Body “Imperfections” Are Part of What Makes Sex Hot

Content note: body image, internalized fatphobia, etc.

 

When I was younger, I was often horribly self-conscious about how I looked during sex. I’m sure many of you can relate.

I was terrified of my belly or thighs looking “too chubby” during sex, and paranoid about certain angles emphasizing a double chin. I fretted about lighting, preferring to be seen as little as possible during the act. I shaved almost every part of my body, very carefully, before every date that I thought might end in sex – and if I later noticed a patch of hair I’d missed, I felt deeply embarrassed about it, like my sexual partner du jour would definitely have noticed this oversight and would have thus judged me as having failed at femininity.

I know a lot of people feel this way, especially women. Porn is often blamed for the high standards we hold ourselves to, but I think the entire media apparatus is really at fault here – from women’s magazines that rate celebrities’ “beach bodies,” to airbrushed and gorgeously-lit sex scenes in movies and TV. There’s a lot of messaging out there which seems to suggest that only conventionally attractive people deserve sex (a standard that often ends up being fatphobic, racist, transphobic, and ableist in its execution). It’s no wonder so many of us are nervous about being seen naked.

And sure, not all of us have Kardashian curves, a J. Lo butt, or Emma Hix feet, but it ultimately doesn’t matter, because imperfections are part of what make sex feel so exciting, so raw, so human.

I love tracing my fingers along a partner’s body and feeling their softness, moles, hairs. I love being able to kiss and compliment parts of a partner’s body that they’ve felt insecure or uncertain about. I love feeling someone relax when they truly absorb the idea that they are safe – that I’m not going to make some snide comment about their shape, or criticize their grooming habits, or walk out in disgust. And I also love when partners take the time to ensure that I, too, can relax in that way. Relaxation is really important for arousal – read Emily Nagoski’s excellent book Come As You Are for more on why stress is the ultimate libido-killer – so anything we can do to help each other chill out will make the ensuing sex much better for everyone involved.

 

I may not be able to erase all your insecurities in one fell swoop (trust me, I wish I could!), but I do want to offer some actionable advice for those of you who are often distracted and derailed by bad body image thoughts during sex. Here goes…

Ask for the reassurance you need. This is easier to do with established partners than new or one-off partners, but it can be really helpful either way. Try saying something like, “Hey, I’m feeling kind of self-conscious about my [belly/thighs/hips/etc.] today – can you give them a little extra love?” I have been lucky enough to have several partners who would take this kind of request as an opportunity to convey their desire for me both verbally and physically (e.g. by kissing the area[s] in question), which has really helped me.

Reflect on how you feel about your partner’s body (or how you have felt about past partners’ bodies). Odds are good you weren’t obsessively cataloguing and judging their every flaw. In fact, in many cases their so-called “flaws” may have been super hot to you. Well, other people may feel that way about your body, too!

Wear something you feel sexy in. There’s no rule that says you havto get naked whenever you have sex. There’s lots of hot lingerie and loungewear out there, for instance, that you can easily wear while fucking (although you may need to get creative in order to do so, like by pulling the gusset of your underwear to the side). In some cases this can be even hotter than being naked!

Consume different media if your current “media diet” contains a lot of conventionally perfect bodies, which, odds are, it does. Seek out porn and other sexy media from creators whose bodies look more like yours. Over time, this can shift the way you see your own body.

Seek therapy if you can. You deserve a life of wild, unabashed joy, in and out of the bedroom, and unpacking your body image issues with a professional might just be the way to achieve that. I know it’s helped me a lot.

 

Have you ever struggled with body insecurities during sex? How do you deal with it?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

5 of the Most Commonly Fetishized “Non-Sexual” Body Parts

Taken at the Gramercy Park Hotel in 2019

I find fetishes fascinating. It truly speaks to human ingenuity that we have found ways to get horny about all manner of things, from leather boots to mannequins to piss.

Some of the most commonly fetishized objects are body parts. While some features of human anatomy are so commonly fetishized as to escape the fetish label, such as breasts and butts, plenty of oft-lusted-after body parts are generally considered “non-sexual,” despite them carrying a sexual charge for many people.

I’ll refer to this study in choosing some body parts to tell you about in this post. Let’s get into it…

 

Feet

I mean, you probably knew this was gonna be the top item on this list. 47% of the fetishists in the study have a foot fetish; it’s often thought to be the most common “non-sexual” body part fetish.

Different people like feet for different reasons, ranging from the taboo of kissing and licking a “gross” or “dirty” body part, to the powerful imagery of kneeling to kiss a god(dess)’s feet. As for people who fetishize having their own feet touched in sexual ways, power play can be an element of that as well, as can the fact that the feet are just really damn sensitive.

Curious about this fetish? I go into it in more detail in my book 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do, and you can also read more here on a different website.

 

Hair

7% of study respondents fetishized hair. This can refer to body hair as well as hair on the head. Folks with this fetish may enjoy looking at, touching, and/or licking hair. This makes sense to me, seeing as our society places a lot of importance on hair as a marker of beauty and identity.

There are lots of subdivisions within this kink – some people only fetishize particular types or colors of hair, for example (“blondes have more fun,” anyone?), while some fetishize specific hair-related actions, like someone getting a haircut or having their head shaved. This is how I initially discovered this fetish online: a friend of mine shaved her head in high school and fetishists started swarming the photos I posted on Flickr…

 

Bellies and belly buttons

3% of the study’s respondents said they were into the midriff and/or specifically the belly button. They might enjoy staring at bellies, touching them, humping them, or engaging in activities that allow for belly-to-belly contact, like wrestling, or sex in the missionary position.

I find it really interesting and, honestly, healing that many belly fetishists prefer chubby bellies. As someone who’s always been nervous about whether my stomach is “too big” (despite liking to have it kissed and complimented in the bedroom), it makes me happy that there are plenty of people out there who would like it because it’s not flat!

 

Legs

2% of respondents mentioned being into the legs and/or buttocks. It’s a little strange that the researchers grouped these two body parts together like this, since the butt is usually seen as a directly sexual body part and the legs are not, but I guess it makes sense because the two are so closely connected.

Historically, legs were fetishized a lot in the Victorian era because men would so rarely see a woman’s legs (or even her ankles) under those long skirts. I find it fascinating how cultural norms can have such a huge effect on what people find sexy, even though fetishes are often described by those who have them as feeling inborn and unchangeable.

 

Lips and/or teeth

2% of study respondents said they were into lips, teeth, or the mouth in general. This fetish goes beyond just enjoying oral sex and may involve fixating on specific lip shapes, long tongues, sharp teeth, or any number of other mouth-related features.

The mouth can obviously be a highly sexual zone for many of us, and is packed with nerve endings, so this makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder if mouth fetishists can ever have orgasms just from being kissed…

 

What anatomical fetishes do you find most interesting or intriguing?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Review: Tracy’s Dog Flowliper

Apologies for the cat hair. You know how it is.

Pressure-wave toys have been around for about a decade, and most of them have been pretty samey. A few companies have branched out with innovations within the pressure-wave toy genre, like when Arcwave made one for dicks, or when Womanizer made one with an “Autopilot” mode, but for the most part, these toys have largely been relatively similar to each other. They usually feature a small nozzle that directs rhythmic air waves at the clitoris for “touchless” pleasure, a sensation some people like and some people don’t.

So I was glad to see the new pressure-wave toy from Tracy’s Dog, the Flowliper, because it genuinely does some things differently from a lot of other pressure-wave toys. Let’s talk about what sets it apart from the crowd.

 

What is the Tracy’s Dog Flowliper?

The Flowliper is a rechargeable pressure-wave stimulator for clitoral use. It retails for $36–46, depending on where you get it from.

And before you ask: I have no idea what the product name means. My best guess is that it’s a portmanteau of “flower” and “lip,” but who can say? (Tracy, I suppose. Or perhaps her dog.)

 

Image via Tracy’s Dog because I have misplaced one of my attachments, lol.

Things I like about this toy

  • Tapping Attachment: It’s common these days for pressure-wave toys to come with more than one silicone head to go over the nozzle, to account for differences in clitoris size from user to user. The Flowliper takes this even further by including two different-sized nozzle heads and a third attachment that has a thin membrane of silicone covering its hole. This attachment turns the toy’s pressure-wave technology into a different sensation altogether: the membrane “taps” your clit rapidly, feeling almost more like mild oscillation than air waves. Using the toy with this attachment worked well for me as “foreplay” for using the more traditional nozzle heads, as it’s a subtler, gentler sensation that’s nonetheless pleasurable, especially when lubed. A lot of users (myself included, at times) have complained about pressure-wave toys feeling too intense, especially toward the start of a session, and this is a great solution for that.
  • Easy to Change the Attachments: Speaking of the swappable heads, I like that there’s a notch on each head which lines up with a corresponding notch on the toy itself, making it easy to orient the head correctly when you’re putting it on. This has occasionally been tricky for me with other such toys, so I appreciate this little quality-of-life addition.
  • Ergonomic Size & Shape: I like the elegant curves of the Flowliper. Holding it usually feels comfortable and natural, even with my chronic-pain-addled hands.
  • Buttons: The toy’s buttons are satisfyingly clicky and work as expected. There’s a power button to turn the toy on or off, two arrow buttons for navigating through the toy’s three steady speeds and seven patterns, and another button that switches the toy to its “Dynamic Pulse” mode (more on that in a sec). The buttons are also conveniently placed, exactly where my fingers naturally sit when I hold it. The power button is even located farther away from the other buttons so that I’m very unlikely to hit it by accident during use. (These button details may seem minor, but trust me – bad buttons can ruin a toy, and this toy has great buttons.)
  • Dynamic Pulse Mode: When I flipped through the Flowliper’s instructions and read about its Dynamic Pulse mode, I was intrigued, because it reminded me of Womanizer’s “Autopilot” mode, in which the toy controls itself, varying between different vibration patterns and speeds to give you an experience that feels more like a human partner touching you. However, the Flowliper only costs about one-third as much as the Womanizer Premium, so as you’d expect, the technology in the Flowliper isn’t quite as finessed. The toy’s Dynamic Pulse mode changes to a random pattern and intensity approximately every six seconds, keeping you on your toes. This has its downsides (see below) but I still found it boosted my arousal in a fun, pleasurable, and genuinely surprising way. Like Womanizer’s Autopilot mode, Dynamic Pulse mode has three different “ranges” it can operate within – low, medium, and high – so it won’t skip around wildly from high settings to low ones or vice-versa, which is a super useful feature for building gradually toward orgasm.
  • Price: At $36 (currently, as of this writing), the Flowliper is a very reasonably-priced pressure-wave toy, considering that the other sub-$100 pressure-wave toys I tend to recommend are in the $50-70 range. With its three different attachments, three speeds, seven patterns, and Dynamic Pulse mode, you get a lot of bang for your buck with this toy, since it can provide a bunch of different sensations.
  • Nice Aesthetic: I like the mix of smooth matte silicone and shiny frosted plastic that Tracy’s Dog has used for this toy. It gives it a distinct, surprisingly elegant look.
  • Useful LED Indicators: The LED light display on the Flowliper shows you which of the three Dynamic Pulse modes you’re in (low/medium/high) while that feature is engaged, and also tells you when the toy’s battery is running low and shows you the battery’s progress while it’s charging. These features wouldn’t be super notable on a high-end vibrator, but I’ve rarely seen “luxuries” like a low battery indicator on a toy of this price point, so it’s cool to see Tracy’s Dog raising the bar.

Things I don’t like about this toy

  • Buzziness: My main problem with the Flowliper is that its pressure waves feel high-pitched and not especially impactful – i.e. “buzzy.” This becomes more true as you turn up the intensity, and results in less-than-amazing orgasms for me. Granted, this could be due to the nozzles being the wrong shape and/or size for my particular anatomy, and thereby not being able to form a good seal around my clit; it’s hard to say. (The two nozzles that come with the toy have a side-to-side diameter of about 1.25 cm and 1.5 cm, and an up-and-down diameter of about 2 cm and 1.5 cm, respectively. On that note, these would not be suitable for people with especially large clits, including those with bottom growth from testosterone; for them, I’d recommend the Lelo Sila instead.)
  • Not Enough Steady Speeds: Of the 10 settings you can cycle through with the Flowliper’s two arrow buttons, only the first three are steady speeds; the next seven settings are patterns (more on them below). I strongly prefer pressure-wave toys that have at least 8-10 different speeds; otherwise the jumps between speeds tend to be jarringly intense and/or the highest setting doesn’t feel powerful enough (both are true for this toy).
  • Bad Patterns: The Flowliper’s seven pressure-wave patterns are largely erratic and annoying. While using them, I often felt that I was experiencing pleasure and arousal despite the pauses in between bouts of stimulation, not because of them. They would be good for creating frustration (hopefully the fun kind) during an edging session and not much else, IMO.
  • Randomness of Dynamic Pulse Mode: Because the Dynamic Pulse mode is literally random, it can cause me to ruin my orgasms by accident, if, for example, six seconds of steady air-pulses gets me close and then the toy switches to spaced-out pulses just as I’m coming. Granted, this is my own fault for leaving the toy on Dynamic Pulse mode while so close to orgasm, but theoretically it would be ideal if orgasms felt great regardless of what mode I was in, which isn’t the case with this toy.
  • Noise Level: The Flowliper isn’t wildly loud or anything – it’s definitely within the range of what I’d consider reasonable for a pressure-wave toy – but it’s nowhere near as quiet as some of the higher-end ones I’ve tried. As with most toys in its category, the Flowliper is louder when it’s not making contact with your body, and gets a bit quieter once it’s on your clit.
  • Not Waterproof: The Flowliper is rated IPX6, which means you can use it in the shower and wash it in the sink, but shouldn’t submerge it in water. As a bathtime masturbation fan, this is always a bit of a bummer for me, but it’s understandable at this price point.

Final thoughts

It’s really awesome to see mid-range companies like Tracy’s Dog aiming for the stars by incorporating features normally found in much pricier toys, like useful LED indicators, multiple head options, and a mode that lets you lie back and let the sex toy do the work for you.

The Tracy’s Dog Flowliper is certainly one of the best pressure-wave toys under $40 that I’ve tried; its air pulses don’t feel overly aggressive and aren’t worryingly loud, it offers an interesting variety of sensations, and it feels elegant and comfortable in my hand.

The “buzziness” of this toy’s air waves, and the limitation of only having three steady speeds to play within, made it miss the mark for me – but don’t get me wrong: I’ve definitely had orgasms with this toy and enjoyed them. It’s not my fave, but it’s perfectly decent for the price point, and it makes me eager to see what Tracy’s Dog will come up with next.

 

This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of the product. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

5 Beauty Products (& 1 Pair of Earrings) I’m Absolutely Loving Right Now

Hi friends! Normally at this time of year, I’d be writing my 12 Days of Girly Juice series – but I just don’t have it in me this year. I’m burned out, I need a vacation, and so I’m taking one. Hooray!

That being said, talking about femme stuff like makeup and clothing (almost) never feels like work to me – so I want to tell you about some products that are making me feel a lot prettier lately.

 

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Mineral One Daily Cream SPF50+

My sweetheart picked this out for me when we were in Montreal together recently, because I’d forgotten to bring any sun protection, and I ended up really liking it, even though it’s not the kind of thing I normally use.

This is what you might call a tinted moisturizer with SPF, or a BB/CC cream – it moisturizes the skin, and offers some sun protection, but is also tinted like a foundation. I never used to see the point of this type of product, because if I was going to bother to put foundation on, I wanted full coverage or nothin’. But makeup trends have shifted substantially since I first learned to do my face circa 2013, and a fresher, more authentically skin-like finish is more in vogue now. That’s exactly what I get with this product.

Sometimes I apply it with a damp Beautyblender, sometimes with a flat kabuki brush, and sometimes just with my (clean) fingers, depending on my mood. I’ll usually do concealer and powder too, for a slightly more pulled-together look, but this product also looks pretty nice as-is once it’s blended into your skin. It feels a lot lighter than most foundations and doesn’t seem to bother my skin as much. Yay!

 

Selfmade Secure Attachment Comfort Serum

This was sent to me as part of a press package because Selfmade also makes an oil-based lube they wanted me to try (which I also enjoy, for external genital massage), but I ended up loving this face serum more.

I’ve been applying it as the last step of my skincare routine (when I have the energy to do a full routine), after my cleanser, toner, moisturizer, and eye cream. It contains ingredients that calm redness and irritation, and it significantly boosts my skin’s hydration, leaving my face feeling soft. It also doubles as a primer for foundation (or tinted moisturizer; see above), creating a smooth surface for makeup to adhere to. It has a lovely smell, too – like aloe, cucumber, and lavender. It’s like a spa experience in a bottle!

 

Maybelline SuperStay Vinyl Ink in “Royal”

This was a recommendation from a beauty YouTuber I follow but I can’t remember who! The formula is fantastic – it’s really hard to take this off without an oil-based makeup remover, so it lasts easily through meals, drinks, and assorted adventures.

I own a lot of red lipsticks, but not many that are on the darker side. It can be intimidating to wear a lipstick this much darker than your typical shade(s), but “Royal” really caught my eye, and I’ve been loving it. It feels very winter-appropriate and has a lot of… gravitas? Is that a weird thing to say about a lipstick?!

 

Maybelline Color Sensational lipstick in “Pink For Me”

I recently had a bizarre urge to revisit a seriously dated makeup trend – the brownish-pinkish-nude lip that Kylie Jenner loved to rock, about a decade ago. In many ways it’s an even older look; it has a very ’90s feel to it.

I already have MAC lip liner in “Whirl,” famously one of Kylie’s favorite shades, but don’t own many lipsticks that go with it, because, well – usually if I’m gonna wear lipstick, I want it BRIGHT. But I picked up a few subtler shades this year for when I want a more minimalistic look, and this one might be my fave of the bunch.

It’s just a really flattering shade (which makes sense – Maybelline claims to have tested this lipstick with 50 different skin tones to make sure it would look good on everyone), and the formula is matte but not drying at all. Maybelline does the best matte drugstore lipsticks, IMO, and this one is a prime example.

 

Tom Ford “Tobacco Vanille” eau de parfum

This was an anniversary gift from my spouse, who knows me very well. I’ve had a few sample vials of this scent over the years, and always liked the androgynous sexiness of it. It’s warm, bold, spicy, sweet, and comforting, all at once. An ideal wintertime scent, if you ask me – I think it would feel oppressively heavy in summer, but it’s the perfect fragrance to spritz onto your throat before wrapping it in a cozy scarf and heading out into the cold.

I really am a bit of a perfume hound at this point… Right now there are 3 full-size bottles on my dresser (this one, Paradise Edition, and Aimanté), plus about a zillion little sample vials strewn about. Some of my other favorite wintry ones are John Varvatos and Noël au Balcon. Funnily enough, despite owning so many perfumes and loving them so much, I mostly just wear them around the house. I don’t want to bother people in the outside world who might be fragrance-sensitive, and few things feel as glamorous to me as swanning around the house in nothing but a silk robe and a spritz of something, anyway.

 

Magic Wand earrings by FUELifestyle

Not a beauty product, but they sure are beautiful! I’ve been wanting a pair of Magic Wand earrings for a while, but a lot of the handmade ones available on Etsy have cutesy cartoonish proportions. That’s all well and good for people who dig that, but I wanted earrings that looked as much like an actual Magic Wand as possible, from the color to the shape to the little blue buttons. These are 3D-printed, and are pretty damn accurate!

As a socially anxious person, I don’t always want to wear such a lewd conversation piece on my person, but I’ve rocked these on a few dates (and even while interviewing a few people about the Magic Wand, lol!) and they always get a good reaction. They make me feel like I’m flagging my sex-nerdery to the world.

 

Any beauty products you’re loving lately? Let me know in the comments!

Date Diaries: Montreal Adventures

Montreal is a great fuckin’ city. I’d put it in my all-time top 5, for sure, along with Toronto, New York, Portland and Chicago. So I was glad to have an excuse to go there for 10 days recently.

My spouse, mb, and I are knee-deep in the process of trying to secure my green card so I can move to New York to be with them. We’ve been in a long-distance relationship for six years, and married for three, so needless to say, we’d love to finally be able to live together!

As part of that process, I was recently required to attend an immigration interview at the consulate in Montreal. I don’t really know why I needed to trek out there when there’s a perfectly good U.S. consulate in downtown Toronto where I live – but my partner and I noted that the interview date was about a week before our wedding anniversary, so we decided it would be nice to make this bureaucratic necessity into a romantic vacation.

I last visited Montreal in 2019, also with my spouse, and wrote a Date Diaries post about some of my fave places we went while there. Here’s another such post, detailing some of the lovely Montreal spots we got to check out recently.

I have to give a huge shout-out to my spouse for choosing most (all?) of these places for us, and (in many cases) for spoiling me with meals and drinks I wouldn’t be able to afford on my own. The immigration interview itself ended up being somewhat anticlimactic because we were told we need to submit more documents and wait longer to get an answer from the government, and I was pretty sad about that, but going to all of these wonderful places really brightened my mood and helped me see the whole debacle in a more positive light.

mb and maple cotton candy

Jerome Ferrer

We went here on our first night in the city. My spouse had been on a plane for about an hour, and I’d been on a train for 5 hours, so we were both a little tuckered out, but they took very good care of us here.

The menu was wild, and very Québécois. One dish was essentially a lobster bisque with truffle, served with cold whipped cream on top to look like a cappuccino; I normally don’t like lobster but it was quite delish! There was also a French onion soup served inside an actual hollowed-out onion, and a fantastic steak course, among other things. One of my favorite parts of the meal, though, was a maple-flavored cotton candy that was served at the end. I just kept eating more and more – it was like a maple sugar cloud dissolving in my mouth!

Bar George

This place was near our Airbnb so we went there a couple times, once for evening cocktails and once for brunch, and it was great both times. My favorite thing I got there was my brunch dish, some slices of cured salmon served with blinis, capers, dill yogurt, and a quail egg. The flavor profile reminded me of so many meals I had with the Jewish side of my family as a kid, so it felt like home.

Le Musée des Beaux Arts

What a gorgeous museum! We spent an hour or two looking at art one afternoon and it was very relaxing and inspiring. One of the exhibitions was focused on pop art (a fave genre of mine), and it was also fun to peruse the museum’s permanent collection, which features many total showstoppers.

Unexpectedly, one of the pieces that’s stayed with me the most is Ron Mueck’s Dead Dad, a sculpture of a dead man, which was given an entire room to itself, intensifying its solemnity (not to mention creepiness).

Mon Lapin

This place was named the best restaurant in Canada, so of course my foodie spouse wanted to go. Every single thing we ate and drank there was incredible. I have very few photos of our night there because we legit just kept immediately eating everything they brought us 😂

Cloakroom Bar

This place reminds me of my favorite cocktail joint in Toronto, Civil Liberties – both bars have a “verbal menu,” meaning that instead of picking a drink from a pre-ordained list, you have a little chat with the bartender about your likes and dislikes, and they make something great just for you.

On this occasion we were served by a charming Scottish bartender who chatted with us amiably while making us stellar drinks. Cloakroom also has, unusually, a collection of vintage spirits; mb and I were able to sip some decades-old Fernet Branca, which normally tastes like mouthwash (to me, anyway) but which, in this case, had mellowed over the years into something subtler and sweeter. Really cool how booze changes as it ages, just like humans do, and how we can effectively reach back through time to taste retro delicacies.

The Coldroom

This was one of my favorite places the last time we visited, so I knew I wanted to go back. The Coldroom is hidden away behind an unmarked metal door; walk down some stairs inside and you’ll find yourself in an ornate basement bar that serves fabulous cocktails.

I’d had a really great Southside when we came here in 2019, so I ordered one again, even though it wasn’t on the menu. It was the Platonic ideal of a Southside, truly. Just perfect. Thank you, Coldroom.

Mount Royal

I’ve been to Montreal several times but had never climbed the mountain which gives the city its name. On this trip, we decided to hike up to the top. It was a challenging journey for me, since I’m chronically ill and not in shape at all, but I was really glad we did it. The hike featured lots of gorgeous views, and near the top of the mountain, there’s a huge, heated chalet that feels like reaching heaven after a long trek through purgatory. We sipped hot chocolate and looked out at the city, vast and dazzling, below. A magical adventure!

Beba

This place had a friendly, informal vibe, which contrasted nicely with the top-tier food they served. One of my favorite things we ate there was a knish (a traditional Jewish baked good) topped with a healthy mound of caviar. Like, damn.

They also have a Hemingway daiquiri on their cocktail menu – that’s a daiquiri sweetened with Maraschino liqueur, essentially – and it was one of the best drinks I had during the whole trip. Perfectly balanced, sweet and tart. Yum.

Place Carmin

I think this might’ve been my favorite meal we had in Montreal. Their duck à l’orange was just perfect, and dessert was a transcendent chocolate tart. The martini they made for me was also, hands-down, my fave martini I had the whole trip (and I order martinis pretty often!). Highly recommend.

Café Holt

We checked out the local Holt Renfrew department store, and got lunch at their in-store restaurant while we were there, which was fancier than I expected. I got a green pea risotto, the memory of which still haunts me because it was that fucking good.

The department store itself was nice too. We wandered around looking at wildly expensive coats, dresses, bags, and shoes, but all I bought was a tube of fancy toothpaste. All in all, a good shopping day!

Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill

There’s just something about live jazz… I listen to a lot of jazz when I’m at home, but it’s always different to see it live. The energy crackles. The vibes are electric. The improvisation is (of course) unpredictable, which is exciting. It’s a pretty different experience. I often feel like I’m at church when I go to a jazz club, in the sense that it feels like communing with like-minded strangers while revelling in the near-universal magic of music.

Even though sometimes us anglophones couldn’t understand what Montreal’s many francophones were saying during our trip, seeing live jazz reminded me that music is a language we can all understand, which is beautiful and comforting in chaotic times.

Bar Dominion

This place holds a special place in our hearts, because the last time mb and I were there together, they told me for the first time that they were having “gender feelings” that they wanted to explore. A few months later, they came out as nonbinary. Accordingly, we wanted to return to this bar in celebration of that memory.

All the drinks we had were great; I’d especially recommend the Ramos slush, their unique take on the Ramos gin fizz, a notoriously hard-to-make cocktail.

Okeya Kyujiro

I’m a huge fan of sushi, as is my spouse, so we were excited to check out this “theatrical omakase experience.” Omakase means “I leave it up to you,” and so this type of meal involves trusting the chef(s) to serve you a tasting menu of sushi and other delights – great for an indecisive submissive like me, haha!

The “theatrical” aspect of the meal was cool too – we got a front-and-center view of the chefs while they worked, and they presented the dishes to us in various showy ways. Gongs were rung and sake was swilled. It was a memorable and delicious dinner.

Is my spouse gorgeous or what?!

L’Express

We went to this legendary restaurant for our anniversary dinner. It is the very essence of an old-school French restaurant – classy, ostentatious, and generous with butter. We split a bottle of champagne and raised our glasses to toast our love and togetherness.

Bota Bota

Earlier in the day on our anniversary, mb totally spoiled me by taking me to this place, which is a spa on a boat. We each got a blissful hot oil massage in the middle of our hours-long stay, and spent the rest of the time in the spa’s various steam baths.

Total silence is required in most of the spa, so we spent a lot of time sitting quietly in wonderfully hot water. It was unbelievably relaxing and meditative. At one point, my partner took my hand and pressed on my inner wrist, a spot that triggers me to go into trance. I drifted in that half-awake state for a few minutes, amazed at how my sweetheart can control me and relax me without saying a word.

Café Olimpico

I always come here when I go to Montreal, because their espresso is so damn good. We needed to kill a bit of time before my train ride home, so this is one of the places we hung out at. As ever, the coffee was A++ and so was the ambiance.

 

Have you been to Montreal? What are your favorite places there?