I'm a basic 30-something Sydney girl who writes about my sex life on the internet, because somewhere along the way, I stumbled on to the fact I could actually make a job out of this.
Even so, people have been asking me to weigh in on their sex lives since I first began sharing my debauched experiences online.
Notably, no one has queried my qualifications; the vast majority of people who write in simply want a non-judgmental ear to confide to.
Because if writing about sex has taught me anything, it's that there aren't a whole lot of safe spaces for people to share what they're into.
Which may explain why most of the people I talk to believe they're sexual deviants. No one's ever told them that, actually, having a foot fetish isn't particularly uncommon (in fact, research indicates at least one in 10 of us are turned on by feet), or that an extraterrestrial fantasy isn't unique (Pornhub's 2019 report revealed at least 30,000 people search "alien" on the site every day).
Most of what we've convinced ourselves is "perverted" about us is, more often than not, yawn-inducingly pedestrian.
It's just that no one's striking up a conversation about their toe-sucking fetish over after-work drinks.
Your partner isn't going to hurl a finger at you like a 17th century witch and yell "FREAK!" upon learning of your bondage fantasy; in all likelihood, because they've at some point fantasised about it too. When it comes to sex, we're just not as different as we like to think we are.
And nowhere is this clearer than in porn.
Enter just about any wild combination of words into an X-rated site, and you're guaranteed to find hundreds of video results with hundreds of thousands of views, proving how utterly un-weird you are.
Take for example, figurine porn — a subgenre involving action figures and Barbie dolls. The seemingly obscure category has more than 64 pages of video content dedicated to it, amassing millions of views on PornHub.
Or furry porn, a niche depicting people in teddy bear costumes getting it on, which has surged in popularity by 71 per cent in the past year.
If you can dream it, someone, somewhere on the internet, has already made a porno on it.
TIP TO SHARING SECRET TURN-ON
Consequently, if you want to introduce your partner to what you're into, there are few simpler, less confronting ways to do it than via watching porn. As the great playwright Anton Chekhov once said, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me".
Sharing your secret turn-on is a whole lot less complicated when you merely need to hit play to demonstrate how it's done.
If your partner likes what they see, great! Ask if they'd be down for replicating it with you. And if they maintain a poker face? Inquire, "Is this turning you on?"
The worst possible outcome is that they'll respond, "Not really", in which case, you haven't put your ego on the line, and can scroll on to find something you both enjoy.
On the off-chance your partner recoils and responds as though they've never seen anything so depraved in their lives, you can go ahead and pack your things, because anyone who says their Google search history is pure is a liar. (Which reminds me, I need to delete my Google search history).
I like to think of porn as the great human leveller. Whether you're able-bodied, a person of colour, non-binary, gay, straight, or somewhere along the spectrum, you can see yourself — and what you're into — represented in porn.
Because there's really no such thing as "normal" when it comes to sexuality. Just a whole lot of people who haven't watched enough RedTube yet to realise they're not perverts.
Follow Nadia Bokody on Instagram and YouTube for more sex, relationship and mental health tips.
