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The girlfriend's guide to being underwhelming in bed

A GREAT sex life is all very well, but what if you just can’t be arsed? Here Nikki Hollis explains how she likes to make intercourse with her boyfriend entirely forgettable.

Blowjobs are a special treat

Blowjobs are like Haribo – there’s nothing wrong with a treat, but letting boyfriends have them all the time is irresponsible. If you give out blowjobs willy-nilly they’ll be dull and commonplace. I’m pretty sure men can get bored of oral sex.

You don’t need to move

Why bother with the effort of responding in any way to sex? You’re warm to the touch, so it’s not exactly like having sex with a bag of cement or a corpse.

Bring up tedious insecurities during sex

The fact that your boyfriend is passionately having sex with you does not prove he is either enjoying it or finds you attractive. Get your insecurities about things like cellulite out in the open, ideally ending in a long discussion of whether your boyfriend prefers your friend Sal due to her marginally larger breast size which he hadn’t actually noticed.

Anal sex is off the table

It just is. And your boyfriend should feel like a deviant for even thinking of it. You’re sexually adventurous enough already. You tried reverse cowgirl in 2018.

Sexy underwear is laughable

Stockings, suspenders, basques – it’s objectively hilarious that anyone would ever dress like that, which I point out to my boyfriend at length while howling with laughter until he says ‘Okay, it was just a suggestion’ and regrets mentioning it. Men need to overcome decades of sexual programming and start fantasising about a nice sensible pair of Sloggis instead.

Not liking condoms is sexist

My boyfriend claims condoms are like wearing a wetsuit in the bath, but I refuse to consider taking the pill based on unscientific, hippyish prejudice. Questioning my choices, even if it was ‘just a thought’, is encroaching on my contraceptive rights, I’ve told him, and if he doesn’t like it he can go back to Gilead.

Complain at every opportunity

Was your body briefly not fully covered by the duvet? Complain. Have the pillows lost their springiness? Complain. Your lover needs to be aware of your needs and there’s no way an incessant stream of trivial whinging could spoil the atmosphere for sex. 

The early night Devil’s alternative  

You’re off to bed at 10.00pm, so your boyfriend can either join you now and have sex but no staying up late, or creep into bed later and have no sex. Be concerned if he frequently chooses eating biscuits and watching Police Interceptors over sex. He needs to see a doctor about his low sex drive.

'Couples may only conceive before a portrait of the King', and four other laws still on the statute books

EVERYONE knows you can be executed by arson in the Royal Dockyards for shooting a Welshman from Chester’s walls on a Sunday. Like these laws, it was never repealed: 

Any Lancastrian makyng a crossyng may be stripped of worldley goods

Still on the books from the War of the Roses, all travellers from Garstang to Wigglesworth can be legally robbed in case they show an ‘intention of waging warful acts on the populace’. Last to be prosecuted was costermonger Nathaniel Muir in 1822 who during a snowstorm strayed into Keighley, where he was bombarded with cabbages by angry townsfolk.

No citizen is permitted to ask an officer of the law the time

Before 1851, London pickpockets employed gangs of urchins to hinder police by repeatedly asking them the time. The ruse became so widespread that officers complained they often spent five hours a day telling the time and were unable to inspect apple freshness on market stalls. Lord Russell’s government acted and anyone found guilty was fined a shilling or sent to debtor’s prison.

No seat on a train may face that which it travels from

Backward-facing train seats were outlawed in 1829 after the Duke of Wellington and his wife Kitty travelled to Brighton for a day’s cockle picking. The Prime Minister was horrified to find he had to sit facing his wife, who he ‘was not fond of to any degree’. On his return to London, he swiftly enacted legislation to ensure he never had to suffer her visage again.

Thee Lord alone may reste on his day, and no other

Sunday naps were outlawed by Lord Protector Cromwell in 1654, after he personally witnessed the ‘insidious practice of the feckless peasantry to slumber on the Lord’s Day’. Cromwell’s own gardener was charged and fled to Ireland rather than face execution. Offenders are still liable to be fined a half-peck of wheat.

Couples may only conceive before a portrait of the King

Made law in 1942, when it was feared the war could last generations, the requirement for His Majesty to oversee all acts of procreation was intended to encourage women to produce soldiers. To this day any reproductive acts not performed before the King’s image are illicit and the resulting offspring bastards. A 1976 amendment confirmed blowjobs are fine.

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