1. I'm a 25-year-old male. I characterize myself as cisgender and heterosexual, but on deeper though wonder if that is true. Over the last seven years I've been influenced by church life greatly - I've denied myself a lot of things and made myself feel guilty about a lot of things that I had done when I was younger.

2. I’m not a traditionally masculine person. I am very comfortable with girls; in fact, I’d go so far as to say I’m uncomfortable with most guys. I’ve always felt more comfortable socializing with gay men than with straight, and with women than gay men. I don’t feel the need to compete in the ways that men – at least men in Australia, where I’m from – tend to compete. I’m active, but I don’t enjoy competitive sports. I don’t tend to drink heavily, and when I do I prefer wine to beer. I don’t discuss my conquests, or boast about them. I’m not embarrassed by doing feminine things, or by spending time with women, or by holding my fiance’s purse, or indeed by discussing sexuality, which is taboo amongst most cis-het men I know.

3. I associate deeply with the feminine; if I could choose to be female for a time, I would, but not indefinitely. I maintain a fascination with feminine things; I love wearing makeup (I use theme parties as an excuse) and have had a desire to cross-dress, since a young age (10, maybe?) when I would sneak into the rooms of girls I lived with or who lived nearby and steal their underwear and hygiene products. I suspect this makes me a closet genderqueer; but I’m not entirely sure, because I definitely feel – and act - like a man, and I don’t feel the need to act like a woman. I think that, if I were to act out these urges, I would still have the same personality; I would simply dress differently and furnish my environment differently.

4. When I was younger I experimented with men; I still find myself attracted to the occasional gay man. Interesting, though, that I am never interested in straight men: almost always a very gay, usually very intelligent and self-assured, man. However, I’m definitely on the heterosexual end of the het-homo sliding scale. I find it very interesting that I can be on the feminine end of the gender scale (yet still be a man), yet on the heterosexual end of the orientation scale (yet still occasionally be attracted to gay men).

5. I am engaged to 'E', a girl whom I care about very much and expect to be married to for the entirety of my life. But I've kept most of my less conventional desires secret from her for the length of our four year relationship - although, to be honest, I've kept them secret from myself for at least that same length of time.

6. We are not having sex until we marry, secondary to a combination of my fear of what church people would think, and her having a condition called vaginismus which prevents her from having sex easily. I refused to sleep with her if it hurt her, and asked her to see her doctor about overcoming it; so far, she hasn't invested much into overcoming it before our wedding at the end of the year. This hurts me.

7. Our sex life consists of a lot of foreplay, oral sex, and manual sex. We're both very good at it. However, she doesn't really like to experiment. I feel patronized that she is put out by my asking to come on her breasts rather than in a tissue, or to swallow rather than spit. I'd love to have phone sex or Skype sex. I think her masturbating is the hottest thing in the world, yet she still keeps it secret from me. I need to have a conversation with her about what turns me on, because her response is usually "well, I don't understand why," or "it feels better when you do it," to which I should respond "That's not the point! It turns me on!"

8. I'm very excited at the prospect of us having sex.

9. I first had sex when I was 16. 'L' was in the year above me at school. It was a long, summer fling - I grew up in a holiday town. It mainly happened outdoors, because we were a secret - at the beach, hidden in the scrublands on towels, usually, with many interludes of swimming in the surf. I was impressively tanned that summer. We had a lot of sex, and I'd tried oral, manual, vaginal and anal with her pretty quickly.

10. 'L' introduced me to 'C'. I was L's guy on the side, and C was her girlfriend. That was when I had my first threesome, but C and I quickly fell for each other and spent a lot of time together. She took me to the big smoke, where I had my first orgy, and my first gay sex. It didn't really do it for me, to be honest; I've found that male sexuality isn't really a turn on, even though I can be attracted to males. But I didn't really stop experimenting for a few more years.

11. C and I were fairly vanilla, except that we cut on each other. It was intimate, and sexy, and exhilarating. She was sensible, and stole medical supplies from the doctors' surgery she worked at, so there was little risk associated with it. We stopped - I don't know why. I think we both felt it was wrong. I'm not sure I agree with that now.

12. C and L stayed in the big smoke together, and I went back to my small town. There I dated 'A'. We lived together. We tried some pop-kink (fluffy hand-cuffs), and used a lot of dildos, butt-plugs, and other assorted toys. I learned there that I quite enjoy anal stimulation, although I still haven't ever been fucked hard, and I don't know if I'd enjoy that. She quite enjoyed being penetrated both front and back.

13. Scratch that. I learned that I enjoyed anal stimulation when I was much younger. I discovered masturbation when I was around 13 - I was a late bloomer, I suppose. I did it in the shower, using conditioner. The houses my mother and I lived in were often shared with other families, and I would steal (as I've mentioned) tampons. I looked for something to insert them into, and clearly I only had the one hole. I can't remember how I lubricated them (oil?), but that's how I discovered anal stimulation felt good.

14. A and I were in a somewhat open relationship. We engaged in partner-swapping with friends on occasion, although to be honest none of those times were ever memorable. I'd never had one-night stands until then, and I think that was when I realized that they weren't for me - for me, at least good sex tends to be with someone whose body you know well.

15. From then until E, I had a relatively dry period. I was with a few girls, all of whom were unmemorable, sexually. I repressed myself a lot. I tried not to masturbate, telling myself it was bad. I dated a few girls who didn't want to have premarital sex.

16. Looking back over all of these girls, it's clear I have a type: Fine-boned, freckled, red or dark haired, smaller than I, smart but not smarter than me. Except for the hair color, E fits into these categories: E is a blonde. I think that my preferences have changed to mimic her - these days, I'm attracted to people for the degree of resemblance they have to her. I have a very expressive face, although I've been told by multiple girlfriends in the past that I under-express, so I now use it a bit more.

17. I think that I am an attractive man. I'm not super-defined, but I'm not flabby. I'm average height (5'9" or 175cm), certainly not tall. I have dark, curly hair, that tends to be worn long. I am bespectacled. I have slightly tan skin. I think that the most attractive parts of me are my hands, my calves, my neck, my eyes, my hair. The parts of me that I like the least are my thighs and bum (they are a unit), my love-handles (which ruin my back), and my shoulders: disappointingly, the areas that it seems to me women are most interested in.

18. My favorite part on a woman is the space between her anterior superior iliac spines (the nubbly bits at the front of your pelvis, at the bottom of your stomach), and the bottom of her breasts. I like different things about this space when a woman is on her belly or on her back.

19. I love flirting. The thing I miss most about being single is flirting. The thing I will miss most about having a wedding ring on my finger is that I will no longer be able to flirt honestly.

20. I love hugging and snuggling. I'm a touchy-feely person. The thing I miss second most about being single is not feeling guilty snuggling up to girls that aren't E. It's second-most, because I can snuggle up to her, but I've been living at a distance for the past while for work, and could definitely use some hugs sometimes that aren't forthcoming from any of my friends. But if they were forthcoming, I'd feel a little guilty. Yet another thing I should have a discussion with E about.

21. I've recently started cutting myself. I don't do it for attention - it's well hidden on my body, on the back of my left shoulder. I do it with scalpel blades, so it doesn't scar. I love the sight of my own blood - it's so red, and beautiful. I've photographed myself naked, turned on, and bleeding. I love the pain. It feels good, just a different good. I cut myself only during masturbation. I don't feel like me doing this is wrong. I am, however, very confused by it. I have come to suspect that I may be masochist, in the physical, pain-seeking sense of the word, and thinking back to earlier relationships, like the one with C. I have no idea how to tell my very vanilla fiancee about this.

22. I wouldn't characterize myself as submissive, or dominant, or a switch, although I love power-struggle in the bedroom, and I love make-up sex for that reason. I wish and hope that E will realize that and just take advantage of me, or jump on me and do something to me sexually, tell me what to do, or tie me up and do whatever she wants to me. I'm happy to instigate, but I wish she would do that every now and again. I've read that BDSM is a scale, in which case I suspect I slide from dominant to submissive, tending towards the submissive side; for me, bondage is a part of being dominated, but I could never imagine myself being hog-tied. My idea of being bonded and dominated is her forcing me to do things that I want to do, and being forceful about it, rather than her forcing me to do things that I don't want to do (which I understand is 'hard' kinksters' definition).

23. I've had a long struggle with my faith and my sexuality. I still believe in God, and I still go to church. But I do believe that much of the modern church has its attitudes to sex off the mark. Much of this is to do with the lack of positivity: The church’s people have a way of making people feel guilty about their sexualities; whereas I feel that the teachings of the church suggest that you should make people feel accepted regardless of their sexuality. I do believe, though, that sex is something to be kept for those you love.

24. I masturbate regularly. Sometimes I try to hold myself off from doing it – not because I think it’s wrong, but rather because I feel I need to exercise control over my urges sometimes. I’ve begun viewing pornography more regularly, and I feel less guilty about that than I once did: It’s fantasy. If I were to feel guilty about it, it would be because of the possibility of abuse at the end of production. The thing I am most turned on by is by amateur footage of women masturbating to orgasm. I think it’s the sexiest thing in the world. I wish that I could get the guts to ask friends of mine that I know are sexually active to video themselves masturbating to orgasm, because the only thing that would be sexier would be girls I actually knew doing this.

25. I once had a girl friend of mine masturbate in my room – she was horny, and couldn’t in hers because she had a roommate, so I offered her the privacy of my room. She did it while I was making dinner or something. I planted a camera in my room, and videoed it. It’s an incredibly sexy thing, that I feel incredibly guilty for, and hope to hell she never finds out. I wish I could talk to her about it, though: It turns out she does all kinds of things in privacy I’d never actually have imagined her doing.