Last night I went to a restaurant and had to have some ginger shit instead of any number of awe­some-looking beers and wines. Then I went to a pub and had two and a half pints of lime and soda. Then I went to someone’s house where the only available soft drink was water. Reader, I drank it.

On a mild Sunday in December, shortly after the end of term, I was driving to Oxford with a screaming hangover. I was making this woe­ful return journey purely in order to work. In December. This felt so unreasonable that I had gone out in London with some graduated friends the night before and painted the town 50 fairly bright shades of red. And it was on this fateful day that I was driving back to Oxford ex­hausted and now a delicate shade of green.

All of this is a long-winded way of explaining why I was listening to Capital FM and not my usual, and more reasonable, choice of Radio 4, and why I was influenced by a radio advert about waving goodbye to alcohol for the entire month of January. In theory it sounded great. No hangovers for a whole month. No waking up wondering what the hell happened the night before and why my pillow was covered in Hasan’s. I might be able to get some serious work done. I might be able to take up an edify­ing new hobby. I might even lose some weight.

What really hit home was hearing that the charity being advertised was Cancer Research; my aunt had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Going dry would be a way of do­ing something that showed this had affected me, that the experience hadn’t just passed me by. I would be able to raise some decent money for charity along the way. That day, I signed up to become a ‘dryathlete’.

Having told my friends and broken the sad news to the legend that is Wadham’s barman, there could be no turning back. As a result, the festive period was spent getting as drunk as I reasonably could. Indeed, the fact I was go­ing to be embarking on the Dryathlon journey became a helpful excuse whenever my parents accused me of drinking to excess. I approached New Year’s Eve like a death row prisoner ap­proaching his last meal. I was going to binge and gorge my way through my last night of li­batory enjoyment.

This was achieved with such success that I got through the first few days of January with­out too much difficulty. The first problem I encountered was my father challenging me to drink whilst sharing out a bottle of wine amongst the family. Otherwise, however, the fact that early January has become a period of acceptable detoxing and healthy living in mod­ern Britain meant that I was generally in com­pany in my abstinence.

Indeed, a few friends even misheard me and thought I was going several steps further and training to take on the Brownlee brothers in a Triathlon. Sadly not. They were rather unim­pressed and significantly less amused in dis­covering the true nature of my challenge. By comparison, it paled.

The first real test came towards the end of the first week. I was getting ready to come back to Oxford and wanted to see some home friends who I had not yet managed to fit in around the succession of enforced family social occasions that we call the Christmas period. Unsurpris­ingly, they wanted to meet in a pub and catch up.

This was not a problem in itself. I have, on the very rare occasion, been to a pub before without drinking. However, this has only ever been as a result of compulsion, under that un­fortunate title of designated driver. Sobriety was being enforced for good reason and with legal consequences for disobedience. This time, however, the only restraint was my will­power, which is, at the best of times, weak. (During an unsuccessful period as Wadham Boat Club Captain, I was in charge of imposing two week-long drinking bans. I was the only person unable to stick to either of them. And that was after just one day.)

My friends took it upon themselves to mock my choice of non-alcoholic drink (lime and soda, an entirely reasonable choice) and to try and tempt me with their pints after the arrival of each round. Being the strongly willed indi­vidual I am, I made it through unscathed.

This, however, was scant preparation for the return to Oxford. I had thought that I would use my abstinence to take up something new at university. I’d had high-minded ideas about getting involved in one of the many societies on whose Freshers’ Fair mailing lists I still lin­ger. Or I was going to use my evenings to get seriously fit or cover some of those books on a reading list that do not have a star next to them. At the very least, I was going to take ad­vantage of Orange Wednesdays or go to some plays.

Reader, I am ashamed to say that I have achieved none of the above. Instead I have mostly stuck to my normal social life which almost entirely revolves around licensed estab­lishments. The consequence of which is that I have become very used to being the butt of jokes for not drinking. A few friends have, to their credit, reduced their own consumption out of solidarity. However, most have done ex­actly what I would have, and mocked me relent­lessly.

Some particular evenings have stretched my resolve. At the end of 0th week, I handed in two pieces of coursework which make up a consid­erable element of my degree. After the stress of getting them finished, all I wanted was a nice pint of college bar Ansell’s. Instead, I was re­duced to drinking Shloer in hall before spend­ing the evening nursing a squash in the bar.

I had to compensate for this by watching a particularly good episode of Sun, Sex and Sus­picious Parents, which, to some degree, did in­deed persuade me of the benefits of not drink­ing. Then there was the first bop back, most of which I spent trying to persuade people signifi­cantly under the influence to drop any money they had into a collecting pot.

Essentially I had to get through a weekend of people celebrating the end of collections, a bop which, without alcohol, was quite a revelation, and a Sunday evening without a single beer. Wadham Bar was fast running out of Pepsi. I soon feared I’d have to move onto squash per­manently. This is what my life had become.

Since then, there have been many other eve­nings spent in the bar nursing a Diet Coke (the stocks of which I have now exhausted – apolo­gies to anyone who has been craving one over the last couple of days) and there was a small test at a darts match when all I could drink was sparkling elderflower cordial.

But the most difficult test of all came a few days ago. It was the first time in my four years that I had managed to book in for Burn’s Night in Hall and I had no intention of missing it. In advance, I had reluctantly agreed to give my tot of whisky to a friend who could not conceal his glee. So I was prepared for disappointment as soon as I stepped through the door.

Having to refuse wine while my dining mates revelled in getting extra helpings was, however, immensely more tedious than I had imagined. And the greatest injustice of all was when I realised that the pudding, a Scottish take on the Eton Mess laced with whisky, had to be given away so that I could not possibly be ac­cused of cheating. I am aware that this sounds like the ultimate ‘first world problem’ but I am usually an incorrigible glutton, so I was pissed off. Much of the meal I had paid for was going to waste on others in the room.

To suggest that the first 19 days of this have been any serious ordeal would be embarrass­ing. It would suggest that people who do real things for charity like those who run mara­thons, or even those who do proper triathlons, are on a par with someone giving up a treas­ured pastime and, worryingly, it would indi­cate that I was an alcoholic.

So I am relieved to say that it has not, on the whole, been too bad.

Furthermore, to end this article with the benefits of abstinence and a stream of plati­tudes about feeling better (indeed I do feel marginally better, although there has been no discernible reduction of the waistline) would be self-righteous and misleading.

However, I have realised how central booze is to our social culture (especially student so­cial culture) – and how much I like it. I have undoubtedly made it harder by not avoiding boozy situations, but the latter is remarkably difficult.

[mm-hide-text]%%IMG6760%%[/mm-hide-text]

The most testing element of being a dry­athlete has been getting used to being handi­capped in most social situations. What I can impart to anyone who might be considering such a dry spell is that, in many social situa­tions, a sugar or caffeine high can be almost (although not quite) as effective as a drink. I have been relieved to find out that being sober among a group of drinking friends does not necessarily make one into a social pariah.

I will, however, resume drinking with con­siderable relish on the 1st of February. Before that sainted day arrives, I have a couple more hurdles to surmount. I have not yet attempted to sample Oxford’s clubbing scene without a drink, having made my excuses at every possi­ble opportunity so far. I feel I should really take this on before I can declare my Dryathlon a suc­cess. And on the last night of sobriety, I will be in attendance at a Boat Club Curry which will mark one last night of difficult temptation.

Finally, it would be wrong of me not to shamelessly plug the charity I am raising mon­ey for and to beg of the charitable amongst you out there (who have made it to the end of this excessively long article) to spare the price of one drink – ideally an expensive one – for a very good cause. I will buy you one in return and watch you drink it with bitter envy.

www.justgiving.com/dryathlete-john-owen

Cindy Gallop is in full evangelising mode. I’ve caught her as she comes off stage at TEDx Oxford 2012, where she took great delight in being com­pletely open and explicit about hu­man sexuality, as well as in making her audience laugh. The phrase “cum on my face” featured heavily.

Gallop has launched a website, makelovenotporn.tv, aiming to showcase “realworldsex” and to chal­lenge the influence of “pornworld” on sexual behaviour. You’ll find no desperate-looking prostitutes here; the videos are not titled “fuck with big titted blonde” or “slut bukkake”. Users submit videos of themselves having sex, with backstories and even humour included. It’s not quite amateur porn – as the website says, “‘Amateur’ implies the only people doing it right are the professionals and the rest of us are bumbling idi­ots” – but it’s in the same vein.

The inspiration for this project came out of Gallop’s own sex life, about which she is very matter-of-fact. “So, I date younger men, and they tend to be men in their twen­ties, and I began encountering what I guess is best described as sexual behavioural memes. And I know where that behaviour’s coming from; it’s coming from porn.” This is understandable: “If the only clues we have are from porn, those are the ones we’ll take.” In case any young men erupt in horror about being described in this way, she hastens to add that this is not true of all men in their twenties, “There are young men who are absolutely fan-bloody-tastic in bed, I am proud to report.”

When Gallop launched the web­site, the media worked itself into a lather. “Oxford graduate launches porn site!” “Make love not porn, says Oxford graduate!” (Admittedly Cherwell was no exception in point­ing out the Oxford connection.) A proud Somerville graduate with the backing of her college principal, Gal­lop simply finds this funny. “I mean, that’s got no relevance to anything. But they did really seize on it. This is not what anyone expects an Oxford alumnus to do.” Porn and sex are headline-grabbing keywords, and so “it’s been enormously easy to get shedloads of global media coverage without lifting a finger and doing one single bit of media outreach.”

The admin side of setting up a small business has been harder: banks and companies like PayPal are reluctant to work with a company with “porn” in the title. Though she has plenty of publicity, “It’s been a very long, very hard year.”

A major part of Gallop’s mission to change the world is to improve com­munication and sex education: as she says, “There is no open, healthy discussion around sex and how it re­ally is in the real world. And so hard­core porn has become by default sex education today, and that’s not okay.” Parents are reluctant to speak to their children about sex, and when they do, they’re not having the conversation they ought to. When the average age at which children first view porn is eight, the ‘birds and the bees’ talk won’t cut it. Gal­lop reckons the conversation should go something like this: “So, darling, we know you’re online, and we know you’re visiting hardcore porn sites, we just need to explain to you that not all women like being tied up, bound, gangbanged, choked, raped, and having men come all over them, and not all men like doing that ei­ther.” So the social mission is a key part: “100% of parents are not having that conversation. That’s why I’m do­ing what I’m doing.”

She talks about the website (and its information-based sister web­site) as a tool which can be used to improve communication about sex, and can be used as a teaching aid, “So I want to give people more and more tools with which to have this dialogue the way they want to.” The videos themselves strike me as a slightly bizarre teaching tool to use in any formal way, as the website is (to put it bluntly) designed to be used one-handed. But between lovers, it could be used to help communicate, which is something she is keen to stress: “Talk about what makes you really happy in bed, talk about what you like doing, what will really bring you satisfaction.” Gallop herself says that the young men she sleeps with can easily be cured of their ‘porn world’ expectations.

Though it has quite a strong so­cial message, the website is not about censorship, or disapproval of hardcore porn itself. Submissions are “curated” (what a job to have), but the team aim to approve 99% of submissions. When I ask her about porn filters she scoffs, “Oh absolute bollocks. Porn filters are a ridicu­lous idea. Like I said, the issue isn’t porn, the issue is a complete lack of a counterpoint. As long as our so­ciety refuses to be open and honest about sex, that’s the problem. Porn is not the problem.” It’s more about challenging the “porn world” behav­iours which she sees as so damaging: “I want to help the porn industry see that you can invent a new business model and leverage human sex as entertainment in a different kind of way, to help them be a better busi­ness and a better industry.”

On makelovenotporn.tv you have to pay to rent videos, which is one of the things that strikes me as most problematic about the project. Gal­lop herself is confident that it will work, saying, “I believe that if you create something that gives people pleasure, you should see a finan­cial return on it, and the more peo­ple you give more pleasure to with something you’ve created, the more financial return you should see.” This is certainly the ideal, but in practise people have become used to getting things for free: music, films, newspapers and even books. Howev­er, certain new payment models, like Spotify or the FT’s online paywall, have managed to make money re­gardless. The website uses a revenue sharing model, where half of every payment goes to the uploader; this may encourage users to upload qual­ity content, so that the more discern­ing porn-viewer is willing to pay up.

Gallop is excellent at promot­ing her website and doesn’t bother with false modesty, boasting of its uniqueness. “We are out to showcase to the world something that nobody else is showcasing in the same way.” She is also proud of her fan-letters and messages of support: “Out of the many, many emails I’ve had, from everywhere in the world, young and old, male and female, there’s a whole group of emails that go something like this: ‘I came across your TED talk, I went to your website, I shared both of them with my boyfriend/ girlfriend/husband/wife/lover/ partner, off the back of that we had a great conversation, now our sex life is so much better, thank you so much.’” She cites various examples of gratitude – teachers, parents – and her Twitter feed is full of retweeted messages of support. She’s a serial entrepreneur and used to work in advertising, so she probably knows a thing or two about how to get a project off the ground: this involves boasting about it at any opportunity.

An incredibly candid person, Gal­lop’s openness is part of her identity. “I’m essentially unblackmailable, be­cause once you’ve stood on the stage at TED, and announced to the world that you have sex with younger men, you can never be ashamed about it ever again. So I live my life out in the open – yes I’m quite an extreme ex­ample of that, but it’s an enormously relaxing, stress-free and liberating way to be. I know exactly who I am, I know what I believe in, I live my life according to those principles and philosophies, and I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.” It re­ally seems as if she actually doesn’t give a damn, which is perhaps one of the reasons she has so many fans.

It is no surprise, then, that makelovenotporn.tv intends to em­brace social media, and hopes to make their videos go viral. In some ways, liking a porn video on Face­book or sharing it on Twitter is a logi­cal extension of the way the world is going: “The new reality in life and in business is complete transparency. Everything that you do today as a person or as a company is potential­ly in the public domain, courtesy of the power of the internet.” This will certainly make some people uncom­fortable – do you really want to know your friends’ deepest sexual desires? To know that they’ve just finished masturbating to a certain video? Is nothing to be private any more?

However, perhaps we could do with a little more openness and honesty about our desires and porn-viewing habits. As Gallop says, “I hate the hypocrisy that exists in this world, we’re all human beings: sex is part of who we are. I’d like to see a fu­ture where it doesn’t matter what job you want to do, you are not judged by your sexual proclivities because it’s just human, it’s natural.”

“There is no Steve Jobs in the porn industry,” she declares. She doesn’t exactly say that it could be her, but she seems to think of herself in a sim­ilar way. An innovator, an entrepre­neur, someone who can challenge the way things are done and who attracts a devoted following; this is what Gallop hopes to be for the porn world.