12 Days of Girly Juice 2018: 4 Fun Events

Hi, friends! Today’s 12 Days of Girly Juice instalment is all about sexy and sex-adjacent events I attended in 2018 – and because I am such a lucky lady, there were lots of them. However, these 4 were the ones that stuck out to me the most…

The Playground Conference

Organized, as always, by the inimitable Samantha Fraser, the Playground Conference was easily a career highlight of my year. I was invited to speak in two sessions: the opening plenary about personal storytelling as a form of activism, and a live recording of The Dildorks. As is par for the course at events like these, a lot of the most fun stuff happened “extracurricularly,” like hotel-room spanking parties, late-night phone sex, and a blogger get-together punctuated by boozy, frosty milkshakes. Yummm.

The sessions at Playground this year were as fascinating and eye-opening as always. I learned about kink negotiation, blowjob techniques, BDSM psychology, and lots more. I was reminded once again of how important and uplifting it is to spend time around other sex nerds, especially those wiser and more experienced than me. What a blessing to be able to do that.

On a personal note, Playground was also my first experience with following event-specific protocol assigned to me by a long-distance partner, including wearing outfits he chose for me and sending him daily updates in photographic form, and as such, it’s a fond memory in the history of my relationship. Aww.

Sex Writing 101

I was thrilled this year that the Naked Heart Festival, an LGBTQ literary event, invited me to teach an introductory sex writing workshop as part of their wide-ranging programming. I was surprised at the size of the crowd that came out, and it delighted me to talk to them about the practical, ethical, and creative considerations involved in sex writing: everything from consent to pseudonyms to pitching stories to sexual mindfulness. (My boyfriend was sitting in the front row, gazing up at me like a rapt angel, which helped, too.)

Someday I’d like to offer this class online, since I think I have a lot of useful stuff to say about the sex writing world, having been in it for 6+ years. Let me know if you’d ever be interested in attending a webinar, purchasing an e-course, etc. along these lines, and I’ll see what I can do in 2019!

The Bed Post Sex & Sexuality Variety Show

Bed Post is the brainchild of Erin Pim, a brilliant, kinky firecracker who also hosts a podcast of the same name. I’ve guested on both the podcast and the live show several times, and it’s always a raunchy good time!

I can’t think of any other event that does quite what Bed Post does: it’s a blend of storytelling, burlesque, comedy, and music, all united under the overarching theme of sex. On the Bed Post stage, I’ve crooned ukulele tunes about BDSM, explained the joys of knife play, read my review of a Teddy Bear vibrator, and given fisting advice to strangers. I’ve wolf-whistled at a curvy redhead doing an outer space-themed striptease, hung on the every word of a captivating phone sex operator‘s stories, and laughed my ass off at a weirdly hilarious tale about revenge porn. I never quite know what I’m going to see when I show up at a Bed Post performance, but I always end up loving every minute.

If you live in Toronto (or can get here) and haven’t yet checked out this great variety show, I highly recommend it!

Hookup

I’ve been attending improv shows in Toronto for well over a decade, and the Bad Dog Theatre’s runaway success Hookup is one of my favorites I’ve ever seen – to the point that I keep going back, again and again. Here’s the premise: the cast picks two single-and-ready-to-mingle audience members, interviews them about their personalities and aspirations, and then improvises a one-act play of sorts about what would happen if those two people met and hooked up.

Far from being the lewd or mean-spirited show this could so easily have turned into, Hookup is usually a sweet, incisive, hilarious celebration of love that leaves the entire audience glowing. If your ideal evening out at the theatre ends with your face hurting from laughing so hard and your very spirit feeling replenished, I think you would love Hookup. It regularly makes me giggle-shriek until I can’t breathe, and that’s a feeling we all need more of.

What sex-related events did you love this year?

Behind the Seams: Playground Conference Edition

February 23rd, 2018. I wore this during the daytime on the first day of the Playground Conference. Later, I would change into a much more salacious dress for the opening plenary, but this one was a good wholesome choice for good wholesome activities, like trekking across town with my suitcase in tow, checking into the hotel, grabbing a quick McDonald’s takeout lunch with Bex, and greeting a bunch of pals I hadn’t seen in ages.

Part of my Playground-specific protocol with my Sir was that he chose which dress I should wear on which day for the duration of the conference. I’d sent him my schedule so he could make informed decisions, and he did so well.

I think this dress is very DD/lg. It’s kind of perfect.

What I’m wearing:
• Hand-me-down Danier leather jacket with a “Pun Slut” pin from L’Amour-Propre (a gift from my love, who understands my heart) and an impact play pin from Kinktionary
Pink and white heart-print dress – CowCow (their dresses are cheap, slinky, and come in about a billion different prints – would recommend!)
• Pink sparkly Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – vintage on eBay
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Pink lipstick – probably Make Up For Ever Aqua Rouge in “Fuchsia” or Sugarpill lipstick in “Girl Crush,” I’m not sure which
• Recently dyed and cut hair by Paul Taylor at Avalon Hair Design, who’s been doing my hair for at least a decade


February 24th, 2018. The first morning of Playground, I texted my partner a bunch while lying in bed drinking coffee from the in-room Keurig machine, and then slipped into this outfit to go see Kevin Patterson‘s opening keynote, which was excellent.

After that, I attended a session about kink negotiations, bought a fancy impact toy at the Weal & Breech table in the vendors room, eagerly soaked up a session on kink psychology, watched (and adored) Bex’s panel on polyamory and masculinity, and then skipped downstairs to record a live Dildorks episode. Then I went out for dinner with three other introverts who were similarly overwhelmed by the Con Life, which was a blessing because we all sat staring at our phones in silence for most of the meal – exactly what I needed after such a busy day. #IntrovertLyfe!

What I’m wearing:
• Pink and yellow dress featuring strawberry vulvas and banana penises (or, as my Sir called it, “Bananacock and Berrycunt”) – the great Joanna Thangiah, whose shop is always my first stop for sexyweird clothes
• Blue suede collar – L’Amour-Propre (our conference protocol dictated that I wear my collar every time I presented publicly)
• Holographic pink bow barrette – Forever 21
• Blue sparkly star ring – a now-defunct Etsy shop called CBT’s Closet way back in 2008
• Navy blue Funkit Toys Signet ring – a gift from the inimitable Kenton (this is the ultimate sartorial wink to sex toy nerds with a fondness for fingerbanging)
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots


February 25th, 2018. One more outfit for one more full day of conferencing! First off, I headed to Bex’s informative and hilarious blowjob workshop. Next I attended a brilliant panel about intersectionality and dating, which gave me a lot to think about. Then, me and a bunch of blogger babes grabbed a long, leisurely lunch at Fran’s, complete with boozy milkshakes.

After lunch, I sat in on a session called “Ask a Sadist” and took lots of feverish notes. Then we all attended the closing keynote and said our teary goodbyes. Con life is wild!

What I’m wearing:
Kaleidoscopic rainbow dress – CowCow (one word of warning about these dresses: the fabric is very, um, nipply, so you’ll probably wanna wear a bra – I usually go braless, but I can’t with these!)
• Pink sparkly Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – vintage on eBay
• Official conference lanyard (oh, the glamour)
• Shiny turquoise hair scrunchie – American Apparel
• Blue sparkly star ring – CBT’s Closet
• Vulva ring, custom-made to look like my actual vulva – Catstache Accessories
• Black leggings – H&M
• Black leather Frye harness boots

Hypnowink: That Time I Got Tranced Accidentally

As I’ve mentioned before, my Sir is into hypnokink. The first time he ever tranced me was an accident, and practically as soon as it happened, I thought, That’d make a great story to tell at Tell Me Something Good!

So I was excited when I got called up to close out the show at the Playground Conference edition of TMSG. I knew my story would be one of the weirder ones told that night, especially since it didn’t actually contain any sex, but I was excited to tell it to a room full of sex nerds anyhow.

Here’s an audio file of me telling the story, and a transcription of what I said. Enjoy!

Content note: hypnosis, winking, and long-distance D/s.

Okay, so, I have a new long-distance partner. He’s my boyfriend; he’s my Sir. And one of the things that’s interesting and new to me about that is finding ways to bridge the gap, intimacy-wise, so we’ve spent many many hours on the phone together.

And one of the things that he does for me that makes me feel closer to him is he sends me videos of him winking, because I have a winking kink. I’m the only person I’ve ever met who has that. There’s fewer than 50 of them on Fetlife. We call each other “winksters.” Or, I do.

So, first of all, don’t come up to me and wink at me, ’cause it actually is a sexual thing for me and gives me weird non-consent-y feelings when strangers wink at me, so don’t do that. Ask first! You know.

But so, my partner would send me videos of him winking. He has a really good wink. He’ll optimize it to my preferences. It’s very nice.

So, one night I had done something that was kind of scary and difficult, and I wanted to watch a video of him winking as a reward, and I was going through all the videos that he’s sent me of him winking. We were on the phone. This was fairly early in our relationship, so he was like, “How many of those videos have I sent you?” and I counted and there was four. There’s many more now! There’s an archive of winks.

And when I told him there was four, I was like: What if I open them all up in QuickTime, and tile them all next to each other, and loop them all, so there’s just this chorus of winking angels in perpetuity? Just, like, asynchronous winking forever.

When he winks at me, I have this giggle reaction, and he’s listening to me on the phone watching these looping winks for like half an hour, and I’m just like: “The great thing about this is, this is useless to anyone but us. Like, no one else would appreciate this. There’s nothing else you could do with this. I could maybe set it as my screensaver. I could maybe watch it after a hard day. You could strap me down and I could watch it until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

And then I said something which, as soon as I said it, I was like, “Oh! He likes this!” I was like, “You could hypnotize me using these winks.” ‘Cause I should mention that my partner’s biggest kink is hypnosis, and he’s very good at it. He’s usually a top; sometimes he switches. So we had been negotiating some hypno stuff we wanted to do the next time we saw each other in person, so I had said I was down to do it, but we had not done any of it yet, and I was really excited.

So he got really excited when I said that, and he was like, “Yeah, I could tell you that with every wink, you were going a little bit deeper into trance for me, so if you didn’t drop on the first wink, you would drop really hard on the second one, and if you didn’t drop on the second one, you would drop on the third one, and eventually, one of their eyes would close and your eyes would fall closed, and you’d be in a nice, warm, relaxing trance for me.” And I realized that I had fallen into trance. Whoops!

This had never happened to me before, so I didn’t know what that would feel like, but my entire body felt really heavy, and I felt really focused and warm, and my eyes fell closed. And we were on the phone, so he couldn’t see me, so I needed to communicate this to him. So I was like, “Uh, Sir, something’s happening! Something’s happening to me, Sir.” And he, fortunately, is experienced and he knew what that meant. We hadn’t negotiated how long I would stay under, ’cause this was an accident, but he wanted to leave me under for a few seconds so I would get a sense of it, and then bring me out. So he told me about how nice and relaxing it is to not have to move your body, and to just focus on his words. And then he said, “I’m gonna count to five, and when I count to five, you’re gonna feel awake, alert, and totally normal.”

He counted up to five, and he said, “Hi, little one!” and I said, “Hi, Sir!” and he said, “How do you feel?” and I said, “I feel really good!”

I did feel really good. And what I felt, too, was that I never had known what this winking kink was supposed to be. Like, I never really knew how to play with it. It was sort of awkward, like, “Do you just wink at me during sex? I don’t really know how to use this…” It was like our two kinks had come together and made this cute little scene that neither of us had ever known could exist because we didn’t know that the other person existed and had these interesting kinks.

And the other thing I felt was that I really wanted him to trance me again a whole bunch, which he has done a whole bunch since then, and it’s really nice!

Monthly Faves: Dildorks, Dresses, and Daddy

Wow, I got up to a lot of kinky shit this past month. Here were some of my favorite things in February…

Sex toys

• My partner is really into fucking me with the Njoy Eleven lately – or, more often, making me fuck myself with it while he instructs me on speed, strength, and depth over the phone. Nothing else in my collection feels quite like this toy. It’s really an astonishing piece of steel.

• Loving the purpleheart truncheon I picked up from Weal & Breech at the Playground Conference. It’s lovely and thuddy, the craftsmanship is beautiful, and I adore the included black leather wrist strap. This company’s wares are so classy and gorgeous, not to mention painful in the best way.

• I told a story at Tell Me Something Good about hypnokink (more on that next week!) and when I was selected to win a prize at the end of the night, someone suggested I choose the Ruse Hypnotize, for obvious reasons. I’ve used it a few times since then and it’s pretty good for its price point: a nice-quality silicone dildo of a satisfying shape and size, that can hit my A-spot and makes for pretty blowjobs on camera. (“Can confirm,” my boyf says.)

Fantasy fodder

• Ageplay is a new thing to my boyfriend, but he’s enjoying being my Daddy. We’ve done a few phone-sex scenes involving me being little and him teaching me a thing or two about my sexual anatomy, or his. Fuuuck, it’s so hot.

• We’ve also been talking a fair bit about bootblacking, one of those interesting kinks that came out of nowhere for me and that I can’t quite explain. I remember telling him on our first date that I liked his shiny shoes, and since then I’ve increasingly wanted to kneel in front of him, put my face/lips/tongue all over his shoes, shine ’em up, and so on. Maybe we’ll experiment with this in March when he comes to visit me.

• I’ve mentioned to my partner a couple times that I have long-time fantasies about Victorian “hysteria” treatments: having orgasms coolly administered to me by a medical professional for my own good. We did some intense in-character sexting about that this month (ain’t it nice when two improv geeks date?!) and he also mentioned wanting to strap me down and use my Zumio to extract an orgasm from me. Um, yes please.

Sexcetera

• It was neat to get to try the new Cowgirl vibrator at the Museum of Sex this month. Aside from concerns about its unnecessarily gendered name and marketing (which we discussed in-depth in a recent Dildorks episode), I enjoyed giving it a shot. My partner picked up the control panel and said “May I?” and I basically melted onto the floor. The Cowgirl is rumblier than the Sybian (at least, it’s rumblier than my 2.5-year-old memory of the Sybian) and I found it more comfortable to sit on. I think I’ll get to try it again soon at Suz’s blog relaunch party (which you should come to!).

• The Playground Conference fucking ruled. Some highlights of my time there: speaking on the opening plenary with a bunch of brilliant babes; my Sir ordering pizza and a cookie to my hotel room all the way from New York when I was too overwhelmed to figure out food for myself; Kevin Patterson shouting us out in his keynote; learning about turning fantasies into realities; recording a live Dildorks episode; spanking a couple of beauties with a bible and various other implements; seeing (and livetweeting) Bex teaching blowjobs; introverty dinners with clever cuties. So much love to the conference’s organizer Samantha Fraser, who is a total badass and deserves all the applause!

Femme stuff

• In discussing how to maintain our close but long-distance connection during the potentially distancing chaos that is a sex conference, I asked my Sir, “Would it make you feel good to choose my outfits for Playground?” He’s previously enjoyed this so I thought he’d like to do it some more, and I was right. I sent him photos of all the dresses I wanted to wear + my tentative schedule for the con, and he chose which dresses I should wear on which days. It was a cute way for me to feel connected to him even as I was hustlin’ and bustlin’ around a busy conference 500 miles from him.

Hippo Campus is my favorite band, and their merch makes me happy. I own three of their T-shirts now, because I’m a nerd, and they’re all I want to wear on lazy, loungey days. This one, a Christmas gift from my little brother, is my fave: so soft, so snazzy!

• I have a new tattooooo! Probably gonna blog about it eventually, I’d imagine. I went back to Laura Blaney, who did my thigh tattoos; she’s fantastic. It’s colorful and punchy and lovely and I’m excited for it to heal completely so I can show it off!

Little things

Solo theatre dates, front-row centre. Drinking a “Hot Dad Bramble” with my daddy. Slow-dancing to Warm Glow. Compersion. Starburst as aftercare candy. Valentine’s flowers. Getting tied up by a sweet, funny boy who was intermittently singing me showtunes. Wearing my collar to public appearances because Sir said so. Talking to Erin at the Bed Post Podcast about hypnokink, DD/lg, etc. Seeing improv shows with friends. Exciting coffee meetings about new projects. The “Pun Slut” pin my Sir bought me (so perfect). Fancy pens. Sir listening to my radio show and live-texting me his reactions for me to read during the commercial breaks. Getting my hair done and feeling like a queen. Maple cookies. Staying hydrated. Late-night giggly phone sex.

6 Reasons to Get Your Ass to SMUT in the 6ix

10544248_203772776645706_2681983381252576312_o

Did you know that Toronto is one of the up-and-coming porn hotspots of the world?

Well, sorta. We’re no L.A., but there’s some exciting stuff happening here in the realm of indie porn. And there’s an event coming up that’ll prove it.

SMUT in the 6ix is a “magnificent celebration of perviness” masterminded by Caitlin K. Roberts of Spit, Samantha Fraser of Playground Sexuality Events, and Sophie Delancey of Tell Me Something Good. It’s happening next Saturday, the 14th of May. Here’s six reasons you should buy your ticket now and join me there…

The panels.

SMUT’s daytime programming consists of four panel discussions on topics related to porn. These sessions will cover several aspects of #PornLyfe, from social stigma to diverse representations to camera skillz.

They’ve got a ton of great speakers lined up, including MakeLoveNotPorn.TV curator Sarah Beall, CinéSinclaire bosslady Kate Sinclaire, and indie porn darling Rebecca Deveaux, among others. And – drumroll, please – I’ll be moderating one of the panels! So you’ll get to see me being a Smartypants McCutieface. Bonus.

The performances.

SMUT’s nighttime gala will feature burlesque, spoken word, live music and dance. All the performers are local and you can be assured their acts will be appropriately smutty. Emceeing the evening is Dane Joe, who I can tell you from firsthand experience is charming as hell. (And also knows how to wield an Eleven like a fuckin’ champ. Unf.)

Plus… I’ll be performing, too! I’m gonna bust out some dirty ukulele songs. You don’t want to miss that, surely?!

The party.

The gala will have DJs, dancing, and general merrymaking. S’gonna be a hoot!

In particular, I’m interested to see what everyone will wear! The sartorial intersection of “fancy” and “smutty” is always an interesting one.

a7a7f2_36f5163b60f64a71bbf6d3d31652b412

The babes.

There are soooo many attractive people in our local porn scene. And I’m using the word “attractive” in a deeper sense than just the physical one (though they are visually babely, too). If you (like me) are attracted to smart, funny, easygoing, sex-positive, feminist cuties, you’re not going to find a better event to get your flirt on than SMUT in the 6ix.

The porn.

Of course, no porn-centric event would be complete without, y’know, porn. Rebecca Deveaux and my pal Taylor J. Mace are curating and co-presenting a selection of homegrown porn at the event. If you’ve never watched porn in a roomful of people before, you should – it’s a unique experience, and can be a lot of fun!

The bragging rights.

Spit‘s going to be a big deal in the porn world one day, and so is the city of Toronto! Get in on the ground floor of our burgeoning indie porn scene, so you can say you liked Toronto porn before it was famous.

 

Check out the SMUT in the 6ix website and then buy your ticket! At just $37 for the whole day, it’s one of the cheapest sexuality conference tickets I’ve come across. I hope to see you at SMUT; make sure you say hi if you spot me!