Saturday, 30 August 2025

An Unforgettable Surprise


We all have those people in our community who just radiate creativity and warmth. For me, and for so many others, that person is Harlyn, the incredible talent behind the iconic ADDICTED! fashion brand, which recently engaged so many, myself included, in a wonderful fashion challenge. So, when my friend Oli slid into my DMs with a top-secret mission—a surprise birthday party for Harlyn—I was genuinely thrilled to be included.

The theme? A fabulous beach party, with a mandatory dress code: wear your best ADDICTED! swimwear and beachwear. For me it was a no-brainer; I donned the sunset themed bikini that I had submitted as my entry in Harlyn's fashion challenge, feeling a buzz of excitement as I did so. This was going to be good.


I’ll be perfectly honest, though: that initial excitement quickly morphed into a familiar, low hum of social anxiety as I arrived. While Oli, who had kindly invited me, was a friendly face, and I of course knew the birthday girl having hosted a couple of times on my defunct Text To Speech Podcast, the guest list was a dazzling array of her closest friends and fashion insiders — people I recognised from afar but had never actually spoken to. My default setting in these situations is to find a quiet corner and become one with the wallpaper, and that’s exactly what I set out to do, licking my way through multiple lollipops while trying to look pleasantly occupied.

The setup was perfect. The venue was decked out with tiki torches, strings of fairy lights, and the sound of gentle waves provided the ultimate soundtrack. We were all instructed to gather in a large circle on the decking, the anticipation building with every minute we waited for the guest of honour to arrive. I found a spot where I hoped I’d blend in, my heart already doing a nervous little tap dance.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the circle. Oli gave the signal. She was here.

Harlyn walked in, and the collective shout of "SURPRISE!" was pure, unadulterated joy. The look on her face—absolute shock, instantly melting into overwhelmed happiness—was worth every second of anxious waiting. She was beaming, her hands flying to her face as she took in the scene of all her loved ones, a sea of colour and style from her own collections, all there for her.

As if that moment wasn’t perfect enough, we all looked up. The timing was impeccable. A tiny plane buzzed overhead, and right on cue, it began its work. Against the brilliant blue sky, it spelled out a breath taking message: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYNBUM!* It was an epic, unforgettable touch that had everyone gasping and pointing at the sky. Pure magic.

What happened next was the most beautiful and genuine part of the evening. As the sky writing began to gently fade, Harlyn started making her way around our circle. This wasn't a quick, generic thank-you. She took her time. She stopped in front of every single person, looked them in the eye, and gave them a real, heartfelt hug. You could see her sharing a laugh with old friends, thanking acquaintances, and truly absorbing the love that had been poured into this surprise for her. It was a slow, beautiful procession of gratitude and connection.


As the party broke from the circle and settled into a lively mix of chatting and dancing, I found myself drifting back towards my quiet corner, happy to just observe the festivities. But the night had one more surprise in store for me. Just as I was settling into my role as professional people-watcher, Jess showed up, spotted me, and immediately came over to keep me company. Having someone to chat with completely changed the rest of the evening for me. Thank you, Jess—you have no idea how much that meant!

It was a night of incredible surprises—from a sky-writing plane to the power of a simple, kind gesture from a new friend. But the biggest surprise, perhaps, was a reminder that in a community full of so many creative and friendly people, you’re never really in a corner alone. 


Thursday, 28 August 2025

She-Sloot Smash!


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Sunday, 24 August 2025

The Serious Message of Go Topless Day and Its Fight for True Equality


Every year, on the Sunday closest to August 26th, a curious and often controversial event unfolds in public squares, beaches, and parks across North America and beyond. It’s a spectacle designed to grab attention: a gathering of people, primarily women, marching, picnicking, and protesting with their bare chests exposed. To the casual onlooker, or the person who only sees a sensationalised headline, Go Topless Day might appear to be little more than a provocative stunt, a cheeky excuse for public nudity, or a frivolous celebration of the female form.

But to dismiss it as such is to miss the profound, deeply serious point entirely. Go Topless Day is not about nudity for nudity’s sake. It is a potent, visceral, and strategically jarring form of protest. It is a living, breathing argument about bodily autonomy, legal equality, and the deep-seated cultural hypocrisy that continues to police women’s bodies. And its chosen date is no accident; it is deliberately and powerfully tied to Women’s Equality Day, creating a stark, physical reminder that the journey toward full equality is far from over.

The Legal Foundation

To understand Go Topless Day, one must first understand the legal landscape it protests. The event’s origins are deeply rooted in a fundamental question: If a man can legally be shirtless in public to cool down on a hot day, why can’t a woman?

For decades, the answer was rooted in outdated "indecency" laws that specifically criminalised the female nipple. These laws were rarely challenged, accepted as a simple fact of life, a reflection of "public morality." But in 1992, New York State’s highest court delivered a landmark ruling that would become the movement’s cornerstone across the U.S. and Canada

The case, People v. Santorelli, involved a group of women who were arrested for appearing topless in a public park as a protest. The Court of Appeals of New York ruled that the state’s law prohibiting women from exposing their breasts was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court found that the law was not applied equally — it targeted women specifically — and that the government’s stated interest in preserving "public order" was not sufficient to justify this gender-based discrimination. In essence, the court declared that the female breast was not, in and of itself, an obscene or inherently sexual object. The law, it ruled, was unconstitutional.

This was a monumental victory. It established a legal precedent that in New York State, and by extension anywhere with similar constitutional protections, women had the same right as men to be top-free in public. However, a legal right on paper is not the same as a right exercised freely in practice. While the law changed in New York and a handful of other states and cities that followed its lead, the social and cultural stigma did not.

This is the critical gap that Go Topless Day seeks to highlight. The event, founded in 2007, uses the anniversary of this legal victory to ask a simple, powerful question: We have the right, so why can’t we use it without fear?


The double standard is glaring. A man’s bare chest is neutral, even mundane. It is seen as practical, non-sexual, and unremarkable. A woman’s bare chest, however, is hyper-sexualized, politicized, and deemed obscene. It is considered an invitation for public commentary, harassment, and even violence. This discrepancy reveals that the issue is not about nudity itself, but about the specific cultural meaning we assign to the female body. The law in some places may have caught up, but our collective psyche has not.

The Inextricable Link to Women’s Equality Day

The timing of Go Topless Day is its most brilliant and misunderstood strategic element. It is held on the Sunday nearest to August 26th for a powerful reason: that date is Women’s Equality Day.

Women’s Equality Day commemorates the certification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920, which granted (some) women the right to vote. It is a day to celebrate a hard-won victory in the long struggle for gender equality. But it is also a day to reflect on the work that remains. The right to vote was a crucial step, but it was not the finish line. True equality encompasses economic parity, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, and, fundamentally, bodily autonomy.

Go Topless Day activists argue that the control over one’s own body is the most basic form of autonomy. If a woman does not have sovereignty over her own physical form, how can she claim to be truly equal in any other sphere of life? The protest directly ties the symbolic act of top-freedom to this core principle. By defiantly claiming a legal right that cultural shame still denies them, participants are embodying the next frontier of the equality fight.

They are making the argument that equality is not just about what you can do (vote, work, own property) but also about who you can be in public space without fear of reprisal. It challenges the notion that women’s bodies are public property, subject to constant scrutiny, regulation, and judgment. In this sense, Go Topless Day is a direct, physical continuation of the spirit of Women’s Equality Day. It says, "We won the right to participate in democracy, and now we are fighting for the right to exist in our own skin, freely and without shame."


 Deconstructing the "Distraction" and "Indecency" Arguments

The most common criticisms levelled against Go Topless Day are that it is a "distraction" from more serious feminist issues and that it is simply "indecent." These criticisms deserve to be unpacked, as they often serve to shut down the conversation the event is trying to start.

1. "It’s a distraction from real issues like the pay gap or reproductive rights."

This argument creates a false hierarchy of oppression. It suggests that fights for equality must be waged one issue at a time and that bodily autonomy is somehow less important than economic autonomy. In reality, these issues are deeply intertwined. The sexualisation and objectification of the female body are directly linked to why women are often not taken seriously in the workplace, why their pain is dismissed by doctors, and why legislation controlling their reproductive choices is so pervasive. 

The mindset that says a female nipple is obscene is the same mindset that says a woman’s professional ambition is "unseemly" or that her medical decisions should be made by lawmakers. Challenging one helps to challenge the other. Furthermore, the pay gap is a complex, systemic issue fought in boardrooms and legislatures, often out of the public eye. Go Topless Day, by its very nature, is a highly visible, grassroots action that forces the public to confront its biases head-on. It is a different tactic for the same war.

2. "It’s indecent and inappropriate for children."

This argument is perhaps the most revealing. It hinges on the unexamined assumption that the female body is inherently sexual and therefore inherently inappropriate. Children do not naturally see a bare chest as sexual; they are taught that it is. They see their mothers’ bodies as sources of comfort and nourishment. The "think of the children" argument is often a proxy for adult discomfort. It projects adult sexualisation onto a child’s neutral gaze. 

The protest challenges us to ask: Why is a man’s chest "family-friendly" but a woman’s is not? What are we actually teaching our children when we enforce this double standard? We are teaching them that women’s bodies are shameful, that they must be hidden and controlled, and that they exist primarily for the male gaze. Go Topless Day advocates argue for a world where all bodies are de-sexualised and neutralized in non-intimate contexts, creating a healthier and less objectifying environment for everyone, including children.


 A Global Movement with Local Challenges

The fight for top-free equality is not confined to the United States. It is a global issue, with varying levels of acceptance and legal standing. In much of Europe, top-free sunbathing is common and uncontroversial. In other parts of the world, any public display of skin is heavily restricted by law and custom.

This global perspective further highlights that the issue is cultural, not natural. There is no biological reason for the taboo; it is a social construct. Go Topless Day, therefore, becomes a fascinating case study in how laws and cultural norms interact. It demonstrates that winning a legal battle is only half the fight. The much harder work is changing hearts and minds, dismantling centuries of ingrained conditioning that tells women their bodies are objects of sin, shame, or desire, rather than simply their own.

More Than a Day; A Demand for Bodily Sovereignty

Go Topless Day is often misunderstood because it operates on a level deeper than polite discourse. It is a physical, visceral protest. It uses the body itself as the argument. It forces a confrontation not through reasoned debate alone, but by making the inequality visible, tangible, and impossible to ignore.

It is easy to support equality in the abstract. It is harder to confront the specific, uncomfortable ways in which we are all complicit in upholding inequality. The instinct to look away, to feel awkward, to dismiss the protesters as "crazy" or "attention-seeking" is precisely the instinct the event is designed to provoke. That discomfort is the point. It is the sound of deep-seated cultural norms being challenged.

On its surface, Go Topless Day is about the right to be bare-chested. But it is about more than just breasts. It is about the right to personal autonomy. It is about challenging the patriarchal control of the female body. It is about demanding that women be seen as full human beings, not as collections of sexualized parts that require regulation.

By tying itself to Women’s Equality Day, it issues a bold challenge: Let’s not just celebrate the equality we’ve won in the past. Let’s get serious about winning the equality we still lack. Let’s create a world where the human body, in all its forms, is free from shame, where laws are applied equally, and where a woman’s right to exist in public space is not contingent on how much of her skin she chooses to cover. That is a message worth taking seriously, with or without a shirt on.


Saturday, 23 August 2025

ADDICTED! to Sunset


Another community fashion challenge... how exciting!

And, no slight against the previous ones that I've taken part in, but this one is really taking things up a notch! Because, when one of the community's most stylish and respected fashion designers puts a call out for submissions for her latest fashion line, you know that you're going to need to step up as the standards will be high.

In case you haven't seen the challenge that Harlyn posed over on Twitter, here you go...


So, the challenge was three fold; create some hot beachwear, make sure to give it a sunset vibe and, last but not least, make sure to include the ADDICTED! brand into it. 

Then, on top of that, I set myself a personal requirement of incorporating the surfboard theme that Harlyn had used for all of her own photos into the ones that I would submit. Just to give it a nice consistent feel and tie them in closer with the inspiration that I'm trying to emulate.

I'll be honest though; I've never been on a surfboard in my life. So, a little cheat on my behalf then. Instead of lying seductively on a surfboard that is gently floating in some shallow waters, I very much kept my feet on dry land by trying to do my best seductive lean against a pair of surfboards that I found planted in the sand of Snowbunny Beach.

As for the design that I created for my submission - I chose to go with something that brings the scorching heat of summer with intense reds but, at the same time, hints at the impeding darkness that starts to encroach as dusk sets in. In other words, keeping it very much in the ballpark of my signature brand colours to give it that unmistakable TWK feel. 

What do you think? Did I manage to pull off the brief?


Head over to Harlyn's Twitter to check out what other creators are submitting to her challenge. In fact, why not join in and submit something yourself! Go on, do it!

Or, if you are feeling especially bold - why not set your own challenge for the rest of us to take on. You know I'll always be game to give it a crack!

Sunday, 17 August 2025

Celebrating Boobs With Jess


Welp, I suppose it is about time for me to get back into and start delivering more sexy and informative content after my extended break for a fun-filled vacation to enjoy the unique delights of San Diego Comic Con and all of the usual highlights that can be found in the Los Angeles area, followed by just having a general recharge once I returned home.

One unfortunate thing about the timing of the trip was that I was completely absent for National Boob Day, which fell 2nd August and is definitely the sort of event that I would normally be highlighting. Thankfully though, I have some good friends who I can depend on, and Jess was more than happy to pick up the baton on this occasion and spread the sexy word on my behalf. Well done Jess!

Yes, this is a pretty belated mention for something that happened weeks ago but, regardless, I'm not going to let it slip into memory and perhaps go unnoticed by some of you, just because I've been on a time out until now.

So, if you've not checked out her post, this is what you missed out on; Jess giving us all a reminder that, not only are boobs great, but that they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; all of which are wonderful in their own way. Thanks to Jess for putting this little reminder together.

Now, I wonder, can you put names to all of the models that helped Jess out with this one without cheating and looking at the names tagged in the post? 

Go on, give it a try! 

Then go check out all of Jess' other sexy posts! You know you want to...