One minute we were making out in the corridor of the school music rooms and the next, my pants were soggy. That’s all I knew, thanks to lack of our sex education, and it kept happening. Each time I escaped to “practise the piano” with my friend, we would inevitably end up in a tangled web of limbs, tongues and the frantic joy of exploring this next stage of puberty resulting in sodden knickers with no explanation.

We carried on our heavy petting for quite a few months until finally, my friend asked to go to the next base. I wasn’t entirely sure what this meant but me and the puddle in my pants nodded and suddenly, my piano practises involved a lot more fingering.

Then, one day, when we had shuffled down from our usual standing position - flat against the door so that no one would enter unexpectantly - and had become a heap on the floor, I remember seeing his face disappear. I didn’t know where he was going or why, until my damp pants were replaced by his wet tongue. It lasted a matter of seconds before he reappeared. I lay in shock, confused, worried and intrigued. Whether it was the look on my face or the fear of getting caught, I’m not sure but he never went down there again.

In fact, no one went down on me until 3 years later when, in a vaguely similar scenario (but replace the music room with a field), an on-off boyfriend also disappeared down out of sight, placing his face between my thighs and pulling aside my panties. He lasted roughly 10 seconds before coming back up and it was clear from the look on his face that this was something he didn’t want to do again.

Like all insecure teenagers, I blamed myself, my pussy, my appearance, my smell, my hair, my body for this incident and decided there must be something horrendously wrong with me to cause such a reaction and dislike for oral sex.

I carried this weight of worry around with me and into my twenties - each time I had sex with someone, I prematurely decided they wouldn’t want to go down on me. If there was the slightest chance that they did want to eat me out, then I had to make sure no pubic hair was in sight and no smell was wafting from my vulva; I would wax, trim, exfoliate, clean, double clean, spritz and prune in preparation for a tongue to taste my pussy.

It wasn’t until I had a female lover that I started to relax into the idea of receiving oral sex. The experience of pleasuring her vulva with my tongue and realising how much I enjoyed going down on her (at all times of day, with or without hair) made me realise that it wasn’t a chore, it wasn’t a repulsion and it sure as hell wasn’t something I wanted to refrain from doing. This allowed my anxiety to soften and I started to let her go down on me. But she always wanted me to trim my pubic hair and this, in turn, made me feel self-conscious yet again.

Since then, I have spent years avoiding people giving me oral sex. I’d let them do it for a minute or two and then insist on changing roles or positioning us into a 69 so that I could go down on them too. I can see now that this was my way of taking control, of distracting myself from the discomfort of vulnerability, and protecting myself from the fear of them being repulsed by my vulva. But I also think I had never been with anyone who really wanted to serve me, who got off on my pleasure.

In sex, just like dance, there are many roles that we can find ourselves moving through - we can lead, we can follow, we can give and we can receive. Giving is something that, for me, comes quite naturally. I want to make sure my sexual partners are satisfied, aroused, pleasured and enjoying themselves. So the idea of surrendering this role and letting others pleasure me has been quite a challenge - particularly for my mind.

In the past, what’s really helped me is being tide up, blindfolded and gagged. And sure, that might not be everyone’s thing but boy, believe me when I say how quickly it can help the brain to switch off and let the body utterly melt into the magic of someone else pleasuring you.

Lately, I’ve also found a healthy bit of self-talk has been magnificently effective. I’ve been telling myself in the moment of intimacy “This person LOVE going down on me”, “I am SO worthy of experiencing this pleasure and all I need to do right now is breath and enjoy it - you don’t even have to come”. It might sound simple but honey, it’s been a saving grace because often, I have another voice in my head saying “you need to cum as fast as possible so this can be over” and that little sentence can be the biggest turn off possible!

So if you’re someone like me, or if there’s an area of sex or intimacy that you’ve been struggling to relax into and enjoy, then go through the questions below and see what you learn:

What sexual or intimate act do you struggle to receive?

Can you work out the root cause of why you may struggle with that area of receiving?

If you could choose three new ways to experience sex or intimacy, what would they be?

As always, if you have thoughts you want to share then let me know, I’m here honey,

Sent with warm sassy love, as always

Bethany

Portraits by Abhishek Srivastava

At the heart of all these story is an uncomfortable and certain truth; that somewhere in the family tree exists a man who finds it appropriate to lay their hands on the small of a young niece or nephew’s back, to plant a kiss too close the corner of their lips, who makes comments about these young children or teens bodies and private life that sexualises them in disgustingly invasive ways.

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I’ve spent the past thirty minutes panicking about the fact that I just told my great aunt that I bumped into my cousin at a sex party. What felt like a natural, “LOL” whatsapp message is now an explosion in my brain as I devastatingly realise that I have completely and utterly exposed someone else’s information that I had, in no way, the right to share.

And it wasn’t any old information about a car or a pet or a house. It was sensitive information. The kind of information that, most likely, no one but me would want their great aunt to know about. Nor would they ever think to share it because, well, a) it’s a sex party, and b) most people guard that information with their life!!

While stewing in the panic of having to tell my cousin what I have done and admitting that I fucked up while taking an oath never to spill anyone else’s secrets, it dawned on me that this is not the first time, nor is it the second, the third or the fourth time I have let the cat out of the bag!

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You can’t spot them on the bus. You wouldn’t necessarily know when sitting next to each other in a restaurant, and you sure as hell don’t expect it when they are sweet as sweet can be. But it turns out, trolls are everywhere and in my experience, they've appeared in the least predicable of spaces.

There have been two women in my life who turned out to be trolls and it's not a very happy tale I'm afraid.

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I posted my dad a letter full of prose and personality gushing about the gorgeous time I’d recently spent with him celebrating his birthday. I shared my deeper thoughts about nostalgia, I dug into the power of being together and how it stops time. I even opened up about my fears, my dreams and my hopes for our family.

Five days later, I receive a text from my dad

“👍😘🥰”

I tried not to listen to the tiny voice in my head that wondered if this was his response to my three pages of laboured love woven into sentences rich enough to shatter a heart with emotion. Surely, my 75 yr old father who raised me to respect the power of words, who has been my on/off pen pal since I was 11 and moved away from home, wasn’t communicating to me with three emojis?!

Now, I’m an emoji lover. I often cover my messages with a unjustifiable amount of 😘🍒🎈😁☺️🌻❤️💌✨⭐🌈🍄🍵🎂😀💯🍄☕🫣💌🙏🌻💔🫠💦😔👌👍😚 and more. But, in this moment, I couldn’t accept why someone would respond to a letter (which, let me be clear, is not only more expensive than sending than a text, but demands more time and effort and thought) with three emojis?!😡😤😔

It got me questioning how much my father is to blame for my abandonment issues.

(Can you tell how triggering this was for me? His lack of communication and ability to leave me panicking about when I will hear from him, let alone see him, is now a character trait that I share with friends who ask me about my Dad.)

For example, the day we celebrated his birthday, which I so eloquently regaled in my letter, is a classic case of his ability to disappear. Unlike most of his generation who have an unhealthy addiction to Facebook, my father doesn’t believe in WiFi, he doesn’t believe in WhatsApp, he doesn’t believe in having a landline which is supremely challenging for anyone trying to get hold of him because he lives in a dead zone of Essex where there is zero phone signal.

I’d sent him a text a few days before telling him I’d be getting the train and could he pick me up.

I got a 👍

The night before his birthday, I sent a message saying roughly what time I’d arrive.

I heard nothing.

I sent a text when I was on the train sharing my ETA.

Nothing.

I rang my brother who was staying with him.

Nothing.

I sent a couple more texts.

You guessed it. Nothing.

I could feel my eyes well up as I sat on the train, the silence transporting me back to being 7 and waiting to be picked up from my local kids club, no parent in sight and feeling the reality dawn on me that I had been forgotten. I was transported back to being 13 and waiting for my Dad to ring me on one of the many teary nights I spent at boarding school, desperate to go home, clinging to my Motorola flip phone and realising that not only did I not have enough credit to ring my dad, but he had almost certainly forgotten about his promise to call me every Wednesday.

Flying back through these memories, I was suddenly reminded of all the other moments of fear and panic I have felt when friends have cancelled, dates have stood me up, clients have been ignored my messages or when a phone call goes straight to “do not disturb”.

The waves of panic that pounce through my body are no joke. And it takes an enormous amount of effort for me to calm down, to remind myself that I’m safe, to be in a headspace of emotional security and that my world will not come crumble down because of the silence.

While sitting on the train, I sent a message to my sister who replied instantly, “We’ll come pick you up on route”. I told how I was feeling and she joked back “We’ve all got that childhood trauma Bethy”. I smiled through the splattering of tears that had started to fall.

As I look at my father’s text again, 👍😘🥰, a message pops up from my mum. A long epilogue about her dog and the neighbour and the hedgehog she rescued from the road and the problem with her car and the dates she needs me to dog sit and the latest update on her broken foot and the snippet she heard on Woman’s Hour that made her think of me and what the grass is looking like and how hot it’s been and how she’s run out of that nice body wash she asks me to buy her from Lush. I speedily glaze over her words and punch into the text box “🙃😬🦔” before wiping her message away.

Mmm…oops…maybe I’m more like my father than I realise.

I wonder what this newsletter has brought up for you? Have a read through the questions and ask yourself:

What gets your blood boiling - is it justified or just old wounds being scratched?

When was the last time you decided to communicate with compassion rather than projecting your own emotions?

How can you check in with the people you love more?

Sent with sassy love, as always

Bethany xx

Piccies taken by Adrian Coto at last week’s Sassy Salon.

Come join us in August - Weds 26th, 3pm-5pm, in Peckham for our next event.

I’ve been going down memory lane and reminiscing on Bethany aged 10-13. Oh, those formative years that we try so hard to ignore. Or at least, when acknowledging them, we have allowed to warp in our memory so that when we replay a story, we've convinced ourselves it wasn’t that bad, not really. We block out the stains and pull wool over the pain so as to pretend how happy, how easy, how unimportant those years were.

Come to my event - 29th July

But if I’m utterly honest, my childhood and teenage years were some of the most painful, confusing and tricky times of my life. Without the maturity of a mind made up of experience and awareness and the pure miraculous might that comes when you get older and realise you don't give a shit what others think, those early years can be fucking tough.

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I have some very sassy stories to share with you in today’s newsletter my lovebugs. But there’s a cheeky request that this sharing comes with it. I want to know YOUR thoughts!

Whether you’re a bedroom kinkster, a curious BDSM voyeur or an active member of the scene, I’d love you to take part in an Anonymous BDSM & Kink Community Survey.

And I’m sure you’re wondering ‘why?’.

Take part in the 5 min survey

Well, it comes back to my own experiences of exploring my sassssssy side. I learnt about the dynamics of BDSM and desire by going down a trial and error (or even a fuck up and learn) path. This led to me having some of the scariest experiences of my life, as well as some of the most mind-opening, sensation boosting moments.

So, before I spill the tea with three of my HOTTEST kink experiences, I would love YOU to take part in this survey that myself and three other loving humans running a new CIC called The Conscious Connections Network, put together.

Your anonymous answers will help us gather wider research exploring consent culture, emotional safety, inclusivity, safeguarding, education, and ethical facilitation within BDSM (private and public) and alternative relationships.

If you want to take part in future research projects, interviews, or focus groups, then there will be the optional opportunity to register interest. Just know that any contact information will be collected separately and will not be linked to your survey responses.

Take Part Anonyously HERE

Now, on to the juicy stuff.

Picking three, and only three, of my kinkiest experiences was hard. But what you’ll be indulging in below are stories that reflect the spectrum of kink and BDSM. From the sensitive and emotional to the deeply WILD and wicked. I hope you’re ready cos as I’m writing this, my pulse has risen, I’m getting hot under the colour and my panties may be a tiny bit wet!

The First Orgy

Group sex had never been on my radar before. I was underconfident about being naked in front of one person, let alone 500! So the evolution of this particular sassy night still surprises me to this day.

I was skipping around Berlin, interviewing people for my podcast, The Sassy Show, when I got a cheeky DM from a Burlesque performer suggesting I met up with a woman who was running one of the few queer kink parties in Berlin. I was pretty new to this world and, up until that point, was getting my kinky fix through second hand information rather than first hand experiences. I would gush over peoples stories and flex my journalist muscles by asking for more details so that my eager curiosities would be somehow satiated.

I followed the Burley performers advice and reached out to the founder of the party. She was eager to let me interview her and invited me to run the recording from the club she worked out which, coincidently, was the venue where she hosted her queer kinky rave. As she walked me through the front door, I was transported into a place like none other - we’re talking shower rooms, medical rooms, a hot tub, a mezzanine drapping in fabrics and decadent sexy artwork lining the walls that had my eyes popping out their sockets! I had stepped into a different world and I liked it!

Post interview, she asked if I had plans for the evening. I shared how I was on the hunt for a currywurst - surely one can’t visit Berlin without trying their national sausage! - and she suggested I skipped the meat and stayed to party (albeit, with a different kind of sausage) which is how I found myself, 4 hours later, in a sex swing, eyes glued to a cutie pushing me back and forth who I’d made friends with. At this point, I had my underwear firmly on. But the longer I sat/lay there, the more aroused I became by all these new, kind-eyed strangers gathering around me. One asked if they could hold me hand, another asked if they could stroke my leg and as I let myself relax, I realised my answer was YES.

With all the stroking and attention, I felt my temperature rise, my clit start to throb and I commanded the cutie pushing the swing to take off my panties. What started on the swing moved to a bed and I slowly found myself wrapped between legs and arms, boobs and bums, penis’s and vulvas as six or seven beautiful humans pleasured one another. As orgasms rose and mellowed, an organic cuddle puddle melted us together. And that, my darlings, was how I found myself in my very first orgy.

Survey xx

The Trample Teacher

The irony isn’t lost on me that this next story also starts with me heading off across another city to interview someone for my podcast. But this time, we’re in Mumbai and from the moment I was welcomed into the home of my latest guest, I knew I was in for a treat.

It started with me witnessing the woman I was interviewing feed her partner with a glass of fresh urine she’d collected moments before when popping to the toilet. The two of them shared with me the nature of their dynamic (she was the Domme, he was the sub) and how trampling was a big part of what connected them. I had never heard this word before. “Trample what?” I asked. To which she answered “It’d be easier if we showed you”.

Seconds later, I was sat on their sofa watching as the sub lay face up on the floor and the Domme showed off a collection of brutally high stilettos, some with spikes attached to the toes and others with studs pointing out from the heel. Together, they talked me through the safety precautions of standing on someone - aka, trampling - and how to increase and reduce the pressure and the pain. I took this class incredibly seriously, noting every single detail, storing it up in my brain for some future occasion.

And three years later, that lesson paid off when meeting someone who shared they had a thing for trampling. It was my turn for the eyes to light up! Cautiously, I played out this fantasy with a kind of passion I didn’t even know existed in me. My absolute favourite part of our play was when they allowed me to pin the inside of their cheek to the floor with the heel of my stiletto. It was a moment that reminded me just how wonderful it can feel to meet someone who enjoys the same kinks you do, but from the receiving end.

Survey

The Three Minute Man

I’m going to cheat with this one because you made it this far which means you may well be on the kinky train with me…

I have a whole archive of sassy stories that have been lighting up my newsletters throughout the years and so for this week, and this week only, I have taken off the paywall to some my faves for you to indulge in.

The Three Minute Man

Dancing Between Tongues

The Power of Orgies

When They’re So Good At Touching You

How to Have Fantastic Phone Sex

Rejecting Restraint

Throughout each story, you’ll see a pattern of lessons being learnt, safewords being established and concerns that filled my heart and mind. Which reflects one BIG thing - that kink and BDSM is forever a learning curve. We learn things about ourself, about others, and about our bodies that sometimes surprise and sometimes shock us.

This is exactly why I’m involved in the CIC I mentioned at the start and why we are gathering research to establish what we ALL would benefit by sharing more education, safety, equity and inclusion in our explorative journeys.

SURVEY

Remember, kink and BDSM are a marathon, they are not a sprint. So take it easy and please, take part in the anonymous survey to help our research expand.

With sassy love, as always

Bethany xx

I have never been the kind of person to catch the attention of the cool kids.

During my younger years, bouncing between 8 (yes 8) school transitions, I was normally in the steady subcategory of “likeable”. I was never a full-blown “loser” or “nerd”. Nor was I considered pretty enough with my crooked teeth and ghost like complexion to be the “coolest girl in school”. Instead, I squidged around in the middle - a soft place where one was neither utterly ignored nor utterly adored.

But landing in this middle ground, I found that I was always wanting people to like me. I wanted EVERYONE to like me. I wanted the nerds to find me cool, the cool kids to find me worthy of their attention, the attention seekers to find me loyal and the loyal friends to love my nerdyside. I wanted to glide between every group in the playground and know that I was wanted and liked and amenable.

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I vividly reminder the first time I realised that the utter adoration I had for women online was, in fact, a disguise for me crushing on them hard.

Let me walk you through my dodgy history and see where the pieces start to fall into place.

(Sorry this is a week late my lovers. I was caught up on a whirlwind of visiting Berlin for work - and play - which meant this newsletter sat waiting patiently in my drafts until I could litter it was tasty snaps from my trip for your eyes only 🔥)

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The last couple of months, when sitting down to write, I have often started off wanting to talk to you about being a hairy gal - a topic that many of you are here for - yet my brain pulls a complete blank, the words escape me.

This feels darn right stupidity because whether it’s on stage, online or in person at a workshop, I’m bound to bring up (with incessant enthusiasm) the ways I love being a hairy person. I will talk loudly and proudly about having gone on a long and tedious journey of hating every single fluffy molecule on my skin until the day I realised I didn’t have to abide by beauty standards that were in fact causing this body dysmorphia. But when writing about it, I tend to draw a blank!

What I am so very happy to summarise into a 15 second reel or cheekily natter about on podcasts suddenly looses it’s clarity when writing to you. And so, like all the best over thinkers, I can't be satisfied with just accepting a situation like this. Instead, I'm someone who likes a reason, I need to understand why, what and how, and so I have sat here, scratching my head until the reason you'll find below arrived.

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This is my third attempt at writing this newsletter.

It’s taken on a life of its own, steering me in directions that felt too irresponsible, too honest, too exposing to share with you. And so here we go with another version - an attempt to say all the things I wish I could tell you in person. The kinds of conversations that make so much more sense when there’s an actual face speaking the words aloud; when we can hear the nuance in someone’s voice, see the tightening of a jaw or the raise of an eyebrow so I can witness your reaction rather than wonder what you’re thinking from the other side of an inbox.

Because this week, the monsters in me are loud. They've been exacerbated by sexy BDSM scenes and enveloped by new examples of what's possible (stories I'm saving for another day, I promise). But the real cherry on the cake is that I'm wanting to admit my deepest, shadowiest desires out loud - desires that could get me cancelled, could lead to me being imprisoned, but, more than anything else, might mean you'll judge me in a way I'll never be able to recover from.

So, as I apologise for this newsletter being a week late, I must also prewarn (and perhaps also apologise) for what follows. It’s a big old blend of rage, imagination, vulnerability, and the strange places our minds can take us when we’re finally willing to listen.

Last night, I found myself chatting with a new friend about my sadistic side - a part of my psyche I’ve been exploring since that night four long years ago. And before you get worried, nothing happened apart from an absolute implosion of my own imagination.

Let me set the scene. I was lying on a bed in a small hotel overlooking the coastline of southern Turkey when I learned that the person I’d been seeing for two years was, in fact, the father of two young children. So young, in fact, that one of them had been born during the two years we’d known each other. Yet he had never told me about this enormous part of his life. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t the fact that he had children that bothered or upset me; it was the fact that he hadn’t told me. He had kept it so quiet, so hidden, despite all our conversations about wanting children. In that moment, I felt something break inside me.

As I digested this information, I suddenly began to envision the most gory, blood-soaked scene my brain could concoct. What played out in my mind was murder. I was destroying him, tearing him apart, smashing his very being into nothingness until he was reduced to dust. It was shocking, disturbing, and earth-shattering. Yet somehow, the blood and violence of my imagination felt entirely separate from the version of me lying there on the bed - still, calm, and resting.

As my mind gradually settled, I remember thinking: I, Bethany, am kind and caring. I struggle to even look at the remains of a poor animal that’s been hit on the motorway. So who was this other Bethany, buried deep inside my mind, ripping apart a human torso, crushing eyeballs into a skull, and pulling out organs as though they were the stuffing of a teddy bear?

Like so many deeply uncomfortable experiences, I buried it. I blocked it out and pretended I had never imagined such a visceral scene of brutality. Until two years later, when I began studying and practising a therapeutic modality called Internal Family Systems. Once again, my imagination was ignited. Images flooded my mind from every direction, most of them angry, violent, and drenched in blood. Again and again, they ended with me pulling the guts from someone’s body, stomping on their skeleton, twisting their leftover skin like a wet rag, spinning it above my head, and flinging it into a vast internal landscape littered with the evidence of my imagined crimes.

As I took these visions into my in-person therapy sessions and gradually shared what I was seeing with friends, something began to lift. I found myself becoming increasingly detached from the brutality my imagination was capable of producing and began to accept that this was a deeply angry, out-of-control part of me that somehow needed space to breathe. And breathe it did, in a safe and imaginative way.

So, while this may not be the explanation people expect when someone starts discussing the origins of their sadistic side, for me it has felt like a strangely natural progression. It has helped me understand why, in real life, I sometimes have the desire to place my foot on the face of a willing and consenting adult as they lie on the floor, at my mercy, asking me to cause them pain.

Because I know how it has felt for me to be in a position of submission. And there is something profoundly moving about sharing these deeply vulnerable parts of ourselves, knowing that it is done with respect, care, and complete confidence that it can stop at any moment. For me, that’s where the real turn on lies - not in the pain itself, but in the trust that makes it possible, that allows these parts of ourselves exist safely.

As I leave you with this onslaught of my more shadowy side, I wonder what stirred in you?

Have you ever had brutal or shocking daydreams and allowed yourself to look a little closer at their origins?

Name a deep desire, a fantasy that might be deemed immoral?

Can you let yourself write down or discuss some of the shadows that you’ve tried to push deep down? What happens when you name it out loud?

As always, I’m hear for the chats, I read ever single one of your responses and am ever grateful for you being part of the sassy family, joining me for the ride in liberated self-expression, even when it comes packaged in less “fluffy and soft” packaging!

SASSY STORY LIVESTREAM

PLUS I have an online workshops tomorrow night that’s FREE for all of you to join and we’re talking about outdoor sex! It’s “Fantasy Sharing” time - think outdoor intimacy, secluded adventures, romantic tension, and the delicious excitement of being somewhere you probably shouldn’t be… while still respecting boundaries, privacy, and consent.

I hope to see you there. Join by signing up to JOYclub - the ONLY place any of us can share the uncensored sass in community, with community and pride, without fearing we’ll be cancelled, shamed or banned. It’s a special place I’m grateful to call home and I look forward to you joining the party,

Sent with warm sassy love, as always

Bethany

Piccies by Abhishek Srivastava, captured in a secluded outdoor spot in Southern India

I didn’t even know it was possible.

And I partly blame a combination of being around erotic art for three days straight, followed by a loved up wedding and a late night call with an old flame.

But despite the mystery of how this tale began, it most certainly ended in the most triumphant orgasm.

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It took me a minute to connect the dots and realise that my unjustifiable stream of frustration was in fact due to my period starting tomorrow. I had willingly convinced myself that having friends was a waste of time when they were all too busy or hungover for the spontaneous BBQ I had set my exacerbated sights on having today (and had decided to plan approximately ten minutes ago).

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In the case of this particular newsletter, we're talking about hindsight arriving two chunky decades later. 23 years to be exact. That’s how long it took before the penny dropped and I realised just how impactful a trip to the theatre to see The Vagina Monologues really had on me.

If you haven’t heard of The Vagina Monologues, it’s an episodic play written in 1996 written by playwright and activist V (formerly Eve Ensler). Based on hundreds of interviews, it explores female experiences from consensual sex, body image, menstruation, and trauma with the goal of breaking taboos, celebrating womanhood, and stopping violence against women. I was 12 years old when a teacher from my school decided it would be a GREAT idea to take all the girls in our class to see this show. I’m not sure she or our parents quite knew what would unfold in this 90 minute piece of theatre, enacted by three women on stage who had nothing but a chair, a mic and a whole world of stories to share from around the world. But I’m so very glad for their naivety because it was one of the most radically pivotal experiences that, in hindsight, has shaped my understanding of my womanhood in ways you can’t even imagine.

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Let me start by saying that everything you are about to read is entirely inspired by the newsletter that Salma El-Wardany shared last week. Her words about ‘The Horrific Grief of a Friendship Breakup’ made a huge impact on me; they left me pondering through the past few years and counting my blessings for the deep, strong relationships I have with my besties — a handful of wildly different characters who collectively exude glorious amounts of authenticity, conviction, wisdom, comfort, sensibility, accountability, silliness, insight and sassiness that feeds me, fuels me and keeps me placing one foot in front of another (without completely toppling off the edge).

But when reflecting on how incredibly important these women are in my life, I was taken down memory lane, to a time when I swore no friendship would ever be that great to me. I would laugh in people's faces when they told me their friends meant the world to them, pitying them for being so tightly connected to one closely knit group. I couldn't get on board with the romantic notion that chosen family could ever be as important or soul-nourishing as blood. And I looked down my nose to groups of friends who did everything together, assuming they were stuck in roles and suffocating one another's existence.

When people enquired about past housemates I’d lived with, I'd often have no updates to share; stubbornly stable in the fact that we'd lost touch. When being asked about my old school friends, I'd laugh and say I'd disconnected from them, that I had no interest in their lives and that we were on different paths. And when strangers asked how often I saw or spoke to my family, I'd proudly announce ‘two or three times a year’ as if the lack of intimacy was somehow a ‘personal best’.

In hindsight (that marvellous thing), I thought my individualism and sense of independence made me stronger, made me braver, made me more liberated and free to move around the world. I would openly explain that I never expected friendships to last and that it was in my nature to enjoy moving on from one group to another without getting too attached. I felt proud of needing to lean on or communicate with my family, ignoring any tiny sense of sadness at how separated we were.

Something about my non-existent need to lean on others, or even maintain contact with them, felt like an achievement. Which I have decided to blame on two major life events — the first is going to boarding school aged 11, which prompted a year-long experience of the most heart-aching homesickness, which was then replaced by the news of my mother having an affair, leading to my parents separating and me never wanting to go home. And the second was having very close friends abandon me for partners, or shun me for choosing to grow out my facial and body hair in my mid-twenties. The result left me bitterly defending my choice to never let anyone become someone I would need. That I was better off in my detached isolation and perfectly happy not ever letting anyone get too close.

I drifted like an abandoned island in the vast ocean of loneliness for a good few years until slowly five new faces entered my life. They landed on the shores of my mind and scooped me up into their authentic, unquestioning, sassy arms, welcoming me into their lives and rebuilding my entire understanding of relationships. They softened my heart, and encouraged me to lean on them, speak to them, cry and open up (acts that can feel so damn difficult and uncomfortable for me to do), persistently reminding me that friendship is a two way street of sharing and supporting one another. They didn't give up, they asked and invited and continued to prompt me to tell them how I felt until suddenly my dam burst, my island melted into the mountains and the tears of sadness that I’d never let anyone see felt safe enough to fall. l let them cradle me in their loving arms and hold my emotions as they snotterly gushed out - the good, the sad, the sorrowful, the worried, the angry, the hurt, the chaotic and the turbulent.

My chosen sisters know me better than I know myself, and on days when I am angry at life for not going my way, they are the most radical reminder to me that the universe brings us the people we need, at the times we need them the most, to help us grow into the humans we are meant to become. And never are we meant to do it alone.

So I leave your his week with three very important questions;

Who are the friends around you who accept you for who you are, completely and utterly you?

What holds you back from investing in platonic relationships that you know nurture you?

Can you tell your besties what you love about them and offer a message of gratitude for the strength, the grace and the support they give you?

Sent with warm sassy love, as always

Bethany xx

Ps piccies taken from last week’s extra special kink retreat run by . I'm so grateful to have been invited to join as a facilitator and performer for this pleasure-centric pocket of time. Looking forward to sharing more - if you're interested in joining next year then head to www.subinthecity.com and register your interest 🧡💕❤️🌞

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A new friend was sharing how they started playing tennis 3 years ago and never looked back. They now play every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they travel across the country to watch tournaments and they’re currently refreshing their website browser every few hours to find out if they’ve managed to secure themself a ticket to Wimbledon. Their passion for tennis dug it’s heels in and it doesn’t look like it’s loosening it’s grip any time soon.

Hearing about the love and dedication they have for this hobbie got me questioning what I had kept up in the past few years. There was my summer learning salsa, my stint at parkour (long enough for me to write this newsletter about it), a couple of months tying people up in rope (aka shibari), and the 6 month period where I took up drum lessons leading me to buy an electronic drum kit that now sits in the corner of my home moonlighting as a plant stand.

It seems no new hobbies have caught my attention long enough to make me a hardcore fan but what about my dedication to creativity?

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Last night I went on date number 2 with the latest Sasspot who I'm joyfully getting to know. It was a scrummy date where the conversation flowed, sprinkled with humour that spilled over glasses of wine leaving my lungs light with laughing. I felt at ease when they leaned in and asked for a kiss. I felt relaxed as we held hands walking along the canal. But what I didn’t feel was a whole lot of… mmm what word to use…. care towards them.

You see, they are smart and charming and open-hearted. But they also seem to like me a bit more than I like them right now. A weirdly obvious imbalance of attraction which, on the one hand, leaves me feeling incredibly adored and pursude and complimented. But it also brings out a side of me that I haven’t met before and let me tell you, this sassy side of Bethany is a right asshole!

Let me explain the incredibly slippery slope I can see myself falling down and becoming a fuck boy.

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I went through the wringer, I sobbed my little heart out, I looked at my anxious attachment patterns (and promptly indulged them) and yet, even after 10 days of doing the vipassana meditation course that he had encouraged me to sign up for, I had not forgiven him. I let myself stew on his cowardly lack of communication and utter his name with venomous hatred for about 6 months and then promptly forgot that he ever existed. Until he turned up in my inbox last week.

"Hey, I just wanted to say something from my side.

Back then I think I had a lot of ego, and now I realise it. I'm really sorry if I ever behaved badly or hurt you in any way. You're a beautiful human being, and what we had was more than just friendship.

We shared something really special, and I'll always remember you not just as a good friend, but as someone very important in my life🙂

Also, I have a really nice video of us — it brought back some good memories."

On first glance, utter charmer. Accountability 101. Apology fully accepted. Except.... This "nice" little video he mentions that brought back "some good memories" turned out to be a four minute clip of me sucking his dick. I hardly made it through four seconds before the anger came flooding back to me, arriving in waves. As if he thinks this is a fond and comforting memory of the time we spent together (before he ghosted me…obvs still not over it)! It looks more like a visit to horny-ville where he could wank over the memory of having his dick perfectly loved upon.

It's also, apparently, the only evidence either of us share of our time together. And his face isn't even in it.

I decide that the most "mature and healed" reply is one of utter honesty so I punch into my phone the words "it reminds me how one sided our intimacy was" followed by multiple emojis that make zero sense unless you understand the naunced complexity of 2D forms that I interrpret very specifically in my brain as 🫠 = kill me, 🙃= wtf, 🫣= please fuck off,💧= you’re making me want to cry.

What sparked the rage that got aggressively transfered into emojis was the flood of old memories reminding me that the most I received in return for my expert oral, anal pleasure and full body massages was a hug. In fact, every moment we were in bed together, he would tell me to respect his desire not to kiss, lick or even touch me intimately which got me wondering how I could have become so besotted with someone who struggled to actually show any affection.

I don't know what's going on with the stars but this blast of a bastard from the past is not the person I would have chosen to rock back up into my inbox. The only reasons I can decipher him being back on my radar is to remind me to a) stop handing out oral sex to people who don't reciprocate (if this resonates then see the workshop at bottom of page!) and b) to continue avoiding spiritual fuckboys who make out that they are living a life of wisdom because they're continually connected to the high realm when in fact they just bypassing the reality of having to be responsible for their actions and activate any sense of emotional awareness for how their behaviour impact others.

I wonder what your hot take might be from this "warm memory" - have a look through the below and ask yourself:

Do you hold onto anger for people who have ghosted you in the past/done you dirty?

When do you know you're holding hands with a red flag? And more importantly, when do you decide to step away?

Should memories from the past be left in the past or should they be aired out to see what’s changed?

Let me know, because while my anger is this hot, my vision is blurred and I can make very little sense of this situation.

Sent with sassy love, as always

Bethany

xxx

Ps, that's right babes, this week's newsletter is available for all of you sasspots.

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If you've been wanting to crawl into the member only posts then now is your sassy chance. Jump on my Easter offer above - a special tasty egg-cellent discount just for you to step up your sass.

I’m hosting a FREE online workshop this month over on JOYclub.com - my fave ittle pocket of the internet where no censorship is needed which is EXACTLY the reason why I’m hosting a special session all about ‘Anal, Oral and Face Siting with Cum-fidence’.

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It’ll be gently, honest, helpful, full of unforgiveable stories (like the above) and sassy, obvs!

Cum join me honeys - especially my shy gals who secretly want to play with the booty hole but don’t know where to start! This one will do you gooooood.

Never have I been more turned on and moved by emotional displays of longing than watching the sweet series of Heated Rivalry. Or rather, I inhaled it across two cosy nights in bed, urgent to know what happens next in the decade long storyline of two male protagonists who bounce between secret hook ups and the turbulance of same-sex desire.

If you haven’t watched the series, then firstly, what are you doing reading this newsletter - go stream it online right now. And secondly, a rough synopsis of this romance set in the world of ice hockey is of two male captains of their teams bound by ambition, rivalry, and a magnetic pull (aka sexual chemistry) neither of them fully understands. It moves rapidly between seasons, spanning years at a time, and plays out scenes of seduction and phenomenally sexy encounters while hiding in the fear of being shamed as gay/bisexual men.

The narrative is heart achingly true to reality - I dred to think how many of us have suffered in silence knowing our sexuality is more fluid than the heteronormative world we grow up in - but it was also the moments of intimacy that hit home the hardest because watching this constant longing between the main characters scrambled together by their inability to express their true feelings is a scenario I know all too well.

For years, I have trodden down on my true feelings and suffocated the words of what I want, need and long for knowing that it is all in a bid to preserve my own vulnerabiltiy and avoid the potential of having my desires rejected. But after watching this painful experience play out across 6 hours of Heated Rivalry, I have had an ephiphany of confessions and I am desperate to share them with you so that you too will feel less alone and inspired to change your ENTIRE life.

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