Episode 58: Peter returns with an update

Hello, I'm Suzanne Noble, and I'm Peter. Hey Peter, you're back.

I am.

Peter's back, and we thought we'd bring Peter back for Sex Advice for Seniors because though he's on a yoga teaching something or other. Peter's had some big changes in his life. And I thought people were asking me like, what's happened to Peter? I thought, well, let's bring him back on. Let's find out what happened to you, Peter.

Well, what happened to me was that I moved from Oxford to Sheffield and I'm living, I'm living next, well, above the canal. I'm just looking out now on canal boats and people walking along the quayside, and it's all been done very nicely. And there's a pub just 75 meters away called the Dorothy Pax, which is just, you know, like in— is it Friends or something where there's a pub where they all meet?

Yeah.

Shoot the Breeze. And it's just like that, except it's run by two gay guys and it's full of trans people. And it's just kind of wonderful, really. I go there at least once every day. And the only drawback is they don't do food. But I go there, you know, at least once a day. Actually, that's probably an exaggeration. I didn't go yesterday. Because I thought I'd have a day off. But yeah, I've done that. I've moved to Sheffield, which is, well, it's just a bit of a mess really in the centre of town. The only shop left in the centre of town is a Wilko's, so that— I'm not even sure if it's there anymore, and I only went yesterday.

They don't sell sex toys in Wilko, do they?

Sex toys? No, I haven't seen any sex toys. They've got a do-it-yourself department, so is that the same thing?

Possibly.

Yeah.

So I sent you up to Sheffield saying, go and meet up with your mates and, you know, find the happiness that you were missing out on in Oxford where you were living before. And obviously that has worked out quite well for you, really, sounds like, except perhaps on the sexual side. What's going on in the romantic department?

Well, there's not a lot going on sexually. I mean, there's munches and there's meetings and, you know, there's swingers clubs and all sorts of things. Well, there used to be one in Sheffield. Yeah, it's closed.

That's closed.

Yeah, it's closed. Just as well. I think it was pretty horrible judging by the photographs. So yeah, but I've— because I've got this community of friends now, some of whom are women and some of whom we get along very well.

Women friends, who knew, huh?

Women friends, yeah. Somehow sex isn't isn't as present in the front of my mind as it was before. And I think it was a function of loneliness in lots of ways. And of course, I'd like to get involved here with whatever's going on. And sometimes I think I'd like a girlfriend, and other times I think, oh, I'll just get a cat or whatever. But I'm very happy living on my own. Got a nice flat that I'm just doing up. Um, builders finished doing the work yesterday, so now I've got this— well, I'm living in a building site basically, but it's very good. Um, sexually, yeah, not a lot happening, but, um, it's not for the want of trying, but I could I could try harder, I expect.

Yeah, you could, but I suspect you won't.

Well, I might eventually. I mean, I'm seeing a few women that I've met through various different ways, but they haven't— it hasn't manifested itself in sexual contact at all yet. My MS has got a bit worse, so I'm in— I've got a disabled scooter now. I mean, I can still walk and everything, but for long distances into town and things, it's just easier. Yeah. So that's a bit of a drawback when it comes to sexual contact as well. I think, I think people are— women are kind of put off by that as well. But, you know, I don't know, it's very difficult to tell.

You have a seat on the back of it that they could just jump on.

They could sit on my lap, of course.

They could do.

No, it's, um, I've tried a couple of times, but it's, um, it only takes one person really. And my grandson, he loves it.

I think though it's a very important point that you've made, which is that sex sometimes comes at, you know, the desire for sex sometimes is a result of loneliness and not necessarily because you've got this massive horn on, you know. It's because it's, it's— you're missing out on the intimacy in your life. And intimacy comes in all different forms. And some of that is around just being social, right? And hanging out with people and just having a social life, which I suspect you were missing. In your previous home, you know, and now you got like all these mates and all these people around all the time. And I think when we do have a lot of activity in that way, our desire for sex is like, well, yeah, okay, it'd be nice, but it's like not the be-all and end-all. Whereas when you don't have that, you think, oh, it'd be nice to get laid, you know.

Well, I think you can think both. Really. You know, it would be nice to get laid all the time. I don't think my libido has gone away at all, but it's certainly not as present in my mind as it used to be. But yeah, simply because the everyday is taken up with social contact, you know. Yeah. And living on your own and seeing friends every day is very different to living on your own and, you know, seeing friends once in a blue moon. You know, it makes a hell of a difference to the way that you feel about the world. And I find myself much happier. And, you know, I feel as though I've landed now in the place that I'm going to spend the rest of my life. And unless unless something drastic happens. And I just feel very settled and at home, you know. And I think that's really— I think it's very important. The last place I was in was lovely, but, you know, it wasn't mine. And I, you know, there were all sorts of restrictions and caveats that I had to follow. And here I've got my own place and I can do what I want, basically. And it makes a big difference.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've never seen you look so happy and relaxed. It's good.

Yeah, which is good. Yeah, no, I do, I do feel good. I do feel good. And yeah, I think that's really an important factor is that I just feel at home, you know. I feel as though I've come home. And it's, it's kind of a cliché, but, but that's, you know, that's kind of important. And I've, you know, my, my The borders of my life have closed kind of right down. So I live on the quayside here and the pub's on the quayside and I get my shopping from Ocado. And if I didn't want to, I would never have to go anywhere but the quayside. And it's very tempting to do that because it's so comfortable, but you have to make You have to make the effort to go to other places. So sometimes I pop into town, which is all of half a mile away, you know. So, um, yeah, no, it's, it's great. It's great. Yeah.

And I've gone back into the world of swinging clubs, which is—

yeah, you said—

kind of funny and fun. And yeah, but kind of in a different, in a sort of, you know, I can take it or leave it way still. I'm not like, I'm not I'm not desperate for it, but yeah, I'm not.

I'm— and you went to— you went to Cap d'Agde as well.

And I went to Cap d'Agde on my own, which was great. And I'm just, you know, recognizing how much, like you, just how much I like being a single person. And I just have to keep reminding myself of that. And I like having, you know, people that I can just have fun with. Like, I've always been like that. And yeah, the whole boyfriend situation doesn't really work for me very well. And so yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. I mean, I think the difference, you know, is that being a woman is that you can— I mean, the funny thing is that recently some people that I was intimate with back in the early 2000s have suddenly reappeared out of nowhere. And I, and I had to remind myself why I stopped shagging them. I was like, oh right, because that was like 16 years ago and I've had a couple, a few relationships since then, and I've done this and I've done that, and probably they have as well, you know. Yeah, but they've, they've sort of— they were, they were people that were kind of fun, so I thought, oh, that's kind of funny that Somebody— I haven't met up with either of them. Um, one of them only lives down the street, and he was like, oh yeah, let me come over and have fun with you. And I thought, yeah, yeah, that'll be cool. And I said, why— I, I was like, why did I not— why did I stop dealing with you? And then I sort of dug through some old stuff that I wrote back in the day, and I realized, oh, it's because he was flaky and he never— he used to say like he was going to take me to Monaco and do all this kind of really fun expensive stuff because he was loaded. And I obviously had fantasies back then of becoming somebody who—

a kept woman.

A kept woman, yeah, which is always my fantasy. And, and then he didn't, he didn't materialize into that. And now, of course, I think, oh, but he did have a really big dick, and that was good.

That's an important consideration.

Perspective for what he was good at before and what he wasn't so good at. And now I'm a much older woman, I can do that. And yeah, let's see if that one happens. And, and his pictures on his, on the website are still some of his old pictures. So I'm like, from 20 years ago, yeah, I'm like, man, you need to update your pictures because, yeah, I remember that picture from like nearly 20 years ago. Surely you, I said, you've said that you're 47, and I thought, and I said, that cannot be true.

And I thought, unless, yeah, you were 20 when we were doing it.

Yeah, I don't think so. I said, you're still a commodities trader or something, right? And he's like, you've got a very good memory. And I thought, now I just stalked you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I remember that. I remember the well-paid jobs.

Exactly, like, you gotta remember the guys that have, like, good jobs, right? So, yeah, absolutely, keep them in the phone book. Although I was in his phone book, but he wasn't in mine, so.

All right, okay, so that was— no, well, um, I've got old friends here, you know, um, old loves here, and, uh, and that's very good. But I think, um, the big difference, of course, is that Women can get a shank anytime, basically. Men have to work at it. Yeah. Which is why—

I work at it a bit more than you do. I suspect that's the point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could do that. I'll put it on the list. You know, I will make the effort at some point, but I'm getting the flat straight at the moment. I've got to have, you know, I've got to have a shank pad. I haven't even hung my sets. Yeah, I haven't even hung it up yet.

Have you got one?

Yeah.

Did you?

Well, no, it's an outdoor, you know, barbecue swing thing. But you could use it very easily as a sex swing.

Really? What, like one of those egg-shaped things?

No, I didn't get one of those in the end. They were hideously expensive. So I went for—

I knew you were going to say that.

Yeah, well, you know, Mr. False Economy. So I went for a canvas one that sort of hangs and yeah.

What, like a hammock?

Yeah, sort of one-person hammock seat that sits, that hangs down.

Oh, okay.

Well, it's, yeah, it's a hammock stroke slash swing, and you could use it for fun things as well.

Oh, okay, that sounds interesting.

Yeah, yeah, but I haven't even hung up yet, you know. Yeah, you know, the problem is I don't trust myself up stepladders drilling things into the ceiling, so I have to get someone in to do everything now. I used to do it all myself. So yeah, and then, and then of course the sky's the limit. You know, I'll be having sex parties and orgies and all sorts of things here in the flat.

All you have to do is go to the Munch. So for those of you out there who are like, what's a Munch?

Oh yeah.

Munch. Because probably people are like, I don't know what a Munch is. A Munch is when people who are typically into alt lifestyles like BDSM and stuff like that, get together in a friendly social way, usually in an afternoon, and they wear their street clothes. So they're basically kinky folk that are dressed up in just normal street clothes so that they blend in, but they meet each other to determine whether they want to see each other again. So sometimes all, you know, fetishy people meet up with each other because they, they like to have a bunch of people who have similar interests to them. And they just want to chat about, you know, their favorite kind of rope and stuff. I met a friend of mine last night I hadn't seen again in like— well, I met him over 20 years ago on, on, uh, Nerve.com. And as he was reminding me, and, uh, we just went out for a drink because I was nearby where he lived, and he likes rope stuff. And I said, oh, how's your rope stuff going? And he said, oh, I haven't done that recently because I have to burn the ends of it and I don't have a gas cooker. Suzanne Noble Noble.

So has he never heard of lighters?

No, I think, no, no, you need a lot more flame than that. So he's like, you've got, you've got a gas cooker, don't you? And I was like, yes, I do. And if you want to come to my house, that's it. Tie me up and sort out your rope situation.

That's a good way to introduce yourself. Have you got a gas cooker at all? I need to burn some rope. I'll use that as the chat-up line.

It was quite funny, I thought. It was so sweet.

It is.

Yeah, it was really sweet. So it was nice to see him. But yeah, I always think I'm the very epitome of never burn bridges. Because, you know, like, unless somebody's really screwed you over, then, yeah, you know, sure, then fuck them. But if they haven't and you've just kind of, you know, things have just kind of withered, then, you know, you just don't know really how your life is going to move forward and whether actually you had some, you know, a friendship, something that was made it worth hanging on to.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Well, all my old friends and lovers are all academics, really. So, you know, so we slot back into that academic pattern very easily as well and talk about Hegel and Kierkegaard and, you know, Heidegger, which I enjoy as well. That's good. I feel as though I've got Because the people down the pub live on canal boats and they're all a bit crusty and, you know, they all smoke, they all chain smoke. Yeah, Katja, and one of the guys that owns the pub, I asked him, I said, you know, he was complaining that they're not making enough money at the moment and they had a festival that got rained out. And it cost him thousands of pounds. And he said he spends £75 a day on cigarettes. No! Well, it's nearly £20 a packet now.

No!

Yeah, and you just kind of think, well, I said to him, well, why don't you stop smoking? And in a year you'll have made that money. Oh yeah, but it's too late now. And I don't know. So anyway, I've got this very, you know, separate lives. The Heidegger bunch and the people that go down the pub. I like that very much, having those separate things. But as yet, I haven't got a sexy bunch.

Yeah, yeah. Sex-positive group of people that it'd just be fun to hang out with.

Yeah, there have been a couple of munches here, which I haven't gone to because I was ill, I think. One of the women at the pub is involved with the Munches, so there's a sort of Venn diagram going on, thing of circles that overlap. So, you know, I might go to something with her at some point. Yeah, but it's extraordinary how it's not so present in my mind anymore. I'm not so frustrated or more lonely. So, um, yeah, but, but, you know, still on the lookout.

So anyone listening to this from near the Sheffield area, yeah, you're in Sheffield, you know where to go, because literally Peter will just be just going from the warehouse in which he lives to the Dorothy Pax and back again.

So yeah, 75 yards.

If you want to meet Peter, just go to the Dorothy Pax at night on the channel side.

Just hang out on the quayside.

Or just hang out on the quayside. Or you could just go to the quayside and just shout, Peter Marriott! Likely it is, he'll just poke his head out the window and go, who's asking?

I will hear you. The Dorothy Pax is great. They have live bands almost every night. So I'm down there quite a lot. It's, you know, listening to jazz. And who was it last night? The red guitars and all sorts of things, you know. It's really great.

Maybe I can do my Dirty Blues show there. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm sure you could. Yeah, I'm sure you could.

Maybe you need to suggest that to the Dorothy Pax that I could do the, uh, Dirty Blues show with, with George or somebody rather. No, that would be fun. But yeah, no, what have I done recently? I went to a swinging club called Hellfire. I went to another one called AbFab. AbFab was funny, actually. I'll tell you, the funniest thing about AbFab was I walked in and I knew that I'd been there before. But in London, near Heathrow Airport, I recalled that when I had gone there, the— it was in this kind of one-story building, like a bungalow kind of building. And there was a long garden in the back and it was notable because it had a swimming pool and like a jacuzzi, but it backed onto a runway in Heathrow, right? And I just remember like this garden, long garden, and then literally the other side of the fence was the runway. And I couldn't, I couldn't forget this, of course, because it was just so vivid in my mind, this runway.

It's pretty loud as well.

We drive up to this place and I see the runway, but it's not where I expect it to be. And we pull into this industrial estate and we enter this building, which is many stories, and I'm thinking, this is weird, I don't remember this at all. And then I think, well, I'm old, so I probably just reimagined this in a completely different way, right? I mean, I've I thought it was this place, but maybe that was another place that I went to. Maybe this is a different place. I don't know. So anyway, we're in there and we're going up to the different floors and there's a humongous swimming pool, but it's inside. And I'm thinking, I don't remember being inside. And then I look and I'm like, the runway is across the street on the opposite side of where I expected it to be. And I thought, this is all very, very odd. So, you know, and the guy I was with was like, do you remember this? And I just said to him, I don't remember any of this. He's like, are you sure you've been here? And I went, I thought I had. So anyway, then I went to the Cap d'Agde and I met this really nice couple and I was telling them about the places that we'd been visiting. And she said, oh no, that's the old Amphitheatre. I went, oh, what do you mean? She went, no, no, they moved. They used to be in a bungalow that used to be at the end of the garden, but they moved. They're in a totally different building in a totally different place.

I was like, all right.

And I went, oh my God, that all makes perfect sense now.

I'm not really— I'm not Alzheimer's.

I really thought I had Al— I thought I was going crazy. I was like, this This is, this isn't the same place. And yeah, and there were signs all over it in the, in the downstairs was where the jacuzzi and the swimming pool area and everything was. And everything was like, no blowjobs here, no, no sex in the water, no heavy petting, no nothing. It was just like, and, and if you tried to do anything, it was like the, the sex police were coming in. Stop that.

Yeah, there's a different sort of sex police, I should imagine.

It was like trying to do something out of the water because it said nothing in the water. And he was like, well, what if it was out of the water? And I was like, I don't know. I mean, it just says in the water. It doesn't say out. And they were like, no out either.

Well, so where did you have to go? They have special designated rooms there.

Rooms upstairs and everything.

All right, I must admit, yeah, in the swimming pools always seemed a bit strange to me. Um, you know, there's enough stuff in there to swing around in anyway without being swing, swing, I mean, swimming around in a pool of jizz.

Oh, there was a swimming pool in the, in the club I went to in Cap Dag where all sorts of activities were going on and Honestly, by the end of it, the water was really gross, I have to say. Really, really, really gross. And yeah, I mean, you'd have to be one brave or stupid person to do something there.

But yeah, yeah, like going swimming in the British River.

Yeah, it was disgusting. Really, really disgusting. I would not advise that, but Anyway, yeah, it's quite fun.

But yeah, sounds like you're having a, a fine old time.

Yeah, I'm having a final good one, and it's, yeah, no shortage of entertainment, uh, if I want it, so that's good. And, uh, yeah, no, not like, you know, all like every day, but yeah, enough to keep me interested, keep you happy.

Yeah.

So yeah, anyway, I'll see you on the weekend.

See you on Saturday. Yeah, I've booked my tickets and I managed to get a ticket return to London from Sheffield for £40, which seems very cheap on the train.

Very cheap. That's very cheap.

Chose my times and they've changed the way you do it now. It's two singles rather than return and it's worked out a lot cheaper with my disabled pass as well.

After the party. Sorry, Rio's Couples Night after the party.

Oh, is it?

Well, it is on Saturday. It's in Kentish Town.

Yeah, all right, just try and call them.

All right, all right, bye-bye.

See you soon.

See ya.