'Having lots of sex in my twenties means I won't fuck with my face in my forties' (Interview with a friend)

On erotic awakenings, bodies and connection

A friend and I were having lunch and got to the bit of the afternoon where someone says, ok what would you get done to your face. We’re similar ages, similar situations, two kids, the whole catastrophe, and I was making some balletic gestures towards my jawline when she said, ‘You know what, even though all my friends have had Botox, I don’t think I ever will. And do you know why? It’s because of all the shagging I did in my twenties.’ So then I obviously had to get her to tell me the whole story, and here it is.

So in your early twenties, you were in an unhappy marriage.

And I had a weird relationship with my body. I'd always been big, I'd always seen myself as like this large, enormous person. Then I started traveling a bit with work and men would be checking me out, and I'd be like, why are they looking at me? I just did not see myself as a sexual person.

Then what happened?

I started to really unravel around the time I came across Tumblr - there were lots of sexy images, and - it started to make me feel things! The next thing I knew, I was anonymously photographing my body and writing little sexy stories. And I thought that was a safe way of exploring as opposed to just having an affair in the village, which was basically my only other option. There'd be like, a bit of back or a bit of boob that I’d take hidden away upstairs. And next thing I know, I had thousands of followers and was getting into really interesting conversations.

Like what?

There was this guy and his wife who lived in Boston. He took an interest in me and could clearly see that I was at the beginning of ‘a journey’…

What did he say?

Well, it began with him saying, how much do you want to learn and how much are you going to commit to learning? And I was like, oh, loads actually! So he started giving me homework, a word to do with a different kink. And I’d write up an essay on this word and send it to him and he'd mark it. Then he started to focus on me and my body - I would send him a photograph of a part of my body. And he would tell me what he thought of it in a really generous way, and it made me look at my body too and really pay attention. And then it became really horny.

Go on.