May Roundup

May is Mary’s month. It is also masturbation month so it seemed like a good idea to start off the roundup with a masturbation pic.

One thing I can totally relate to is how the inner life has become so important to people during the pandemic and how this is not unproblematic. Master’s Pleasing bitch talks aboit her experiences here.

And I must talk of body hair. I have to own up to being a leg waxer and an armpit shaver although I am ambivalent about it. Originally it was something I was shamed into doing but I actually like the smooth and lissom feel of freshly waxed legs. But body hair is natural and not something anyone should feel pressured into removing, Anyone? It is, inevitably women who are pressured into undergoing depilation, and refusal to conform can be liberating. Coffee and Kink talks here about why she is hairy and proud.

Over the last year or so I have been engaged on my first collaboration, with Posy Churchgate. The story of the year a young French aristocrat spends at a grim Surrey boarding school reached its conclusion with Posy’s epilogue.

Kink of the Week for the first two weeks of the month was leather and I enjoyed Molly’s own contribution here. And Sub Bee’s reflections on her leather fetish here

One of the consequences of the pandemic was people being unable to see lovers. When they finally did get back together, the effect could be explosive as Morag recounts here.

Episode 4 of the new series of Call The Midwife, which is set in 1966, told the harrowing story of the coming out of a young gay man who underwent a brutal and degrading conversion therapy, or aversion therapy as it was known. This was an episode with contemporary resonance as the UK government is still prevaricating on a commitment to make conversion therapies for gay and transgender people illegal and has announced a brief consultation, presumably so that religious fundamentalists can argue that their freedom is being taken away if they are not allowed to humiliate, degrade and inflict harm on, people they think of as sinners. This issue was picked up by the UK edition of Cosmopolitan in this feature.

This on autism and queerness by Tristan was thought provoking.

Someone whose blog I have been reading a lot of recently (and why wasn’t I following it before?) is Violet Grey. Her content is just amazing and do give her a follow if you’re not already. This, for Quote Quest on being desirable is really good.

I started following Maggie McNeill when I first got interested in the politics of sex work, which was around the time I started this blog. Her writing is wide ranging and unfailingly thought provoking. This, on the tyranny of orgasm, with a side swipe at sex positive feminism, is well worth a few minutes of your time

And, on the subject of sex work, I attended a very worthwhile online discussion organised by the English Collective of Prostitutes in which Dr Laura Connelly talked about the report she has written on the subject of migrant sex workers and the highly precarious position they find themselves in post Brexit. You can download the report and view the webinar here

Who doesn’t love a strap-on? I now I do and I loved this Sinful Sunday image by Vanilla Free Sex

By a weird coincidence I was listening to Elvis Costello’s The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes when I saw this by The Barefoot Sub. Actually, I love shoe porn even more than I like actual y’know, sex porn!

This Sinful Sunday post by No Pants Endrance was quite striking!

And finally, this story by Marsha Adams, a writer I hadn’t come across before is just amazing. Set in the ruins of Warsaw in the final days of the doomed Uprising it is also brave. It works because it is so sensitively written.

Musically I can’t get away from May 17th being the 41st anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis. Joy Division’s second and final album Closer was still two months away from release. Its cover art featuring a sepulchre (designed before Curtis’ death) seemed chillingly prophetic. This is a dark album and one of the darkest tracks is Decades. It is also sublime.