “man”. There are plenty of neologisms which ascribe something to a man – something to be ridiculed (man pain, man flu, man look); something society sees as “female” being appropriated (man bun, man bag); a negative action (mansplain; manspread); be assertive to the point of being a dick (man up). Look at all of those and it probably goes some way towards explaining why I’m not comfortable with being a “man”?

And then there are those who whine about it. People who use the #NotAllMen hashtag non-ironically and protest about it being “not me.” Dude, we know it’s not you. That’s not what anyone’s saying. But, again, this creates a visibility issue. Men get accused of something and their automatic response is to bitch about it.

Incels, MRAs, PUAs and the like make media headlines and have paid-for ads appear on Pornhub. Things like Yewtree and the recent revelations about Russell Brand show the predatory side of men in power. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are universally hateable men who should, by all rights, be in prison by now. Michael Moore wrote a book rightly entitled Stupid White Men.

Look at this from the point of view of an alien coming here for the first time: men do terrible things, they can’t handle criticism and they’re dangerous and to be avoided.

(And yes, I know that isn’t what I’m actually getting at. This is hyperbole, I know. But just imagine.)

“I don’t really know. I’ve seen older women refer to themselves as ‘girls’ and nobody has an issue with it. Why can’t I be a boy?”
“It just seems odd. Why wouldn’t you be a man?”
“Have you seen what ‘men’ are doing these days, or for the past few millennia?”
“But that’s not you.”
“Yes, I know. But you shouldn’t need to say that. That’s the issue. If I’m a boy it doesn’t carry any of the negative labels. Plus, I’d have to admit I’d grown up, and nobody wants to do that.”

She paused. There was a stillness in the room during which I realised I hadn’t made the most salient point.

“Gender doesn’t exist, anyway. It’s a social construct.”

And then we had a discussion about that.

An Explosion of Heat

May 29, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

What does an orgasm look like?

Anyone?

It’s an interesting concept, albeit one without a definitive answer. GOTN ran a competition about it once, as did Erotic Meet back in the day. One of those things where it varies from person to person. Maybe you have a specific image in your head when you orgasm; perhaps an orgasm looks like something from the outside.

But what does an orgasm feel like?

That is, perhaps, a more difficult question to answer. Like anything, it does change according to the individual – but it is certainly more complex than “do they have a penis or a vagina?”. Sex is deeper than such a binary concept. Everything changes according to situation, method, mood, and even time. Every orgasm is different, so even if you experience a similar feeling each time, it may be more possible to try to describe one orgasm than… well, you know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

I know it’s hot. It’s been getting hotter all week, even if it’s a little breezier today than it has otherwise been of late. Going outside means getting hotter, but there’s no reason I can’t do so inside.

It had been four days since my last orgasm, and although I will admit that’s not a huge gap (and there have been much longer ones…), it’s still sizeable enough to be noticed. I’ve had an odd weekend, to put it mildly, and even wondered if I’d completely lost my sex drive until he made himself known. This afternoon I found myself alone, so after a cheese omelette, cup of tea and a Pokémon film, I decided to put him to the test.

It didn’t take long to orgasm. Usually it takes a while (stamina, innit?); this time, however, it wasn’t a huge task. A bit of Emmanuelle, a few minutes’ fantasising and a couple of sexy words, and I was done. A very satisfying orgasm.

The very moment I came (hitting my wrist, thigh and my ankle, if it matters) was like an explosion of heat. I didn’t just warm up; I flared up. Heat burst out all over my body, more apparent with every beat of my heart. Taking in some deep, ragged breaths, I leaned back and let myself bathe. Basking in my own heat, feeling it emanate from my very core.

Beatriz da Costa, also known as Fire, from DC Comics. Possibly having an orgasm. — Beatriz identifies.

I was a mess. Hair everywhere. Tears leaking from my eyes. Cum all over my hand. Blazing with fire.

I wasn’t even all there. All I felt was the heat. For a while, I was just a fireball.

A few minutes later I managed to gather myself together, clean up with a handkerchief I need to put into the washing machine (mental note for later) and pull myself back into the real world.

Things to do, more cups of tea to make, you know.

I’ve been reliably informed that it’s getting much hotter outside. But who needs it? As I’ve demonstrated so gracefully, with my chair, my porn and my dick… I’ve got all the heat right here.

Masturbation: How Much is Too Much?

February 16, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

It’s a question that’s been asked over and over and over again. For the curious reader running the gauntlet of op-ed pieces – medical popular science claiming that masturbation is healthy for young men (because girls don’t masturbate, obviously); strait-laced but very angry, ranty sex-negative activists linking all masturbation to porn and using that to plan an attack; bright and breezy articles about masturbation being all rainbows, sunshine and candy; the endless “ZOMG! LOL!” of the tabloids – one question always rears its head.

How much masturbation is too much?

It’s also not a question I’m too keen on asking. A more salient question – and one which isn’t so judgemental – would be “is there such a thing as too much masturbation?” As a young man who came to masturbation quite late (I was 18 when I started), it was a question I asked myself more than a few times… never coming to a clear conclusion. I could have thought more about it, but I usually got distracted and would, instead, go off for a stress-relieving wank.

The fact that it took me years before I admitted to masturbating also delayed the occasion that I got around to asking anyone else about it. JackinWorld, an American website all about it, gave a slightly nebulous attempt at an answer – something like “there is no such thing as too much masturbation, unless it interferes with your daily life and usual activities,” which meant very little to me as a student, but made a friend laugh for about half an hour when I read it to him.

“Usual activities?” he wheezed, turning around in his computer chair.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, reclining on his bed. “I mean, how many times do you do it?”

“Twice a day, maybe? Except when people are staying with me… then I don’t do it at all.”

“Not at all?”

“Not always.”

As our conversation continued from there on, and continued onto MSN once I’d gotten home that night, we shared more. We both enjoyed masturbation; we both set time aside for it as well as doing it spontaneously; we both watched porn when we needed an aid (he was gay, so didn’t like any of my recommendations); we both masturbated even when talking to other people on MSN… which, of course, made me wonder. But not too much.

Something I didn’t tell him was that, for years, I was convinced I was masturbating too much. I was, initially, a victim of my own efforts to stop completely – and, when that didn’t work, to cut down. “I’ll jerk,” I’d tell myself, “but I won’t jerk off. I don’t need any orgasms.” My blossoming sex life was more of a continuing cycle of masturbating, having orgasms, feeling guilty, deleting all my porn… and starting again.

I also didn’t tell him that I didn’t start masturbating until after I’d had sex for the first time – well after – or that I used to deal with my erections by curling into the foetal position and waiting for them to subside. And, of course, I didn’t tell him anything about my continuous attempts to quit.

It wasn’t until university that I gave up trying to give up. I had a lot of free time and had, in a short space of time, been dumped by my girlfriend, forgotten by all those at school and realised that I wasn’t going to make any new friends where I was. I bought some telephony equipment, hacked into the internet from my room, and discovered a whole new world of porn, erotica, and sexual excitement.

And I haven’t looked back.

So if you were to ask me the question – is there such a thing as too much masturbation (and, if so, how much is too much?) – I doubt I’d ever reach a definitive answer. I can reminisce at length about my own experiences, attempts, discoveries and masturbation. I can tell you how much I masturbate now, or even how much I used to. With my memory, I can even think back to frank conversations about exactly how much wanking went on in my early 20s.

But I can’t give you an answer. Because there isn’t one. There’s one for me; there’s one for you. Like most things in life, the answer’s probably different for everyone. I’m not everyone, so I can’t answer that question.

But I can give you one piece of advice, based on my own history:

Relax.

If you think it’s too much, it probably isn’t.

It’s my name and you can’t have it!

August 25, 2022 / Innocent Loverboy / 1 Comment

I wonder if there is a checklist somewhere, or a flow chart, that parents have to work their way down when one of their children gets married. Of course, one of those is the egregious “why aren’t you going to have children?” discourse (GOTN has an excellent post about this) – as if that’s the default, or something. I, of course, have already given my family my reasons for this.

In fact, I’m not sure any of the five left in my generation want to have children. The family continues with my one niece and nephew!

So they moved onto the next box.

“Have you talked about what to do with your names yet?”

Strangely enough, it’s not the sort of light conversation that I had thought of having, at least not midway through our cute honeymoon in Stockholm.

I have thought about it, though.

When I was 16, I had started to envision what married life would be like if I ever managed to marry my current crush. (I even built up a sitcom-style introductory sequence in my head, complete with theme tune.) At that point, I was dead set on taking her last name, rather than having her take mine. I quite liked the way it sounded, and if you add the fact that her father (for whom I used to work) did the same thing, it kind of made sense to continue the tradition.

I’m not overly keen on my surname anyway. It’s difficult to spell – since it’s a homophone for another word that already exists and people keep spelling it that way – people have had issues pronouncing it, too. In fact, I have the same first, middle, and surnames of my great-great-grandfather… and his father… and his father… and, you’ll never guess what… his father.

And they were all butchers, apart from Grandad, who made weapons.

I am so pleased my dad became an actor.

I feel, as you may understand, very little connection to this family who were founded on principles which I believe to be ethically wrong, and our coat of arms is particularly stupid (it’s a red cock on a shield and there’s nothing else). My immediate family is very important to me, sure, but historically? No. I don’t really need my surname.

But then of course there’s the issue of my wife’s name, one which is also impossible to spell and pronounce, plus it’s their dad’s surname, and they never had a particularly good relationship with their dad. Their assumed Internet name of “Sleight” suits her much better, and I’ve ever started thinking of them as “Jill Sleight” in my head.

But back to me. I’m keeping my own name for the simple reason that the legal hoops I’d have to jump through would be a massive headache. I’d need to change bank details, passport, work details, qualifications, student loan accounts, Government documents… I’ve claimed benefits for a while so that would be changed, too. Not to mention the subscriptions I have for Nintendo, Cineworld, and Green Party membership. Oh, and my trade union membership and probably about a million other things that I’ve forgotten to list here.

And people refer to me by my last name at work, so I’d need to deal with that somehow.

I’d need to pay to change it, as well.

Just thinking about this makes my head hurt, and I wouldn’t wish to foist this extra amount of stress onto my wife. I’m fairly sure neither of us want to burden the other with a surname which carries an amount of baggage, and seeing as how only one of the married couples I know (Robinson and Lovely) have taken that step (and it took her years, as well), I can very much see the rational behind it.

But then it hit me that I’m married now. I did it. It’s done. We have a life to lead, and as to what my wife’s name is, I genuinely don’t care.

It’s their decision and I’ll go along with whatever they decide, because it really shouldn’t be an issue.

My family can move on to the “so are you going to buy a house?” question whenever they want. I’ll give them time for that one.

TMI Tuesday: Doin’ it on the line

August 2, 2022 / Innocent Loverboy / 6 Comments

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!

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.

TMI Tuesday: Costello

June 7, 2022 / Innocent Loverboy / 5 Comments

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.