Want to know what I wear to bed these days? I’ll tell you anyway, so you can say yes too. Don’t worry, it’s not going to make you blush or feel uncomfortable for life if you suddenly bump into each other outside Tottenham Court Road station – I’m not going to tell you about some kind of strappy leather material that has ‘brought the revolution my sex life’ or ‘special panties’ that don’t have fabric exactly where you’d think fabric would be very convenient. I know the trend on the internet now is to share all kinds of intimate things like what sex toys you like to use and what – kill me now – ethical p*rn sites you frequent, but I can’t and won’t ever go down that road. Mainly because the only sex toy I’ve ever had can’t be found for love or money and the only p*rn site I frequent is Rightmove.
The wrong sex toy is actually quite disturbing (it’s an early 2000s “rabbit” if you must know, and yes, we all had one, it was mandatory) because I live in constant fear that someone (an electrician, a visiting uncle, one of my kids) will one day pull a box from under a high shelf and the toy will jump up excitedly and shove them in the head. The disaster. I know it could be worse – there must be tall shelves all over the country with all sorts of their stuff, like deflated dolls folded neatly into shoeboxes (with their mouths open) and extra large bottles of industrial grade lube – but it’s unpredictable of the whole thing. They say keep your enemies close, but I have absolutely no idea where this crazy pink dong-a-long is, and he couldn’t be a bigger enemy, whose sole purpose in life is to humiliate me at an inopportune moment.
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Maybe it will only be discovered when I die – that in itself would be horrible. A great-grandchild (let’s be optimistic here) going through boxes of old, dusty photos and wondering what we all looked like because they’ve only seen retouched and filtered or AI-made images, rummaging through the bottom (lol) and suddenly grabbing a strange, pink rubber thing. Imagine what they would think! Pulling it through the dozens of faded photos and school reports and finally holding it up to the light.
‘The OMG Gr8 e-Gran vibrator!’ they would say to my daughter, their grandmother (sheesh!) “What is that funny little balled-up midsection? And why does he have… rabbit ears?”
“Ah,” my daughter would say (my God this is weird and sick), “at the turn of the century self-wellness-i-pleasure devices were something of a silly joke, they were made in bright colors and people only talked about when they had had a few drinks. Or if they were at special parties they were invited to Anne Summers.’
‘LOL emoji, what was a party, e-Gran?’ the great-grandson would ask. ‘Was it like a live stream?’
“A party was a gathering of people in real life,” my daughter used to say, “where people were in the same physical room talking to each other and sometimes even touching.”
“Before VR, e-Gran?”
“Before the world even began, my child,” my daughter used to say. “Before… the Internet.”
ok where was i Sex toys and oversharing online: that’s something I won’t do. You will never, ever catch me talking about anything to do with sex.
Read: It just slipped into the doc
The whole point of this post is that I have never felt less sexy in bed, so it’s highly unlikely that I’ll suddenly go out in the skimpy ensemble that puts bits of sheer mesh in all the places a sane person would want covered. No: the stuff I’m currently wearing to bed is such a release, for everyone involved, that I couldn’t feel sexy if I tried.
I’m just going to jump right in and list what I’m currently wearing to the wedding bed: Invisalign aligners in my mouth, earplugs in my ears (I mean, obviously), an herbal sticky chest patch, an eye mask. Does any of this “frequent close encounters of the rude kind” call out to you?
Firstly, I sleep in what can only be described as my own bubble of sensory deprivation – I can’t hear, see or taste – and secondly, I’m so full of things to put on or apply, there’s little room for anything else my body. Earplugs are essential to stop the occasional snoring (I only have one snore and I’m angry for the rest of the night, so I think it’s better to never hear it in the first place). the eye mask I need because if I see shadows and strange light patterns when I’m half awake I get weird night terrors (see below) and Invisalign aligners are the first stage in an excruciatingly long but crucial dental program to “save Ruth’s weakened teeth“.
The chest patch is a new discovery. The Breathing pad from Victoria Health. It’s a kind of heated, herbal sticky patch in the shape of a pair of lungs (cute!) that’s supposed to help with breathing difficulties, and I’m trying it on my lingering cough. I will inform.
But do you see? I can’t go sexy and sylph-like with these items! Add to all this impatience the matter of my night terrors/paralysis problem. I’ve had what I’ve had for life, pretty much, but it’s been worse in the last year or so. It tends to be a “trick of the light” so I’ll think the lines in the curtains are metal rods or the ceiling is closing in on me, but it’s just as bad if there’s no light at all. I tend to think I’ve been left underground in a cave or out in a jungle (I know it’s unlikely, but the mind plays tricks) and it’s downright terrifying. If I’m alone, I can completely freak out because of these quasi-hallucinations – although I don’t think I make a noise for the first twenty seconds or so, I’m just paralyzed with fear.
Anyway, this problem has been exacerbated more recently with the addition of a bit of leisurely sleepwalking. Yes! Not only do I wake up scared and with such a pounding heart that I’m probably in danger of having a stroke, but now I also have a bit of an adventure every now and then, risking life and limb by looking under the stairs or having a smell peek out the window. I woke up the other week in the hallway of my hotel in London, wearing only a pair of knickers because I was looking for my children. They were safely at home, a hundred or so miles away. Luckily I arrived just as the hotel door was about to lock behind me and thank God no one was around.
“What am I going to do about this sleepwalking?” I told my husband, who was busy putting in his Airpods and applying snoring tape to the bridge of his nose (those who accessorize together, etc). “I’m really worried I’m going to fall down the stairs,” I said, “or open a window or do something stupid.”
“We could always get you a surfboard binding,” he said.
‘One what?’
“You know, that rubber cord that surfers use to tie to their board. We could put an end around your ankle and then tie it to the foot of the bed.’
Bloody great. There I will be with my (what feels like) dentures in, my ear plugged, my eye mask and a strap around my leg. I could is less sexy? Maybe I should go the whole hog and wear the compression leggings I got when I had my babies, some kind of sleep bonnet and maybe those big rubber socks you can get that are supposed to hydrate your feet overnight ;
