Pull up a chair, grab your oat-milk flat white, and let’s talk about the absolute state of straight sex in 2026. Because I swear down, I’m still recovering from Saturday night and my jaw is actually aching from how hard I was clenching it in sheer disbelief.
Picture this. I matched with this bloke on Hinge, nice photos, decent chat, said he was “into mutual pleasure” and “not one of those guys.” Red flag number one, innit? But I was feeling reckless after a long week of rage-tweeting about the latest Tory nonsense, so I thought, go on then. One drink in Dalston.
We end up back at his. He’s got the fairy lights, the vinyl collection, the whole “I’m emotionally intelligent” aesthetic. Clothes come off. Kissing’s alright. Bit of fumbling. I’m thinking, okay, we’re building to something here.
Then, and I’m not even joking, ninety seconds. Ninety. Actual. Seconds.
He makes this little grunt, collapses on me like a sack of spuds, and before I can even process what just happened he’s already rolling off, grinning like he’s just won the bloody World Cup.
“Fuck, that was amazing,” he pants. “You’re so hot.”
I’m lying there, knickers still half on, staring at his ceiling like it personally offended me. And he has the nerve, the actual nerve, to look at me all proud and go, “Did you come?”
Babes. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to set his fairy lights on fire.
Instead I just said, “Mate… you finished before I even got properly started.”
His face. You’d think I’d told him Father Christmas isn’t real. Proper crestfallen. Then the classic line drops: “Sorry, you just felt too good.”
Too good.
Like it’s my fault his dick has the stamina of a caffeinated hamster.
I got dressed, called an Uber, and spent the entire ride home voice-noting the Coven group chat in absolute hysterics. They sent me seventeen fire emojis and a meme of a tombstone that just said “RIP her clit.”
But here’s the thing. This isn’t a one-off horror story. This is the standard menu for way too many of us. And I’m done pretending it’s normal.
Let me be crystal clear from the jump: finishing fast isn’t the crime. Bodies are different. Nerves happen. First times can be messy. I get it.
The crime is the absolute refusal to give a single solitary shit about the woman who’s still lying there wide awake and wondering if this is actually what the rest of her sexual life is going to look like. The crime is expecting applause for what is, quite frankly, bare minimum performance. The crime is treating her pleasure like it’s optional DLC you can just skip because you already unlocked your own ending.
And the worst part? So many of them genuinely think they’ve smashed it.
I’ve heard every excuse under the sun. “I was just really turned on.” “You’re too sexy, I couldn’t help it.” “Next round I’ll last longer, promise.” Mate, there shouldn’t need to be a next round just so I can catch up. That’s not how this works.
Last year I dated this guy for three whole months, let’s call him Ben, because every second bloke in London seems to be called Ben. Ben was one of those “I’m an ally” types. Read the books. Went on the marches. Posted the black squares. The full package.
In bed? Mate. It was like clockwork. Two minutes of enthusiastic but completely uncoordinated thrusting, a dramatic groan, and then he’d flop over, kiss my forehead like he’d just delivered the performance of a lifetime, and ask if I wanted to cuddle.
I tried everything. I literally coached him. Patiently. Kindly. Like the emotionally intelligent feminist I am. “Babe, can we slow down? Can you touch me here? Can we actually do foreplay for more than thirty seconds?”
He’d nod. Look serious. Say “of course, I want you to feel good too.” Then thirty seconds later we’d be back to the same routine.
Eventually I cracked one night and just said it straight: “Ben, I haven’t come once in the three months we’ve been sleeping together.”
His response? “Wow. That’s… surprising. I thought you were enjoying it.”
Enjoying it.
I was enjoying the company. I was enjoying the texting. I was enjoying not being alone on a Friday night. The actual sex? I was faking it so hard I deserve a BAFTA.
That’s when it hit me. A lot of these blokes aren’t even listening when we tell them. They’re performing “good guy” in their heads and the second the clothes come off the performance drops and it’s just… whatever they saw in porn last week.
Which brings me to the elephant in the bedroom: porn.
I’m not here to shame anyone for watching it. We’re all adults. But when your entire sexual education comes from videos where the woman is screaming in ecstasy from the first thrust and the guy lasts forty-five minutes while doing acrobatics, you’re going to show up in real life with completely warped expectations.
Real women aren’t porn actresses getting paid to perform. We need time. We need actual touch. We need to not feel like we’re on a timer before you cross the finish line and start looking for your medal.
And yet so many men treat sex like a race they’re determined to win solo.
I put a call out on my Instagram stories last week, anonymous, obviously. “Tell me about the quickest you’ve ever been left high and dry by a guy who still acted like he’d earned a standing ovation.”
The replies flooded in so fast my phone nearly crashed.
One girl said the guy finished in forty-five seconds, then immediately asked her to “rate his performance out of ten.”
Another said he came before he was even fully inside, then spent the next twenty minutes explaining how it was actually a compliment because she’s just “that attractive.”
A third told me the bloke literally clapped his own hands afterwards. Clapped. Like he’d just scored a goal in five-a-side.
I read them all in bed at 2 a.m. with my vape in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, cackling and raging in equal measure. Because it’s funny until it’s your life. Until it’s every other date. Until you start wondering if maybe you’re the problem for wanting more than the sexual equivalent of a microwave meal.
Here’s the bit that really boils my piss though: the emotional labour.
After the ninety-second special, it’s never just “sorry, my bad.” It becomes this whole performance where you’re suddenly the one comforting him.
“Are you okay?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re not mad, are you?”
Babes, I’m not your mum. I’m not your therapist. I’m not here to stroke your ego while my own body is still waiting for the main event that never arrived. Stop making me manage your feelings about your own rubbish performance.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve ended up saying “it’s fine, don’t worry about it” just so the night doesn’t turn into some awkward therapy session where I have to reassure a grown man that he’s still a real boy even though his dick has the self-control of a fourteen-year-old watching his first Pornhub video.
And the audacity doesn’t stop there.
A few months ago I hooked up with this personal trainer type, gym selfies, six-pack, the lot. He spent the whole evening talking about “discipline” and “mind over matter” and how he could “go for hours.”
Ninety seconds.
Then he had the cheek to say, “See? Told you I had stamina.”
I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Babe, that wasn’t stamina. That was premature. There’s a difference.”
He blocked me the next day. Shocker.
I keep thinking about my mates in the Coven. We’ve all got these stories. We swap them like war tales over cheap wine and even cheaper takeaways. One of them, let’s call her Priya, actually timed it once with her Apple Watch. Eighty-seven seconds. She showed him the screenshot. He laughed it off and said “next time.” There was no next time.
Another friend, Sophie, said the guy literally thanked her afterwards. “Thanks for that,” like she’d just done him a favour. Like her body was a service he’d used and now he was being polite about it.
This is where the feminism bit kicks in properly, because none of this happens in a vacuum.
We live in a world that still teaches men their pleasure is the main event and ours is a nice bonus if it happens to occur. We teach boys that sex is about them getting off and girls that they should be grateful for the attention. We teach them that lasting longer is about some mythical masculine control rather than, you know, basic consideration and communication.
Patriarchy doesn’t just live in boardrooms and government buildings. It lives in bedrooms when a bloke finishes in record time and still expects you to tell him he’s a sex god.
And the really depressing part? A lot of women have just… accepted it. We fake it. We lie. We say “it was great” because the alternative is hurting his feelings or dealing with the sulk or the defensiveness or the “well you’re just hard to please” comments that make us question our own perfectly reasonable desires.
I’m done with that.
I’m done pretending that basic respect in bed is some revolutionary feminist demand instead of the absolute bare minimum any decent human should offer.
I’m done with the “he tries though” excuses. Trying isn’t enough when the trying still leaves me sorting myself out in the bathroom afterwards with the shower running so he doesn’t hear the vibrator.
Good sex isn’t complicated, babes. It’s not about tantric marathons or learning the entire Kama Sutra. It’s about paying attention. It’s about asking questions. It’s about not treating my body like a Fleshlight with extra steps.
It’s about foreplay that actually lasts longer than the main event. It’s about touching me like you’re interested in what feels good for me instead of just using me to chase your own orgasm. It’s about not rolling over and going to sleep the second you’ve finished like I’m some disposable toy.
And if you can’t manage that? If ninety seconds is genuinely your limit right now? Fine. Own it. Communicate. Make it up to me in other ways. Use your hands. Use your mouth. Use your words. Show me you actually give a shit.
But don’t lie there expecting a round of applause like you’ve just run a marathon when you barely made it to the warm-up.
I’m 29. I’ve had enough terrible sex to fill a whole series of Substack essays. And I’m not the only one. The comments on my stories this week proved that. Hundreds of women sharing the exact same frustration. We’re all exhausted. We’re all pretending. And we’re all quietly wondering if this is just how it is.
It doesn’t have to be.
The bar is in hell, babes. And somehow men keep limboing under it while demanding we cheer them on.
So here’s my challenge to every bloke reading this (and yes, I know some of you are): do better. Actually better. Not performative allyship. Not “I read one article about the clitoris.” Proper, consistent, enthusiastic effort.
Ask what she likes. Listen to the answer. Don’t get defensive when she tells you the truth. And for the love of everything holy, stop expecting a medal for showing up.
Because until you do, more and more of us are just going to choose the option that actually gets us off: staying single, buying better vibrators, and spending our evenings writing furious threads about exactly why you’re all so rubbish in bed.
And honestly? The vibes have never been better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with my Hitachi and zero expectations.
See you in the comments, hun. Tell me your worst ninety-second story. I’m ready.
— Emma x
