2025 Reflections: A Change Of Pace
The past 12 months have crawled by in a blink. That’s how this year has felt to me, in many ways; my personal pace downshifting a couple of gears while life rushes on around me with the same frenzied impatience as always. Every December I like to look back over the year and share some personal insights, what’s been going on behind the scenes, as it were. Most of my blog has been focused on adult toy reviews and sex advice, but today I’m carving out a little space for my 2025 reflections.
How I’m Protecting My Energy In 2026
Since developing M.E. last year and learning how to navigate life with chronic illness on top of perimenopause and being deaf, my energy is a precious and carefully guarded resource. In 2026, protecting my energy isn’t a soundbite for trendy mindful culture. It’s mandatory, non-negotiable; the only way I will manage, survive and heal. This year, I am being intentional about what I give my time, attention and body to, and just as intentional about what I’ll no longer engage with.
Cunnilingus Doesn’t Work for Me: Living in a Body That Refuses to Conform
Today, I want to sit in the uncomfortable truth of the matter. And I’m inviting you to sit with me, as I gather my thoughts on what it’s like to be a woman who doesn’t achieve peak sexual satisfaction from lips and tongue, no matter how skilled they may be.
Beyond the Sex Blogger Label: Revealing the Rest of Me
What follows is the hardest post I've ever written here on my blog. It's a confession of all the things I never said at the time, because I was ashamed and embarrassed. I was afraid of being seen as less. Less of a person, less of a woman, less of a sex blogger. I have changed. It's time to reveal and to heal.
My Nexplanon Implant Experiences: The Subdermal Contraceptive
What is the Nexplanon implant? How does it work? Does it hurt to get it inserted? How long does it last? Does it protect against STIs? Today I’m sharing my answers to all these questions, plus my personal experiences getting the Nexplanon subdermal contraceptive inserted...
What Happens At A Smear Test? My Cervical Screening Exam
It can be easy to 'stick your head in the sand' when it comes to those 3-yearly cervical smear tests. I know, because I’ve been there and done it myself. The reminder letter arrives... I open it, groan, and shove it into a drawer and try to forget about it. Eventually I force myself to put my big girl pants on and march myself down to the doctor’s surgery, before taking them off again for the nurse.
Sex and Disability: Intimacy, Desire, and Pleasure When Bodies Have Limits
This piece was written by a previous version of me, one who had higher libido, non-progressive deafness, and who didn’t yet know what it was like to live with chronic illness. It was before I moved into perimenopause, before I suddenly developed M.E. What follows is my early exploration into sex and disability, motivated by kindness and curiosity and a desire to create a place which resonates with anyone affected. I now count myself among that number.
Emerging From My Nope Era: When Libido Returns With a Bang (Or Three)
I was craving his touch. His fingers on me, holding me, gripping me, stroking me, teasing me. And in me, dipping in and out of my silky wet intimate space, using the natural lubrication to tease my hard, pulsating clit and back down to thrust inside, more this time, two fingers, three. Opening up that tight space, readying me for even more of him. His mouth on mine, and his teeth on my neck, and down to my cleavage, my primed and alert nipples, and back for another taste of my hot and hungry mouth.
From FitBit to Visible: Learning to Live with M.E.
It truly is devastating. Life looked a certain way, before; bright, active, hopeful. Now, life is darker, restricted, depressing. I’ve gone from running a busy life juggling motherhood, my relationship, my sex life, my hormones in perimenopause, my fulltime self-employment and my exercise and fitness goals, to a needle-scratch moment of life where the record was changed without warning or consent to an ominously slower pace. Of course I’m upset. Wouldn’t you be?
My Positive Mirena Coil Insertion Story: How It Felt & Life With An IUD
So here it is: my Mirena Coil insertion experience, plus what happens afterwards. As with all things, your mileage may vary – but as I often find it helpful to read ‘real person’ experiences online, I wanted to share my Mirena story. I hope it enlightens you about this particular intrauterine device, how it’s inserted, what to expect, potential side effects; and that it helps you decide whether the Mirena is the right choice for you.
Why I’m Writing a Survivor’s Journal
It’s important to me to tell my own story in my own words, rather than continuing to be psychologically affected by other people’s versions of my lived reality. Fighting against past gaslighting which echoes around my psyche is a daily battle. I’m no longer willing to minimise, distract from or ignore my experiences for my own or other people’s comfort. It’s my life, no-one else’s.
Hello Perimenopause
I haven't 'reached' perimenopause so much as it's hunted me down and attacked me. That’s how it feels, anyway.
Coronavirus & My Sex Life: How COVID-19 Killed My Libido
2020. Year of dashed hopes, ruined plans, social distancing, covered faces, stress and anxiety – plus a renewed appreciation for the NHS and all keyworkers. How did you spend the COVID-19 lockdown? Did you use the time to slow down, listen to your needs, learn a new language, reach your peak of physical fitness, begin a new hobby or craft? ...me neither. I don't know anyone who did, to be honest.
Being deaf: High-Frequency Hearing Loss & Me
I’m not sure how may of my readers know this, but I’m deaf. Not 100% deaf, but certainly enough deafness that it impacts my everyday life.
Welcome To My Midlife Rebellion
This piece is the introduction to a sub-category of my Life Unscripted series of personal reflections here at CaraSutra, a category I’m calling The Midlife Rebellion: Ageing, Body & Womanhood. In the immortal and only slightly edited words of Bon Jovi, “It’s my midlife”. But whose rebellion is it? Mine or my body’s? Or is it both? Let’s find out together. Welcome to my midlife rebellion.
Why I Love Winter: A Slower Rhythm, Darkness, and the Permission to Rest
I enjoy winter as a natural pause, a time for clarity and introspective focus. This transitional period is a great annual opportunity to properly consider what I’d like to work on, what my plans are and how I’ll move forwards into literal and metaphorical spring.
Winter lets my feelings exist exactly as they are, and that authenticity is perfectly aligned with my core values.
Allowing Sadness Without Guilt
On reflection, I felt a lot of pressure to conform to fake happiness when I was a child - a girl child, Gen X, raised by boomer parents in a small community on a...
Parenting in a Neurodivergent Household: A Mother’s Reflection
Parenting is different for everyone, but what most parents agree on is that it isn't easy. The practical and emotional challenges shift through the years as you raise a child from newborn needs to independent adulthood and, one day, watch them fly the nest. That’s how it usually goes, anyway. But when you're raising neurodivergent children, all the usual expectations have to be let go.
Fatigue and Fire: Balancing Determination with Life’s Challenges
This sub-category of Life Unscripted is entitled Fatigue & Fire: Learning to Live with Chronic Illness. Mostly I’ll be writing about balancing my ongoing work, and the challenge of running my own business, with having to live with M.E., ageing as a woman, plus other health issues. This post is my official introduction to this sub-series.
My Sobriety: Choosing the Sober Life When You’re Not an Alcoholic
Now I’ve leapt off the booze merry-go-round, I see alcohol for what it really is, in the stark and sober light of day.
