Monday 6 October 2008

'Mr Sex' wants to know about your Skanky Bedroom Experiences


Right, well...sorry I've been AWOL for a bit, but I've attending to some extremely important business; I've been making my bedroom one-night-stand-compliant again. Not that I'm on a promise or anything; it's the kind of thing one can't leave to chance. The overflowing wastebasket has been emptied. The 20 year-old copies of Viz have gone back on the shelves. The sex toys up for reviewing have been pushed as far back in the wardrobe as possible. The framed Su Pollard LP cover is still on the wall, though - some aspects of your personality can't be hidden, and nor should they be.

Now then; I have no wish to get all Kim and Aggie on any man's arse, but if you are intending on bringing lady-flies into your spiderly parlour, there are two areas of the house you must get sorted; the bedroom and the bog.

(And let's not talk about the latter for now, seeing as the seat on my toilet is so slidey at the moment that I'm terrified that, one morning, I'm going to suddenly toboggan all the way down the stairs and onto the street with me trousers round me ankles, still reading the paper. But anyway)

When it comes to the boudoir, so many men get it horribly, horribly wrong. Actually, that's a misnomer; they actually fail to get it right, and then keep it that way, letting their bedrooms fall into chronic disrepair. Let me give you some examples of the worst bedroom-related atrocities that I've come across, through my many years of house-sharing;

* A bedside table groaning with miniature jars of potted meat (some still open and crusted up), accompanied by a packet of mouldy finger rolls and a flask of tea, as if he was a bedridden Nana - a very sexy look, as you can imagine

* A floor pitted with crusty tissues and a three-quarter-full bottle of Coke with the top off that had congealed to the point where it didn't slop out when it was kicked over

* A room that had cables running from it from three laptops, all the way down the stairs, through the living room and into the kitchen

* A wardrobe containing a brewing vat that the occupant would piss into instead of walking twenty yards to the toilet (this was in halls of residence at Uni; when the heating went on in the winter, the pipe it was wedged against warmed up and melted the plastic, causing severe leakage and an entire floor of people having to sleep in the gym like survivors of a nuclear attack)

* A telly the size of God's face in the corner, a floor looking like a branch of Blockbusters after an earthquake, and a bedside table consisting of family packs of Mars bars, a paintballing gun, and assorted Playstation joypads

Now, one day soon, I'm going to teach you how to get your bedroom properly sorted for a night of tuppery. But until then, I'm calling upon the fair ladies of the Todger Talk community to answer the following question; what was the worst bedroom you've ever been lured into, and what turns you off quicker than seeing John McCain in his pants, giving his cobblers a right good scratching and doing that horrible smiley scowly thing he does? I don't need you to name, but I would like you to shame. Tell us, and spare no detail...

(NB - and yeah, I'm totally aware that women can be just as guilty of this, but it doesn't matter as much. A woman could have the rotting corpses of her entire family in her bed, and we still probably would, wouldn't we?)

21 comments:

Trixie Firecracker said...

Excessive posters of scantily clad women on the wall, in plain view of the futon (no bed).

Unknown said...

Sweaty gym kit that had been draped around the entire apartment for a few days.

Annushka said...

Dirty dishes and glasses, soda cans, every item of clothing on the floor- he had a closet, but didn't own any hangers- and, most upsetting of all, an empty bookshelf.

Anonymous said...

i once walked into a manchild's room.

handdrawn posters of half-naked anime women, dozens of half-naked anime heroine figurines, and a store's rotating browsing rack full of manga and old game cartridges.

my vagina shriveled. thank god i wasn't involved with the guy.

at least there wasn't any rotting food out.

Anonymous said...

It was late, we were drunk and I didn't notice much about his bedroom apart from a beer fridge, a map of the British Empire, a union flag and a flag of St George. He attmpted to light a couple of candles. It was fine, the true skank was in the bathroom.

As expected in a uni house of boys the bathroom would make Kim and Aggie shriek. Half drunk cups of tea half drunk a couple of weeks ago surrounded the loo like it were a sacred shrine and these were gifts to the God. Other gifts included the pile of porn on the top of the cistern (which I thought was funny more than offensive).

When I got back to his room I said nothing but his brain must have been working at some level because he begged me not to tell my friend who was the Students' Union's Women's Officer.

Pants said...

Let's see. I remember the guy with all the Mariah Carey cd's, that was a pretty big turn off.

Then there was was the guy whose room didn't have a door (as in visible exit). Pretty creepy! It turned out there was a shutter in the floor, but he had camouflaged it so it took me over half an hour to find.

Also the guy in the very unfinished room, and you can read about why that turned into a disaster here: http://rantsfromthepants.blogspot.com/2008/09/why-so-serious.html

vermilliona said...

My ex did have the mitigating factor of being bipolar and frequently horribly depressed, but he was also not the tidiest of people to start with and his room was atrocious. Cigarette ash everywhere, beer stains on the sheets, week-old plates and bottles, not bothering to change the bedding for weeks. Some time after we broke up, there were *maggots* throughout his kitchen after he left the bin for a week in high summer.

I put up with a lot because I loved him, but God it's a relief to go out with someone who cleans regularly - and it definitely helps me relax when I don't feel that we're having sex in a landfill.

Anonymous said...

* A floor pitted with crusty tissues and a three-quarter-full bottle of Coke with the top off that had congealed to the point where it didn't slop out when it was kicked over

Why do I get the feeling it wasn't filled with Coke :(

I have an ex whose cheap ikea bed was no match for his mighty giants frame and had ended up being propped up with computers.
The worst thing about that room was being told the story of finding a used condom that had been found in his light shade. A couple of weeks after he'd last "used" his room.

Didn't spend too much time there, thankfully. That's the kind of story that makes you very careful about touching things, or moving things.
Or turning the light on for fear of something cooking.

Anonymous said...

A good friend of mine went back to this guy's place, it was a squat. The only thing in the room was a bare mattress on the floor and a child-sized toilet in the corner, encrusted with god-knows how many years of grime. To top it all off, the entire floor surrounding these two items was covered in cigarette butts, literally mounds of the stuff. My friend didn't care at the time because she'd been after the guy for ages, but in the morning she took a picture (that's how I know how bad it was!) and found that the jumper she had ripped off in the throes of passion only a few hours before had been riddled with cigarette holes....

I think the worst one for me was not being able to find the bed in the bedroom due to the thousands of items of old clothing that littered every horizontal AND vertical surface. The smell capped it all off...

I must also say though that no matter how vile the room is, as long as the guy is clean then you can still get over it. I once nearly gagged when this guy ripped his pants off. Had to leave there and then...

Anonymous said...

There was a pet snake in a glass container. And a workstation with dozens of work-in-progress toy figurines (Games Workshop fetish).

Ok, to be fair, I wasn't really turned off.

But hindsight, I should have been. Big time.

Anonymous said...

It was clean - to man standards

It was tidy - to man standards

It was when he introduced me to his collection of teddy bears - all dressed in bondage fantasy type gear and lined up on a shelf overlooking the bed.

The eyes just stared at you . . . I made my excuse and left pretty pronto.

Anonymous said...

Kids pictures beside the bed are a serious turn off.

I don't care if you've got children - and good on you for loving them enough to put pictures of them up in your home and brag - but I don't want them watching me defiling their daddy. It's a little awkward yelling "Fuck my ass nice and hard" with their progeny looking down on you.

Anonymous said...

Allow me to turn this into a question.

My flat isn't that large.
Is a computer desk in the bedroom acceptable at all?

(Assuming I could keep it reasonably free of clutter.)

Anonymous said...

Living in a latin american country where 98% of the country is catholic (I'm part of the 2% that isn't) I must say that having a picture/statue of Christ crucified or with a ring of thorns around his head is not a fun thing to have in the bedroom. Although of all the things listed (specially the cleanliness issues) I don't think it is that bad in comparison.

Tissues on the floor are unacceptable. Use the garbage can PLEASE.

...Nessy... said...

Dale, that's a really weird question.

Why would it be wrong to have a computer desk in your room?

Answering the question at hand, though. I once went out with someone who refused to take me to his room, 'cause it was *that* bad.
Apparently his car was cleaner.
I'm glad I didn't stick around long enough to find out how bad his room was.

Fodder said...

A telly the size of God's face in the corner, a floor looking like a branch of Blockbusters after an earthquake, and a bedside table consisting of family packs of Mars bars, a paintballing gun, and assorted Playstation joypads


This sounds like an awesome bedroom, where do I find me one of those?

Personally, I don't see the problem with anime/half-naked women/figurines, but that's probably my geeky side talking. If he has an interest, why should he hide it from you? Isn't that bad?

CTV said...

Anonymous who has the problem with children's pictures: you owe me a new keyboard and a cup of tea.

blueskies2day said...

one guy's room was so bad that when i asked for an ashtray, he encouraged me to just use the floor.

another guy stripped all his wallpaper off one wall in an ambitious attempt to create a mural... and then got bored, so his bedroom looked for 2 years as if he was mid-decorating.

Anonymous said...

The room was actually extremly tidy, but he had a large sword and knife collection displayed around his bed. Like nija swords and serial killer knifes. Very creepy.

Anonymous said...

nessy: well, one could think of it as the small version of Sam's story of three laptops and cabling.

Anonymous said...

To be fair if you want JUST a one night stand the quickest way to get the girl up and out of there the next morning is to have some bedroom mess or an unclean bathroom. Nothing makes me want to leave more(post-satisfaction and pre-snuggling) than sheets which should have been washed a week ago or a light layer of dust on the lampshade ...
just keep the lights on dim before and during action...or be really good at foreplay...