Feminist Babe's Bible

Feminist Love and Relationships. Dating tips and more.

Confessions of an Aspiring Cougar

Cougar is seen as a derogatory term but some women choose to redefine it. The idea that a cougar has to be old, rich and buy affection is ridiculous.

The Non-Perfect Wedding Guide

Mooky lessons learned in pursuit of the Perfect Wedding. Even if your idea of perfection is an Alternative Wedding, perceived perfection is not as critical as you may think.

Confessions of a Snooper

There's a finite amount of trust in any relationship, and snooping is a sure-fire way to chip away at that trust. Once formed, though, a habit is hard to resist.

Dating the Older Man

A mook with experience of dating older men looks at the benefits a relationship with an older man can bring, along with the potential disadvantages.

Jake Snow, boyfriend of a longtime girlfriend and Mookychick contributor, suggests an alternative to the unrealisable expectations and self-fulfilling disappointments of women so distraught they find themselves claiming 'all men are assholes'. Though temptingly cathartic, gender generalisation doesn't help anyone.

HOW many inches? High heels and confidence

The confidence that can come from wearing high heels is a potential minefield dividing the opinion of feminists everywhere. Sometimes, all you can do is accept the complexities of a seemingly insignificant subject and take a personal stance. And you don't have to feel pinned down.

Sexting

Some oddities think there's nothing's sexier than sending a pic of a bear in a purple hat. They're right... but so very wrong. If you're in an LDR or want to try sexting, our tips explore ways to break the ice, sexting laws and the do's and don'ts of swapping photos.

Getting over 'him'

There is always one that got away. The one you were planning to get matching plugs/scarification with. The one you thought and hoped would stay. Here's how to clear that lost love from your system.

Love (or something like it) on the Internet

We are so fortunate that distance is slowly being eroded by amazing advances in gadgetry. We can IM a thai fisherman or tweet a president. Online friends and relevant others are a few extra bubbles in the bargain fizz of life.

What is love?

What is love? Seriously? The Greeks divided it up into several concepts. Of course we won't leave the ancients out of this, but Buzz takes on the Greek heavyweights with his own version of what love is. Bring it on.

Christmas with family

All I want for Christmas is...

Being fussy: why I'm not settling for a 0.9

Should you settle for second best in your quest to find someone you really love to bits? Should you go out with a 0.9, knowing he's not enough for you and that if he was free he could be some lucky girl's 1.0?

How to get over a broken heart

Mookychicks are completely awesome but no one is immune to heartbreak. Heartbroken Mookychicks had best use this guide - but Mookychaps may alter it to suit themselves.

Love & little white lies

Little white lies continue to frolic in society, scheming to help lovers manipulate each other. Ooh, those naughty, naughty lies!

Plus-size dating tips and trials

Plus-size dating tips: Men to avoid, teenage dating techniques to avoid and the top 10 dating tips for plus-size women. Honestly, what more could you want?

Signs that remind you of your ex

Babe's Bible: Signs that remind you of your ex turn up when you're focusing on them. If you see reminders of your ex everywhere, is this normal?

Happy Anti Valentines Day

Happy Anti Valentines day! Celebrate Anti Valentines Day with broken heart biscuits, busted ball truffles, hugely unromantic films and cards that say "you smell of wee"...

Why I hate Valentines Day

Hate Valentine's Day? You're not alone. You don't have to be single to hate a day which has a nonsensical history, forces romance & arguably isn't very feminist. Men aren't mad keen on it either.

Online dating - a date with technology

Online dating: The latest feature on online dating sites is the 'virtual wink'. With online nutters, liars and older men abounding, is it time give the world a physical wink not a virtual one?

The single life

Babe's Bible: The single life. What comes to mind? Machiavellian nights on the town with the girls? Your blackberry brimming with texts from handsome eligible bachelors? Or is it your sofa, slippers and Doctor Who re-runs on a Saturday night?

First time love

Babe's Bible: First loves tend to be lovely little boys who have pudding bowl hair cuts and share their sandwiches. Should one Facebook them as a 16 year old? Or should some loves be treasured as memories?

Airheads anonymous

Babe's Bible: Our little Ruby, who for some reason once thought hummus is a type of honey, is a self-confessed member of Airheads Anonymous. She looks at the pros, cons and whys of being an airhead in an attempt to rediscover her lovely (blonde) roots...

Prom dates - are they worth it?

Babe's Bible: For ladies of the school-leaving persuasion, the year's end means two things: Examinations and the Prom. An iconic, integral part of the American high school experience, proms are becoming increasingly common worldwide. Any excuse for a party! Here are the pros and cons for having prom arm candy...

High maintenance women - She-devils unite

Babe's Bible: The high-maintenance she-devil bitch from hell is - much like the blue whale - more often sighted on a television screen than in reality. Laura bids us open our arms to these maligned creatures.

Student guide - How to live with boys

Babe's Bible: Living with boys is not the same as living with a boyfriend. Boyfriends are usually singular and therefore manageable. Boy flatmates come in a pack and are allowed to play penis wars. This is what you can expect from male flatmates...

The man in the Levis ad

Babe's Bible: After previously forcing her number on the tousle-mopped Alex Zane, Zoe-Ann Harris has a second chance to make good - when the tattooed, ear-tunnelled guy from the Levis ad walks into her local. Is that the sound of wedding bells? No, it's the sound of lead balloons plummeting back to the pillowy chest of Mother Gravity...

Stag vs. Hen - Alternative hen night ideas

Babe's Bible: The only criterium (ooh, get us! We know grammar!) for a hen do is to be wild and free like a Grecian maenad. With the rise of ladette culture, what happens when Mars and Venus collide? And is it possible to have an alternative hen night that is neither cheesy nor po-faced?

Perfect date

Babe's Bible: Isn't it lovely when you go on a perfect date, and you feel completely familiar with each other, and they don't mind when you refuse to share the popcorn and walk at your own pace? Char goes on the perfect date. You can, too.

Stress diet: Fight flab with dirty cash, the Ex factor and frenemies

Babe's Bible: It's January and people worldwide are making the bleakest month of the year even worse by comfort-eating away the guilt of ballsing up their NY resolutions already. Want to lose weight? Our Char has an innovative new diet plan. But you won't like it. And if you do, it probably won't work...

Moving on? Try the pause button

Babe's Bible: Fast food is a crazy phrase from the modern world that you only really give weight to when you've got a greasy noodle stuck in your teeth. 'Moving on'... another term that's all about our modern obssession with 'fast'. Can you actually outrun yourself?

Knit yourself hugs! Get creative in routine relationships

Babe's Bible: Has your happy relationship become slightly stale? Oh dear. These tiny yet delightful tips will accentuate the positive. And if you've got a creative, crafty side, try sneaking it into the relationship. It might help strengthen the seams...

Italian model to sell virginity...

Babe's Bible: An Italian model who's Catholic and swears she has never had sex plans to sell her virginity for one million euros, or £792,000. Holly Rae Smith wonders what a girl's take on this might be. Is it time to adopt a buffalo stance?

Oh no - it's a quarter-life crisis!

Babe's Bible: "I need you to write about sex, about making it better, you know, for women". That, says our advice columnist Char, is an example of a typical lad's mag brief which I'd normally happily get working on, full of feature ideas even better than the aforementioned. I'd get myself comfortable then sit down, coffee steaming, classical music playing, packet of cigarettes next to me - half of them smoked - and get to work. So what's changed?

Sexy cyclist?

Why get a bike? It's toning. It's cheaper. It's exhilerating. Even the sweat patches. Even the "Cor blimey, I've never seen that before... a woman's arse" comments from white van men. Rebecca buys a bike (and gives you some cycling tips while she's at it). Just don't look at her sweat patches. Or her arse.

Alex Zane: How to make friends and influence people

Babe's Bible: There is no finer way to make an impression on your celebrity crush than to peak and crash on a sugar-high, seranade them with a poor rendition of the Beastie Boys then ask them out with the retro usage of a post-it note. Zoe-Ann Harris lives the dream.

The perils of being a sexual health princess

Opinion: It's Kate Morrison's personal belief that some nurses who carry out STI checks are just jealous of younger girls having sex. It's the only reason she can come up with for their attitude...

Living separately - the new paradigm

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton have been going out for years, and live in houses next door to each other - because she can't stand gothic interior decoration, and he can't stand the chintz. 'The new paradigm' is being in a loving trusting relationship but living separately.

Cheating - Is it worth it?

There is no doubt - we are irresistible, intelligent, worth dying for and we can do anything... right? Life is wonderful, gives us the chance to thrive and... fuck up. It puts us in the most unexpected situations, and what we decide can determine how we think of ourselves.

The Modern Caveman - why men really are from Mars

Opinion: The next time you spill your saddened, overburdened PMT heart to a man and wonder why he's so non-understanding and brisk about it, be kind. When he has a problem, he hides in a cave and ponders... scratch a modern guy and, in a historical not a catty sense, you'll find a caveman. Read on.

Abandoned in KoKo

Opinion: Zoe has the ignominous experience of getting trashed in KoKo with two men she 'knows' (has met once before) and then being sneakily/drunkenly abandoned. Boooo! Hiss! Bad men! Bad!

How to survive the party from hell

H Opinion: What do you do when your best mate invites you to a terrible party that has Jamelia on loop, you watch aghast as she sticks her tongue down the nearest boychild, then your ex turns up? Lola Ross has the answer.

Single in Soho

Single in Soho Babe's Bible Blog: London is meant to be the vibrant city of swinging sauce and glamour (or at least brutal punishing of the liver then a snog outside a chip shop). So why is Zoe-Ann the only single person in all of Soho?

My gay ex boyfriend

Babe's Bible Blog: Take your typical "now you see him, now you don't" love story. Now picture this - it's not your ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend you have to deal with. It's your ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend.

The ex files

Do past relationships, and we mean the biggies of our lovelorn lives, create a new dating style for future hookups or are we just a little too emotionally analytical for our own good? Our Char breaks it down, from the spat to the stalking to the revenge shags to the getting fat to the... future?

I'm sober - get me out of here

No-one wants to proselytize, but our Steph goes to a slutfest New Year's party dressed as a sexy army girl - and the only difference between her and everybody else is that she is, on this occasion, sober. A report from the frontline.

Rantitude... Women are wild game

Debra de Pryck is getting angry! If women are wild game, and men are the hunters, she's wondering why they don't seem to hit their targets at ten paces...

Et tu, Dude... is romance is dead?

"I've been out for a beer with a dude," says Amber McGown-Rules. "I've met a dude at a pub for dinner. I've been to a movie with a dude. I've never been asked to go on a 'date'..."

Letter to my teenage self

Now Ruby is in her early twenties and has discovered such joys as buying her own bras, salad, and debit cards, she's had the chance to shudder at her teenage years and reflect on those oh-so-important issues at the time. To help you get through your wonder years, she's offered some advice they don't give you in girlie teenage mags. Is her age showing?

The cinderella effect

Parents, Hans Christian Anderson and the media have all conspired to make us believe that we will be swept off our feet by a perfect man with a white horse and a golden spear - his name is Lancelot, and yours is Guinevere. Charlotte Kymberley dispels the myth of 'the Cinderella effect', and looks at what we can do to replace it with something more realistic...

Fat girls!

Our Char looks at the conflicting messages given to us by women's magazines and their telling you to feel happy as you are... but lose weight. It may be time for curvy girls to take a stand...

Modern nights out vs. 1920s formal dance

With modern nights out consisting of expressive freedom on the dancefloor spoiled by idiots and clumsy fools, Debbie Read takes us to a beautifully formal yesteryear... the 1920s... when men were real men, dammit, and women had a dance-card...

Guide to getting ready for your first date

First dates can be the most daunting experiences for both chicks and dukes. So, to help you through those first date jitters, here are some dos and don'ts to guide you on your way.

Internet stalking and the EX factor

It has been statisically proven that rejected women are more likely to engage in stalker-like behaviour than rejected men. The problem is, says Charlotte Kimberley, that women are hard-wired to need confrontation and resolution when a relationship breaks down, and men and women have a very different take on the meaning of 'desire'...

Danger: Men with a 90% sexy rating

Men who are 90% sexy and only 10% kind know there are plenty more fish in the sea and are often less concerned with keeping them. Charlotte Kymberley lists the ways in which these men can be particularly annoying and heartbreaksome. Damn them! Damn those 90% sexy men!

Men of Britain - Welcome to Metrosexual 2.0!

Men of Britain, do not be afraid! Fear not the great change, which is quickly coming upon us. A man no longer has to be a metrosexual nor a rugby brute to impress his woman - for there is, at last, says Debbie Read, something in between. Welcome, Men of Britain, to Metrosexual 2.0.