When does fucking become making love?

Fleshbotted



I started to write this piece in January of last year.

I had asked Ruf how he felt about it being the second anniversary of the day we first made love and his reply certainly brought me up short:

'But we didn't make love, we fucked!'

And he's right. For the first few months, that is absolutely what it was. Even though when he texted me he would sign off with 'Love you', he didn't, not really. Not in the true sense of the word. We fucked, pure and simple. Rough, animal, primal sex in ever changing positions and scenarios, pounding each other to satisfy an immediate urge.

I can remember the first time that things changed. He announced that he was going to make love to me and the sex was slow and gentle. It felt as if he made me a part of him. He kept whispering how much he loved me in my ear, against my neck, his lips moving the words on mine. Our bodies were so tightly melded together, belly to belly, thigh to thigh as my legs wrapped around his and drew him ever closer. My orgasm was quiet and soft, but so fulfilling.

The reason I remember it so clearly is that, an hour later, he took me by the hand and led me to the sofa. There was something he needed to tell me. It was a confession that resulted in big fat tears rolling down my cheeks and the sudden realisation that I could lose this.

It was a few months in... and we had hit a blip.

After a distressing exchange, we retired back to bed. Not for sex, but to try to begin working through the difficulty in that naked haven where there was nowhere to hide and we both felt totally at ease.

Three years on, we seem to copulate in a variety of ways. Sometimes we fuck furiously, sometimes we experiment and sometimes we gently make love to each other and there is a definite difference. The fucking is wild and abandoned, rough and rampant, as opposed to the communicative camaraderie of experimentation or the lovemaking, gentle and controlled as we surround ourselves with each other's flesh and extract one another's orgasm with the intensity of our feelings.

But at the foundation of each is a mutual celebration of this amazing connection that grew between us.

A few weeks ago, I found this over at Z's The Naked Truth. I think it explains rather better what I was trying to say.

You can say it’s making love, because it’s silent and intense and trailed with kisses. You can say it’s making love because it’s focused and intent and imbued with tenderness. But you can’t say it’s not fucking when my hips rise to meet his, and you can’t say that the fuck of before or the savage selfishness of the one next morning are more loveless or less loveful or that any of them outpace the others in an animal slaking of lust and desire. You can’t quantify it by the frenzy or lack of it, but only by the connection, and that is as likely to be found in the white heat of desperate fucking as it is in the sensuous warmth of the slow dark. It’s just a different dance to a different tune, but the band is still the same.

HNT: Road Narrows

Sugasm #157

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #158? Submit a link to your best post of the week by emailing me directly at radicalvixenatgmaildotcom Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks

A 2009 Wish For Smut Writers “Sex bloggers are on the cusp of what I see as being a new kind of sexual revolution.”

Q&A with Domina Doll “I enjoy teaching others how to explore that aspect of themselves.”

Overtaken “He kissed the side of my neck, sweeping my long hair out of the way, working his mouth across the side of my neck to press little bites along my collarbone.”

Sugasm Editor Sex Work And Honesty: When The Truth Hurts

Editor’s Choice Dictation with Davis

More Sugasm

Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

The Fear

I just love this. Available to download this week, Lilly Allen's 'The Fear' is such a clever treatise on all that is going wrong with our lives today. The fixation with cash and material possessions, beauty and body shape to the exclusion of all the terrible things that are going on in the world.

How can our poor children expect to grow into properly rounded human beings when they are being bombarded by all those subversive influences from our media.

Go here for the lyrics because I don't think you get the full effect just listening. As an aspiring poet, I am full of envy.

Her last album, Alright Still, was full of such witty ditties, a proper social commentary on the way we live today.

Headbanger

In certain publications recently, people have mocked the new series of Dancing on Ice. It has been called irrelevant.

On the contrary, I have nothing but admiration for the novice celebrities who learn to skate and then perform the complex moves of their Torville and Dean choreographed routines in front of a live audience after so little practice. As has already been seen, a small mistake can be punished by a great deal of pain and the possibility of stitches or even a broken bone. This is reality television that inspires me, rather than a group of rather unpleasant has-beens sitting around being nasty to each other in order to raise their public profile.

Just like its more famous sister, Strictly Come Dancing, in some ways it is easier for the female celebs, who can rely on the strength of their professional male partners to rescue them from any minor miscalculation. However, it does mean that they are encouraged to attempt the more dangerous moves sooner than the couples where the celebrity is male. Having seen one star hit her head whilst rehearsing the Headbanger, I applaud their bravery in even attempting such a move.

Their famous male counterparts need to learn to lead the partnership. Here, again, I must laud the courage of the female professionals who have to trust the fledgeling ability of their celebrity partner and allow themselves to be carried around the ice in ever more vulnerable positions.

The insistence on the inclusion of the headbanger reminded me of a very different scenario, where a less dramatic but equally painful version can occur.

As we perform our own patterns in the well-explored confines of our bed, occasionally I will lose my bearings so that my body becomes too close to the wall but be so engrossed in the ripples of pleasure coursing through my body that I'm unaware of it.

Eventually the thudding of my head against the plaster rises above the natural rhythm of his pumping. It is an irritation rather than a pain. All my receptors are otherwise engaged. Focussed on the wonderful sensations flooding into my brain. The drumming is in the background, an accompaniment, a condiment, the sprinkles upon the icing of a cupcake.

Sometimes an acknowledged and sought after additive to the thrill of the erotically charged moment. His hands holding firm on my hip and neck as he pumps harder and harder, each of us relishing the thud every time my skull hits the paintwork. It becomes a symbol of his possession.

But on other occasions, it is a percussion stridently at odds with the mood of gentleness and love behind the encounter. Until the pillow slides magically between my skull and the wall, damping the effects of its tormentor.

Never stopping the movement of his hips, his arm works independently to intercede in my dilemma and soften the blows. Eradicating the distraction and allowing my mind to be submerged and fly away, secure in the knowledge of his protective presence.

Some time later, when I resurface and smile a grateful thank you, his dismissive shrug demonstrates that it is all part of the package. My strong male partner, keeping me safe whilst he enjoys the ride.

Mute Monday: Back to B...

OK, it's not Blake but it's the closest I could get from Star Trek, other than Blake Terval, some very minor character who doesn't even merit a picture on google. So, here is Balok, an alien whose picture at the end of the Star Trek credits would make me cover my eyes and scream.



Especially for Mr Bananas and the other fans, Blakey from On the Buses - how could I have forgotten him?





I was too late to change my subject to 'Big'... but there's only ever going to be one Big in my heart :)

Backlash and The Sexual Big Brother

On Monday 26 January 2009, yup, that's tomorrow, the Extreme Pornography legislation comes into effect.

This means that, from tomorrow, it will be illegal for anyone in England and Wales to possess an "extreme" image, even if the activity itself is legal.

So, here are the relevant parts for us bloggers. Taken from the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act of 2008.

Part 5

Criminal law

Pornography etc.

63 Possession of extreme pornographic images

(1) It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image.

(2) An “extreme pornographic image” is an image which is both—
(a) pornographic, and
(b) an extreme image.

(3) An image is “pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

(4) Where (as found in the person’s possession) an image forms part of a series of images, the question whether the image is of such a nature as is mentioned in subsection (3) is to be determined by reference to—
(a) the image itself, and
(b) (if the series of images is such as to be capable of providing a context for the image) the context in which it occurs in the series of images.

(5) So, for example, where—
(a) an image forms an integral part of a narrative constituted by a series of images, and
(b) having regard to those images as a whole, they are not of such a nature that they must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal,
the image may, by virtue of being part of that narrative, be found not to be pornographic, even though it might have been found to be pornographic if taken by itself.

(6) An “extreme image” is an image which—
(a) falls within subsection (7), and
(b) is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character.

(7) An image falls within this subsection if it portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, any of the following—
(a) an act which threatens a person’s life,
(b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves sexual interference with a human corpse, or
(d) a person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive),
and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real.

(8) In this section “image” means—
(a) a moving or still image (produced by any means); or
(b) data (stored by any means) which is capable of conversion into an image within paragraph (a).

(9) In this section references to a part of the body include references to a part surgically constructed (in particular through gender reassignment surgery).

(10) Proceedings for an offence under this section may not be instituted—
(a) in England and Wales, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions; or
(b) in Northern Ireland, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland.


66 Defence: participation in consensual acts

(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person (“D”) is charged with an offence under section 63, and
(b) the offence relates to an image that portrays an act or acts within paragraphs (a) to (c) (but none within paragraph (d)) of subsection (7) of that section.

(2) It is a defence for D to prove—
(a) that D directly participated in the act or any of the acts portrayed, and
(b) that the act or acts did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person, and
(c) if the image portrays an act within section 63(7)(c), that what is portrayed as a human corpse was not in fact a corpse.

(3) For the purposes of this section harm inflicted on a person is “non-consensual” harm if—
(a) the harm is of such a nature that the person cannot, in law, consent to it being inflicted on himself or herself; or
(b) where the person can, in law, consent to it being so inflicted, the person does not in fact consent to it being so inflicted.

Let's make it quite clear here that I am totally in favour of anything that protects animals or, indeed, corpses from sexually related involvement. Just as with children, these groups have no ability to consent and, therefore, it is degrading and unacceptable for them to be a part of any such activity.

However, where these rules are to be applied to human beings, I do have a bit of a problem. I can see the reasoning behind wanting such a law if it protects those who get involved without realising the implications of what is about to happen and put themselves at risk. But this Act is not actually outlawing the activity, but, rather, possessing images of it. When this type of sexual congress occurs between consenting adults and then is viewed by other consenting adults, why should Government have a say in whether it is right or wrong? Restriction of this nature starts to smack of Big Brother and should remind us that homosexuality was once also against the Law.

What is the purpose here? Is it to stop people from dying or being seriously injured as a result of such acts going wrong or is it to stop other people looking at pictures or videos and being encouraged to try such actions for themselves? Surely, seeing someone badly injured, or worse, as a result of a sexual proclivity is more likely to make any prospective protagonists more careful?

Furthermore, amidst the talk of remotely accessing people's hard drives, how can having such a picture but not distributing it be committing an offence? If the content is of a consensual act between adults and was taken for their own private memories...?

Which brings us on to who decides what constitutes something that is 'grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character'?

I find the concept of having someone poop on me quite revolting so I choose not to look at images depicting it, but I'm not about to stop people who like it from enjoying themselves. Is posting scat pictures on the web going to become illegal? I'm sure that ingesting faeces must have the possibility of life-threatening consequences.

Obviously, there is a limit to my liberal attitudes when it comes to being seriously physically harmed as part of anyone's sexual gratification but does our Government really feel it needs to protect people from themselves in quite such an intimate area? As with all games that involve a partner, there has to be an element of trust or you don't make a good team. However, again, my interpretation of the Law is that it's not the act itself that is being policed but the photographing of it.

Some people might have found the image that I posted last year of the results of having my bottom spanked with a crop comprising metal balls quite disgusting. Whilst others may have become sexually aroused by the sight. Does this mean that any possible prosecution would rest on the two points of whether someone in law enforcement deems the image offensive and whether I posted the image with the intent to provoke sexual arousal? Or could I use the defences that my life was never threatened, my anus and genitals not at risk due to the protection of my pert derriere and that I was actively and consensually involved in what occurred? Well, until the last couple of strokes anyway. I was going to ask if being spanked with a crop is legal but, of course, that doesn't matter. It is the possession of the photograph showing the act that is the offence. However, this particular picture shows the implement and the effects, not the spanking itself so does that mean it is exempt?

It's all very confusing.

Backlash, a consortium of a number of sex-positive interest groups, has put together an info-packed website, which I encourage you to visit for advice on future blog content, as well as to support their campaign against the Act itself.

In the meantime, I have thought about pulling the the image in question... But, since possession seems to be the key here, even having such a picture on my hard drive could be considered illegal so deletion would be the only option.

I really do hate being censored.

UnderRated: The Tunnel Mentality

I grew up on tales of the War. My father's love of the determined escapology of the previous generation of servicemen was passed on to me.

I watched the films and then I read the books - Colditz, The Wooden Horse, The Great Escape and the like.

The ingenuity, the Heath Robinsonish devices for disposing of all the excess earth from the tunnels, the amazing plans to cover up the engineering work that was occurring beneath the watchful gaze of the armed sentries, be it choir practice, gymnstic classes or some other scheme.


Not forgetting the forgery, counterfeiting and tailoring skills to produce the correct documentation, cash, uniforms and civilian outfits required to travel through enemy territory.

Their sheer bloody-minded determination to just get out and get home whilst causing distractions on the home front for the enemy and making work for the German interior defences as a consequence.


Spoiler alert

I watched The Great Escape recently. It's pretty much a seasonal fixture for Christmas, New Year or Easter.

Every time, I hold my breath waiting for the moment where Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson seem to have got past the checkpoint and onto the bus with the skill of their French and, as an afterthought, the policemen says 'Good Luck' in English to Jackson's retreating back. I inwardly plead with him not to respond and sigh sadly when his little Scottish voice replies 'Thank you' and the end is in sight for them.

I cry when the Gestapo shoot 50 of the 76 escapees as a lesson to try to stop the tide of tunnelling attempts and I will Steve McQueen to successfully get his motorcycle to jump over the second fence.

The incredible bravery and tenacity, as well as the horrendous cruelty of men are all highlighted in these films.

It is a great sorrow to me that my children just don't seem to be interested in watching them.

Perhaps I would do better with The Shawshank Redemption? Not escaping prisoners of war, of course, but nonetheless showing the same courage and determination to be free in the face of some hideous treatment.

Or the more modern Prison Break, which seems very popular with some ladies due to the spectacular muscles on a large number of the leading males.

Lightweights :) But I guess it's symptomatic of the generation gap or perhaps the circumstances of their confinement where well-fed muscles replace the privation and starvation of the prisoners during the War.

During the two weeks of programming commemorating the 90th Anniversary of Armistice Day, I stumbled upon Tony Robinson's Time Team and their attempts to find and open up one of the original dug-outs built by the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers to shelter the soldiers who were not on duty from the rigours of enemy shelling. The amazing feats of engineering in building these havens under the guns of the enemy was extraordinary. They would dig a tunnel down 14m below the surface of the Front and then develop a warren of rooms for bunks, kitchen and officers' quarters where the Tommys could rest and recuperate.

But it wasn't just about that aspect of their work. They were also involved in protecting the British soldiers from enemy tunnellers who would dig under their trench positions to set mines and obliterate them, developing ever more sophisticated listening methods to the stage where they could even hear an earthworm burrowing.

In addition, they waged their own war underground by digging back under the German lines and doing the same thing. Their most effective attack being 21 mines exploded simultaneously under the enemy positions on the Messine Ridge near Ypres at 3.10am on 7th June 1917, an explosion that was heard 100 miles away in Downing Street and formed massive craters which still remain today. One has been filled in and become known as the Pool of Peace.

HNT: Window

Three years ago today, if you had looked through Ruf's bedroom window on that January afternoon...

Gravity

In the aftermath, face down and spreadeagled, skin tingling and body still quivering from its exertions, I didn't want the enchantment to end. Having driven up for the first time on that Saturday afternoon, I was supposed to go home after lunch on the Sunday but I just didn't want to leave.

I had been fucked, fed, cossetted and pampered for 48 hours. I felt like a Princess.

His stated intention that he would show me what I was missing and give me the loving I needed had been delivered in spades. And, just as he promised, I had come more than I could ever have imagined. With toys and without toys... and without condoms. His test results had come through all clear the week before and it was a few days before my period was due. At that time, I was sufficiently regular and aware of the signs of ovulation to know that this had occurred the week before and so was pretty sure that it was safe not to use contraception for that weekend. It was a decision that would set a precedent of cavalier behaviour which, the following year, was to have catastrophic consequences.

We lay there, sucked, fucked and exhausted in the twilight world of a curtained bedroom on a January afternoon and, instead of adhering to my stated departure time, I started a pattern that continues to this day. Lying there sated and stroking each other, snoozing and refracting before the spectre of the imminence of my leaving rears its ugly head and we both have to go back to that place again... just once more.

But this particular day was different. For that was when it began. Two years of him torturing himself over his friends' reactions to my marital status, with me forever trying to justify my presence in his life. Always giving a litany of reasons why we worked, why I was good for him.

A repeating cycle of reunions demonstrating the most fantastic connection, followed by little pockets of uncertainty where he would try to extricate himself by explaining that he wanted a proper girlfriend, before becoming even more deeply entangled by the strength of our mutual chemistry. The way our bodies took control, ignoring the deeper thinking of any conscience, and set about fulfilling their desperate need.

Until about a year ago, when he finally started to accept that this thing was bigger than both of us. He stopped letting his logical brain constantly fight the emotion and allowed himself to relax into it, whatever the future held. Whilst I began to understand that being his lover was so much more than the smaller role that was legally denied me. I refused to permit my need for validation to be so fixated by the semantics of a mere word and embraced the entirety of our relationship.

I am so glad that we have finally reached this place.

With a salute to Nessa and Smithy in the Christmas episode of Gavin & Stacey. Another unlikely couple who eventually have to acknowledge that there is something which just draws them together...

Happy Third Anniversary, Ruf x

The Scream

On that Sunday afternoon, after 24 hours of the most intense, prolonged and repeated sexual coupling I had ever experienced, I was standing, naked, by the window, looking at the garden outside through the half-drawn curtains. The sun was shining weakly, allowing the bare trees to cast their prickly shadows across the lawn, when he came up behind me. One hand cupped my breast and the other grabbed my pussy, pulling me in towards his groin, before forcing my neck down to bend me over. My hands scrabbled at the wall to try to gain some purchase for balance and then automatically went around my ankles to support his weight as he slid himself into me.

No preamble necessary. The activities of the previous few hours had left my body craving more. Like a starving man before a banquet, it had started with a few furtive bites before evolving into a Homer Simpson-ish gourmand of unquenchable desire. Always wet and ever ready for consummation of the lust that had been released.

Reaching up to push my hands against the wall, the depth of the penetration quite startled me for I had never been fucked from that angle before... although there were not many positions that remained unvisited during that eventful weekend. Strange, how my ability to recall stops at the point he led me into his bedroom but I suspect that is due to the large amount of Dutch courage I had imbibed to anaesthetise my conscience so it didn't have to deal with the enormity of the occasion. I have no recollection of any of the details of that night or the following morning in his bed, only the feeling of being battered and yet unbelievably alive. However, this memory from the following day shines out like a beacon. His hands on my hips, slamming into me, forcing out a moaningly-appreciative orgasm before pushing me onto the bed on my hands and knees. Grabbing my tulip from under the pillow, my clit took me almost to the peak again before he entered me from behind at the optimal moment.

The heat of my burning internal flesh surprised him. It still does, even now. For, after a weekend of such rampancy and, following so closely upon the first climax, I was incredibly aroused; the blood and excitement were centred in that place, engorging my flesh like swollen petals. Tight, slippery, yet almost dry heat, the furnace consumed him before it was suddenly awash with fluid as the consequent huge explosion hit.


Underneath the layers of my naturally enthusiastic reaction to his attentions, I became aware of something rising within me. This was more than the squeals of pleasure that I remembered from happier times with the man whose name I bear and different from the feral howls of enjoyment that the Bear's fingers had released, with the assistance of the relaxing effect of a large quantity of alcohol.

This time I was stone cold sober and it took some seconds before I recognised the phenomenon. Finally, another man had made me like myself enough to be able to go back to that seminal masturbatory orgasm I had experienced with a Rabbit and a toothbrush all those months ago. With the blood rushing in my ears, my mind reached for nirvana as my body shivered its excited response to his rhythmic pounding.

At the very last moment, caution overrode abandon and I bit down on the mattress in an attempt to stifle the energy that was trying to force its way out of my mouth, activating my vocal chords on its journey. But my body had the upper hand and, although muffled, the shrill shriek of its victory cut through the silence of that January afternoon like a klaxon.

The transformation of a shy, repressed, vanilla little housewife had begun and the Scream would punctuate the journey on a regular basis.

Mute Monday: Back to A...

The best I could do for Star Trek references was Data dressed as Sherlock Holmes/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dr Arthur Coleman, a minor character and the USS Port Arthur.

Honest Scraps

The lovely Lady in Red has given me an award.

I have to admit that I feel a bit dishonest actually taking it, bearing in mind the number of deceptions in my life these days.

As I wrote in Tissue of Lies, I don't really like myself very much when I think about the spider's web of deceit that I have built around me.

However, I have tried to be as honest as possible in this blog and people have commented that this is the reason that they enjoy reading. Whether it is because they identify with some of the things that I am going through or just like hearing me squirm as I try to pacify my conscience is another matter.

Anyway, the guidelines when winning the Honest Scrap award are:

1. List 10 honest things about yourself (try to make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!)

2. Pass the award on to 10 bloggers

So, here goes...

1. If I don't think I can fulfil the rules of a quiz, I change them with impunity.

2. I try to be a good parent, even when the odds seem to be stacked against me.

3. If I take on a task, I will do it thoroughly and to the best of my ability.

4. If someone asks me a question, I will be as honest as I can without deliberately hurting their feelings. Thumper's Mother's Rule says that if you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all.

5. What you see is what you get. This is my body and the wrinkles are all my own. I will not resort to surgery, syringes or silicon to cheat time.

6. I try to smile at everyone and get them to smile back. The world would be a happier place if we all faced it with a grin.

7. I try to be a good friend. If we don't speak for a while, it's not that I don't care and I would like to think that if someone called me up after a five year hiatus, it would be as if there had been no interruption to our friendship.

8. I have an innate ability to spin. To view a situation from a perspective that puts me in a better light in order to appease my conscience. Having said that:

9. I know I can be very difficult to live with. Hormonal swings, irrational rage and times when I just dissolve into tears for no reason. These are all the products of my pre-menopausal state. But these things can be controlled with tlc and general consideration and understanding. At the same time, I do try to see things from the other person's point of view. Having the blog has helped me to be more honest with myself about so many aspects of my life and I try to be more understanding about other people's behaviour within that.

10. If I can think of one, I will add it in...





Honest awardees: Marianne, Z's Naked Truth, Elegant Smut, Justme and Osbasso.

Foot in Mouth Syndrome

Come on, admit it!

We've all done it!

Opened our mouths and exercised our vocal chords before engaging our brains.

Some of my faux pas have beggared belief and, no, I'm not going to go through the acute embarrassment all over again by recounting them to you. Just be assured that, long after the injured party has forgotten my foolish words, I will still be beating myself up with shame and guilt at my innate ability to put my foot in my mouth.

There are some people who do it regularly without a care and probably never even register the hurt and indignation that they leave in their wake. Sometimes I wish I could be that way. Thick skinned and self-absorbed enough not to notice or, at least, not to let it prey on my mind ad nauseum.

You know what it's like. The instant those words come out of your mouth, you can feel the hot flush staining neck and cheeks and the frantic beating of your heart as the panic starts to rise. The sick feeling in the pit of your stomach and the desperate wish that you could take the words back. Slow motion rewind and not speak at all. But it's too late, the cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box is opened, or someone is just incredibly hurt by your thoughtlessness.

If only, like the radio, life were on a 10 second delay before transmitting.

HNT: Bend

Well, you were warned...

Interview with a 'Boner...

Due to the idiosyncrasies of Haloscan, my request to be questioned by the lovely Osbasso appeared at the top of his comments box. That's how I found myself revealing all to the infamous trombonist and custodian of HNT.

The same rule applies here. The first to say in this comments box: 'Please interrogate me, Ms Cake' will be the subject of an in-depth virtual grilling. Naturally, I shall be suitably attired for the job in hand, so there will definitely be leather gloves a la Gene Hunt.

Here are the "official" rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else
in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.


For this interview, I am sitting at my computer with a cup of fennel tea and a bacon croissant, my naked person enveloped in a very warm dressing gown and a thick pair of socks because it's bloody freezing!


1. Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Wow, that's a really hard one.

There are some great Beatles tracks with fabulous melodies and fun lyrics. 'Michelle', 'Lady Madonna', 'Penny Lane' are ones that instantly spring into my mind. John, Paul, George and Ringo were instrumental in changing the face of British music and I can remember that awful December morning in 1980, waking up and lying in bed listening to the news on the radio that John Lennon had been murdered.

But The Stones, The Stones. Dysfunctional, drunken, drug-taking survivors (well, mostly), with guitar riffs that became instant ear worms and words that set your imagination on fire. I even wrote a post called 'Under my Thumb'.

My favourite Stone will always be Mick Taylor, the quiet one that nobody remembers but who got them through a period where things were starting to fall apart because of their hedonistic lifestyle. Rumour has it that he quit because of problems over songwriting acknowledgement on some of their tunes.


2. You've written some about your battle with anorexia--how hard do you have to fight it these days?

Ruf has made a huge difference to my life in terms of my self-esteem and I remain eternally grateful to both him and Bear for turning my life around. Sure, I'm still very insecure and need reassurance through the medium of verbal/tactile expressions of appreciation but mostly I am very much more content as a person now. This means that when things do get me down, I can recognise the symptoms and take steps to combat and counteract them.

Sometimes, I do have to physically make myself sit down and eat, especially if it's a busy time. The run up to Christmas has always been a difficult time for me because there is so much to be done that I often forget to refuel regularly, so will arrive on the Day itself up to half a stone lighter than when I began December. These days, I can acknowledge this and factor in time for meals better because I know how dangerous it can be for me to slip back into the habit of not eating. Having suppressed my appetite for so many years, I just don't get hungry in the way of normal mortals and my desire for sweet foods like cake and chocolate is definitely far less than anyone I know.

The difficult times are when I am unhappy. If something is really getting me down on a regular basis, it's hard not to regress back into the pit and allow the wrong part of my mind to regain control of my intake. That's when I know that I will never be cured. It is a mental illness that will always try to get back on top but at least I now have the ability to know and analyse it but, more importantly, also the tools to fight it.


3. When are you coming to the States??

I have never actually visited another Continent. I do have relatives who live on the West Coast and they are always nagging me to visit. When the kids were younger, the prospect of a transatlantic flight with children filled me with horror. Now they are teenagers, they are showing much more interest and, hopefully, can be relied upon not to have the screaming abdabs half-way there. I shall start saving, so maybe in a couple of years...?

Naturally, I shall find a way to stop in and sit on the Back Row with you.


4. You are playing Blackjack. You've been dealt a pair of 7s, and the dealer's showing card is a 5. What would you do?

Errr... Take my top off? I have no idea how to play Blackjack and, if I'm playing with you (so to speak), I suspect it would be strip Blackjack... in which case I'm obviously going to lose :)


5. How many plants are growing in your house (or trying to grow...)?

LOL. I've actually been writing a post very relevant to this and hope to post next week. I do not have green fingers. I currently have two real houseplants, having just lost the most long-standing.

Oh, don't be ridiculous! Of course I don't know what type the survivors are. One is a sort of spidery thing and the other is... well, it's green and trailing. They have been around for over a decade but they persist in clinging onto life despite my ministrations rather than because of them.

Before I had children, I used to love gardening. I found it very therapeutic. Alan Titchmarsh was my hero, although I found his foray into fiction with the consequent sex scene writing rather unnerving. Again, I wasn't very good at working the soil but it did give me a lot of pleasure and relaxation. Sadly, once footie (that's soccer to you American philistines - ugh!) and cricket became a feature of my children's lives, the welfare of the unfortunate plants in my borders came a very poor second when confronted with ball retrieval and I stopped trying to cultivate and propagate. I weed occasionally these days but I do enjoy mowing the lawn. It's something about the making of contiguous stripes... I am soooooo anal :)

Thank you for being gentle with me x

Mute Monday: X is for...