Ivy O’Hara and I met at an airport. We were both waiting for flights…on the Starbucks line! We discovered we were both writers…and a friendship was born! Ivy is a brilliant writer, her erotica is deeply sensual with a slow burn that scalds like this story for example…
She is the real deal as far as writers are concerned, her work ethic is something I aspire to…Okay, I am going to stop fangirling her, and let her take over…
Firstly, huge thanks to Leonora for inviting me to say a few words here. I may not be new to the world of sex or to the world of writing, but when it comes to blogs, I am a complete beginner, and when Leonora kindly asked me if I would like to write a few words to guest, I was all of a fluster.
Please be gentle, this is my first time.
Thinking about what I wanted to say has carried me through many hours when I was supposed to be working on plot twists for my other life, as a suspense writer, but it finally came down to two things – firstly, to what has led me here, as Ivy, and secondly, if you’ll excuse me for being so forward, I want to talk about pubic hair.
Released from the confines of an English boarding school at the tender age of sixteen, I hit the big bad world running. Lucky to find both men and women fascinating, I embraced every form of love and every form of fucking, and it was certainly an education. I fell in lust and in love twice a week, and at night I dreamed of the touch, the sight and the feel of naked skin. I was on fire. I lived every last second of life I could find, and when I started work writing for a small town paper, I found that my fingers were just as happy exploring words and plot lines as they were reaching for the touch of new skin.
That was all a long time ago now and it has been nearly thirty years since I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, dressed in a lace basque and skintight jeans. In that time, I dated men and I dated women; I had one night stands and three week stands, and year-long heartbreaks. Then, when I finally fell deeply into a relationship with a wonderful man, I grabbed hold of him with both hands, and I have no intention of letting go.
I don’t miss the wild life or the excitement of strange kinks and new people because what I have now tops that a thousand times over. But as a writer, I find myself reliving that wildness, that passion, through my characters. In my day job as a suspense writer, I often use sex in my books. My characters fall in love with the good guys, as well as the bad ones. The spark between two people is such fun to write but in the world of suspense, there is a limit.
Then one day, talking with Leonora, I came to realise that I really can have my cake and eat it. I can write my scary stuff in the day and I can let loose at night, under a different name.
And so, Ivy O’Hara was born.
I began to dig out erotica I’d written years ago and I popped some of the little teases up on a blog, and I began to allow myself to write further into short stories, to let my characters play. As Ivy, I can take it as far as the characters want to go – I have no editors telling me that the sex is too raunchy, or too kinky. As Ivy, I can write the fantasy.
The worlds of sex blogs and erotica blogs are bright and shiny new to me but I’ve read erotica ever since I was given my first Anais Nin book as a sixteenth birthday present. I love the craft of writing and the joy of reading, and this way I can shrug off the suspense writer’s fluffy cardigan (the pale blue one that’s covered in cat hair and a little frayed at the edges) and reach for the fully boned erotica writer’s lace basque – but there is one thing I really miss, from my crazy, kinky life, and this brings me to my second topic:
I miss pubic hair.
Not a sentence I ever imagined writing – or saying, for that matter.
With absolute respect both to those who like to be shaved and those who enjoy the shaved feel on their partners, for me, there is nothing so feminine or masculine as a dusting of hair – the slender V of temptation. I love the shining, damp curls on a woman’s pussy lips and I love that enticing line of hair that runs down from a man’s lower abdomen, to frame his cock.
Sadly, for me at least, it seems that the world of porn does not agree, but every time I read something a little bit naughty and the protagonist dares to hair, I get a shiver of excitement – a knowing rush of heat. For me, that little touch makes it real. I can relate to it. I can feel the soft touch of the curl, the knowing tingle.
After all, I’m not asking for a giant 70s style herbaceous border – I just like a little bit of something to frame the prize.
Maybe I haven’t evolved with the rest of society. Maybe the world of porn and shaven Hollywood starlets has moved on and part of me will always be stuck in the past, leaning up against the stage in some dingy London kink bar, my dress hooked up over someone’s knuckles as they tease the very wet tendrils of hair under my knickers. Maybe it is an age thing: for me, maturity came with excitement and dare, and hair down there. Maybe it is as simple as taste – as humans, we are as different as we are similar and the wonderful thing I learnt back then in the seedy low lights of London, is that as long as it is consensual, anything goes.
Now years away from that wild crazy life, I have a chapter to finish and a plot line to figure, and a man who I adore with my heart and soul. But after the work is done, I may read shaven guys and gals and I may watch actresses and actors with no remaining body hair. But when I come across a fine piece of writing with a sweet curl in the right place, I still feel that wonderful burn.
After all, whether as Ivy or as my other writery self, there is nothing quite so hot as the sexual need – the pure, unbridled want – whether in fictional or physical form.
Ivy x
Read Ivy’s awesome blog, where I was recently a guest!
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