fetish

Links & Hijinks: Tinder Troubles & Fisting Femmes

Kate Sloan

• I love this comic about how toxic masculinity fucks up your sex life. “Sex is not something you do to somebody, it’s something you do with somebody.” Amen!

• This article is about femme fisting covens and you don’t need any other reason why you should run-don’t-walk to read it.

• Apparently T-rexes may have engaged in foreplay. This article says that the T-rex was therefore “a sensitive lover,” but I don’t think prioritizing foreplay is necessarily something you do only for your partner’s sake: it makes sex better for you, too!

• After the above article came out, Tracy Moore wrote about how to fuck like a T-rex. Amazing.

• This article about bionic penises is fascinating. C. Brian Smith is one of my favorite sex journalists, and he shows why here: he went above and beyond reporting on the scientific/mechanical story of penis reconstruction and found, in addition, some conflict between his two main subjects (apparently they hate each other). What a story!

• Here’s an interesting article on why rapists rape, and how our cultural ideas about rapists’ motivations have shifted over time.

• Consistently good sex with a partner takes consistent work, practice, and conflict resolution, according to a new study. So next time you have bad sex with a new partner, don’t think of it as proof you’re not meant to be with them – maybe view it as an opportunity for growth and improvement instead!

• I found it cathartic to read women’s responses to straight-dude Tinder clichés. God, why are most straight men on dating apps so dreadfully boring?!

• Is Tinder the new meet-cute?

• And while we’re talking about Tinder… Here’s why people are getting bored of it and what might come next.

• Okay, one more Tinder thing… I loved this essay about dating-app fatigue, particularly this revelation: “Just knowing that the apps exist, even if you don’t use them, creates the sense that there’s an ocean of easily-accessible singles that you can dip a ladle into whenever you want… the apps’ actual function is less important than what they signify as a totem: A pocket full of maybe that you can carry around to ward off despair.” YUUUP.

• A very sweet and smart reader of mine wrote this response to my post about the orgasm gap. It explores these issues from a (cis-het) male perspective: the frustration of not being able to get a female partner off, and some ways to center female pleasure without being overly pressure-y or goal-oriented. I wish more men had this attitude!

• The great Alana Massey wrote about how the internet never forgets anything. Here she is, mirroring my own childhood back at me: “A born adventurer and a blossoming pervert, I regularly pretended that I was a hot and bothered 19-year-old, and lured men away from group chat rooms to private chats where my digital captive and I would proceed to have cyber sex…”

• On porn sites and encryption. I’m not as savvy as I would like to be about this kind of stuff, so this article was illuminating for me.

• Many people have written about why you should watch porn with your partner; here’s the case for why you shouldn’t. This made me think long and hard (har har) about my own porn preferences and how a partner might interpret them.

• I know why men announce when they’re about to come, but this article on it was an amusing read nonetheless. “So we agree this is a very useful behavior in men and women, gay and straight. Cumming must be announced, and should be announced. Declared, even.”

• Two of my current favorite writers, Helena Fitzgerald and Alana Hope Levinson, both wrote about the “boyfriend shirt” and why we love/want/crave ’em. (I am guilty of this. And admittedly not just with boyfriends.)

• Catcalling and sexual harassment are normalized in our culture and nobody knows how to “properly” react to them. Ugh. Fuck the patriarchy!

• Nicole Cliffe wrote fanfiction about what life would be like if Benedict Cumberbatch was her lover, and it’s divinely funny. “I had decided to play Irene Adler, of course.” “Such a brave choice, considering you are not particularly attractive, and have never acted nor shown any aptitude for it.”

• Ever wonder how the concept of a fetish came into being? Here’s a psychological history of the fetish. Particularly interesting to me: sexually progressive physician Havelock Ellis was apparently an impotent virgin until the age of 60, when he saw a woman peeing and realized he had urolagnia (a urine fetish). Brains are so cool!

• What should you do with a condom after sex? “You can also tie the condom off before tossing it to work on your career as a balloon animal artist,” Tracy Moore reports. (God, I love her.)

• The science is in: what makes a relationship last is good talkin’ and good fuckin’. This does not surprise me, but it sure is affirming!

• Timely: last month I got fucked with a penis extender and this month there’s an article on MEL about them. I, for one, always celebrate there being more options in the “toys for penises” category. I can also vouch for the fact that you don’t have to be insecure or have a small penis to derive some enjoyment from using these; the partner of mine who wanted to try an extender with me is quite well-endowed as is, and just wanted to explore a fantasy and try something new. Yay, sexual freedom!

You Know What I Like

Kate Sloan

a collar, a tiara, and a massive steel dildo

What makes me wettest is when you know exactly how to make me wet. Your touch feels even better when you know you’re touching me the exact right way. And I come the hardest when I know you know exactly how to make me come.

I call it a kink, or sometimes a fetish. But kinksters do that: we round up our sexual interests to kinks. In this case, though, it might actually be a fetish… because I can’t think of a time in recent memory when I got off and I wasn’t thinking about someone knowing precisely how to get me off, and doing exactly that.

In the past, I’ve said I have a kink for teaching people how to please me. That isn’t totally right, I see now. It’s not the teaching that gets me hot; teaching can be exhausting, annoying, with an inattentive pupil. No, what I like are the moments when my partner learns what makes me tick – whether because I’ve taught them, or because they figure it out on their own.

My fantasies are devoid of the articulate banter that thrills me in real life. The people in my fantasies (predominantly faceless, predominantly men) mutter short phrases which all signal some version of the same meaning. “You like that, huh?” “Is that your sweet spot, princess? Want daddy to touch it again?” “If I keep fucking you exactly like this, you’re gonna come for me, right?” “I know, baby, you like it just like this.”

My sexual history is lengthy and storied, but when I think back on the moments of laser-sharp hotness that soaked my panties and charmed my brain, they’re all variations on a partner knowing exactly what to do to me. The bossy FWB who made me come with her mouth in under a minute in a locked bathroom, and, knowing my body well enough to know what it was capable of, retorted, “That was too fast; we’re not done,” and kept going. The boyfriend who knew to tease me with long, in-and-out strokes of his dick until I was ready to burst, and then give me the deep, short, consistent thrusts I need to come on his cock. The attentive fuckbuddy who always finds my A-spot in seconds flat, and sometimes asks me, “You like that?” with the mischievous grin of someone who definitely knows I definitely like that. These are all moments I return to in my fantasy life, again and again. Even as my feelings for those actual people have faded, my lust for their knowledge of my body has not.

This kink, I think, is a huge part of why one-night stands hold no appeal for me. Even if those near-strangers cared about my pleasure (which they rarely do), no one can learn my tastes in one hookup alone. There are exciting moments of recognition – a new beau doubling down on sucking my clit when doing so elicits screeches; a hookup discovering how deep I really mean when I keep begging “Deeper, please!” – but what really gets me hot is someone remembering my preferences from an earlier experience. It’s like when your best friend buys you a birthday gift you mentioned wanting months ago – only, you know, with more orgasms involved.

I love being analyzed like a computer, played like a violin, manipulated like a doll. I love watching partners synthesize all their knowledge of my body, like getting me off is a test they’ve been studying for all year. “Lick her clitoral hood in a circular motion while rubbing the deepest part of her front vaginal wall with two fingers, fast but not too fast. Tell her to be a good girl and come for you. Fuck her hard and fast while she’s coming, and don’t stop until you’re told to stop.”

I love the look of accomplishment in a partner’s eyes when they make me come so hard I’m trembling. I love when partners give me orgasms using mostly their intelligence, memory, and astuteness. I love that I’m primarily attracted to nerds, because nerds try to learn everything about each new task they’re faced with, nerds remember the exact geography of past quests, and nerds take immense pride in unlocking achievements and optimizing tasks. I love when the task they’re seeking to optimize is making me come so hard, I can’t form sentences.

I eroticize the inverse of this, too. The gasp a partner emits when I take him extra deep in my mouth. The breathy moans that guide my tongue along his skin. The soft grunts against my lips when I pull his hair or scratch his shoulderblades. The near-immediate release when I drop the exact right piece of dirty-talk into our dialogue. It’s all data, it all makes me feel like a goddamn genius, and it all makes me so unbelievably wet.

I could write a piece on “how to fuck me properly,” but a) that’d be like handing someone a Prima strategy guide alongside the new Pokémon game instead of allowing them the fun of figuring it out themselves, and b) it would really be the same advice I recommend for good conversations. Pay attention to your partner. Remember your past interactions with them and go forth accordingly. Delight them with your thoughtfulness, your attunedness, your attention to detail.

Except, you know, those qualities in good conversations don’t usually make me come so hard I see stars.

Interview: Tina Horn of “Best Sex Writing”

Kate Sloan

The two things I love most in the world are sex and writing. So, obviously, Best Sex Writing is the kind of book title that gets my attention.

This year’s edition is edited by Jon Pressick, self-described sexuality media mogul (who has actually interviewed me before, you might recall!), and it’s fabulous. The essays range from academic analyses of racial politics in porn, to journalistic examinations of sex education, to deeply personal stories about sexual adventures. It’s a total treat to read, entertaining and compelling all the way through, and I’m confident that anyone who digs my blog would also dig this book!

I was invited to be part of the book’s blog tour, and when I saw that interviewing an author was an option, and one of the authors was Tina Horn, I knew she was the one I wanted to talk to.

You might remember Tina Horn as one of my favorite porn performers, or as a presenter at the first Feminist Porn Conference. Or you might know her from her podcast, writing, or teaching. In addition to Best Sex Writing, Tina’s also got a new book out called Love Not Given Lightly, which features profiles of various people working in sexuality.

Her piece in Best Sex Writing is called “The Gates” and it’s about her time working at a women-owned BDSM house in the Bay Area. It’s simultaneously a journalistic profile of the women there and the place itself, and a personal look into Tina’s own time as a switch there. I loved reading it and was excited to chat with her about it!

Girly Juice: What was your goal when researching and writing this piece?

Tina Horn: I wanted to write about the period of my life when I was working at The Gates as a professional switch. But I didn’t think the world needed another memoir of a middle class white girl with some literature degrees finding empowerment through professional BDSM. I made it my project to look outward. What was the story of the woman who started her own underground business? What were the social dynamics between the women who worked there? What objects were in the rooms, and how were they designed? How were things organized and regulated? I wanted my consciousness, my experience, to come through the concrete details, and I wanted to get some closure since moving on from that work by honoring it in journalism form.

GJ: As both a journalist and a sex worker, you have plenty of experience with interviewing as well as being interviewed. Do you have any tips or strategies for making a source feel comfortable and able to open up when interviewing them about a sensitive topic like sex?

TH: There is always an ethical question for a journalist or nonfiction writer: at what point are you exploiting your subject? Exploitation comes from false pretense.You work to make someone comfortable and trust you so you can get your story out of them: that’s the job, the craft of reporting. I do my best to negotiate with my subjects when I’m reporting on them just as I would for a kink scene. I ask them what’s off-limits, what THEY want to talk about, how much time they have to talk.

For example, I interviewed Sage Travigne, the owner of The Gates, for my piece. I told her the interview was for my thesis, which it was. Before the final version was published for my Masters I sent it to her for review: not only fact-checking but to give her the chance to take out anything that made her uncomfortable. Before it was going to be in Best Sex Writing, I sent it to her again to get her permission. So, transparency in process is key, especially when you’re dealing with a part of someone’s life that is highly misunderstood and stigmatized such as sex work and kink.

As for getting people comfortable talking about sex: frankly, I’ve made it my work to interview people who are already comfortable and have trustworthy boundaries with subjects of sex, kink, gender, and relationships. Because then we can skip the awkwardness and go deep.

GJ: One thing that struck me about your story on the Gates is the camaraderie and companionship between the employees there. Is that a common experience when doing sex work in shared spaces, or is the Gates exceptional in that way?

TH: Well, I can only speak from my experience, or anecdotally from the many sex workers I know. If you read an article by a service industry person who worked at an amazing woman-run restaurant that transformed her life, you would never assume that all restaurants were like that.

I do think the Gates was an exceptional place for community, humor, creativity, ethics, and female camaraderie. But it’s important to point out that not everyone who has worked there over the course of twenty years has found it to their liking. I happened to find that place when it fit really well into my life. That’s what I love about nonfiction writing: the specificity of a story helps people to realize NOT that all places are like that, but that places like that are POSSIBLE.

GJ: A lot of your work (including your podcast, which I love!) focuses on unusual kinks. Do you have any advice for someone who is uncomfortable or apprehensive about their kink(s)? How about for someone who thinks they don’t have any kinks but wants to explore and find out?

TH: Thanks, I’m glad you love “Why Are People Into That?!” If you have a desire and you’ve internalized some shame about it, remember not to police your own imagination. What goes on between your ears when you’re masturbating is your business. And if you want to live out your fantasy, you just need to focus on communication, compatibility, negotiation, and consent.

Research online, read books, watch porn, find media about your kink. There’s no one way to do any kink: figure out your style. Ask yourself the central question of my podcast: why am I into this? And finally, to quote the great Funkadelic: Free your mind and your ass will follow.

GJ: Lastly, since sex toys are an area of personal interest for me, I have to ask: what are your favorite toys and other sex products to use, either with clients or in your personal life?

TH: NJoy toys are simply the best. Greg, the owner and designer, is so supportive of sex positive community that I feel great about endorsing his products all the damn time. The weight of stainless steel toys creates the most delicious pressure in my cunt and my butt, one of my favorite sexual feelings. They’re non-porous and easy to disinfect and sturdy which is great for brutes like me.

The Aslan Jaguar is like a second skin to me. I have a brown one and a black one with brass hardware.

I love Hathor Lube, which is fancy organic water-based lube with the supposed aphrodisiac “horny goat weed” in it. Funny story. I once sold this lube, among other things, to Beyoncé and Jay-Z. First of all – they said they didn’t have lube at home. Can you imagine how good Bey’s next record is gonna be now that she has lube?! Anyway when I told Jay-Z that this lube contained horny goat weed, he asked me if he could smoke it. I told him if he did, he should definitely write an online review.

Thank you so, so much to Tina Horn and the folks at Best Sex Writing! Make sure to buy the book; I bet you’ll love it as much as I did!

I Sold My Panties to a Stranger

Kate Sloan

Years ago, I heard a rumor about an ex-girlfriend of mine that I considered very unsavory. The rumor was that she had taken up selling her used panties to random dudes she found via Craigslist, in order to earn a little extra spending money.

My feminism wasn’t as evolved then as it is now, so my first reaction was one of disgust and pity. My attitude toward her was slut-shaming, though I’m not sure I knew that term back then. I thought someone would have to be really desperate and depraved to do what she was (reputedly) doing.

Granted, I think we may have been about 17 then, so there was an element of age-related weirdness on top of all the other weirdness I thought I perceived. But now, seemingly aeons later, not only have my feelings on that ex’s panty-selling evolved, but I’ve actually been wanting to try it out myself. Why not, right? I’ve got panties, I could use more money, and it would be like a very basic form of the ethical fetishism I’m always advocating for.

I posted half-heartedly on Reddit’s /r/pantyselling forum a couple of times, with photos, descriptions and prices. But no buyers went for my wares. That forum relies on a feedback system, and it’s also often the women with sexier pictures (and “sexier” bodies) who get voted to the top for maximum visibility. I thought there was no interest and abandoned the task for a couple months.

Then, however, I tweeted about it – and almost immediately, I attracted the interest of a guy who follows me on Twitter. It makes sense, now that I think about it, that people who already “know me” (even if it’s just via the internet) would have more of an interest in buying my panties: as with most fetish objects, it’s not just about the object, but also about the fantasy behind the object – which may include the person behind the object. This guy had read about my masturbatory adventures here on my blog so he knew what he was getting himself into.

We emailed back and forth for a while, negotiating type and number of pairs to be sold (1 thong and 1 pair of briefs), what would be done to them (soaked through with vaginal fluids), and how much they would cost ($20 each plus shipping). Fortunately we were able to come to an agreement pretty painlessly; he didn’t ask me for anything that made me uncomfortable.

Well, except for when he asked if I could make a video to go along with the pictures I’d be sending. That made me a little apprehensive, not because I’m averse to someone owning a video of me masturbating but more because I am soooo not a performer/exhibitionist and just don’t feel sexy in front of a camera, ever. But he made it clear that any video or audio would just be an added bonus and not part of the core price he was paying me, so I didn’t feel obligated to do it, and he wasn’t upset that I didn’t end up doing it.

His main request was that he wanted the two pairs I was sending to be as soaking wet as I could get them. I’m not a squirter, so this doesn’t happen instantaneously; it takes work and time to get me to an adequate level of wetness. That’s why I normally use lube when I jerk off – but, of course, I wasn’t being paid for panties soaked with artificial lubricant. So I had to do it for real.

I felt a bit of performance anxiety even though I wasn’t being filmed. There was pressure: to smell fresh (I showered thoroughly before each play session), to get super wet (I warmed up with lots of porn and erotica and then drew out my sessions much longer than I normally would, for maximum saturation, so to speak), and to be sexy in my correspondence (my approach to sexual chatting is usually less “smoldering and risqué” and more “dorky and honest”).

I also felt embarrassed that my panties aren’t tiny. I’m not a small person. I wear a size 10 or 12 on my bottom half, putting me right on the (admittedly arbitrary) cusp between “regular” and “plus” sizes, and I always feel self-conscious about that in sexual situations unless the person has explicitly admitted to liking my body or liking chubbier bodies in general. Fortunately it wasn’t an issue at all. I think my patron was more focused on the wet crotch of the panties than their dimensions.

I sold two pairs of panties and had two orgasms in each pair, which isn’t typical for me (I’m not very multi-orgasmic). I sealed each pair in an individual Ziploc bag and crammed them into a little bubble mailer. Then I took them to the post office and anxiety-sweated through the mailing process. (I thought they were going to ask me to fill out a customs form explaining what was in the package. Luckily, they didn’t, because my buyer was from the same country as me.)

He received the package a couple days later and seemed happy with its contents. I was two pairs of underwear poorer and $40 richer. If you’re wondering: I went out and spent the money on some fancy scented candles for my workspace. Re-investing sexy-on-the-internet money into my sexy-on-the-internet work environment, you might say. It makes a certain sense to me.

Anyway, after all that rambling, I want to hear from you… Have you ever sold your underwear, or any other fetish object? How did you go about it? Would you consider doing it again?

Here’s An Idea: Ethical Fetishism + Shoe Sugar Daddies

Kate Sloan

Last week I found myself madly lusting over a pair of shoes. They were gorgeous and I NEEDED them – but they were $275. And as a full-time student and part-time blogger, that ain’t a doable price for me. (I ended up buying a similar pair at a way lower price point – that’s me modeling them above!)

I spent some time complaining on Twitter about this problem, and then my mind wandered to all the fetishists who’ve left me lascivious comments on my clothes, shoes, and hosiery over the years. You might remember from my post on how to be a non-douchey fetishist that I’ve been posting outfit photos online for 8+ years and attract a lot of creeps through that venue. These people are getting off on my pictures – so shouldn’t I be getting some kind of compensation for that “service” I’m (nonconsensually) providing?

Okay, hear me out. My idea is this: an online social platform where you can sign up in one of two categories, fetishist or fashionista. (The names could use some workshopping; ideally they’d both be gender-neutral.) The fashionistas build profiles full of as much or as little personal information as they’d like to share and a gallery of photos that are as sexy or sexless as they feel comfortable being. They attach a wishlist to their profile, filled with clothes, shoes, and other cute things they have their eye on. And if a fetishist takes an interest in a particular fashion fan, he can buy her something from her wishlist. (I’m using those pronouns for clarity’s sake; obviously there are fetishists and fashion fans of all genders.)

The wishlist would hide her address, of course; no one wants to put themselves at risk for being stalked. And when the item of choice arrived, she could try it on, pose for pictures or video, and post them publicly or privately for the fetishist who supplied the money.

There could be a way for fetishists and fashionistas to negotiate the terms of the agreement in advance – e.g. “If I buy you these shoes, you’ll model them in tights, in knee-high socks, and barefoot.” There could be an eBay-esque feedback system to avoid scammers and creeps.

I know that systems like this exist already, but in my experience, they’re usually hypersexual and mostly frequented by camgirls and their patrons. While there’s obviously nothing wrong with sex workers (you go, gals and guys!), not all of us feel comfortable being super sexy online. My half-baked dream for this social network conceptualizes it as a space that is as sexy or unsexy as individual users want it to be, so that everyone feels comfortable and safe.

I just think that there are better ways to manage the relationships between fetishists and the subjects of their affection than the way that those relationships usually go right now. The subjects often (in my experience) feel victimized, grossed out, and used. I know that for myself, when I receive a message from a fetishist telling me he loves me in sheer hose or he wants me to wear heels for him, I feel squicked out but I also always send him a link to my Amazon wishlist, because dammit, if I’m going to fulfill someone’s fetish, he’s going to be the one to foot the bill for it, not me. Of course, I’ve never actually had a fetishist buy me anything, because the ones I encounter all seem to be cheapskates who expect me to be their masturbation fodder at no charge, but… I’m sure there are shoe sugar daddies out there somewhere, right?

I don’t have the know-how to build a website or get it off the ground, but if anyone ever takes this idea and runs with it, just know that I would promote the shit out of it, happily beta-test it, and send the link to every fetishist who’s ever given me “helpful suggestions” for what to wear!