So, I'm back at the magazine. For obvious reasons, I cannot outright name the magazine, but I will say that it features a lot about sex. In fact, the very first assignment I was given on my first day back at the office was about foreplay.
Now, for the twenty-somethings who read this magazine and whose lives are peppered with casual 'hook-ups' (a word I would never use in my own life, but which comes in handy when I'm writing for the mag), sex stuff probably flows from their lips like - I don't know - flavoured condom gel or whatever the latest sexessory (see what I did there? Sex + accessory) is.
But not I. Given my chronic sleeplessness and general state of doughiness, bedroom shenanigans have fallen from my list of priorities and I am therefore no expert on foreplay, unless you consider this to include asking my husband to pass me my book before I fall asleep.
Hence, some research had to be done. Gingerly I typed the words 'foreplay new techniques' into my search bar, hoping that I will never have to take my laptop in to be serviced (Can there really be new techniques? Surely with this you kind of have to make the most of what you've got. Even Apple couldn't innovate foreplay?).
At this stage, I was blushing so furiously it felt like my face was trying to detach itself from my head. I tried to bolster myself with memories of the last sex story I wrote. This one was on a device called the butterfly, a gigantic piece of plastic that you step into like a pair of panties and then let it do its thing. Again, while researching this I thought about why anyone would want to expend so much energy, and if it wouldn't just be easier to have a read and go to sleep, and I had a bit of a wonder about where you would store such an awkwardly shaped item so that your helper/kids didn't find it. But apparently I am alone in such musings, to judge by the number of bloggers who have dedicated their free time to trying out sex toys in the name of the public good. These blogs have names like Ilovevibrators!.com (note the exclamation mark!), and the authors issue warnings like "I had to try this one at my parents house and it made a lot of noise". Which baffled me slightly - surely you never HAVE to try a vibrator? Is there really a life and death situation where you HAVE to step into a panty-shaped harness to have a butterfly-shaped thing massage your bits? What, exactly, is the 'or else' here?
But back to the present. I must, at this stage, mention that I share the office with only one other person, an intern called Peter who is so shy he never raises his voice above a whisper. He is easily embarrassed, too. So I can't begin to imagine what went through his mind when the website I downloaded in the name of research piped up, in a husky Spanish voice: "Have you been looking for your g-spot?" It was a voice at once tender and seductive, and yet almost perturbed and maternal, as if it was deeply (ahem) concerned about your ongoing quest for the missing item and eager to lend a hand (ahem ahem) to help you find it.
As it turns out, Peter is not one for looking for G-spots, which made the situation somehow worse. As I coughed and spluttered in my humiliation, I could only think: ah, the glamour of working in magazines.
Now, for the twenty-somethings who read this magazine and whose lives are peppered with casual 'hook-ups' (a word I would never use in my own life, but which comes in handy when I'm writing for the mag), sex stuff probably flows from their lips like - I don't know - flavoured condom gel or whatever the latest sexessory (see what I did there? Sex + accessory) is.
But not I. Given my chronic sleeplessness and general state of doughiness, bedroom shenanigans have fallen from my list of priorities and I am therefore no expert on foreplay, unless you consider this to include asking my husband to pass me my book before I fall asleep.
Hence, some research had to be done. Gingerly I typed the words 'foreplay new techniques' into my search bar, hoping that I will never have to take my laptop in to be serviced (Can there really be new techniques? Surely with this you kind of have to make the most of what you've got. Even Apple couldn't innovate foreplay?).
At this stage, I was blushing so furiously it felt like my face was trying to detach itself from my head. I tried to bolster myself with memories of the last sex story I wrote. This one was on a device called the butterfly, a gigantic piece of plastic that you step into like a pair of panties and then let it do its thing. Again, while researching this I thought about why anyone would want to expend so much energy, and if it wouldn't just be easier to have a read and go to sleep, and I had a bit of a wonder about where you would store such an awkwardly shaped item so that your helper/kids didn't find it. But apparently I am alone in such musings, to judge by the number of bloggers who have dedicated their free time to trying out sex toys in the name of the public good. These blogs have names like Ilovevibrators!.com (note the exclamation mark!), and the authors issue warnings like "I had to try this one at my parents house and it made a lot of noise". Which baffled me slightly - surely you never HAVE to try a vibrator? Is there really a life and death situation where you HAVE to step into a panty-shaped harness to have a butterfly-shaped thing massage your bits? What, exactly, is the 'or else' here?
But back to the present. I must, at this stage, mention that I share the office with only one other person, an intern called Peter who is so shy he never raises his voice above a whisper. He is easily embarrassed, too. So I can't begin to imagine what went through his mind when the website I downloaded in the name of research piped up, in a husky Spanish voice: "Have you been looking for your g-spot?" It was a voice at once tender and seductive, and yet almost perturbed and maternal, as if it was deeply (ahem) concerned about your ongoing quest for the missing item and eager to lend a hand (ahem ahem) to help you find it.
As it turns out, Peter is not one for looking for G-spots, which made the situation somehow worse. As I coughed and spluttered in my humiliation, I could only think: ah, the glamour of working in magazines.
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