If you haven’t already read it, you can download a free sample here. Amazon are currently selling it for the bargainous price of £4.69.

If you’re a blogger or journalist interested in reviewing the book, please contact Sarah Maltby at Headline. And look out for my guest posts on some excellent blogs over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I’ve re-vamped my blog for the new year – including a new blog called The Final Push, which will start this week. Do let me know what you think.

Finally, The 52 Seductions also launches in Spain this this week (published by Suma de Letras), and I am greatly entertained by trying to read my copy – without speaking a word of the language. The photo on the right is ‘Early Morning Wake-Up Call.’ They look absolutely beautiful though, and I’m very proud of them (if not of my skills as a linguist).

But for each item we have ruthlessly slashed from our budget (newspapers, meals out, the prospect of a holiday ever again), there is a sister item that refuses to to be cut. Take, for example, hair removal. I am used to happily trotting down to my local waxing parlour once a month to be thoroughly defluffed. This may now be £35 we can’t afford, but that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to let my lady garden fall to ruin.

A bikini wax is something I just can’t live without. I routinely receive lectures from other women that this is not the case, but I can only assume that they have a lot less public hair than I do. Left to its own devices, my bikini line extends halfway down my thighs. I would like to say that this is a joke, but it is not. If it is slightly thinner around the edges that it used to be, then that is due to years of devoted waxing. On the rare occasions I’ve tried to grow it back, I’ve developed thrush from the sheer heat it generates. I concede that no-one ‘needs’ a Hollywood (great to have the choice, though), but without my bikini wax, my pubis would resemble Brian Blessed after a particularly heavy night out.

So, there’s only one thing for it. Herbert will have to become my waxing technician. I ask him if he’d mind.

‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘It sounds quite entertaining, actually.’

Entertaining for you maybe, Herbert. Come Sunday afternoon, I spread an old sheet over the bed, and make up a batch of sugaring wax (see recipe below). I have taken the precaution of buying proper spatulas and waxing strips, and I lay these out on a tea-tray covered in newspaper. As a final touch, I bring in my desk lamp so that he can see what he’s doing.

‘Right,’ I say to H, ‘Spread the wax in the direction of the hair growth and smooth on the strip in the same direction. Pull it off in the opposite direction, but not upwards. Parallel to the skin.

‘Okay,’ he says, ‘I’ll just switch the tennis on to keep us company.’

I’m not sure this is a good idea. H is a tennis junkie, and in a battle for attention between my crotch and the ATP finals, I’m pretty sure I’d lose.

Nevertheless, I lay on my back and bend my legs outwards, revealing the full splendour of my thigh fuzz.

‘How far do you want me to go?’

‘Well,’ I say, pulling up my knickers, ‘you see the line where the hair goes from thick bush to wispy hair? That’s the line I want you to follow. Make sure it’s a triangle.’

‘Fine,’ says H, sunnily. He layers on a thick line of wax, smooths on the fabric strip, and then pauses dramatically before ripping out a big clump of pubes.

‘Ouch!’ I say. ‘Do you think you could avoid the long pause before you pull it off? It makes me nervous.’

‘That was brilliant,’  says H. ‘So much came off in one go. Look!’ He waves the strip under my nose and I see an alarming amount of black hair.

‘Remember, don’t go too far in,’ I say. ‘I don’t want a landing-strip.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says H, one eye on the telly. He smears on another streak of wax and tears it off.

‘H!’ I say, looking down, ‘You’ve gone even further in this time!’

‘I’m following the line of your knickers, but you keep moving them in!’

‘I’m moving them out of your way.’

‘Oh,’ says H. He peers in. ‘Problem is, there’s still a big patch covered in wax. Shall I just take that off anyway?’

This would mean losing most of my public hair, and I don’t fancy getting H to wax around my labia. ‘No,’ I sigh, ‘I’ll have to try and shower it out. We’ll do the other half in a minute.’

In the bathroom, I find that the right hand side of my pubic hair is a series of waxy dreadlocks. I shampoo them, but nothing seems to budge, so I begin to tug at the wax, hoping to loosen it. This leads to a huge line of hair tearing out in my hand. ‘Flaming Norah,’ I imagine Keeley, my usual waxing technician, saying. I can’t help but agree with her. I wish Keeley were here now. She’d be able to sort this out.

‘Right,’ I say to H, returning to the bedroom. ‘You’re just going to have to try to make this even. No-one will see the wonky bits but you anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ says H, ‘But I might find that a bit distracting, now that it’s my own handiwork.’

All I can hope is that I don’t have to show it to the midwife next week.

*

Sugaring Wax Recipe

I learned to make sugaring wax from an Iraqi friend when I was a teenager. It’s pretty simple and dead cheap. You can buy 100 fabric strips from Amazon for about £4 (we used about 1/3 of a pack, but I’m sure we’ll learn to improve on this rate), and 100 spatulas for about the same amount, although you only use one per session. That means my bikini wax cost about £2.50. Bargain. Clearly you could cut this cost if you had an old sheet you could cut up instead.

1. Mix 2 cups caster sugar, 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan.

2. Bring to the boil, and let it bubble away for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly. You have to stand over it to make sure it doesn’t boil over.

3. Gradually, it will thicken slightly, and become darker (see pic above). Test it in a glass of cold water – if it disperses, it’s not ready yet; if it stays together, and is pliable to the touch, it’s ready. Because it’s basically a caramel, you can also taste it at this stage – it takes on a toastier flavour when it’s done. N.B. while still hot, it will feel too thin to be used as wax. Have faith.

4. Take it off the heat and cool for 30-45 mins before using – test a small patch of it on your wrist before smearing it on! If it gets too cool and hard while you’re waxing with it, you can ping it in the microwave for 10 seconds or warm it in a bowl of boiling water, but make sure you test the temperature before you use it again.

Over the course of my working day, I like to give my pelvic floor muscles a good ol’ flex as often as I remember. Which is sometimes lots of times, and sometimes not at all. Not to worry. Despite my scattergun approach, they seem to be pretty good. For example, they did not fail me when I was required to empty half my bladder during a recent ultrasound.

The benefits of a strong pelvic floor are well known. Better bladder and bowel control, improved posture, reduced back pain, and of course, enhanced sexual pleasure. I started my daily flexes during the year of Seductions, mainly because I thought H would notice. I was genuinely surprised when my body’s response changed too: the whole length of my vagina now feels much more sensitive and ‘alive’, and orgasms almost tumble out of me.

But it turns out that my Kegel-ing efforts might have been in vain. A growing number of experts now argue that Kegels can do more harm than good – especially as few of us are doing them properly. It may be better to pay attention to our core muscles in general, rather than the specific muscles in our lower abdomen.

This all gets very complicated, very quickly, so I’ve compiled a handy guide.

*

1. What muscles are we talking about here?

Good starting point, imaginary questioner. The pelvic floor is a group of muscles that stretch from your pubic bone to the base of your spine. They support your bladder, uterus and bowel, and help these to open and close effectively. We often use the term ‘PC muscles’ when we’re talking about a strong pelvic floor, but this actually only refers to one of the muscles (the pubococcygeus). It’s better to talk about whole lot together.

Pregnancy  and childbirth are renowned for damaging these muscles, but apparently they only tend to exacerbate existing problems. We’re suffering a epidemic of pelvic floor problems because of – you guessed it – our modern habits.

This is only half relevant, but I find this Betty Dodson video enlightening. In it, she draws the internal structure of the clitoris and vulva, which helps to illustrate why strong PF muscles can lead to orgasmic fireworks.

2. What’s a Kegel?

A Kegel is the classic exercise recommended to strengthen the pelvic floor. It simply  involves drawing the PF muscles upwards, and holding for a while. I say ‘simply’ but it can take a bit of learning so that you’re not tensing every muscle in your body, holding your breath, or generally making yourself dizzy in other ways. But once learned, it’s simple and convenient. There’s a good factsheet of how to Kegel from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital here.

3. But you said that Kegels might not be the answer. 

Well, yes and no. As this post on Mama Sweat shows, Kegels can make the PF muscles too short and tense, causing a knock-on effect to other parts of your pelvis. Your vagina may feel tight, but you’re not getting the support you need. This is particularly a problem for pregnant women, for whom Kegels can make it difficult for the pelvis to open up fully during childbirth.

Far better, says biomechanical scientist Katy Bowman, to do regular squats (not the gym sort, the ‘peeing in the woods’ sort), something that our ancestors would have naturally done all the time. She suggests you start squatting in your bath every time you pee, but if that’s not your bag, she offers a great squatting programme here, and a basic guide here.

As with all things, it’s essential to do these exercises with a correct posture. This video from Hold It Sister shows good practice.

4. So it’s goodbye Kegels, hello squats?

Well, no. Alyce Adams, the self-dubbed Kegel Queen, argues that there’s nothing wrong with Kegels if they’re done properly. Her guide to the Five Biggest Kegel Mistakes shows how many of us are misinformed about how to Kegel correctly. The most important point is this: to avoid over-shortening the PC muscle, you should make sure you fully relax (not push out) after every Kegel. And there’s absolutely no need to do hundreds every day.

It’s all about balance. The squats are great for overall pelvic health, particularly for pregnant women, but (properly done) Kegels have their place too – they’re convenient, discreet and really target sexual pleasure for those interested in that sort of thing. The Kegel Queen has something to say about that, too.

5. Okay, so it’s really a case of squatting a few times a day, and Kegelling a few times a day. 

Probably, yes. Let’s be honest, integrating both or either into your everyday life is your best chance of sticking with it.

6. What about all those PF exercisers that are on sale? Worth it?

Jury’s out. Studies seem to suggest that exercising alone is more effective than gadgets, including those that use electric currents. And pregnant women are at a higher risk of infection, so shouldn’t use anything that’s inserted into the vagina.

On the other hand, PF exercising gizmos may add an extra element of motivation, because they’re pleasurable, and you can sometimes leave them in place while you get on with your life, without having to remember to keep squeezing or squatting. Given the concerns about shortening muscles, though, it’s probably a good idea not to leave them in for too long, so that you make sure your vagina gets some r’n'r between sessions.

Also, for the love of all that’s holy please don’t use PF trainers with horrible chemicals in them. Just think: these things are sitting in your vagina for extended periods, thereby offering plenty of time for you to leach the nasties out of them. The lovely Amy of Pomegranate Boutique explains all here.

If you’re interested in a PF exerciser, Pomegrante offer a great, safe range, and I’m personally a fan of Coco de Mer’s breathtakingly expensive stone love eggs.

7. Shouldn’t you issue a disclaimer for all of this?

Yeah, probably. Take responsibility for your own pelvic floor, kids. If you’ve got any doubts at all, check with your doctor. And bear in mind that I have no medical training whatsoever, except a Girl Guide First Aid badge, and that really didn’t cover pelvic floors.

This one isn't mine. I got it from Google Images.

I had always imagined that women skip along to their first ultrasound with a great sense of excitement. I hadn’t thought for one minute about the crippling terror that might descend in the days before it.

My main thought is: what if it’s not there at all? What if it turns out to be a nasty virus? But there are other worries too: What if it’s not viable? What if it’s already given up the ghost? 

Come the morning of the scan, I am quite beside myself.

‘I think my boobs have definitely got smaller again,’ I tell H, ‘and I just don’t feel as ill as I did last week. I think it’s all over. I think we should prepare ourselves for bad news.’

H, stoically pointing out that a mere five minutes ago I was feeling too sick to eat breakfast, doesn’t really know what to make of all this. ‘We just have to wait and see,’ he keeps saying. ‘We can’t do any more than that.’

I’m lucky, of course, to be having a six weeks scan in the first place. Everyone else has to wait until twelve. But I’m a patient of the fertility clinic, and even though I’ve managed to get pregnant without their help, they’re being extremely kind and treating me as if I’m still one of their flock.

In the hour beforehand, I occupy myself by chugging water. I can’t remember how much I’m supposed to drink, so I guzzle my way through a litre, just to be sure. In any case, my mouth is dry. But by the time I’m sent along to the ultrasound waiting room, every footstep feels like an earthquake in my bladder. I silently congratulate myself for being such a good patient.

By the time I’m called for the scan, my biggest worry is that I’ll be sick, and that I won’t be able to stop myself from peeing at the same time. Neverthless, I forget all that when I lie down and am smeared with gel. H decides not to sit down beside me; instead he hovers geekishly around the equipment.

‘We’ll see if we can see anything this way first,’ says the sonographer, ‘but don’t panic if we can’t. We’ll try an internal scan if we don’t get anything.’

I nod. I’d prefer it if she skipped straight to the internal one, if that’s clearer. I’m not proud. But I’m worried it might sound weird to ask. In any case, it’s not long before she’s pushing painfully down on my abdomen and I’m back to the distraction of trying not to piss myself.

‘My,’ she says, ‘you have been good with the water-drinking.’

Yes, I think. I am ridiculously conscientious like that. I watch her roll the handset over my stomach. Nothing appears. It feels like a lifetime.

‘Problem is – and I don’t find myself saying this often – I think you’re bladder’s too full.’ She points out the enormous reservoir of water on the screen, and the way that it’s squashing my uterus. ‘Do you think you can go and empty half of it?’

‘Oh god yes, thank you,’ I say. I put my skirt back on and nearly run to the loos, where I have cause to thank the gods of Kegel that my pelvic floor allows such activity.

On my return, things run much more smoothly. My uterus is looking a great deal less flattened, and very quickly the sonographer says, ‘I can see a yolk sac.’

‘Is that good?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ve just got to try and find a heartbeat now. The embryo’s very cellular at this stage, so you won’t see much else. And I’m having to enlarge it so much that it’s all very blurry.’ She shows us how other parts of the screen appear to pulse at that resolution. The whole image is like a big grey storm-cloud.

But then, she points to an area that’s pulsing slightly more than anything else. A tiny, persistent heartbeat, slightly white against the grey. ‘I feel like I’m watching an electric spark,’ I say.

‘There,’ she says, ‘perfect.’

H presses his face up against the screen and looks delighted that he can see it too. ‘I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make it out,’ he says. Nobody cries, or even wells up. We’re just relieved. And still not out of the woods in any case. Until that twelve week scan, I’ll carry on feeling like I’m kindling a fire, rather than carrying a baby. It’s just too tentative.

H had found his confidence with the ultrasound now. He points at the top of the picture.

‘Is that big, gaping space your vagina?’

‘NO!’ the sonographer and I crow in unison.

‘How rude!’ I say. ‘That’s my bladder! Honestly!’

The sonographer scoots the handset over a little, to reveal a rather more compact line on the right. ‘That’s her vagina,’ she says. ‘By the way, did you know you’ve got a fibroid?’

‘Really? They were looking for one a couple of years ago, but never found it. That would explain so much.’

‘Well, it’s nothing to worry about; it’s on the back wall of your uterus, so it’s actually the ideal fibroid for pregnancy, if there is such a thing. It won’t interfere with your baby at all.’

Our baby. Fancy that! We leave with a 5mm embryo, a 35mm fibroid to keep it company, and a tiny, electric heartbeat.

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How does that work? I was perfectly fine the day before I took the test. And then, a mere 24 hours later, I was feeling a little bit weak at the knees. Two days on, I felt like The Gods had located my ‘off’ switch, and were using it at random for their own amusement. On Saturday, for example, I got into bed for a lunchtime nap, reached down to take my socks off, and woke up an hour later with both socks still in my hand.

What’s more, I am treading the tightrope between feeling sick because my stomach is empty, and feeling sick because I’ve eaten something. Yesterday, I had to take to the sofa in groaning nausea because I’d eaten a salad. It’s a wonder I’m finding the time to continually take pregnancy tests, just to check it’s still there.

Anyway, amongst all of this, I have been reminded that I’m supposed to be a sex blogger. People keep telling me how rampant I’ll feel after these trying first thirteen weeks (THIRTEEN WEEKS?!?), but for now it’s hard to see the appeal. Still, it was Herbert’s 40th birthday on Monday, and seeing as the matter of sex hadn’t even been mentioned since that second red line appeared (a whole fortnight ago), I thought I ought to make him an offer.

Sex in pregnancy is a complicated matter. One gets the sense that it’s not really supposed to be at the forefront of your mind. After all, as soon as egg meets sperm, we’re supposed to turn into sanctified beings – all martyrdom and delicacy. Some of the (many) books I’ve bought tell you not to have sex at all in the first trimester – although most tell you to go right ahead.

What’s more, it feels a bit counterintuitive to generally prod, squash and jiggle the container that holds your precious embryo (which, this week, is the size of a blueberry and is busy growing a face, arms and legs, a bit like a Ribena berry). How come you’re not allowed to eat soft cheese, take a hot bath or roller skate (I imagine), but you’re allowed to do that?

But it is his birthday. He kindly volunteers to have a shower before he gets into bed (given that my sense of smell is currently so sensitive that I am tormented by the odour of other people’s hair, this is wise), and then snuggles in beside me. I am watching telly in my new voluminous Victorian nightie.

‘Shall I take this off?’ I say.

‘No, leave it on. It’s got a kind of Hammer House of Horror vibe.’

‘Is that good?’

‘Yeah. Sure. Why not.’ I can’t help but feel pleased that he’s never seen Rosemary’s Baby.

We begin to kiss. Then we stop. ‘That’s making me feel sick,’ I say.

H winces. ‘I’m guessing a blow job’s out of the question then.’

Too right, Herbert. Right at this moment, you activate my gag reflex at your peril. He’s looking distinctly put-off. ‘Look!’ I say by means of distraction, ‘You can entertain yourself with my enormous boobs.’

‘When do they start producing milk?’

‘When the baby comes. Don’t worry, they’re not full of anything. They won’t leak. They’re just big because…I don’t know. Because they are.’

I can’t tell whether he’s reassured or disappointed. Actually, I think he’s mainly scared. I don’t blame him. Neither of us are particularly convinced that this little berry has stuck fast yet. We’re doing all we can. But suddenly my body has become a great deal more mysterious to both of us. I’m sure we’ll get the hang of this eventually, but in the meantime, it feels a bit like learning all over again.

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The thing that’s bothering me most is: how will this affect my charts? I am poised with a Basal Body Temperature thermometer (don’t panic, it goes under your tongue) and a sheet of graph paper to track my every hormonal move this month. But, during my training session with the charming fertility nurse, no provision was made for false starts.

Was that a period? I am wondering. Do I count that as Day One? I gaze at the pristine tracking sheet in front of me, which I am loath to ruin. I do love a chart.

Perhaps it was my cervix bleeding? We did, after all, have sex on the last night of our holiday, only for the blood to dutifully appear the next morning. I thought I’d put all that behind me. But maybe not.

What’s more, I had spent the whole week in slight trepidation, not wanting to kick back too much and overdo the booze, but feeling frustrated at my own timidity too. The arrival of my period was a huge relief. I could, finally, have a proper glass of wine. Or three. And maybe a little nip of frozen vodka to send me to bed. I was not going to miss this one guilt-free opportunity of the month.

Perhaps this is why I take a pregnancy test. Sheer guilt. Sheer uncertainty. A quiet, unexamined thought says: If it’s positive, at least you’ll know where you are in your cycle. As if positive pregnancy tests are of no significance at all, and crop up all the time in this household.

I dutifully pee in a plastic cup, dip in a testing stick and then get in the shower. I get out, dry myself, and then think how stupid the logic of my test had been. Nevertheless, I glance at it, and think I see something.

I squint. A faint pink line, so pale it’s nearly invisible. I hold it to the light. Yes: definitely something there. I put it down on the sink, and walk into the bedroom, where I find H propped up, watching TV.

‘I’ve got a second line on a pregnancy test,’ I say, in a flat voice.

Before he can even answer, I’ve walked back into the bathroom to look again. Still there. I return to the bedroom.

‘What does that mean?’ asks H.

‘I don’t know.’ I go back to the bathroom again, and so on: back and forth a dozen more times until H suggests I bring the test in to show him.

He squints, just as I did.

‘Hardly anything there,’ he says.

‘Yes, but my ovulation tests were all like that.’

‘Hm,’ says H.

‘And they say you never get a false positive.’

‘Okay.’

‘So I think I might be a tiny bit pregnant. Not properly. Just sort of on the verge of.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t really prepared for this eventuality.’

It is only the next day, after we’ve umm-ed and aaahh-ed and felt generally confused, that it all sinks in. I turn up for my weekly acupuncture session, and say,

‘Before you start, I’ve got a faint second line on a pregnancy test.’

‘You’re pregnant, then,’ says Emma the acupuncturist, grinning. ‘Am I the first one to say congratulations?’

But I wanted to tell you a story that I think is relevant to the current debate surrounding Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendment to the Health & Social Care Bill.

Ten years ago I was a teacher, working in an girls’ school. As part of the school’s obligation to provide a moral and religious education, the school organised an afternoon focusing on abortion for the sixth formers. We were told that this would be an opportunity for the students to explore and debate the ethical issues around abortion, and as a sixth form tutor I was obliged to take part.

On the day, it turned out that the head of sixth form had only managed to book a Christian abortion counselling organisation. It had, apparently, been impossible to find a pro-choice group. We sat through an hour’s lecture on the evils of abortion, presented in the most lurid and biased terms possible. The speaker focused solely on very late-term abortions. I remember seeing a photo of a foetus having its spinal column severed by a surgeon. It was, deliberately, hugely disturbing, and completely lacked any context regarding how rarely this sort of procedure takes place, and the benefits that some women may find in ending a pregnancy.

At one point, one of my students ran out of the room in tears. It was known among some of the staff that she’d recently had a termination herself. At the end of the talk, the speaker told the students that her organisation provided free counselling for women considering abortion, or who had already had one. Anyone was welcome to access their services. As I took my group away, I noticed people from the anti-abortion organisation gathering around to comfort the girl who ran out.

On the face of it, the amendment to the Health & Social Care Bill sounds perfectly innocuous – providing counselling for women considering abortion, and ensuring that they don’t come under any pressure to undergo an abortion they’re unsure about.

No-one could argue that women shouldn’t be offered support. No-one could argue that abortion is a decision to be taken lightly. But it’s vital that any counselling received is unbiased. Effective talking therapies rely on an absolute bond of trust between the client and the therapist – in particular, the client needs to feel free to express every element of their opinion and thought process. I don’t believe that this is possible if you already know what your therapist – strongly – believes.

It would be brilliant if David Cameron announced funding for self-referring, walk-in, value-neutral counselling for any woman who needed it. In the landscape of cuts, though, it’s hard to imagine this happening. Instead, vulnerable women may be forced to use services provided by biased, proselytising organisations whose express intention is to prevent abortion.

A fascinating and furious debate took place in my classroom after the talk. Quite contrary to my fears, my students saw straight through the excessive manipulation they’d endured, and led their own, far more moderate debate on abortion. Not everyone thought it was a good thing, but both sides of the debate were united in their disgust at being spoken to like children. I was proud of them. But the sight of that girl in the folds of the anti-abortion counsellors still snags in my throat. She deserved much better therapy than that.

Today, it’s in aid of an ovulation test, and, frankly, I’m attempting to share my pain. I last caught myself ovulating two months ago, and that was on day 9 of my cycle. Not a peep last month. Today it’s day 14, and I suspect this means I’ve missed the boat again. There’s something miserable about dunking your little stick in a pot of your own urine every day, only to get the single control line, day in, day out. It’s such a non-event that it doesn’t really merit a conversation; but its effect is cumulative misery. Still nothing.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t bought a duff set of sticks,’ I say to H. ‘The ones that registered an LH surge cost £35 from Boots. These ones were a fiver for 50 from eBay. Maybe they’re just shit.’

‘Cheaper though,’ says H.

‘Yeah,’ I say. I count under my breath as I watch the stick turn gradually pink, and see the familiar control line appear.

‘Why don’t you try both at the same time next month?’ he suggests. ‘That way, you could see if both types say the same thing.’

It’s a good idea, particularly seeing as I have a whole drawer full of the cheap tests remaining. I balance the test stick on the sink and begin to put on my makeup. Then I glance down.

‘Bloody hell,’ I say. ‘Would you bloody believe it? It must have heard me!’

I wave the stick in front of H’s nose, and squints at it. ‘Yup,’ he says, ‘that’s definitely a second line.’

‘We’d better get busy in that case.’

The following evening, I’m still registering a faint second line, so we decide we ought to make a second attempt at the baby-making sex. Seeing as I recently learned that sperm live for up to five days inside your uterus (which, in my view, counts as an infestation), this amounts to sending in reinforcements, which will mass around my fallopian tubes, waiting for one of them to feebly cough out an egg.

We’re both hungry, so we decide to go out for dinner first, and so, inevitably, we’re both feeling sleepy and bloated by the time we get home to bed. H takes off his clothes, and belches loudly.

‘I’m guessing you’re not much in the mood,’ I say.

‘Well, ordinarily no,’ he says, ‘but that doesn’t mean to say we won’t have sex. Maybe you could go on top; I think I’d be sick if I had to bounce around too much.’

‘So romantic,’ I say. ‘Maybe we should try spoons instead?You can’t burp at me from that angle.’

‘Sorry,’ says H. ‘I’ll try to stop.’

I lean in and kiss him. ‘I’ll get my vibrator. I think I might need it.’

‘Fair comment.’

‘Maybe some lube, too.’

‘Oh.’ H’s face scrunches up into something resembling devastation. ‘It’ll take it so much longer for me to come if we use lube.’

‘I tell you what,’ I say, ‘if tonight’s the night we conceive, we’ll tell our offspring that it happened some other way entirely. We’ll pretend that we were having amazing, romantic, spontaneous sex somewhere glamorous.’

‘It’s fine,’ says H. ‘If we conceive this month, we’ll have no idea whether it happened tonight or last night. Last night was fun. We can just push tonight out of our minds.’

‘Agreed,’ I say, smearing myself with lube and firing up the vibrator. ‘And anyway, I believe it’s mostly considered inappropriate to talk to your children about the sex that conceived them.’

‘Yeah,’ says H, ‘that too.’

And then, weirdly, we end up having surprisingly pleasurable sex, free of burping and complaining. Or at least, that’s what we’ll tell the children. When they’re old enough.

This post will self-destruct in a fortnight.

A sexy neanderthal?

I hope you enjoy my interview with archaeologist (and great friend) Dr Beccy Scott, who sets us straight on the assumptions made about the sex lives of Neanderthals and early humans.

What you don’t get to hear is five minutes of us giggling and saying, ‘Shut up! You’re making me laugh too much!’ at the beginning. Given this inauspicious start, it’s surprisingly enlightening.

This interview was recorded over Skype, so apologies for the occasionally fuzzy sound.

Click here to listen in Podbean.

‘No difference, then,’ I joked weakly. But I felt churningly guilty. Because I’ve done my fair share of expressing horror at the way magazines routinely airbrush the people who appear in them. And yet, when the time came for my own image to appear in the glossy pages, I made damned sure that I’d be airbrushed, too.

Airbrushing (or more accurately, extensive Photoshopping) is the beauty world’s equivalent of phone hacking. It’s something we’ve all known about, if we’re honest. But faced with the brutal facts – the already very thin Kate Middleton made to look even thinner by Grazia; L’Oreal giving their foundation a little helping hand – we declare ourselves appalled.

And, like phone hacking, we’re complicit. We buy those perfected images, and rather like them. We drool over the exquisiteness of actresses and models who pose in clothes, not as real people, but as platonic ideals of the human body, unattainable paragons of loveliness.

In many ways, I don’t have a problem with this – so long as we remember to acknowledge that what we’re looking at is impossible. If some of the most beautiful people in the world are deemed to need airbrushing, then we mere mortals don’t have a chance.

But the problem is, we forget. We get suckered by the pristine skin and elongated limbs, and then we gaze down at our ordinary bodies and feel the lack. We can’t help but compare ourselves unfavourably to bodies whose beauty is maintained by continuously eating below the recommended daily amount of calories, or by surgery or beauty treatments way beyond a normal person’s reach.

What’s more, we relish the schadenfreude of watching these icons fall off this precarious pedestal – as is endlessly documented in highly-successful gossip mags – by putting on weight or leaving home without makeup.

We begin to view our own bodies with disgust. We forget that, in the real world, it’s a full time job to maintain the skinny frame of an 18 year-old, or that our skin inevitably ages, or that having babies stretches our bodies into different shapes. We only need to look around us to see evidence of this, but we choose to discount it, believing that we can do better. And then, when we can’t, we spiral into self-loathing. We become unable to enjoy the most natural pleasures of life – eating, sex, resting – because we can’t stop thinking about our ugly, imperfect flesh.

It fascinates me that, every now and then, we all rise up and get angry with ‘the media’ as if this is all their fault. But we’re the ones who pay good money to access this stuff. Millions of us buy images of impossible, celestial beings, and we recoil in disgust at the sight of real bodies. This is not men oppressing women; this is women oppressing each other.

For my part, I asked to be airbrushed because I was worried about my legs. Owning a bedroom roughly two inches larger than my bed has left me with scarred shins from continually walking into the damned frame. In real life, I tend not to wear things that reveal my pock-marked legs, but apparently that wasn’t an option. If I wasn’t to be allowed trousers, tights or leggings, I was desperate to make sure that my legs wouldn’t look like a pot-holed road.

What made me think that this was necessary? I’m an author, not a model. Why do I think I need to be beautiful to do that? Do I basically believe that I ought to be attractive in order to write about sex? I’m not sure, but I know that I came home feeling depressed and insecure, like I couldn’t quite fit into the right-sized hole.

That was never the point of The 52 Seductions. It was never about being perfect or being a ‘sexpert’. In fact, it was quite the opposite – it was about revelling the glory of imperfection, inviting everyone to feast at the table or normal. It was about saying that normal bodies – wobbly ones, scarred ones, funny-shaped ones – can be loved, admired, and desired. It was about saying that those bodies feel pleasure just as intensely as the ones we see on TV. Maybe more so, because we’re not constantly afraid of breaking an expensively-manicured nail.

What is beautiful  – and what is sexy – is the ability to feel comfortable in our own skin. We all have some work to do on that front, but we could start by opening our eyes on the streets around us to see bodies as they really are.

And another suggestion: the next time a magazine or a newspaper prints photos of someone looking minutely overweight in their bikini, why not tear out the page and post it back to the editor? For as long as we blindly accept these images, we’ll never accept our own bodies.

And, by way of atonement, here’s a picture of me at the hairdresser last week. I know what you’re thinking: the glamour.