Why does no-one in Durham talk frankly about sex?

Talking openly and honestly about sex, especially in Durham, is somewhat of a taboo. Seriously, try talking to a group of boarding school Hild Bede boys about female masturbation and see how far you get before one of them cries. But with sex, can there ever be such a thing as ‘too much information’?

It seems to me that sharing our own experiences of sexual successes and failures can make sex a better, more pleasurable and safer experience for everyone.

The more we demonise and hush up the truths about sex, the less opportunity we have to normalise the very ordinary things that happen to our bodies in the sack.

Take all the girls who claim queefing is “gross” and “never happens”. First of all, props to you, can you breathe under water too? Secondly, who benefits from a culture in which your sex life is presented to everyone through an Instagram filter, censoring the sweat (and worse) that makes it fun?

Can you ever filter out the regret?

Not talking about sex leaves room for unrealistic and warped expectations of our sexual partners and ourselves. Pornography is replacing conversation as a guide to getting it on, meaning I don’t know a girl who hasn’t had to fake a screaming orgasm (yes we can fake the leg shaking too), or a guy who hasn’t failed to get it up and had to blame it on a tight condom. But these things happen.

Considering this, we all have two options:

1. Deny everything and tell no one.
2. Save on therapy, turn it into your best icebreaker story, and win Never Have I Ever every time.

I have chosen the latter. Because of this, I have in the past received many a passing insult. These have included slut, whore, and inappropriate – and that’s just from my Nan.

But if being a slut means that my friends and I can talk about good and bad sex without judgement, and enjoy the validating experience of beating a room full of boys at naming PornHub’s top ten stars, then it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

It’s just research

This being said, the most important person to talk about sex with is the person/persons you’re actually sleeping with. Moaning is all well and good, but it’s not very constructive.

According to a recent Ann Summers survey, only fifty per cent of us would describe ourselves as being ‘very open’ with our sexual partners. Surely there’s something wrong with this. If we’re not telling each other what we like and what we don’t like, there’s nothing stopping us from having mediocre sex for the rest of our lives, and who wants that?

Anything but mediocre

So I’m having a party, and I want everyone to cum. I mean come. It’ll be loud and a little messy, but the loudest sound won’t be a fake orgasm, it’ll be everyone saying what they want, when they want it, and how.

And you can all do the Thursday morning walk of shame through the Viaduct with genuine smiles on your faces.