Come to My Book Launch (Online or in NYC)!

Hello, friends! It’s less than 2 weeks until my first book, 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do, officially launches. I’ve already started to hear about some folks receiving their preordered copies early, which is exciting!

I wanted to write a brief little blog post to let you know that I’m hosting a book launch event which will take place in New York City but will also be livestreamed online. Here are the details:

  • Wednesday, October 13th, 2021
  • 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Eastern (New York/Toronto time)
  • KGB Bar Red Room (85 E 4th St, New York, NY) and simultaneously livestreamed via Zoom
  • Proof of vaccination required if attending in-person
  • Reserve your free ticket here (this allows us to make sure the venue stays at a safe capacity, and it’s also how you’ll be sent the Zoom link if you’re watching online)

Some elements of this event will be pretty standard for a book launch – I’ll be reading from the book, and selling + signing copies – while some will be a bit more unorthodox: I’ll be doing demos of some of the kinks in the book, with the help of two of my favorite people, Matt and Bex. Ever wanted to see me do sadomasochism/erotic hypnosis/sensory deprivation games but never been able to (because, frankly, I almost never do those things in public these days)? Then come to (or watch) this event!

I’m so proud to be able to share this book with you and very much looking forward to seeing your faces ❤️

(P.S. Since I know the fashion-inclined among you will wonder… There’s no official dress code other than “street-legal so you don’t get arrested en route for wearing assless chaps on the streets of Manhattan,” but if you are so inclined, feel free to wear an outfit of your preferred level of fanciness in the colors of the book cover, black and gold. I’m not even much of a gold person but you can bet I’ll be rocking those shades that night!)

My Blog’s Turning 9 & I’m Doing an Online Concert to Celebrate!

Friends, this coming Saturday marks NINE YEARS since I created this blog and wrote my first post on it. I was nineteen years old – basically a baby – and envisioned that Girly Juice would be a fun summer project. I had no idea it would become essentially my full-time job and the source of many of my most important opportunities, projects, and relationships. Thank you so much for being with me on this journey, however long you’ve been reading – it honestly means the world to me. 💖

To celebrate 9 years in the sex blogging biz, I’m playing a livestreamed concert this weekend, Saturday, March 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern. Here are the details…

 

Q. Where can I tune into the show?

A. On my YouTube channel. Click that link and hit the “set reminder” bell if you want to make sure you won’t forget!

 

Q. What will happen during the show?

A. I’m going to play some songs on my ukulele – some relatively recent, some throwbacks unearthed from my high school singer/songwriter days. This is the first show I’ve headlined in any format for 3+ years and I’m so excited to share some tunes with you! Other things that might happen: poetry readings, sneak peeks of my upcoming book(s), conversations with my spouse about sex blogging, answering questions from viewers, sampling delicious cocktails, giggling.

 

Q. Is there a ticket fee?

A. Nope! Totally free. However, if you want to do something nice for me as a “congrats on blogging for 9 years” gift, you can buy my music on Bandcamp, buy my sexy pictures/videos here, preorder my first book, and/or make a donation in my honor to a rad organization I believe in, like the Bail Project, Trans Lifeline, SWOP Behind Bars, or the Bad Dog Theatre.

 

Q. Will it be recorded for me to watch later if I can’t make it?

A. Probably not, because I want it to feel as singularly special as the live shows I used to love playing IRL. But there’s tons of music on my YouTube channel if you want to see me play at a time that works better for you!

 

Q. What should I wear?

A. Wear whatever you like – this isn’t a conservative family Zoom call, it’s a sex blogger’s YouTube concert! – but if you feel inspired to do so, feel free to dress up for the occasion in something fancy, sparkly, kinky, and/or velvet. Tag me if you post your outfit on social media – I wanna see!

 

Hope to see you this Saturday, babes 💖

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 4 Fun Events

Wow. Remember crowds?

While plotting this blog series, I considered swapping out this list of my fave events of the year for something more… timely. After all, as far as in-person events go, we’ve seen better years, to say the least. But as far as virtual events go? This was very probably the best year on record.

So here are the 4 events that stuck out most in my mind this year – some in-person, some virtual. I’m immensely grateful to everyone involved in making each of these happen, because this year needed a whole lot of brightening and they managed to brighten it.

(I’m not going to write about my wedding here, by the way… not because it wasn’t one of my favorite events of the year, but because that feels like a cop-out!)

Get On Your Knees

How could I have known what comedian Jacqueline Novak‘s one-woman show Get On Your Knees would be like? All I knew about it was that she was funny and well-reviewed, and that the show was about blowjobs. There are so many different ways a person can talk about blowjobs – I should know – so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

What ensued was a meandering and deeply personal show-long monologue about Jacqueline’s formative fellatio experiences. Her fears, her insecurities, her failures – and also her triumphs, her joys, her successes. She stalked around the stage, mic in hand, ranting about scrotal skin, vulva shame, and the inability to turn off her racing thoughts while giving head. Each and every observation felt fresh, relatable, and outrageously funny.

Part of the reason I do what I do here at Girly Juice is that women have traditionally been discouraged from talking openly about their sex lives – especially if they enjoy sex, especially if they’re critical of the men they have sex with, and especially if the types of sex they prefer to have are considered non-standard. To see a successful female comedian speaking frankly about sex on stage – in a manner both vulnerable and hilarious – reinvigorated my courage and drive to do what I do. I’m so happy Jacqueline’s show got the critical acclaim it deserved, and I know she’s changed the comedy landscape for the better.

The Beaches & Goodbye Honolulu at the Danforth Music Hall

Remember February? Ahh, ignorance was truly bliss.

On February 28th, I flew home from a weeks-long stretch in New York. The reason I’d picked that day was that on February 29th, I had a ticket to go see my brother’s band open for the Beaches. All I knew about the Beaches, going into this show, was that Max’s band had toured with them before, knew them pretty well, and respected them a lot. I knew they were an all-girl group, and some internalized misogyny led me to assume that they wouldn’t rock as hard as Goodbye Honolulu does. Well, I was very wrong.

Sitting in the cushy balcony of the legendary Danforth Music Hall with my parents, I had a quasi-religious experience at that show. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least not for the bands; they played their guitars and drums and basses, sang and screamed into their mics, strutted around the stage in hot outfits. But it had been a while since I’d been to a proper rock show, and I felt high even though the only “substance” I’d consumed was a beer from the bar downstairs. I was completely captivated by these bands – first the boys, and then the girls – their talent, their drive, their intensity.

Afterward, I walked out onto the snowy street, dazed and cleansed. I didn’t know, at the time, that this would be the last music show I’d go to in-person for a very long while. But knowing what I know now, I couldn’t have picked a better last hurrah before lockdown.

Abolish Police in Canada teach-in

It had been a few years since I’d been to a political rally, so attending an No Pride in Policing teach-in/rally at Nathan Phillips Square in late June was powerful.

Black and Indigenous activists spoke, read poetry, sang, and played music – some from afar via Zoom, some right in front of us – about the harm police have caused to their communities, and the structural changes that need to be made. Matt and I sat on the pavement, surrounded by hundreds of other (mostly masked and socially-distanced) rapt onlookers, and listened, clapped, and cheered.

The opposition to the event, while expected, was still disheartening. Police on bikes swarmed the perimeter; racist anti-maskers sprayed droplets with their enraged screams. But people attending the event, either as performers or onlookers, dealt with these threats in peaceful and purposeful ways, usually just blocking the opposition’s path to the stage so they couldn’t disrupt the proceedings further.

Since it happened around the same time Pride usually does, and was put on by the No Pride in Policing coalition, this was decidedly a queer community event. It felt so amazing to gather with other queers in service of a vitally important goal – defunding the police and redistributing their budget to other, more worthy causes – during Pride month, a time that’s always been political for us. The work being done by Black Lives Matter Canada (not to mention the organization’s other chapters worldwide) is absolutely phenomenal; I only hope that privileged policymakers start actually listening to them sometime soon.

Theatresports Online

The Bad Dog Theatre has been one of my favorite places for over 14 years. Unfortunately, now, it’s no longer so much a place as a community – both because the pandemic has prevented in-person gatherings, and because the pandemic has caused the Bad Dog to have to give up its physical space for the time being. They’re looking for a new one, but until then, we still have online shows to look forward to.

The programming put on by the Bad Dog this year made every week feel about 15% more bearable for me. Whether their improvisors were performing impromptu plays about love and sex, playing Dungeons & Dragons over Zoom, or interviewing fake “experts” about their fake books, they made me laugh so hard I cried every time I tuned into their YouTube channel.

Theatresports is the Bad Dog’s flagship improv show. I think the first time I ever saw an improv show in my life (that wasn’t an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway), it was a Theatresports show. It’s a competitive shortform show where two teams go head-to-head to see who can create the funniest scenes and games. In its online form this year, it was hosted every week by Tom Hearn, a vivacious beacon of brightness forever wearing elaborate drag makeup and randomly breaking into song between scenes.

Every time I had a hard week, whether related to pandemic stress, work stress, family stress, or literally anything else, I always knew I could sit down in front of the TV on Thursday night and the Bad Dog crew would keep me company and crack me up. They helped get me through this hell year, and I know I’m not the only one they helped in that way. I can never thank them enough for the laughs they served up in 2020.

 

What events made you happy this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2019: 4 Fun Events

I got to attend many fun and eye-opening events this year, in Toronto, New York, Portland, and Montreal. It was hard to pick just 4 to highlight here, but these were really the standouts…

Tinder Live

Comedian and author Lane Moore tours the continent with this fabulous show, in which she sets up the screen of her iPhone to project onto a wall so the audience can see it, and then literally just… Tinders. Live. There are a few rules – she only makes fun of men, for example, since women and non-binary people get their fair share of harassment already – but mostly you just get to watch a hilarious person have silly Tinder conversations with random strangers. Attending this event was such a light-hearted balm for my Tinder-weary heart (why is everyone on that app a terrible conversationalist?!) and helped me once again see dating as less soul-sucking and more playful, joyful, serendipitous. Thanks, Lane!

Suicide Intervention for Weirdos, Freaks, & Queers

(Content note for this one: suicide, suicidal ideation.)

Carly Boyce – who my longtime readers might remember as a tarot reader who’s given me some much-needed illumination and encouragement in the past – teaches a truly incredible workshop on suicide intervention that I was lucky enough to get to attend this year. Carly led a discussion on suicide-related myths and fears, and then offered some concrete strategies for keeping your loved ones and yourself safe when suicidal feelings come up. I took many, many notes during this session that I’ve subsequently frequently referred to, when I or someone in my life was feeling unsure about staying alive – unfortunately a not-uncommon thing – and each time, I was so glad to have these tools under my belt. Thank you, Carly, for the knowledge and light you put into the world.

XOXO

I was lucky enough this year to get to attend XOXO, “an experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online” (that’s me!). I was nervous, because it’s a big conference full of big personalities and I am a smol shy weirdo, but it ended up being an incredibly welcoming and safe-feeling space for me. Some of my favorite talks included Lindsay Ellis‘s reflections on being hounded by trolls, Emma Kinema‘s inspiring words on the importance of unions, and Hbomberguy‘s heart-warming tale of a wacky fundraising drive. The nightlife at XOXO was my fave, though – I still think fondly about the night I spent watching Pump Up the Jam and the Allusionist do live podcasts and laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I hope to be able to attend XO again next year!

Blunderland

I was introduced to the House of Yes and their frequently sold-out variety show Blunderland by my clever friend Bex, and I’m so glad. It’s a raunchy night of over-the-top amazingness: burlesque, slapstick, storytelling, music, aerial silks, and more. An honorable mention goes to the House of Yes’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I also got to see this year; I’ve never seen a queerer, kinkier, poly-er adaptation of that play!

What were your favorite events you attended in 2019?

Salacious Sightseeing & Titillating Tourism

I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a bit in my time. My parents did a lot of work-related travel when I was a kid (crisis management sojourns to foreign countries for my dad, press junkets in New York and Los Angeles for my mom), which instilled in me the sense that travel was freedom, adventure, excitement. They would always bring back presents from their far-flung visits – and now, when I travel, I sometimes bring back presents for them! Ah, the circle of (#jetsetter) life.

Today I want to talk about 5 sexy attractions or date spots I’ve been to in 5 excellent cities. There are more exotic sexual locales – you could, for example, visit the Red Light District in Amsterdam, get the best escorts for all tastes in Melbourne, or go hang out with horny moms on the Twilight tour in Italy – but these are some I’ve personally enjoyed. Check ’em out if you’re ever in the neighborhood!

Kink Shoppe (Philadelphia)

I secretly think most of the best sex shops have a heavy focus on kink. It’s not that “vanilla” sex toys aren’t important – they are – but I find that if a shop is run and frequented by kinksters, it tends to have a better and more thought-out selection of products, both kinky and not. After all, kinksters do love to be overanalytical and nerdy about their sex lives! Kink Shoppe in Philly is no exception: it has a wide array of toys ranging from mild (cute vibrators, colorful dildos) to wild (ball crushers, gas masks). My partner bought a pair of vampire gloves there and they have served us well! P.S. If you want dessert after your sex-shop date, walk a block west to the Franklin Fountain for ice cream. Yummm.

Drink (Boston)

This is supposedly the #1 cocktail bar in Boston and I believe it. The bartenders are brilliant and worth the wait. (There was about a 45-minute-long line when my partner and I went; we played Scrabble on my phone and people-watched while we waited.) They have no cocktail menu, so you just tell them what kinds of things you like and dislike in a drink and they’ll make you something great. And then, if you’re me, you go back to your hotel and do a watersports scene. *shrug*

Spartacus (Portland)

This is maybe the best sex shop I’ve ever been to, and I don’t say that lightly! I’d heard of the Spartacus brand of sex products before, but didn’t know they had an actual retail location – and OMG, it is amazing. You could easily spend a good 2-3 hours picking through the massive selection of stuff. My partner and I walked out with a bottle of Sliquid lube and a pair of scandalous fishnet underwear, but honestly, there were like 12 other things I could’ve bought. Plus the cashier didn’t unnecessarily gender us. Score.

Onoir (Montreal)

Some relationship psychology theorists say an easy way to “rekindle the spark” is to do something new and/or scary together. Roller coasters and horror movies are the commonly cited examples, but I don’t like jump-scares or loop-de-loops… Onoir served a similar function when my partner and I went there, though! It’s a fine dining experience in a completely dark room, where you’re led around and waited on by blind servers. It’ll certainly make you think differently about food, and maybe about your beau, too!

Museum of Sex (New York)

Periodically a friend of mine will go on vacation to New York and will message me to ask if I think the Museum of Sex is worth a visit. It really depends on what the current exhibitions are – I’ve seen some pretty good ones and some pretty boring ones – but for the most part, I’d say if you’re a sex nerd visiting NYC, you should check it out. The lobby is a sex shop stocked by someone who clearly knows what they’re doing, so you can cap off your visit by buying a luxury thruster, CBD lube, or a vintage copy of Playboy. Ideal.

 

What are your favorite sexy or date-y spots you’ve visited on your travels?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.