What goes on tour...

According to a recent survey by online travel agency Zuji.com.au, travel is a sure-fire way to spice up your love life. And not just for singles.
It seems that old adage – what goes on tour, stays on tour, still holds water. In the scary survey, a whopping 66 percent of men and 55 percent of women admitted they would consider ‘extra-curricular activity’ while away from home and 56 percent of respondents admitted to having had ‘a fling’ during previous travels.
Surprisingly, almost half the female respondents (as opposed to only 39 percent of male respondents) said that they would actively pursue an overseas affair. Zuji thinks this might explain the trend towards more women than men (29 percent vs. 17percent) opting to travel alone these days! So, it’s not just blokes on a footy tour that can’t be trusted ladies...
When it comes to the states, Queenslanders are the trustworthiest bunch with only 35% admitting to an overseas affair. More dubious characters can be found in the ACT where a huge 75 percent have admitted to a holiday fling. The other states were also relatively naughty with NSW 60 percent, SA 64 percent, VIC 63 percent, TAS 66 percent and WA 52 percent.
This is all very interesting information for the happily partnered among us. Does the thrill of the exotic, far-away destination melt away faithfulness and marriage vows? Is it just that it’s a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity to shag someone in a foreign climate? Or is it just that the likelihood of getting caught is more remote if you don’t shag where you sleep?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the foreign fling. Been tempted to bed Luigi, the strapping, tanned Italian, and forget all about Greg, your pale chartered accountant back home? Do you believe what goes on tour stays on tour? Tell all. That’s what the Anon button is for.

Who’s making all that racket?

I used to work with a girl who lived in the apartment underneath a woman she called the Mad Rooter. She’d do it against anything, apparently – tables, chairs, walls, the floor; even the balcony got a workout, despite frequent complaints from her neighbours.
Noisy sex: it’s an interesting topic. You’re either into it or you’re not. And if you are, woe betide anyone in the room next door. Spare a thought for the guests at the luxury Kenyan beach resort who heard Brad and Angelina going for it recently. Apparently they were so loud security guards were called and a fellow guest described their passionate racket as, ‘sounding like a wounded animal, or something being killed’.
Hmmm, having your sex sessions described thus is enough to make you lose your mojo, but that's nothing compared to getting publicly sued because you’re too loud in the bedroom. Cindy Crawford’s one-time neighbour Marina French tried it; she reportedly filed a lawsuit against the supermodel complaining that she’d had to endure Cindy’s noisy sex sessions for over two years (they don’t call her husband Randy for nothing).
Such reports are all very well but it does beg the question: how many of those moans, groans, growls and squeals are real, and how many are all part of an Oscar-winning performance? Studies show around 92 percent of women have faked orgasm at least once, so you have to wonder. There are even classes out there teaching people how to ‘release the orgasm charge’, and thus, expand the intensity of one’s orgasm. I'd like to think Sting and Woody Harrelson would be fans of such a class. As tantric sex enthusiasts, they believe making lots of noise during nookie helps the sexual energy flow through the body.
Luckily, their neighbours haven’t complained... yet.

*** What’s your bedroom style? Are you loud and proud, or more of a quiet achiever? And for that matter, aren’t Brad and Angelina too busy for sex with all the roaming-about-the-world-adopting-innocent-orphans thing?

Share-partners

I often hear stories of people 'whoopsie' looking at their partner’s mobile phone and just happening to read through the text messages. That is NOT okay on many levels. In fact, I’ll get on my high horse here and say it’s a complete invasion of privacy and totally crosses the line. It gets me thinking about other things that couples do to invade each other’s personal space, and here’s my list. Feel free to add to it...
Crossing the line is:
~ Squeezing each other zits (Ewwwww. A solo activity if there ever was one)
~ Plucking hairs from each others body (unless one half of the couple is professional waxer)
~ Wearing each other’s underwear (unless you’re into that sort of kinky caper)
~ Sharing a toothbrush (unless dire emergency)
~ Wearing matching clothes (unless you play for the same netball team)
~ Sharing an email address (Sometimes handy, but mostly we should all have our own emails, right?)
~ Buying each other’s very personal items (Girls should buy their own tampons. Guys should buy their own nose hair clippers. End of story.)
~ Eating from each other’s plates (One shared taste is permissible, except for dessert, which should be shared by law)
~ Sharing the bathroom whilst one person is peeing. (Let’s keep some bodily functions a mystery, hey?)
Seen a couple cross the line? I wanna hear about it...

Sweet dreams? Hardly...

Lately, I’ve been having a few erotic dreams. Blame it on the release of Ocean's Thirteen, but they usually start with George Clooney kissing my manicured feet and giving me the same come-hither look he gave J-Lo in Out of Sight. Sadly, it's rare the dream heads in the northerly direction I'm hoping for: usually I realise in horror that George has morphed into the stumpy, hairy maths teacher I had in Year 10, and worse, is grinning at me in a decidedly leery and expectant manner.
It's then that the alarm goes off, leaving me wondering why the heck a man with the personality of a statistics text book keeps gate-crashing my nocturnal nookie sessions. But that's erotic dreaming in a nutshell: sometimes delicious, other times distressing, often both.
I decided to do a little research on the subject to see if I could figure out a way to keep George for the duration. By typing ‘wet dreams’ into Google, I found that it’s all about the blokes – no surprises there. By age 45, 80 percent of men have reportedly had at least one such dream (and the rest are probably lying) compared to 40 percent of women. Still, we get in early: studies show 85 percent of women who’ve experienced The Big O in their sleep did so before age 21. Women who have erotic dreams apparently experience them several times a year – and some are so vivid you may even wake up believing you've actually had sex, which I’m sure will be a heartening discovery for anyone who’s currently getting zip in real life. (No comment.)
As for controlling the content of your erotic dreams... well, Google didn’t have much to say on that topic. But I live in hope that one day soon, George will decide to stay the night.

** Your turn... who's in your dreams? Brad Pitt, your boss or your sister's new boyfriend? Is it often your ex or something really left-of-field like a bear riding a bike? Do your erotic dreams ever turn into nightmares? Tell all...

To tell or not to tell

Regular RC readers will know about my obsession with Gray’s Anatomy. Those crazy kids at Seattle Grace keep me entertained every Sunday night along with a bucket of ice-cream and a bottle of white wine. Any-hoo. At the moment there’s a bit of a conundrum going on between cute, hobbit-like George and willowy model-type Izzy. The pair has been best friends for ages, and after a fight they decide to drink their weight in alcoholic beverages and wind up doing the deed. The problem is, George is married to the feisty Callie (how much do we love her?) The question is, does George spill the beans on his one night of drunken passion with Izzy? Or does he choose to keep the whole affair quiet? At the episode’s end George chooses the latter. He and Izzy vow to never speak of their shag again.
But you get the distinct feeling the whole thing is going to blow up in the season finale. This leads me to my blog thought for this week. Cheating. If it’s a one night thing – is it better to tell or not to tell? Will it hurt your partner more to hear the gory details or is it a case of what they don’t know won’t hurt them? It’s a tricky one. Some people are of the opinion that a long term affair is much worse a betrayal than a quick, whoopsie-I-stuck-it-in slip. If it’s not going to happen again, is it worth risking your long-term thing?
What do you guys think? Is George doing the right thing keeping his sexual misdemeanour a secret? Or should he come clean and hope Callie won’t drop kick him across the hospital?
When it’s a one night thing, is it worth spilling the beans?

Time’s up

Realistically, can you put a time limit on a relationship? I’ve witnessed this tactic for all kinds of things. A year for him to propose. Six months for him to get a real job and sort himself out. Three months for him to stop smoking dope. Six months for her to kick the coke habit. A month for him to start performing in the boudoir. A year for him to decide he's ready for her to get pregnant. A year to move in together. And so on and so forth. You get the idea.
In some cases, setting a mental time limit on an aspect of your relationship is a positive thing to do. You’re sticking to what you want from your partner and not putting up with what’s not working for the long term. You’re giving yourself an out and shaking up the status quo.
But it’s also a scenario that’s fraught with problems. How on earth can you really put your own time frame on someone else behavior to change? It’s been my experience that people tend to respond better if they’re given a choice in the matter. And if you voice your time frame out loud you’re dropping a huge ultimatum into a relationship which can be the quickest way to make someone feel pressured and trapped.
For many women it can also be very hard to stick to the plan. They arrive at the end of the time period and the diamond ring or the day job hasn’t arrived. Are they really supposed to up and leave an otherwise loving union (especially if they share a house, kids or a canine)? Often it can be tempting to stretch out that time frame for a little longer and by then the whole impact of the time limit is lost.
On the other hand – I have seen it work. Some people do respond to being given a deadline for change. It spurs them into action knowing the person they love the most might be packing their bags if they don’t sort it out.
Tell me – have you ever set the clock on your relationship? Does it ever work?

Are we all a little bit gay?

I once kissed a girl. It was New Year’s, I was in Edinburgh and surrounded by a guy-on-guy, girl-on-girl, girl-on-guy kiss-fest of epic proportions –and I wasn’t about to wreck the moment.
That said, the pash planted on me by a dear gal-pal was a bitter disappointment: the kiss was too soft, too wet and waaaaay too far from the stubble and grrrr factor I’d come to like about kissing guys. It was all wrong. I found myself craving beard rash like an old friend.
That kiss was an eye-opener. I'd always thought there was some weight to the theory that we're all a little bit gay, especially as I like ogling gorgeous girls as much as guys do. Now I think it’s just because a) I appreciate beauty in all shapes and sizes and b) I can't quite shake my girly competitive streak.
Getting back to the debate that rages, though, whether we're gay or straight or bi or at liberty to chop and change willy nilly (pardon the bad pun) is one I never get bored of. A formerly married male friend informed me last night that for many guys, it wouldn’t matter if a guy or girl was going down on them – it’s just a blow job. While I wasn't entirely surprised to hear his point of view - I once dated a very straight guy who admitted he’d received a BJ from a guy and liked it – I know just as many straight men who’d die rather than let another guy toy with their tackle box. I have male and female friends who spent their teens experimenting with same-sex relationships, swinging back to hetero when they hit their 20s. Are they gay? Or bi? I know those in their 30s and 40s who still aren’t sure where they sit on the gay/straight scale. I’ve heard of happily-married spouses who suddenly decide to switch teams; I know people who are definitely one way or the other, and yet more who loathe labels and get shirty at anyone who uses them.
What’s your view? Have you ever experimented? Would you? If you’re gay, when did you know it – and was there ever a time in your life when you quite happily had hetero relationships?
The ‘anonymous’ button was made for posts like these, folks.