My trip to Pembroke bar had a worrying start when I walked into a completely empty room, with Rick Astley creepily playing in the background. Rather disappointing for 9pm on a Thursday. Where were the blazered Bridge-goers? Where were the bearded Cellar-dwellers?

Alas, neither of my questions were answered, as the bar remained uncomfortably quiet all evening, which seemed odd especially given its central location. Despite this, the lack of customers did allow me to admire what must surely have been a recent renovation. With bare-bricked arches and a stainless steel bar, they’ve come quite close to the continental riverside effect, and if there’d been some Heineken and a couple more stoners I realistically might have been in Amsterdam.

That said, Pembroke’s bar is plagued with the classic ‘spare room’ problem. Quite small and impractically narrow, it borders on claustrophobic as soon asyou walk in. To make matters worse, the sound system has about the same quality as a builder’s radio, 100 metres away, being played painfully through an extensive network of tin cans.

I then understood why the Cellar-ites weren’t so keen on hanging out here. I was somewhat impressed with the beer selection, which included two lagers and one ale on tap, and five or six different bottled beers in the fridge, all of which were slightly cheaper than your average student bar.

The spirit choice, on the other hand, was fairly predictable – the same choice offered by nearly every college bar. The bartender was quiet, and although he didn’t offer the most welcoming of atmospheres, his ‘seen-it-all-before-and-don’t-give-a-fuck’ attitude was admirable in a way.

But the biggest credit must go to their signature drink, the Pembroke Pinky. It’s a half-pint concoction including a triple vodka, grenadine, and ginger ale,vwhich, instead of taking the usual tactic of masking an inordinate amount of alcohol behind utter sickliness, has a more moderate, spicy flavour, thanks to the ginger ale. And because it’s only half a pint, you don’t have to gulp down excessive amounts of liquid before finding the courage to dance. I always find that where alcohol is concerned, efficiency is key. And for £3.50 it packed a punch in terms of value as well as of booze.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)

Although very little stood out as especially impressive here, it’s a good-looking bar in a central location, with an almost adequate array of drinks at respectable prices, so a tentative bravo to Pembroke.

I went to an awesome party last night and it ended about 8am. I’m not even going to pretend that I’m awake today. But it’s because I went to an awesome party that ended at 8am that I can now talk about something important (for once). You know what those excessively long social gatherings are like – at about 5am it’s just a small group of people savouring the very last dregs of gin and inevitably talking about sex.

I love those conversations. Being an open person, I find talking about  favourite positions and sex toys the next best thing to actually experiencing them. And I have many friends who share this preference, no shame attached. I mean, if a person gives no fucks about loudly screwing someone in a toilet during a house party, they also give no fucks about telling everyone about it afterwards. But of course, not everyone is a crazed over-sharer. I also have friends who talk about sex without going into gruesome detail. They keep their private lives to themselves and that’s fine. I always assumed that behind their discretion hide perfectly satisfying, normal sex lives. One overly long party and a hundred G&Ts later my view changed dramatically.

The conversation turned to ‘Catholic guilt’. I admitted that despite my well-known promiscuity, it took me a long time to stop feeling slightly panicky after each casual encounter. Similar confessions followed. One girl, who is often outspoken about her contraception, admitted that she’s never actually had penetrative sex. Another, who is very open about her high libido,  disclosed that she finds vaginal sex very uncomfortable. A guy known for worshipping his girlfriend and referring to their sickeningly perfect mutual orgasms revealed that actually their sex drives don’t match at all and he’s thinking about ending it. Pretty much everybody I talked to (who didn’t chase me away for being an obnoxious nosy harlot) had a secret that made them think their sex life is not normal.

Erectile problems. Insecurities about pubic hairstyles. Disgust at oral sex. Disgust at any sort of sex. General unhappiness and the feeling of not belonging to our sexy young generation and not fitting in with everyone else except that when everyone else isn’t fitting in either, there’s no longer anything to fit into. Or something like that. What even is a normal sex life?

To me, we’re talking about at least a few times a week, with lots of experimenting. Or at least, that’s how it’s been for the past few years, after I finally decided that I am notnthe whore of Babylon just because I like giving head. Shiny pretty magazines would have everyone believe whatever frequency and level of kink they say ‘normal sex’ involves. Well, I call bullshit.There’s no normal. Stop overthinking your oddities. We’re all odd.

I’m going to sleep.

In the world of bad analogies, I would have to say that my week has been like a very slow Chinese burn. But a slow Chinese burn is probably not the most interesting to read about. And of course, this column only ever contains those nuggets of gold-plated delight that you can find nowhere else.

So let’s move on from the feeling of pain, and talk about my Wednesday night. A classic tale of inebriation and regret? Not quite. Because, well, it seems my self-parodying technique has spilled over into another Cherwell realm. It appears that I am now the new Shark Tales presenter.

And so, shortly, I find my face on the internet. But the one thing to learn is that watching Shark Tales does not give you an insight into the presenter’s night. Or at least, not now I’m presenter. I stand on the bridge, surrounded by herds of drunken students. A tenuous rant on the selfie stick suddenly halts. I am abruptly caught in a Dante-style circle, shoves and arms thrust about me. It seems someone’s last downed pint has struck them sharply on the head. Animal instinct is released. Cameraman grabs me and pushes me through the drunken whirlpool. As we back off, the tussle multiplies. Fists are flung, and we freeze, unsure how to act.

Fortunately, Superman, disguised as a taxi passenger, jumps out of a braking car, and soon the initial mayhem is dissected. At this point, we decide it is time for a break. And so I find myself at 1am, in the coldness of sobriety, leaning against the wall next to Park End. Cameraman has stored his camera safely away, and we stare blankly ahead of us, as squeals emit from ebbing and flowing hubbubs. Cameraman puts his arm around me. “It’s okay,” he says. I spy the unmistakably obtrusive glint of a football tie, and realise my friend is in the smoking area. He shouts my name in dulcet and somewhat slurred tones.

After I explain why Cameraman and I are looking obtrusively mopey, a pep talk begins. In the midst of his drunkenness, he seems to still manage to persuade me into retrieving the microphone and returning to my role.

“To be or not to be?” I ask a passing stranger. “Fuck off,” they reply.

As I head home, I pass bedraggled multitudes, their aura unmistakably reeking of the Park End regret which will shackle the morning to come. Whatever else I’ve got myself in for, at least I’m safe from that.

TW: rape, sexual harrassment, body dysmorphia

I used to think I could control every aspect of my life. I was a typical Oxbridge applicant – dedicated, intense, and passionate. I played on all the sports teams. I did every extra-curricular possible. I got great GCSEs and A-Levels. And then I went on the prerequisite gap year.

And then I was raped. I don’t want to discuss the actual rape itself, as it was obviously fairly traumatic, but I do want to discuss how I dealt with it. I was raped in Oxford, in an Oxford college, by an Oxford student. It was horrible. My tutors handled it admirably and my friends were great, but for obvious reasons, I was pretty fucked up by the experience, and despite my previous view that I could control every aspect of my life, I soon felt that everything had decided to control me.

For a while afterwards, I wore the most un-flattering and/or covering clothing I possibly could. No leg, no arms, and certainly no cleavage. I wanted to exist behind a kind of screen. I stopped going out. I got kind of fat. I just wanted to be invisible so that I didn’t constantly feel like people were grabbing at me, either physically or mentally. I just wanted to be alone, and since I had such horrible feelings of being outside my body, I definitely didn’t want to have sex for a long time.

The complicated thing was that I was still really horny but physical contact was too much. I am a fairly short person so pretty much anyone who wants to have sex with me is taller than I am. And at that particular moment I really didn’t like the thought of anyone overpowering me in any way.

Everyone has that one friend who does themost extreme things. My version of that friend was at that point working in a really famous sex shop which is known for its more unusual BDSM gear. She taught me all about the  merchandise but I still wasn’t particularly interested, until I met a boy.

I have never met someone like this boy. We had a connection that was instantaneous but it wasn’t at all romantic and it wasn’t quite the usual sexual connection I had with people. We got drunk together once and he told me he was a submissive and had fantasies of being tied up and whipped. Unusually, I had no idea what to say in response. I was initially hesitant, but then I thought about it, and he explained to me what safe words were, and how I could back out at any time, and I thought, “Why not?” We were set.

At first I would just give him a light spanking and be on my way but then  spankings became more and more intense, and I liked beating him up. I think that due to phenomena like 50 Shades of Grey, people think that BDSM just means beating someone up but actually it’s more like a dance – you have to warm up first and then start whipping them really hard. At a certain point, I, who had always thought of myself as fairly submissive sexually, became a domme.

For me, becoming more dominant sexually has meant that I was able to deal with being raped and feeling like I didn’t belong in my body. The freedom I feel when I step on someone’s back or gag someone is extreme and strange. It’s not that I’m trying to enact revenge, it’s that I’m just feeling powerful, and powerful within my own body. I understand that some people would find this bizarre – or even offensive – but being a domme has helped me not only come to terms with raped, but also to feel like myself again

(This article was amended on 19/04/20 per the author’s request)

There’s a poster that I see quite a lot around Amman. It’s a hand-drawn picture of Jerusalem. In big capital letters at the bottom it reads ‘Visit Palestine’. The irony is that, for most Jordanians, visiting Palestine is not so easy. But I’m a white woman with a British passport. I can visit Palestine without a second thought.

A few months ago, I took advantage of this and visited Palestine. I visited two Palestinian cities during my stay: Bethlehem and Ramallah, the latter being the de facto Palestinian capital. In Bethlehem, there’s a wall which the Israeli government calls the West Bank Barrier. When it is finished, it will stretch 700km along the Israeli-West Bank border. It is justified as an Israeli security precaution and at parts it reaches eight metres high and is topped with barbed wire.

In my ignorance, I didn’t really see the point in visiting the wall – a wall is a wall, I thought, and I’ve already seen it. What I was unaware of was that the wall in Bethlehem, as in many Palestinian cities, has become a space for activism – a space where people rebel against a government that has denied them worth and stripped them of dignity. The wall has a clear purpose, which is to involve the world in the struggle for equality.

The target audience is the tourists who are herded in by European tour companies and then herded back out, their heads full of the history, weeping for Christ’s sacrifice, turning a blind eye to the present injustice.

In Ramallah, unlike Bethlehem, it feels almost possible to forget the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Bethlehem, Palestine feels like a courageous rebel group, but in Ramallah, Palestine feels like a state. It is very pretty. There are trees and the air feels clean. There are nice houses, parks for children, and even mansions and shiny cars. But you don’t have to scratch far beneath the surface to find the pain. I stopped in a playground. Like many British playgrounds, the walls were painted with murals. But instead of happy images of animals and flowers, there was a painting of a dead baby. On top of this, the emptiness of the place was striking. There were no children in the park, and further out the streets were deserted.

Apparently the streets weren’t usually this quiet, but the people here are still recovering from the recent attacks in Gaza. Events like that take their toll on the West Bank, too, and it takes a while for life to return to normal. As you go further out of the centre, you will find the refugee camps, in which approximately 30,000 people live, without homes and in danger of being without futures and without hope.

The life of the ‘Visit Palestine’ poster began with the pencil of a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. He was expressing his longing for a homeland free from prejudice and fear. Now, in very different circumstances, Palestinians use the poster to encourage people to understand the present conflict. The circumstances in which the poster’s artist fled his homeland and the current Palestinian conflict are not the same – I don’t want to suggest that there is a simple equivalent to be made. What I do see is some hope in this unlikely transition of a poster from one cause to another.

That people of different backgrounds and faiths, speaking different languages and living in different eras, have come to use the same symbol to express a desire for safety and security, reminds us that we are not so different from one another as we might sometimes thing. That, whatever our differences, we are all human.