Instead of virtue signalling, just do the thing you care about. Show not tell. I probably wouldn’t get the language of virtue signalling right anyway, so it’s easier to live it than shout about it. I feel strongly about using venues with gender neutral toilets and queer staff.  I feel strongly about not wasting my energy on people, work and places where I’m misunderstood. Walking towards and away from are powerful yet simple choices once we have the courage.

How do we disrupt social norms? How are we inspired to do the unexpected? To create beauty and creativity, or whatever you want, in the face of existential despair, or going along with capitalist or social media stupidity? I don’t know exactly, but it’s a question I ask myself frequently.

Strings that we’re not aware of may be attached to deals. It’s in having the conversation that makes the strings visible, which allows us to really understand what’s actually on offer, the cost of it, and what the other person wants in return. Then, saying no or yes to the complete deal, the agreement becomes easier to commit to.

I enjoy asking long-term stable couples what they appreciate about each other. They like hearing the answers from each other. Invariably they’re different qualities that have helped the other feel grounded, accepted and listened to over years of togetherness. Importing qualities with gratitude and exporting with generosity.

As everyone locked down for the second time, I set off. Passing invisibly through borders, I lived life in 90-day parcels in countries that didn’t need a vaccine. As I landed in Albania, the passport officer smiled at me and said, “Sunshine is good for you”. In 3 days’ quarantine, I spent time in Sarande, where everyone was on the streets; I had a haircut and bought a cheap orange sweater that had never seen a natural fibre. In Himare I enjoyed writing every morning with black coffee, fizzy water, and spinach pie, overlooking the most brilliant green-blue sea, Corfu in the distance though the sea lanes were closed. The arrival of the summer season heralded my departure, crossing no man’s land into Greece armed with a Covid test certificate. That’s when invisibility helps.

Where does unsavoury bragging cross over with the self-love brigade? Seriously, I don’t care what you’re wearing, drinking, or hanging out, I don’t care how great you think you are. I only see emptiness underneath the boasting.

A friend saying “You’re like a stuck record,” was one of the wake up calls to my complaining about the man I would have been wise to leave a few years before I did. I was hurt but she was right.

Do you know how you are a pain in the ass? How nerdy, needy, neurotic or self-sacrificing you are? How demanding, complaining, impatient, intolerant? How bossy, bitchy, dishonest, negligent or know-it-all? And also how tired you are, how scared you are, how disappointed? How you are doing your best with what you’ve got. Do you remember how perfectly human you are? Being one’s own ally, in the multitude of goodnesses and badnesses in the wholeness that is you, might be your best option.

I’m scared of so many things. Drunks and heroin users on the streets of Manchester, painful sex, being trapped in a dull relationship, unwanted debt, being dependent, outstaying my welcome, having to look after my ageing mother or her husband. I suppose they’re common fears. Admitting them is scary. Before facing them. That takes tolerance.

I’m impatient. Aren’t you? I want to know the future before it happens. Yet when I stop trying to make stuff happen, things turn out well. Can I be patient enough for mystery to unfold without meddling or grasping? Staying in my lane, focusing on what I can affect; leaving life to do life and to do me.

I have an inner voice that says ‘We’ll see about that,’ when I’m told I can’t do or have what I want. Or there’s a given finality to a situation I’m not totally on board with yet. It’s not that I expect everything to go my way, but the part of me that doesn’t give up doesn’t like to admit defeat ahead of trying.

Friends are here to remind each other to stay present, to stop fretting about things that may never happen, to keep us grounded in reality, to remind us of our possibilities and talents, and to tell us when we’re being insufferable or stuck in a story that's keeping us limited. Old friends we don't see much remind us of things we’ve forgotten, and how we've grown into fuller versions of what we were always destined to be.

Direct pleasure is a thrill quite different to indirect pleasure. Both matter. Otherwise, with only access to indirect pleasure, you're dependent on someone else’s positive response for affirmation. Oh my, indirect pleasure feels good though, whether a moan or a compliment; no wonder it's easier to give than to learn to receive.

Let’s stop thinking that having a regulated or soothed nervous system is anything other than a privilege. Yes, It feels good, safe, and calm. What are you going to do once you have this hard won prize which doesn’t last in the wrong circumstances or environment? While I don’t generally feel unsafe, I confess I don't know what real safety feels like either, particularly in intimate relationships. Could I really bring everything forward, including my inner know-it-all? Yet other people apparently feel safe around me. Whether that’s a nervous system thing or just because I’m nerdy enough to not tolerate ambiguity anymore, you’re likely to know where you stand. The question remains of how do we live in uncertain times and situations? Mostly I’m lucky enough to keep away from what scares me.

On one of my Tantra courses, we had to make up and tell an erotic story. It was one of the many times I wondered where my car keys were and if I could leave. It was a terrifying evening, albeit fascinating to hear the other women’s stories. I made up a tale about seducing a judge, making the tiles of the boring law books I used to sell sound lascivious. Eventually having the judge push me up against leather bound first editions of Halsbury's Laws of England. I’m still nervous, yet grateful for having to go through that baptism of fire every time I stand on stage at The Sex Lectures and can be funny and serious in turn. It’s also saved me going to public speaking courses and caring about learning the rules.

One of my friends wants to print T-shirts that say ‘I don’t care’. I’m guessing it wouldn’t take that many mid-lifers to make up a print run. Yet I do care, just not about the pettinesses. And my pettinesses and cares aren’t the same as yours.

Objectification is not the same as humiliation or degradation. Yet it’s possible that the feelings that emerge could easily be entwined. While it’s possible and useful to differentiate and classify many different things in the banquet of kink, the responses may not be so easily boxed.

Fending someone off is not sexy, neither is being used in some porn reenactment.

Response arousal is important and is all too slowly replacing the notion of sex drive on which the current (mostly but not always male) model of sexual desire is based. Yet this isn’t matched by female-led arousal, which involves the complexity of safety, previous positive experiences, relevance, intimacy and then eroticism. Viagra and hydraulics can’t do much for that mismatch. Though I have occasionally enjoyed Viagra with the almost instant hit of desire. One of the times with an ex who did have a PhD, I could really say ‘thank you doctor’ as he handed me half of the little blue pill. 

When I try to work out why the things I do work out or sell out, I have no idea. I write these aphorisms, host The Sex Lectures and bought a house in Greece because I heard a ‘voice’, not through any thoughtful businesslike decision-making. Given changes in Greek law and my health, my brain asks endless questions about where to live and what to do next? Until I get clear divine directions, there are no moves to make. It always comes back to trust and being more in the present.