INTERVIEW WITH Z!!!!

Z writes a sex blog. It's pretty goddamn hot, too. Anyway she wanted me to interview her so I bugged her with about a hundred emails and we hammered the following out.

All the bits with lower case letters, thats Z. I know you would have figured that out eventually but there ya go.
______________________________________________

EVER DONE A GIRL?

Nope, but I've done a woman.

OH. I SEE. ITS LIKE THAT IS IT. OK.

Oh, sorry, did you want a bit more detail?

NO, NOW ITS BORING.

...It was a threesome, and it was fun. I hadn't been hankering after threesomes or girlies, and I don't have a mental checklist of Sexual Things To Do Before I Die - partly because I already did some of them by mistake.

YOU'RE JUST GOING TO GO ON AND ON ABOUT THIS, AREN'T YOU.

...But hey, she's my girlcrush, and she was on the same continent for a change, so we had sex, and it was great. It's very unlikely I'd do it again (unless she turns up here again).

....OH I'M SORRY. WERE YOU FINISHED? OH. WELL. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN OTHER THINGS BESIDES SEX? WHAT, IF SO?

Are you trying to imply I'm obsessed with sex?

YES.

Bitch!

YES.

Actually, in some ways I'm more interested in writing about sex than sex.

...actually, that's a big fat lie.

NO! *ahem*

However, it's entirely possible that if I had a garden I wouldn't spend my time writing about sex

ANOTHER VICTIM OF GARDEN ENVY. I UNDERSTAND. I HEAR THIS ALL THE TIME. OH, IF I ONLY HAD A GARDEN I WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE ALL BEAUTIFUL AND HAVE FABULOUS WILD SEX AND BACON GREASE ORGIES AND BE WEARING ALL KINKY BOOTS AND WHATNOT.

...and if I had more self-discipline and painted more I wouldn't write about sex...

NO SHIT? COME DO MY BATHROOM. I'D BE HAPPY TO TAPE EVERYTHING OFF BEFORE YOU ARRIVE. I WOULDN'T EVEN BE PICKY ABOUT SPILLS. RIGHT NOW IT'S WHITE AND LEMME TELL YOU ITS MAKING ME NUTS.

...but none of these things would stop me having sex - and because I am too anti-social to be able to sustain the kind of relationship where you see the other person(s) more than every few weeks, sex tends to be very intense and concentrated, and I am self-obsessed enough to find

the differences between sexed-up me and everyday me fascinating enough to write reams about.

So yeah, mainly I'm just interested in sex, although my consuming passion is color, and I'm not sure that's terribly enthralling to read about.

BUT I'LL BET YOU'VE NEVER TRIED IT, HAVE YOU. DON'T JUDGE, Z. DON'T HATE.


SAY SOMETHING DIRTY. (well? I don't know what to ask! you want barbara walters here you're out of luck. on the other hand you don't have to put up with questions about trees.)

I don't really do dirty talk. But this morning in the car we were discussing the fact that my best-friend's sister's boyfriend moos when he wants sex, and sometimes bizarre beats dirty hands down.

....GOTTA TELL YOU, I DID NOT EXPECT 'MOO'. LIKE A COW? I'D HIT HIM WITH A CHAIR; GEEZE. MOO?

I think hitting him with a chair is fairly restrained. I'd be wearing his balls as earrings.

WHY DO YOU DO A SEX BLOG?

It was a conversation that went on for a couple of years.

"You should write a blog"
"Yeah, that's a good idea"
"You should write a blog"
"Yeah, that's a good idea"
Ditto ad infinitum, until
"You should write a blog"
"If I have a blog, it'll be about sex"
"Fine. You do that"
"Fine. I will"
And then there was about two months of: "Fuckfuckfuck I'm writing about sex and anonymous people are reading it! What the hell am I on?" until you get to the point where you become so innured to it you think posting pictures of your ladyparts is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Truly, the more I go on the less I know why, and the less I think about it, because that way total fucking derangement lies.

However, there is one possibly sane reason: I wrote quite a lot on the internet, and always felt I was playing both safe and to myaudience, and I wanted to write something that came from the inside more. It may not be raw, what I write, but it sometimes leaves me feeling raw when I write it, and I like to take my masochistic streak out for a whirl every so often.

SO IT SERVES A LARGER PURPOSE? BY WHICH I MEAN, IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT THE TITTILATION; IT'S BEING DONE AS MUCH TO EXPAND YOUR INNER LIMITS AS IT IS TO EXPLORE THE SUBJECT AT HAND?

It sounds pretentious as hell to say it, but hell, I am pretentious at times, so I'll just say it: you haven't quite grasped the extent of my self-obsession. I don't write stuff so that other people will think I'm hot or fantasize over me, I write so that I feel pleased that I've managed to get something in my head out, and with any luck it'll be out and coherent. Plus, I tend to think I'm so interesting that people are just gagging to know the inner workings of my mind. (Sometimes, obviously, I write things that I think are crap, but press publish anyway, and then I have to box my own ears and go and stand in the corner until I have repented). And sex is a good subject to write about if you're introspective with a literary exhibitionistic streak, because you can throw emotions and relationships and self-image and quite a lot of misinformed opinions in there too. What I think I'm trying to say is, I don't have time to think about titillation, what with all this self-policing going on. Unless, of course, I post a picture of my legs, in which case everyone is welcome to forget about my mind and just concentrate on how hot and sexy carefully selected bits of me are.

NOTE: SHE DOES HAVE GREAT LEGS, KIDS.

...seriously great

WHAT IS YOUR OTHER WRITING ABOUT?

I don't do it any more. I used to be a ravening political animal, but now I just read the fluffy bits of the newspapers and don't watch TV and it all floats over my empty little head.

WHAT IF YOUR MOTHER FOUND OUT? OR YOUR KIDS? OR DO THEY KNOW ABOUT
YOUR BLOG?

My parents, my daughter and my friends know I have a blog. But when I say I don't want them to read it, they respect that because even though they think it's weird I don't want them to read what I write, they have come to terms with the fact that I am weird. If they found it... I dunno. Sophisticates though they are sometimes, they'd be shocked, and I doubt they would understand my reasons or justifications. Also, I don't think they would feel they needed to know that much about my sex-life, any more than I need to know what they would write on a blog about their sex lives.This is something that makes me want to just jam my fingers in my ears and yell lalala-I-can't-hear-you.

YOU WRITE LIKE SOMEONE WHO'S HAD SOME BOOK LARNIN.

My father was a librarian, and I used to spend my time sitting behind the stacks reading my way through every single book there.

STORY OF O, VENUS IN FURS, TIM FOOTMAN, JUSTINE, LADY CHATTERLEYS LOVER, THE TOTAL WOMAN, MARTHA COOKS LITE...

Well, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Anais Nin, Henry Miller - bear in mind that it was a school library. I had to buy Story of O myself from an actual bookshop. Luckily there was no Martha in those days, or I dread to think how my tiny mind might have been corrupted.

DID YOU THINK I WOULDN'T NOTICE HOW YOU LET THE MARIBEL MORGAN REFERENCE SLIP ON PAST?

I was just hoping you wouldn't draw it to anyone's attention.

I INTERRUPTED. CONTINUE.

I went to a pretty up-market school, dropped out of university and finished my degree (Art and English) years later. But I come from the kind of family who, if we have to hammer in a nail, we read a book about how to hammer in a nail first, and then hammer in the nail ineptly because by now we're engrossed in a book about hanging a picture.


I NOTE, (WITH HUGE RELIEF) A DISTINCT LACK OF FEMINIST RHETORIC IN YOUR WRITINGS. YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO OWN THAT 'TANG LIKE A GROWNUP, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO JUSTIFY IT ALL OVER THE PLACE; COME ON NOW. HOW CAN YOU BEAR TO SHOW YOUR FACE AMONG THE OTHER SMART LADY SEX BLOGGERS? DO THEY THROW THINGS?

Well, I am a feminist, and I think that women who run around lisping: "I'm not a feminist but..." need a cattle prod up their ass. WHO DO YOU THINK GOT YOU THERE, HONEY? WHO CHAINED THEMSELVES TO THE RAILINGS SO YOU COULD HAVE ALL THESE CHOICES AND SIMPER ABOUT HOW EMPOWERING IT IS TO GET YOUR TITS OUT? WHO WAS FORCEFED WITH A TUBE DOWN THEIR NOSE IN JAIL SO YOU COULD SQUEAK ABOUT YOUR RIGHT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? DON'T FORGET YOUR ROOTS, BIRDBRAINS. And so on, until my capslock key wears out. But I have very little sympathy for bleating on about how the Patriarchy is keeping us all barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen when we could be kicking through the glass ceiling with our hobnailed boots. Grow up, sisters, and take responsibility for yourselves instead of blaming everyone else for your underachievements.

I LOVE YOU.

I think the some lady bloggers think I'm a scary bitch and they only throw things from safe distances, and some lady bloggers probably think I'm too trivial for my flibbertigibbet feminism to matter much.

TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE YOU'VE NEVER REFERENCED RABELAIS (or anaiis nin, come to think about it). IN SMART LADY SEX BLOGGING CIRCLES THAT'S LIKE NOT THROWING SIGN WHEN ONE OF YOUR HOMIES GOES PAST. DOES THE SHAME OF THIS OMISSION TORMENT YOU?

I've never referenced The Simpsons either. I am a cultural-references wasteland.

YOU WRITE AS HONESTLY ABOUT THE PLEASURE AS YOU DO THE REST OF THE EXPERIENCE...THE SETTINGS, THE TALK, THE MOTIVATIONS. THIS ISN'T WHAT I'VE COME TO EXPECT FROM MOST WOMEN WRITING ABOUT yeah yeah yeah yeah. WELL IT ISN'T.

...For ever curs'd be this detested Day,
Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite Curl away! etc. etc.

I don't really know what to reply that. I just write the way I write, about whatever comes into my head, so long as it has a hook that makes me want to write it. I don't do journal entries, so there's no progression of: first we hooked up, then we went to the room, then he did this and I did that once I'd been talked into it, and then we did something else and then etcetcetc. Sometimes I get a flashback to something that happened 20 years ago, and I write about that, and sometimes the thing that makes me want to write is a pattern on a curtain, rather than "Guess what, y'all, I had really great sex at the weekend". (Yes, I am weird. It has been remarked upon).

There is all sorts of stuff I can't bring myself to write about: I can't go on about how fabulous anyone says I am because that would just be boastful and silly, and anyway I note that people are most inclined to tell me I'm a great fuck when I'm not actually doing anything, which makes one wonder if they are just relieved I've stopped doing things, and everyone I have sex with has access to the blog, so if I wrote about what a world-class cocksucker I was, I'd just get comments pointing out that I'm a notoriously lazy fellatrix. And I'm neither sentimental nor romantic, so I can't write lovey-dovey posts: I'm a Scot, and we're only mawkish when we're drunk, but I have to have a little lie down when I'm drunk, and am therefore unlikely to post anything dribblingly affectionate.

DO YOU EVER FIND THE SUBJECT LIMITING?

Yes, very - I quite often feel as though I'm writing the same stuff over and over. Plus, I won't write about some stuff because I don't think it's anyone's business but the people involved. Sometimes I think I haven't got the right mindset to be a blogger.

YOU CAN HAVE ANY CAREER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. WHAT WILL IT BE? WHY?

I'd write the perfect novel, and have a career sitting on my laurels. Because that's what I've always wanted to do. Or I'd be an interior designer because if you can't make sense out of what is in your head, you can at least make sense of objects in a space and make people happy inside
the space.

YOU WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY IN MY SPACE IF YOU'D PAINT MY BATHROOM. WHAT IF I SAND AND DO ALL THE PREP WORK? I'D EVEN PRIME. ID BE HAPPIER IN MY SPACE. NO ONE COULD HEAR ME SCREAM. IN SPACE.
THAT WAS AN 'ALIEN' JOKE. HA!


OK, you win. I shall come and paint your bathroom if you send a spaceship to get me AND let me take pictures of my ladyparts nestling in your nasturtiums.

IMAGINE GOING TO THE FREE CLINIC AND TRYING TO EXPLAIN HOW YOU GOT APHIDS.

Oh, c'mon! I could be a story on Snopes!