How to sabotage your own orgasm

FOR women, having an orgasm is like trying to get a fly out of a window: for all the smacking and shouting you may still be defeated even if the window’s wide fucking open.

Even if he bothers with foreplay, your mental image of the hot new teacher at your kids’ primary is fresh in your mind and your orgasm seems inevitable, there remain a multitude of effort-free ways to bugger it up on the final straight.

Let your imagination take over

The imagination is a powerful tool on the route to orgasm, second only to the vibrator. But, unlike the vibrator, the imagination is an over-complicated tool with too many settings and the instruction manual was lost long ago.

You begin with conviction, surging to the heights by picturing yourself strapped to the wall of a sex dungeon being boned by… David Tennant? No wait, the kids were watching Harry Potter at the weekend, that’s creepy. Chris Hemsworth? Too obvious. Idris Elba? You’ve used him too often, you know all his moves by heart. Who’s the guy from Creed? Too late. Your husband’s done.

Don’t let your imagination take over

More fatal than imagining being someone or somewhere else is reality. The least conducive stimulant is being in the actual moment: face buried in the sweat-stenched pillow, piglike grunts from behind, wishfully thinking you may make enough noise to wake the children. Or worse, glancing down between your legs to your partner’s thinning hair.

Any unwelcome flash of the world as it is and suddenly your dead cert orgasm’s receding into the distance without even the tried-and-tested image of Don Draper in leather chaps able to turn things around before your boyfriend’s tongue tires.

Get too involved

As soon as you start trying to micromanage the situation, all hope is lost. Yes, it would be better if he moved a bit faster here, circled a bit lower down there, and has he forgotten your nipples exist, maybe a quick reminder?

Should you just take the initiative and reach a hand round yourself? Is he open to requests to do that thing you liked last time? Wait, what’s that ringing sound? The death knell of your orgasm, you meddling twat.

Doubt yourself

Like killing a fairy by not believing in it, you’ve got to put yourself out there and dare to believe in the existence of your climax for it to be real. Once you let doubt creep in you’re just wasting his time and yours, and yes you should feel guilty. He still seems so hopeful and committed, it’s tragic.

And once the thought of faking it creeps in, there’s no turning back. Like Ciro Immobile heading goalward, once you’re gearing up to fling yourself to the ground screaming your eyes are very much off the ball and your focus is entirely on planning your big performance.

Announce it

Sometimes everything comes together and you’re blown away by how in sync your body and mind are. You’re convinced it’s a done deal. But it ain’t over until the lady-who-wants-to-lose-two-stone screams.

Like small children in a restaurant, orgasms pick the worst possible moment to remind you who’s really in control. Never reassure your exhausted partner he can soon stand down in triumph. Those two fatal words: ‘I’m coming’ often herald the beginning of the end: off your capricious orgasm fucks, just when you thought you had it down.

Let's move to a city high on cider and drugs and money! This week: Bristol

What’s it about?

A sleepy little city nestled in Tory south-west England, Bristol is famed for its vibrant social life and creative atmosphere. Which roughly translates as ‘people constantly off their faces on a wide variety of drugs’.

Whether you want to get deep in a K-hole on a busy pavement or openly smoke crack on the steps of someone’s flat, there’s a place for you here.

If you like your substances less hardcore, there is a persistent myth that it’s legal to smoke weed in Bristol. It isn’t but might as well be, so enjoy the stench of industrial strength super skunk filtering through your windows night and day. If you can afford to buy here. Even really shit bits like Lockleaze are now genital-shrinkingly expensive.

Any good points?

Bristol has plenty of nightlife and cultural events: the former are ruined by legions of entitled students who think they’re the first generation to discover drum and bass, and the latter by middle-class artists who left Dartington College of Arts two decades ago and never made it further than the M32.

The city has a thriving food scene, if you’re prepared to shell out a tenner for a minuscule portion of pulled jackfruit and pomegranate seeds, and is almost literally awash in locally brewed ale and lager, some of which retails for £5.85 a can. In the summer there’s a festival almost every weekend, so someone is sick on your car at 4am each Sunday.

Wonderful landscape?

The only natural wonder in Bristol is the Avon Gorge, which is spanned by the Clifton Suspension Bridge and worth a visit if you can be arsed to schlep all the way up there. Aside from that it’s either flat or covered in the horrible towers that Bristol County Council erect in any vacant space.

The floating harbour is an impressive ex-industrial landscape featuring the M-Shed museum at one end and the Underfell Boat Yard at the other. Visit now as it’s about to unsympathetically redeveloped into a bland housing estate comprised of hundreds of unaffordable little flats. Isambard Kingdon Brunel will be turning in his grave.

Hang out at?

Drinking cider outdoors is a staple of the Bristolian lifestyle and there are many options. If you’re a bit of a crusty, bring your massive sound system pumping out dubstep to Eastville Park, set up your slackline and crack open a can of Thatchers.

If you’re a young professional just leaving your rip-off co-work space, head to the Harbourside to meet your twat friends and buy a pint of biodynamic cider from the Arnolfini cafe-bar to drink while you ignore all the homeless people asking you for a quid.

And if you want to experience the real Bristol, go to Turbo Island in Stokes Croft, where some kind but derelict soul will share their Frosty Jacks with you as you warm your hands on the sofa they’ve helpfully set on fire.

Where to buy?

Unless you’ve got half a million quid going spare or are happy to live in a studio that’s very obviously a converted garage, nowhere. Housing’s in f**king short supply and any property that hits the market is snapped up by incoming cash-rich Londoners who think living in a street covered in crap tags is ‘edgy’.

If you’ve got the fortitude to put offers in on approximately 80 houses you might eventually get one somewhere like Filton. It’s barely Bristol, but you could probably spin it as ‘outer Bishopston’ if you want to impress the people in the sustainable craft brewery taproom you travel 40 minutes into the city to visit at the weekend.

From the streets:

Julian Cook, aged 29, said: “I’m a radical leftist advocating revolution who went to public school and has an independent income. That’s not hypocrisy, it’s literally what Pol Pot did okay?”

Sophie Rodriguez, aged 38, said: “If you ask me about fucking Banksy I will punch you in the face.”