This Is The Place

Image via Google Street View

“Here it is,” I announce, sweeping my arms wide with sarcastic grandiosity. “The location of my first kiss.”

My new boyfriend glances around the elementary school playground, and I follow his eyes across the jungle gym, the plastic slide, the painted murals on brick walls. It looks innocent enough. It doesn’t look like the birthplace of a future sex writer’s makeout career.

“It really wasn’t a great kiss,” I continue. My boots sink into the sandbox as I pace around it, trying to revive the memory. “We were playing Spin the Bottle after sixth-grade graduation. I spun and it landed on this greasy-haired punk-rocker boy who I did not want to kiss. It was a quick peck, no tongue. And then I thought: guess that’s what kissing is like.” I laugh bitterly. Sometimes I wish I could rewrite my first kiss, overwrite it. I bet many of us wish that from time to time.

My boyfriend hasn’t said much, but at this, he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. Long, slow, sweet. The barest edge of his tongue, and then a little more. Our bodies press together with flaring urgency. Overhead, the heavens part, and it starts to rain.

I laugh out loud against his mouth at the romantic absurdity of it. And I know, instantly, that this memory will forever trump that earlier one as my defining kiss in this spot. Maybe I can’t erase that first kiss entirely, but I can tweak its associations. Now this sandbox in a tucked-away Riverdale playground will always remind me of this moment, this boy, the rain gathering in our lashes.

“Was that kiss any better?” he asks, and I laugh and take his hand.

Image via Google Street View

When I was 24, I fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back – and I became obsessed with the places we’d been together.

To him, our late-night drinks dates and chatty brunch stops were probably just a chaotic jumble – part of that summer, but not emblematic of it. In my mind, however, they formed a sacred map. There’s the diner where we got bacon and eggs the morning after he fucked me in the ass, I’d think, moonily, as I walked by it. There’s the Banana Republic where I watched him try on shirts. There’s the bar where he told me not to “catch feelings” for him. That sure went well.

For all the places we’d been together, there was one that stuck out to me as all-important and forever memorable: a secluded parkette where we once had an ill-advised tryst. Late one night, after a party at which I’d drunk an entire bottle of white wine to deal with the agony of simply being near him, I playfully bent over a stone planter in the park and joked that we should fuck there. He, too, was drunk enough that this seemed a brilliant idea – so we did, for a few messy minutes, before abandoning the task to go get Subway sandwiches.

Many months later, when my sick love for him had gnarled into something more subdued, more manageable, we walked through that park again en route to his house. Our conversation was of a completely different timbre: we chattered easily – soberly – about the boy I was dating, the girl he was seeing, the forward motion in our respective careers. It was almost like we were friends. Real friends, without the spectre of unrequited love looming over us, threatening to splinter us apart.

We arrived at that stone planter, and I could almost see our tipsy ghosts. “Is this the place where we…?” I asked, gesturing vaguely. He quirked a cryptic eyebrow at me and said, “I think so, yeah.” We shared in a pause that seemed to wonder if we were, at last, okay. And I felt, in that moment, that someday we would be. We’d probably never fuck in a park again – we’d probably never fuck again – and that was a good thing, probably.

Image via Google Street View

Dates aren’t supposed to end in tears, but my second one with my current boyfriend did.

We capped off 24 whirlwind hours of flirting and fucking with a visit to the Upright Citizens Brigade to see an improv show. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe – probably harder than I would if I hadn’t been flooded with new-relationship adrenaline – and this absurdly handsome boy held my hand and scratched and pinched my skin throughout, making me feel simultaneously subspacey and enamored.

But when we left, and headed hand-in-hand toward the subway station where we’d be saying our goodbyes, the mood shifted. I could feel sadness welling in him like a river threatening to burst through a dam – and I felt that sadness mirrored in my own body, heavy and foreboding. “I don’t want to say goodbye yet,” he murmured, meaning: he didn’t want me to go back to Toronto yet; he didn’t want the distance between us to feel insurmountable again like it had for the past month. I rarely saw this effortlessly smooth boy ruffled in any way, but now he clearly was. “I need more time.”

“Do you want to stop somewhere and talk?” I asked, thinking of aftercare: the common kink practice of debriefing and decompressing after a scene, so you can return to reality without totally melting down. Our day-long date hadn’t been a kink scene, exactly, but it was just as intense. Maybe we needed to unravel our sadness over cocktails or a late-night espresso.

But whatever was bubbling inside him felt more urgent than that, apparently, because he tugged me into the next private-ish spot we passed: the concrete mouth of a hotel’s parking garage. We stood in the corner and looked into each other’s eyes as if we’d find answers there – but there were none.

“What do you think this is?” he asked, searchingly. “What do you want me to be to you?”

We’d only been dating a month, and he had other partners; I didn’t know what was okay to ask for, and what wasn’t. But I decided honesty was probably best. “I mean… Ideally I’d like you to be my boyfriend. Eventually.” I saw immediately in his eyes that this was not what he wanted to hear.

“I was afraid of that,” he said. “I don’t think I can make that work. I didn’t think I could do that with two people, let alone three… I’m afraid I wouldn’t live up to your expectations for me. I wouldn’t be the boyfriend you need.”

I bit my lip and looked away, because if I looked at him for much longer, I would definitely cry. “That’s okay,” I said, although it wasn’t. “You don’t have to be my boyfriend.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want you to be with me and be sad about it.”

I laughed a harsh, dark laugh. “I’d be sad if I wasn’t with you, at this point, so… whatever.”

He nodded bleakly and obliquely, and we continued our walk to the subway. I stayed silent so I wouldn’t cry. But inside, I was thinking: Why am I doing this? Why am I letting myself fall in love with someone who doesn’t have time for me in his life? Don’t I deserve better than this?

I stayed strong and didn’t cry until after we’d said goodbye and parted ways at the subway turnstile. As I walked to the train with my suitcase in hand and tears blurring my vision, I thought: What if I’m not okay with being his not-girlfriend? What if I want more than that?

Image via Google Street View

Over the next few months, we figured things out. His life circumstances shifted in unforeseen ways, and he found he had more time and energy for me than he’d thought he would. “You are not optional to me,” he told me on our third date. “Will you be my girlfriend?” Somehow, that hit me even harder than the first time he said “I love you.” It was so unexpected. I’d given up on that possibility, and yet here it was, gleaming and real.

The next time I came to New York after that, we went back to the UCB for another improv show. Again, he held my hand, scratched my skin, laughed along with me. And again, when we walked past that parking garage, we stepped into its entryway, as if magnetized to that spot.

I felt that familiar sadness in my bones as soon as we arrived there: that sense of despair, of wanting more than I could have, of not deserving what I wanted. I saw in his blue eyes that he felt it too.

And then he took my face in his hands and kissed me with enough passion and heat to erase all that melancholy. “Kate,” he said between kisses, “I’m so happy you’re my girlfriend. So, so happy. I want you to be my girlfriend for a long, long time.”

This time, I did cry in front of him – because this time, it felt safe to. That older memory receded into irrelevance. I kissed him back, hard, and thought: This. This is what I want.

Behind the Seams: Babygirls, Boots, & a Boy Shirt

May 16th, 2018. I wore this to go get dinner and drinks with my friend Anais at the Pour Boy, a favorite local haunt. We talked animatedly about boys, girls, kink, and theatre – among other things – over Long Island iced teas. She was wearing a bodysuit that said “Babygirl,” which made me feel extra grateful to have such great and like-minded femme friends in my life!

I also got recognized by a blog reader on my walk over there, who stopped me in the street and said, “Excuse me, are you Kate Sloan? I love your blog!” (if you’re reading this: hi, hello, you made my day!). This has happened a few times in the past month and makes me feel like a goddamn celebrity!

Going back to the Pour Boy always reminds me of dates I’ve been on there… One such episode happened two summers ago when I went for drinks with a new dommy boy I was seeing. He knew way more than I do about beer, so he asked if he could order my drink. I asked, “In a beer snob way, or in a dommy way?” and he pondered this and said, “Both.” I replied, “Ah, a beer dom. I like it.” Now, having drinks ordered for me is part of my protocol with my current partner, so that date feels indicative of future kinks in my memory! (The Pour Boy is also near lots of makeout-friendly back alleys, FYI. But don’t tell anyone I told you that.)

What I’m wearing:
• Revlon Ultra HD matte lip color in “Obsession”
• American Apparel figure skater dress (previously discussed here) – secondhand on eBay
L’Amour-Propre custom-engraved heart-shaped lock on a silver chain
• Black leather Frye harness boots (you might have noticed I legitimately wear these almost every day… I probably need to switch to “summer shoes” soon but I dunno, I just love these so much!)
• Danier leather jacket thrown over the top because it was chilly out


May 19th, 2018. When I moved out of my parents’ house last summer, my dad made me promise I would come back and visit at least weekly. (This is, fortunately, feasible; they live about a half-hour journey from my new place via subway.) So I’m there overnight about once a week, but I usually forget to bring a change of clothes, because I’m clever like that. This means I end up poking through the closetful of little-worn rejects in my old bedroom to find something to wear the next morning. This pale blue slip was one such find, but I think it actually worked out pretty well. When I put on this outfit, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “I look like a mermaid at a frat party.”

The T-shirt is a hand-me-down from an ex-FWB. I went over to his place for an illicit romp two summers ago, and in the morning, we realized we couldn’t find my dress anywhere. We looked in the bed, under the bed, on the floor, in the bathroom, in the kitchen… It was just gone. So he gave me this translucent, pale-green, weirdly scrubs-reminiscent T-shirt to throw over the leggings I’d been wearing, and let me keep it because he didn’t like it much anyway. It’s a pretty ugly shirt, IMO, but makes me happy because it reminds me of that boy I’m still so fond of. (And, for the record, we found my dress eventually.)

What I’m wearing:
• Pale green American Eagle men’s T-shirt, worn knotted on one side (a good trick for giving shapeless garments a curvier silhouette) – inherited from a FWB
• Pale blue slip – vintage on eBay many years ago (it also looks super cute tucked into a skirt)
• Turquoise leather Coach turnlock tote
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Hair elastic on my wrist, even though Cosmo says it’s ruining my outfit 🙄
• (Unseen) Short black raincoat I unearthed from my parents’ coat closet because it was cold and rainy outside


May 20th, 2018. It was warm and almost summery out on this day, and I felt uncomplicatedly happy about life. Hooray!

Busted out these clogs because I was getting bored of wearing the aforementioned boots every day. I bought these way back in 2014 after lusting after the A Beautiful Mess ladies’ collaboration with Swedish Hasbeens. Mine are by Lotta From Stockholm, a more affordable brand that I adore. Did you know: the one and only time I veered into the world of fashion journalism, it was to write about these clogs on xoJane!

Wearing these for the first time in a long time, I remembered just how weirdly comfortable they are for heels, and decided to order another pair: yellow ones with a peeptoe. They’re a little out of my sartorial comfort zone but I think they’re gonna look great with my summer dresses and flippy skirts!

What I’m wearing:
• Dark grey tank top – Old Navy
• Lilac lacy bralette – the Gap
• Navy high-waisted ponte skirt – Old Navy
Lotta From Stockholm navy Highwood T-bar clogs

What’s your footwear of choice in the summertime, fellow feminine types?

Come Fly With Me: 5 Travel-Sex Stories

A rumpled morning-after bed at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn.

I truly felt like a jetsetter the first time I sexted in a TSA line.

Leaving New York felt impossibly sad, in no small part because of the cute boy I’d just met there – but my bleary travel day was brightened by the salacious selfie I suddenly received from him as I traversed that long, slow line.

“HEEELLLPPP,” I replied immediately, my eyes sweeping over his hairy chest, blue eyes, and full pink lips. “911? Yes, sorry, I received a very fire selfie and my heart exploded. What do I do?”

Without missing a beat, he wrote back: “Yes, this is emergency services. Deep breaths, and don’t take your eyes off it. Your heart will repair itself in a few minutes once it adjusts.”

I giggled maniacally at my screen, blushed hard, tried to collect myself. “I’m in a TSA line,” I explained, “and the people around me 100% must think I’m an idiot right now.”

“Welp,” he replied, “sorry if I set off any alarms.”

“Yeah, I’m probably gonna end up on the no-fly list because of all the stars in my eyes,” I mused. “Those seem hazardous.”

I watched the undulating ellipsis as he typed, until his next words appeared: “Guess you’d be stuck in New York then…” Oh, what a tragedy that would be.


After dropping my friend Mia off at her swanky Airbnb post-drankz one night.

The sluttiest night of my life was the time I accidentally booked two sex-dates for one night. It was purely a scheduling error, not intentional at all – but fortunately, both dudes were amenable to the situation.

Dude #1 was my dommy fuckbuddy at the time. I dropped by his place for an early-evening fuck around 6PM. Wanting to try something new, I’d packed some Kegel balls to insert pre-spanking. A far cry away from traditional vibrators, these jiggly little balls vibrate your bits from the inside out every time you get hit, and they don’t even have a motor. It’s a neat trick, and it went over smashingly.

After that date was done, I rushed home and showered for my next one. Dude #2, a Twitter crush visiting from out of town, picked me up and drove us to my favorite pub. Midway through a giggly, tipsy dinner, I texted my dom from earlier, “Should I fuck this guy? I can’t decide.” He weighed the options carefully, taking the decision seriously, and eventually decreed that yes, I should return to this bro’s hotel with him. It turned my dom on, he said, to imagine me fucking someone else just hours after fucking him. (Dude #2, I should say, knew about this whole exchange and was on board.)

Hours upon hours of hotel-sex and fitful sleep later, I got up at 5AM to head out to my 6AM dayjob. As I walked down the creaky old hotel hallway, I heard a creepy clicking sound that seemed to follow me. When I stopped, it stopped; when I continued walking, it started up again. I looked behind me, ahead of me, and around me, but there was no one. My heart froze in my throat.

And then I realized it was the Kegel balls in my coat pocket, clacking together like a taunting soundtrack for my walk of shame. Whoops.


Dressed up at the Holiday Inn Toronto Downtown Centre.

At Woodhull 2016, a fellow blogger held a gathering in her hotel room. She offered up her collection of reject dildos for us to choose from. What an absolute saint.

I knew what I wanted as soon as I saw it. Unlike vibrators that are inspired by nature, this one was inspired by the utterly unsubtle dick of a fantasy creature. It was a behemoth of a dildo, in my blog’s branding colors: pink and blue. I thanked Luna, its original owner, and then cradled it under one arm as I walked down the hall and got on the elevator to take my prize back to my room.

The thing about conferences held at hotels, though, is that there are always guests who aren’t part of the conference, and you have to contend with them. I’d learned this when I took the elevator down in a loud vulva-print dress the day before – and I learned it again, as I endured an uncomfortable elevator ride with two suit-clad blushing businessmen and one giant dildo in plain sight.

I prayed for time to pass more quickly, and wished I’d brought a bigger purse. And as soon as I stepped off the elevator on my floor, I burst into humiliated giggles. What a trip.


At a hotel somewhere in Chicago.

Pros of using Hotwire to find a hotel room: it’s easy, allows for impulsive sex getaways, and is, above all, cheap.

Cons of using Hotwire to find a hotel room: you have no idea, really, what kind of hotel you’ll end up in until it’s already booked. And that’s scary. Sometimes in a sexy way. Sometimes not so much.

My first anal sex experience took place at the Knights Inn, a low-budget hideaway in Toronto’s infamously rough Regent Park neighborhood. The inn itself was sketchy and mildly unsettling, like a scene from The Shining if the film had gone a little tattered and yellow at the edges.

My valiant fuckbuddy knew what a momentous occasion this was, and how much preparation should go into it. He spent long minutes relaxing me, making me giggle, turning me on. And though he is vanilla as fuck, one way he attempted to rev my engine was by spanking me.

The trouble was, the walls were paper-thin. We could hear a cadre of frat boys getting drunk and rowdy in the next room, and though I considered this par for the course, my FWB was spooked. I could feel him backing off the spanking again and again, terrified of making noise, even though the guys on the other side of the wall were being louder than we would be all night.

My handsome friend bunched the thin hotel-bed sheets in his palms and draped them over my upturned ass, as if that would muffle the sound. He experimented with punching instead of slapping. He fretted and overanalyzed and adjusted and readjusted. Finally, enough was enough, and I told him – laughingly, lovingly – to stop.

Hotel sex is supposed to be an escape, but sometimes you still can’t escape your own inhibitions. It’s okay. There are always other things you can do.


Naked and incredulous at the Standard.

The first time I banged my Sir, we were staying at the Standard High Line in New York, one of the most beautiful hotels I’d ever stayed in. I was so nervous I could hardly walk in a straight line.

As we checked in, the clerk asked, “Are you sensitive to noise? This room is right underneath a nightclub, so it can get loud.” It wasn’t an issue. We had no intention of sleeping, and we planned to be pretty loud ourselves. Not that we told the clerk any of that.

My beau pressed the wrong elevator button twice before he got his shit together and hit the right one. He was nervous. It was cute. I was smitten.

I had packed a slew of sex toys, anything and everything I thought we’d need: impact toys, fancy glass dildos, travel-friendly vibrators, cuffs, a blindfold, a book we both loved (which is indeed a sex toy, depending on how you look at it). At his command, I laid it all out for him to look at, arranged it carefully like an Instagram flat-lay, because I wanted him to be impressed.

He must have been impressed, because as soon as I was done, he bolted toward me and pushed me against the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window looking out on the city. His kisses were fierce and hot and immediate. I knew what was coming and I knew I would be taken care of. I will never forget the way he looked at me, so tenderly and searchingly, as he removed my clothes for the first time – and the way that cold, cold glass felt against my back as my heart pounded in my chest.

Hotel sex can be many things, but it is almost never boring. I can tell you that much.

 

This post was sponsored by THE LILY by Fleurotics. (They’re running a crowdfunding campaign currently that you should get in on!) As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Heartsick & Miserable? Ask Yourself This One Question…

I read something recently that blew my mind, and if I may, I’d like to blow yours too.

In Lisa A. Phillips’ book Unrequited, she writes – having studied unreturned romantic obsessions, including her own, for ages in order to write the book – that it is important to ponder what an unrequited love is trying to tell you about your life.

When you are painfully obsessed with someone who doesn’t love you back, Phillips writes, you’re not really obsessed with that person – you’re obsessed with what is missing from your life, which this person has somehow come to represent in your mind.

I read this simple insight while flying back from D.C. to Toronto and actually gasped aloud on the plane, drawing stares from nearby seatmates. I couldn’t help it. It felt like Lisa A. Phillips had just shined a spotlight directly into my soul. I felt simultaneously called out and cleansed. Halle-fuckin’-lujah.

I thought back to the worst unrequited love of my life so far – an innocent-crush-turned-crushing-heartbreak centering on a person I met in 2015 and tortured myself over throughout 2016. While he’s indisputably charming, smart, funny, and lovely, so are a lot of people I meet. The question had haunted me for a while: why did I fall in love with him? What enabled him to get inside my head and absolutely break me? What made him feel so vital to my happiness on a basal, gut level?

I think it has a lot to do with when I met him, and what kind of person I was then. At that time, I had been single for nearly a year, having broken up with my long-term partner in 2014 – and I hadn’t dated anyone or had sex with anyone during that entire year. I was cripplingly insecure, uncertain, and shy. I worried constantly that no one would ever love me or want me again. That anxiety kept me from going out and socializing, which, in turn, kept me from meeting people who might want me or eventually love me. It was a self-perpetuating cycle of self-loathing.

And then along came this boy, dazzling and bright. He swept into my life with all the loud self-assuredness I’d later come to love about him. We went on two not-explicitly-romantic dates and I was immediately smitten: it had been a long time since I’d met someone this funny, confident, and effervescently charismatic. He made me laugh harder than I had in ages, with seemingly no effort. I felt glued to his words. He activated a lightness in me I didn’t know I could still feel.

On top of all that, he made me feel entirely focused upon. His attention was a laser, and when he focused it on me, I suddenly felt important and desirable – two feelings I’d lost sight of in my year of loneliness and celibacy.

As we became friends-with-benefits and then actual friends over the following year, I noticed myself falling into an unhealthy emotional cycle. It mirrored – and often triggered – the ups and downs I experience as part of my bipolar disorder. When I was around him, I felt starry-eyed, ecstatic, elated, like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong and I’d be happy forever. Nothing could touch me. But when we said goodbye – whether it was for a few days or a few months – I crashed, hard. The light he brought into my life had been extinguished, and I didn’t know how to reignite it myself. It felt like he contained all the humor and happiness I’d ever experienced, and I wouldn’t be able to get any of it back unless he was there with me.

And the trouble was, he didn’t always want to be there with me. He didn’t love me. He valued our friendship, but that’s all it was to him. I wasn’t angry at him for not loving me back, because I understood that he couldn’t help it – but I was profoundly sad, because it felt like he owned the key to my happiness and he would only lend it to me on a limited, conditional basis.

What I wish I had pondered more deeply is this: what was missing from my life? And how could I give that to myself instead of relying on him?

I think this concept was what eventually enabled my healing process to begin, though I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time. My crush made me laugh more than anyone else I knew, so I started spending more time with funny friends, upping my comedy podcast intake, and cultivating my own sense of humor even further. My crush made me feel focused on and valued, so I sought more friends who made me feel that way, and also chose to focus on and value myself by amping up my self-care regimen. My crush made me feel sexy and desirable, so I started flirting with people more and going on more Tinder dates to generate more of those feelings (and got comfortable cutting ties with people who didn’t meet my standards in this way). The sex with my crush had been devastatingly good, so I tried to get better at asking for what I wanted with other partners so my sex life would improve overall – and I mixed up my masturbation routine to make it more fulfilling. Basically, I looked for holes my crush could no longer fill for me, and I filled them my damn self (vagina joke only partly intended).

It wasn’t until I started seeing my last boyfriend that I felt entirely divested of that old unrequited love, but I think the work I’d done on myself had laid the groundwork for me to meet such a wonderful person and accept him into my life. If I’d still been stuck on my old crush, I don’t think I would’ve been able to open myself up to someone new. It would’ve felt pointless, because how could someone new possibly be better than the person I’d been stuck on for over a year? But by divorcing that person from the joys he brought me, I became able to see that other people could make me happy, too, if I let them.

I wish I could go back in time and explain this revelation to my past self. Maybe it would save her a lot of heartache. But I think it’s more likely she wouldn’t even listen to me. That’s the nature of unrequited love: other people can spout lessons and truisms at you ad nauseum, and you won’t believe them; you have to learn these things for yourself, experientially. You’re always convinced your world is ending until it isn’t anymore.

What do you wish someone had told you about unrequited love when you were going through it?

The Glory of Period Sex (+ a Bloody Good Giveaway)

“I don’t think I can bring myself to send her tongue-spelunking through my bloody cave,” muses the first-ever mention of period sex in my years’ worth of journals. It signals an apprehension I still sometimes feel.

I was sixteen. My partner at the time was achingly enthusiastic about my vulva in its every known state: musky or clean, shaved or stubbly, swollen and aroused or flat and demure. But “bloody” felt like another thing entirely; we had not discussed that.

As it turned out, she was more than fine with bloody tongue-spelunking. But having that initial conversation with a new partner still feels edgy to me, all these years later. There’s a strong chance they’ll wrinkle their nose and shake their head in barely-concealed horror, but it’s just as likely they’ll be blissfully blasé about blood taboos and dive right in.

My go-to approach to this conversation, therefore, is a bit coy. Typically I’ll say, “By the way, I’m on my period, so…” and simply watch what happens. In one case, at a threesome, the boy smiled and replied, “What would you like me to do?” (“DING DING DING, right answer!!” Bex and I yelled when we gleefully revisited this moment over dinner that night.)

Another time, I took home a hookup who would later become my fave fuckbuddy. He wields my favorite BJ dick so I would’ve been content just to blow him and say goodnight – but when I mentioned being on my period, he replied, nonchalantly, without missing a beat: “You know, I also have blood in my body.” He absolutely, 100% deserved the stellar blowjob I then gave him.

This particular FWB has the most exemplary attitude on period sex I’ve ever encountered in a dude, so I asked him to contribute some thoughts on the topic for this post. Here’s what he had to say:

Period sex can be a lot to handle at first. Maybe you don’t normally see a lot of blood and it feels weird. Maybe it just seems gross because so many people are squeamish about it. But to me, period sex is just a matter of different preparation. An old partner of mine and I had a dark red towel that we put down and folded when Aunt Flo was in town. Periods are natural. Let’s not forget that those of us with penises squirt out a weird body fluid EVERY TIME we come. So if you need to ask your partner to take a shower, do what you need to do. But making a partner feel gross for being on their period is shaming their entire biological makeup. It’s not cool, and it will not win you any points. Instead, you can think of period sex as an opportunity to show your partner that you fully accept them. Additionally, I find that the viscosity of vaginal fluids during menstruation can make sex feel AMAZING. So don’t knock it till you rock it. And remember: You’ve got blood in your body too.

Likewise, I knew my current boyfriend was a keeper when he “earned his red wings” the very first time we had sex. In our initial negotiation, I set a boundary that I didn’t want anything to happen to my genitals during that session, because “it wasn’t a good day for that” – but as I got turned on from makeouts and blowjobs and spanking, that line I’d drawn in the sand began to waver. I went to the bathroom to make sure my menstrual cup was still doing its job, and then I came back to his sunny bedroom and asked for what I wanted. He was happy to deliver – for at least half an hour.

I don’t know if most cis men really know how deeply their attitude on period sex can affect a menstruating person’s self-esteem. While I understand why someone might not want to stick their face in blood, it makes me feel so sad and rejected to have a partner who finds my bits distasteful one week out of every month. Even the smallest step toward gaining comfort with menstrual sex – pressing a Magic Wand against me through my underwear, say, or talking dirty in my ear while I masturbate – is better than eschewing it altogether (although, of course, consent and boundaries are of utmost importance, so if you don’t want to do it, you never have to!). I crave intimacy and sexual enthusiasm all month long, and that one week each month is the time when a partner can demonstrate these things most readily, most deeply, most impactfully. It’s a small thing but it can change everything.

Of course, loving period sex doesn’t mean I also love the mess that accompanies it. It’s fine when I’m free-bleedin’ in a bathtub (Kennedy Ryan calls this “Lady Macbeth time“), but recklessly sullying my bedsheets and clothes with blood is a bridge too far for me. That’s why I keep a dark towel near my bed, and a few packages of wet wipes within reach. Before I started doing this, I once got fingerbanged by someone who then looked around for somewhere to wipe his bloody hands. I was wearing black thigh-high socks, and said, “Just wipe ’em on these.” It worked in a pinch, but, y’know, wipes would’ve been preferable.

The afterglow is one of the loveliest parts of sex – it’s a shame to have to ruin it with clean-up. I’m a lazy princess and hate having to throw on a bathrobe and waddle to the bathroom on my post-orgasmic jelly legs for a washcloth wipedown. With the right tools by my bedside, I can do a quick-‘n’-easy spot-clean, pop my menstrual cup back in, and resume snugglin’ ASAP. When the person you’re fucking makes you all swoony and starry-eyed, you don’t want to miss out on even ten seconds of precious cuddling.

In the spirit of mitigating mess so you can get back to the fun stuff: I have a giveaway for you today! It’s ideal for those of you who partake of period sex, or other forms of messy sex – or are interested in trying. Aftercourse Wipes has generously offered up a month’s supply of wipes for two lucky winners: one in the USA and one anywhere in the world. These wipes are alcohol-free and use natural ingredients like tea tree oil, aloe, chamomile and lemongrass to get your bits clean after sex. The giveaway will run for two weeks; entrance details are below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Whether or not you decide to enter the giveaway, you can still get a discount on your Aftercourse purchase with the code “GIRLYJUICE.” Enjoy!

 

This post was generously sponsored by the folks at Aftercourse Wipes, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own. Feel free to follow Aftercourse on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!