BiSex & The City: Questions of Love and Hate

Last night I spent an enjoyable evening sipping wine with my friend D. As the alcohol flowed, our conversation turned to the ever-complex subject of love and it’s shadow emotion: hate. It became apparent that D and I meant quite different things when we spoke of ‘love’ and ‘hate’, or at least that we tackled [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 78: Apr 2006, M

Perfect Imperfect

The past week has been a Rainbow week for me. You might not be old enough to remember the original kid’s programme with Geoffrey, Bungle and co but I’m guessing that you’re at least somewhat familiar after all the retro nostalgia trips of recent years. In each episode of the show there was a running [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 77: Feb 2006, M

Opening the Ex-Files

I don’t know whether you were aware of it or not but the 3rd of November marks a very important event in the calendar: it is international ex day. Well at least it was for me this year. I finally made a date to meet up with the partner I was with for the longest [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 76: Dec 2005, M

Love & Friendship

I’ve been thinking a lot about love and friendship lately. I think one of the taken-for-granted rules that many of us have is that lovers and friends are two very different categories of people, who we should expect different things of and treat very differently. This distinction is reinforced all around us. We don’t have [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 71: Feb 2005, M

Snakes & Conflict

I recently wrote this piece on my live-journal, but after the issue of conflict in relationships came up in my last article for BCN I decided that it might be helpful to share with you all here. There’s a section in my favourite book, ‘Buddhism without Beliefs’, which I haven’t really understood up until now. [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 70: Dec 2004, M

Living Together

Well I’ve done it. I am, once more, a co-habitee, house-mate with benefits, live-in-lover, call it what you will. After a year and a half of having a room or flat of my own I’m now sharing with a partner again. I’ve spent the last few weeks amalgamating and alphabetising videos, books and CDs, whilst [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 69: Oct 2004, M

One Is Fun?

Confronting the taboos of masturbation Perhaps my favourite quote from my hero, Woody Allen, is his famous line ‘don’t knock masturbation – it’s sex with someone I love’. However, masturbation is something that people do knock regularly. It is seen as being somehow less than sex between two people, not remotely as pleasurable or fulfilling. [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 67: May 2004, M

The Curse of the Long Distance Relationship

Tonight as I lie on my bed and tap the lonely hours away on my laptop I am missing people a lot. The winter wind whistles around the house and through the window I can see the inviting lights of old London town sparkling in the distance, but I am alone with no warm body [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 66: Mar 2004, M

Let’s talk about sex: how to know what you want and get it across to other people

There is no such thing as an individual person being good or bad in bed. It’s an evil myth perpetuated by women’s magazines and self-help books to hype up anxiety and sell more copies of whatever supposed solution they’re proffering at the time. In this column I’m going to offer some ideas about how to [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 65: Jan 2004, M

WHGOGA (or “flirting with women, for women”)

‘Rah!’ my sister said to me. Her text messages often begin this way. ‘I’m buying me a strap-on for BiCon. Pussy rules the world!’ And yet at all the bi events that I, or my friends who’ve been on the bi scene for much longer than me, have attended, the resounding complaint from every female [...]

Tags:  Â· Posted in: BCN 64: Nov 2003, M