If you really think you're gay, guys, why not act on it?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/01/women-same-sex-experimenting

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A few years ago, Katy Perry sang I Kissed a Girl ("I kissed a girl and I liked it"), and very swiftly I decided that I didn't like it. In fact, I was irritated by it, more precisely by the song's hetero-needy subtext ("And I hope guys get off on me like me liking it too!"). Grand, if it made some young lesbians and bisexuals feel less isolated, but there was something about Perry's faux-Sapphic lyric that pined for the male gaze for validation. Something that said that this was less about experimentation, rather a whistle-stop brand of sexual tourism – not the really depressing kind, involving furtive middle-aged males taking trips to Thailand, but fake and irksome nonetheless. Now I wonder if Katy may just have been of her time.

The latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles revealed many things (from unplanned pregnancies to unreported sexual assaults), but also that there has been a 400% increase in (mainly younger) women, some fully lesbian, declaring same sex sexual experimentation – around 16%. By contrast, the number of men who'd had a same sex experience had only gone up 1% (to 7%) since 1991.

Interesting. Women appear to be increasingly open, in terms of taking these kinds of carnal mini-breaks – "just visiting" a sexuality, but not always to the point where they feel truly bisexual or even bicurious. The kind of sexual fluidity that may only flow once or twice but is significant nonetheless, certainly nothing to hide, or be ashamed of. On the other hand, guys (men!), where were you?

With female sexual fluidity increasing by 400%, that male 1% increase can't help but look about as fluid as breeze block. Which, considering that this is a survey about sex, just isn't like men – are they feeling unwell, a little bit shy? Come to think of it, why haven't One Direction released We Kissed Some Blokes (We Liked It)? Joking apart, it has to be seen as strange that quasi-hetero girl-on-girl action is fast becoming mainstream in a way the male version isn't.

These days, a woman kissing another woman at a party might be interpreted in many ways, only one being that she is going to be a committed lifelong lesbian. However, a man doing similar would usually be viewed as 100% gay. If he said he was experimenting, he would be branded as in denial. Is this what's happening – that some men may be loath to embrace or admit to sexual fluidity, lest society rush to categorise them, as it doesn't do with women?

Or it could be that men simply need to up their game in the sexually fluid stakes. Robbie Williams has recently been under fire for declaring himself "49% gay" on account of the fact that he loves "musical theatre and a lot of other things that are often associated with gays". (Pause for writer to put her head into her hands and cringe.) In some ways, one sympathises with this clumsy attempt at what could be termed solidarity. Here on Planet Hetero, few are innocent of the odd blunder. Odd, though, that you don't tend to get women saying "I'm 49% gay, because I love having hairy armpits, wearing dungarees and other ludicrous outdated cliches associated with lesbians."

It says something that even self-professed "49%" gay men such as Williams flounder around, spouting pathetic tosh about musical theatre, completely refusing to acknowledge that being a little bit gay could maybe entail a little bit of taking your pants off. By contrast, according to this survey, women bypass the boring stereotypes and get stuck straight into the sex stuff.

When it comes to being sexually fluid, it would seem that women really don't hang about.

Kindly cut out the crap, chaps

People have been talking "crap" in parliament. Literally. The Speaker, John Bercow, has spoken about the usage of the word in the House of Commons. Labour MP Bill Esterson used the word in reference to what David Cameron said about dropping environmental policies or, as Cameron is said to have put it, "green crap". Esterson wanted the prime minister to explain what he meant by "green crap".

Then Tory MP Alok Sharma tweeted about "EUredtapecrap". Suddenly, crap was getting out of hand. Crap was flying everywhere. What could be done about all this crap?

Enter Bercow, who said that "crap" was not a parliamentary word and it would not be tolerated under normal circumstances in the Commons. People could not call each other crap or start raging that policies were crap. All that crap had to go. However, crap could be used if quoting something said elsewhere, as in Cameron and his "green crap". That crap could stay.

Please brace yourself as I'm going to use my more in sorrow than anger tone. It's as if Bercow were in a headmaster's study, addressing a bunch of uncouth 14-year-olds who'd been caught by matron smelling strongly of homebrewed cider and Golden Virginia.

How old are these people, these elected political representatives, that they need it to be clarified that spouting crap should be considered unnecessary unless, of course, it becomes absolutely necessary?

Some might say that the fact that the Speaker of the Commons had to "offer guidance" to a bunch of parliamentarians on the right and wrongs of "crap" is in itself more than a bit, well, crap. I'm sorry to report that there are no winners here.

So now I know what lovelorn sounds like

It seems almost black-hearted not to feel that Charles Saatchi was anything other than genuinely lovelorn, with his lament in court about still "adoring" his former wife, Nigella Lawson, and wishing that he had not lost her.

Or was this the animal howl of a controlling man who was not getting to control a certain someone anymore. Getting away from the particular example of Saatchi and Lawson, many a behavioural expert could tell you that controlling people can be all about the "Great Love", incredibly charming, romantic and lyrical when they want to be.

One might also feel taken aback by this apparently spontaneous emotional display from a man who made his vast fortune from the powerfully controlled, perfectly pitched world of high-end advertising. Why that awful email? ("Higella"?) Why this sudden outpouring? Or maybe it's more complex – a desire to punish and hurt (as you have been hurt), a show of might and spite (subtext: "This is what happens when you leave me") but blended in with the love that started it all. I'm the first to admit that being, as I am, a fan of Nigella, can cloud a person's view.

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