Yesterday, I went to the theatre and for dinner with a uni friend who’s just started seeing someone new. The night before they’d had an argument in which he’d accused her of being negative/endlessly challenging his views. She wanted to know if I thought that was a fair judgement. As far as the first bit was concerned I think he’s wrong, but as for the latter, he’s bang on the mark. She knows this too, really. I may be completely wrong, but I think it’s a common character trait in people who went to Oxbridge (and other universities, more than likely – I just have less experience of those) that they have to have their viewpoint acknowledged / always want to to argue everything to the bitter end. It’s a trait I see in myself, to the point that I’ve mentioned it here more that once before. But sometimes, I think it wouldn’t hurt to not argue every point, even if you think someone is wrong / you don’t share their opinions. Which brings me to the real focus of this post: underwear. I’ve written here about my love of good underwear at least once, and the boy has been pretty vocal about the fact that he doesn’t feel the same way – that essentially I could wear whatever I want under my clothes and he wouldn’t give a fuck. In some ways, that’s nice, right? It takes the pressure off, certainly. What’s depressing though, is that one of the reasons he feels that way is because he thinks that overexposure to female nudity has desensitised him to it. It’s true that the naked body (of either sex) is much less mysterious than it used to be in general terms, but personally, I don’t think that affects the way I feel about seeing sexual partners naked – surely the joy there is about noticing not the obvious things – the size / shape of his cock, for example, but the stuff that you’ve overlooked previously. I’ve also blogged here about the fact that I have reservations about him taking part in Sinful Sunday, but while that remains the case, the photos themselves still turn me on because every time I notice something slightly different – how gorgeous his skin tone is in a certain light or what great legs he has (actually, I notice that last one *a lot*). Perhaps I’ve undone my own argument a little bit in the last two paragraphs – after all, underwear is designed to highlight the obvious bits. What I’m trying to say is that, although he doesn’t find good underwear hot (and I believe that), it’s clear from other things he’s said that he does recognise the joy of slowly taking your clothes off in front of someone and having them watch and appreciate that. In which case, even if he disagrees with me on the overall importance of good underwear, surely it wouldn’t kill him to occasionally say ‘Nice bra’?