Something For The Ladies #17

Ladies: If there's ever been anything about men you've wanted to know but were afraid to ask, or wanted a male viewpoint on a certain relationship niggle you're going through, drop an email to us at todger dot talk at googlemail dot com. Every week, we shall pick one out and answer it to the best of our capabilities.

Gentlemen: We would very much appreciate your input, so the comments section of each Something For The Ladies post will be yours and yours alone for 24 hours. In other words, all female comments will be deleted. Sorry ladies, but in this case we'd be very grateful if you'd hush those sweet keystrokes and let the chaps have their say. Just for today, though.

This week's question...

Anonymous writes:

You've said a lot of useful things about green lights. But how best to give red ones? Are there any polite, non-hostile ways of dealing with, ahem, men who appear to be colour blind when it comes to signals? Is there ever a good way to say 'but I REALLY just want to be friends'?

Sam`says: The most important rule here is about eye contact. If you don’t fancy a guy in a bar or at a party NEVER, EVER, EVER give him any eye contact whatsoever. Preferably chuck in some really negative body language like turning your back to him, and making sure your feet are facing the complete opposite direction.

You have to remember that men over-interpret signals. There are various studies that show that men consistently over-estimate the sexual interest of the women they are talking to. Essentially, they push it one level up. If you are just being friendly, they probably think they’ve pulled. If your thinking that you're being cold, they probably think you are happy chatting with them. This means you have to be blunt with your signals.

The other issue here is about men who run red lights. If you have been giving off red lights and a guy still comes and talks to you, he is probably either a rule-breaker or just doesn’t actually get body language signals. With these sort of guys there is no real subtle way of dealing with them. You can be polite, but you have to be firm. Just remember he is being rude by ignoring your red lights!

Tactic 1: Finish the conversation – if he has just approached you, make an excuse: you have to go to the bathroom, or check on friends, etc. You need to do this as soon as possible; the longer you wait the more interested he'll think you are.

Tactic 2: The boyfriend – mention your boyfriend (even if he's an imaginary one). Several times. Keep talking about your boyfriend until he understands there is no chance.

Tactic 3: Have a safety parachute – either with your male or female friends, have some sort of non-verbal emergency signal e.g. playing with your ear that says ‘Help!’. Let them get you out, and it won’t seem hostile.

On the friendship issue, I personally think there is very little point trying to be friends with a guy who obviously fancies you. He will pretty much always hold out some hope that somehow he is going to win you over and get you in the sack. Even if you say ‘I just really want to be friends’ he will try being a friend in the hope you might realize what a good caring boyfriend he might make. Call me cynical, but there you have it.

'Mr Sex' says: And don't forget Homer Simpson's most priceless bit of advice; 'I'm not Gay, but I can learn'.

The only other thing I can add to this is if you really have no interest in the chap in question, don't string him along just because you can, or you could do with any kind of attention. It's boring.

Sam: Junk Sex Addiction

According to the latest issue of Psychology Today increasingly men are having trouble getting aroused unless they imitate or look at porn. Apparently it’s so strong that it’s like giving up smoking, they have to get used to their new non-porn related sex with tolerating unpleasant psychological withdrawl symptoms. Doesn’t sound like any fun at all.

It’s just a natural process, your brain attaches pleasure and the sense of arousal to a particular thing e.g. porn, and then if you repeat the process enough the response becomes automatic. I guess it you could call it Pavlov’s porn dog.

I suspect Mr Sex could have flagged this issue up years ago – and has.

Though I completely understand this process, it really does depress me. The bits of porn I have watched are usually pretty much lots of joyless pounding. You got about as much chance of finding some connection and love there as getting a hot chocolate at the North Pole.

To me porn seems like the junk food of the sex world. Cheap. Widely available. Mass produced. It is the staple diet of most teenagers, who then tend to make it a bad habit which carries on to later life. Leads to a web of nasty problems down the track.

But where is the organic equivalent of porn? Organic and healthy food seems to me to be a movement that is only just properly hit the mainstream. I guess in the way that junk food really kicked off in the 70s (that’s when the term was coined) and its taken almost 40 years to get organic food sections in the Supermarket. Since widespread, easily available internet porn really kicked off in the late 90s and early naughties I guess we might be waiting a while.

I know there are female directors leading the charge of a whole new style of emotional, erotic porn, but really, I hope it’s not 2030 until there is an ‘organic porn’ section in my local Anne Summers.

Sam: We’re all going on a Summer Holiday

Well Summer is here and lust and love is in the air. I’m rather inundated with clients, and poor Mr Sex is up to his eye balls in Summer related sex and love writing.

So just to give you all the heads up, for the time being there will be a slight windown of our normal target of getting you something to giggle at or think about every weekday.

As soon as things slow down a bit, we’ll put our foot back on the Todger Talk accelerator!

'Mr Sex': Asda can suck my cake

Bad news for any of us planning a birthday party for a paedophile; Asda have censored a cake with a photo of a 21 year-old when he was a baby because it deems a bare arse to be 'pornographic'. Seeing as this was the company who ran adverts consisting of housewives slapping their buttocks for years on end, they've got some fucking cheek, if you'll pardon the expression. It's bad enough that censorship in the UK is wielded by some crusty old judge who hasn't seen a fanny since decimalisation, but someone whose just been promoted up to Cake Manager determining what's obscene or not? Fuck that.

Sigh. I'll just have to go to Tesco next time I want a cake with a fisting image, I suppose.

Sex Toy Review: Nexus Vibro Ribbed

Yes, it's up-the-arse time again, but this one is a bit special. For a kick-off, it's dead expensive - nearly a hundred quid. Secondly, there's a stainless steel ball that rolls up and down the old perineum. Thirdly - and the title might be a bit of a giveaway - it vibrates. And it's ribbed. And did I mention the opportunity to stick a hundred pounds up your arse?

You will also need: An Olympic-sized swimming pool of lube. Also, if it's your first time, a towel on the bed, loads of tissues, and a wardrobe that you can slide over the door. And maybe some sandwiches and crisps and summat to read - it's going to take some time to do it properly.

Looks like: a broken-off bit of Conan the Barbarian’s sword.

Feels like: Due to the ribbiness, it's a very cautious procedure getting it in (but at least you know it's not gonna slip out and skitter across the floor). Once in, it was more comfortable than I ever thought it was going to be – until I clenched and the ball-bearing kicked in. Yoink. As for the Vibrations, they're surprisingly relaxing, coming as they do in waves. Apparently, which practise, you can attain a very strong orgasm by just clenching (leaving both hands free to read the paper, or play Football Manager), but you'll have to experiment for yourself.

Clean-up: A quick scrub under a hot tap'll do yer.

Partner Compatibility: Depends if your partner is up for ramming something up your jacksie. They usually are, though, aren't they?

Pros: It's pricey, and a bit intimidating, but it's the best on the market. Maybe not the best one for a newcomer - the Rude Boy would be the ideal first choice - but it's dead, dead, dead good.

Cons: It takes a 6-volt battery, which means you'll be traipsing round town looking for somewhere that sells em, until you find out that the only place that does is the bloke who has a stall in town twice a week, and then when you approach him you find out it costs a fortune, and then he says 'What do you need it for, anyway?' and you say you don't know because it's for a mate, and you'll come back when you have the money, and you never do because you're scared.

Nexus Vibro Ribbed, £99.45, kindly provided by www.sextoys.co.uk

Adapted from Boy's Toys, Scarlet magazine (March issue) – www.ScarletMagazine.co.uk

Sam: What price for love?

A little while I was asked to comment about a woman who put a date with her sister up for sale on ebay, it’s a bit of fun but got me thinking.

Here is a person who is literally putting her sister’s love up for sale – well of course that’s the idea, the actual chance of the highest winner being a person that she is going to fall in Love with, is, in my opinion, pretty low. Though on the other hand James Blunt’s sister did find love through ebay, but then that was the chance to transport to her a funeral in Ireland.

I think this raise a really intersting issue of the commodification of love – or put another what price would you pay for love.

It’s been happening for a while, starting with old fashioned dating agencies, and then really hit the big time with internet dating which is now globally worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year. To put my hand up I am part of that process – people pay me to teach them the skills to help them find love.

But it really hit me when I was chatting with one of my clients (who is rather minted) and he casually told me he had joined a top end dating agency and forked over £10,000 for probably 4 to 5 dates. There are matchmakers in the states who apparently charge $100,000 to help millionaires find love.

Now when I think about love, I really find it hard to put a price on it. Love is one of the most important things in my life, so to me it is really priceless. But I guess that’s why collectors pay so much for rare artworks, there is nothing else out there quite like it, or quite as important to them. So if something is priceless, and it goes up for sale, then people are potentially going to be willing to pay quite a lot of money for it.

Personally I think love is something natural and should really be free, perhaps like air. But in today’s world where love seems to be increasingly hard to find, then it clearly becomes worth something (otherwise I wouldn’t have a job!) and potentially a lot. So what do you think? What price for love?

Manbits #6

*** If you're male, and you want a bit of advice on your sexy, sexy mither, drop us an e-mail at todger dot talk at googlemail dot com ***

Sex Wasp says: I feel a right Judas asking you this, but here goes; I’ve known my best mate and his girlfriend for ages, and I get on with them both, but from what he’s told me and the way he’s acting, I’ve got this horrible feeling that he’s either on the verge of (or already having) a fling with someone from his workplace. I haven’t asked him straight out, and it’s none of my business, but his girlfriend is now almost as much of a mate to me as he is (and she went on my wife’s hen do, so they know each other), and I know that if my suspicions are correct, I’m going to be dragged into a world of shit. What do I say to him – if anything?

Sam says: You are really playing with fire here – the danger is either way you are going to get your hands burnt and will end up having to take sides. Confront him and it looks like you are taking her side. Turn a blind eye, and then it might all come out in the wash when the shit hits the fan down the track.

You could try the indirect route – once you’ve had a couple of pints ask how things are going with his girlfriend, mention you notice things seem a little rocky. Often when people play away, it’s because they are not getting what they want from their partner, whether it is love, excitement, the lure of the forbidden, or things are just getting mundane. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

You are not going to stop him playing away by telling him how bad he is – chances are you’ll find there’s something amiss in the relationship, at least from his point of view. Either he might bring it up himself, or maybe you might actually get to talk about what’s up with his girl. Stop the fire, and then you might stop the smoke.

‘Mr Sex’ says: This is a big, fat, big-titted bastard of a dilemma, and I feel your pain here. No, it’s none of your business if he’s got a knock-off on the side. And yet, it is. He might not want you sticking your oar in at the moment, but who’s he gonna call when the shit hits the fan, and whose ear is he gonna chew off if it all goes tits-up? Exactly.

Also, it’s in your best interests to help sort it out for absolutely selfish reasons; I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find a mate’s girlfriend who you actually get on with and doesn’t get in the way of a friendship, and when she’s involved with your missus…well, you’re going to get involved and be forced to take sides whether you like it or not.

Personally, what I’d do is to take the Sam route and have a quiet word – but I’d also take the time to point out as subtly as possible how mint his girlfriend is (if she is), and make it clear to him that women as good as that aren’t exactly dropping off trees – and if he’s got time to kill, he should be killing it with you. Even better, sort out some quality time between the four of you; demonstrate that the coupled-up lifestyle is far removed from the Terry And June stereotype, and – when the relationship’s good - it’s a fuck’s sight better than trawling the pubs for meaningless sexual encounters or whatever’s going at the office.

And if the worst comes to the worst and he is carrying on with someone else, at least you’ve made him take the first step towards being a man about it and ending his current relationship. Telling him he’s being a twat won’t solve anything, but make it absolutely clear that, although you won’t tell on him, neither will you help him hide it. I’m very interested to see what other people think about this, so I’m shutting up right now and saying…

People of TT: Comment!