August Roundup

The 2nd August dawned like the first day of autumn with that melancholy end of summer light, bright but somehow not warming. We still have a complete Test series against India to come while the County Championship is on hold while artificial teams spend the main holiday month playing an artificial competition called The Hundred. Cricket designed by management consultants rather than by people who actually value the game and its traditions. This is apparently designed to bring a more diverse audience to the game. This is nonsense on two levels. Firstly BAME Britons mostly have roots in the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent where traditional cricket is very well established. If people of Caribbean heritage no longer attend matches in the way they did forty years ago this may have more to do with excessive ticket prices and a feeling that they are not welcome (I remember heavy handed confiscation of steel drums at Test matches in the 80s and media comment that bordered on racism) than because there was no silly competition to attract them. And, as for the implication that women cannot understand the complexities of traditional cricket I will make no comment. But, at least football came back and the Baggies have made an encouraging start to the season.

On matters sex the month got off to a brilliant start with some brilliant Sinful Sunday posts, particularly this by Molly and this by Focussed and Filthy

I have read some fab posts about period sex (and written about it myself) and this by Deviant Succubus is a worthy addition.

Some 40 miles from where I live is Mount St, Bernard Abbey, high up in Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire. It is actually only a mile or so from the noise and bustle of the M1 but could be light years away. I go there probably three or four times a year and sit in the silence of the church. And it is silence. Extended silence can be emotionally demanding but short spells are balm for the soul. I enjoyed these reflections on silence by May More. By the way the monks of Mount St. Bernard now brew England’s first ever Trappist beer, Tynt Meadow, which I can totally recommend.

I also enjoy forest walks, although I have yet to encounter the Barefooot Sub or anybody e;se doing a scavenger hunt like this

And on a similar theme Exposing 40 did a coastal walk in an area I know well.

I like raspberries, a versatile soft fruit that blends well with so many other things. And I enjoyed this raspberry inspired poem by Violet Fawkes.

This stone frieze from a temple in Northern India captured by Jerusalem Mortimer a few years ago is quite something. We actually have similar things in England and there are stone carvings in high up out of the way places on our medieval cathedrals that leave little to the imagination, one I remember seeing showing a very flexible man giving himself a blow job! A reminder that sex, and more particularly erotic imagination transcends culture and time. Our sexuality is a bond with previous generations. And writing about sex , while it is a lot of fun, is also serious as it gets to the very core of our shared humanity.

This by Coffee and Kink on consent violation is BDSM is a necessary and important post.

After a year in which many sex workers have only been able to earn money online or through phone sex, this story by Marie Rebelle was actually highly topical.

One place many sex workers have migrated to online is Only Fans. In this piece Australian sex worker Tilly Lawless explains why Only Fans is every bit as exploitative as real life sex work can be.

Kink of the Week for the first half of the month was Hotel Rooms where I have had a lot of debauched adventures as I explain here. I also enjoyed Bibulous One’s reflections on the same subject.

Like Missy I have a large collection of boots but am not sure I rock them like she does. And I do need to team them with a shirt sometime.

This from My Wild Lens was a lovely post from the third Sinful Sunday of the month. A reminder, too, that Twitter doesn’t have to be a cesspit of hate and nastiness.

Quinn Rhodes wrote this superb piece for The Metro about issues of sexual attraction fot a trans man.

And on trans issues Jerry Barnett takes both TERFs and trans rights advocates to task here with an interesting argument that while biology matters and gender is not a social construct, transgenderism is rooted in biology. I am not sue I agree with everything he says but it is hard for any rational person to disagree with his closing point that the TERF wars and the venom surrounding them are difficult to comprehend in the context of the tiny numbers of trans people, The idea that, just looking at the UK, that 35 million women and girls can be erased by a few thousand trans women is patently absurd.

I started off with a bit of a rant about The Hundred. Keith Flett sums up the issues succinctly in this piece.

And, as for music for the month. The sound of August for me is that song that, arguably, marked the birth of disco.