Author: Kate Sloan

Behind the Seams: A Whole Lotta Pink!

Kate Sloan

October 28, 2022

This is maybe one of the most masc-looking outfits I’ve ever posted on here. I’ve been asking my hairdresser to cut my hair progressively shorter and shorter over the last couple years, and every time I get more of it chopped off, I feel queerer, in a really good way. It’s still sometimes a bit of a challenge to feel as femme as I want to when my hair is this short, but makeup helps – and I think that the colorful, bi-as-fuck eyeshadow look I did with this outfit balanced out the rest of it really well.

I wore this to run some errands and then record a bonus episode of The Dildorks (which are all available to $12+ patrons on our Patreon, incase you were wondering!).

 

What I’m wearing:

• “2 gay 2 live, 2 horny 2 die” tank top – made by Cayce Fisher but I can’t seem to find a link to it anymore, sorry!
• Black high-waisted jeans – Madewell
• Pink leather Coach Cashin Carry tote (I truly love this bag so you will see it a lot in this post!) – a gift from my love
• Black leather Converse Chuck Taylors
• Apple Watch with red leather strap
• Berry-pink KN95 mask – MaskC

January 28, 2023

I wore this to go with my friends Dan and Sarah to a birthday party we were all invited to. I wanted to dress in the bisexual pride colors (blue, purple, and pink) because both of the people whose birthday it was are bi (I think?) and both of them wear a lot of bright colors, especially purple. Love a themed outfit!

This blue shirt is a bit tricky to style because it’s so low-cut, but I liked the trick of wearing a bralette underneath that gave a little pop of color and a bit of cleavage coverage, because I was just not feeling up to showing that much boob!

 

What I’m wearing:

• Raspberry-pink merino wool cardigan – the Gap
• Blue low-cut tank top – a gift from my friend Sarah
• Deep pink lace bralette – the Gap
• Black skater skirt (with pockets!) – ASOS
• Black leggings – H&M
• My custom Nikes/high-femme clown shoes (more on them in this post)
• My sub’s chastity key on a chain

February 1, 2023

I wore this out to get my hair done. My hairdresser, Paul, has been doing my hair since I was about 12 years old (!!), and he’s a fellow member of the LGBTQ+ community who has wonderful style, so I usually like to dress a little wacky to go see him.

Later that night, my friend/roommate Sarah and I got together for one of our regular get-togethers over drinks. Always fun to sit around chatting with my pal, getting tipsy, catching up on each other’s lives, petting the cats, and (often) watching videos of our mutual favorite video-game YouTuber, QuinBoBin.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Pink knit beanie – Only, via The Bay (I bought the same one in a gorgeous kelly-green shade as well and wore both of them a ton in the winter and early spring)
• Black T-shirt – probably from the Hippo Campus merch store?
• Hot pink cashmere sweater – J. Crew
• Black skater skirt – ASOS
• Black leggings – H&M
• Pink leather Coach Cashin Carry tote
• Pink metallic cowboy boots – Jeffrey Campbell
• My go-to winter coat, a black wool/cashmere-blend Fairweather pea coat that I thrifted in 2007 (!!!) and have worn nearly every winter since then
• Black KN95 mask

February 4, 2023

I wore this to attend a lovely party held by the great Samantha Fraser. who always throws a hell of a bash. This one was summer-themed and had the vibe of a tropical vacation – complete with refreshing cocktails and leis! – and I had a fantastic time catching up with a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in ages.

However, unfortunately then I FAINTED! I was literally mid-conversation with someone and started to feel intensely dizzy and had to excuse myself mid-sentence, which was super embarrassing, and then I collapsed in the kitchen. Not my finest moment. In retrospect, I think it may have been a POTS-related incident (I’m not diagnosed with POTS yet but strongly suspect I have it, and am going to get checked out by a cardiologist soon to verify). Everyone was very nice and understanding about it, and my friends Sarah and Dan came to keep me company in a bedroom upstairs while I waited out the weird disorientation and dizziness, and then took me home. Oh well, at least I had a good time until I fainted!

 

What I’m wearing:

• World’s best jumpsuit – Le Chateau; I had it hemmed because I’m a shorty
• Pink metallic cowboy boots – Jeffrey Campbell
• Red heart-shaped bag – Kate Spade
• Blue ukulele earrings – 3DelightfulShop on Etsy

February 11, 2023

I wore this to the Erotic Arts & Crafts Fair, always a fantastic event. Some of the highlights this time were having a custom love poem written for us on the spot by a cool person with a typewriter, picking up another leather bookmark from L’Amour-Propre (I already had one but can always use more), and seeing some previews of the Vibrating Tarot, a sex toy tarot deck that’s in the works.

After getting home from the fair, I stayed in this same outfit to record the video for my song-of-the-week “Billionaire,” which is about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and how no one should be allowed to accrue that much money when there is so much needless suffering in this world due to poverty.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Pink knit beanie – Only
• Pink T-shirt featuring a cartoon of a dominatrix holding a whip (apparently the artist is named Etienne) – the gift shop at the Leather Archives & Museum, a must-visit for any kinksters who visit Chicago
• Pink cardigan – Beninos
• Black jeans – Madewell
• Pink leather Coach Cashin Carry tote
• Pink metallic cowboy boots – Jeffrey Campbell (they don’t seem to be making the pink ones anymore, unfortunately, but they are making red ones!)
• Teal-blue leather dog collar – Tiffany’s, a gift from my love
• Black KN95 mask because COVID is bad

 

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How Being a Sugar Baby Helped Me Get Over Some Old Insecurities

Kate Sloan
Pictured in November 2017, during my very brief foray into sugar dating

One of my biggest fears, when I was growing up, was that no romantic prospect would ever be able to see past my looks and love me for my personality. Popular media had hammered home the idea for me that appearances mattered more than anything else, and I considered myself to have a mediocre face and a mediocre body at best, so it seemed impossible that I would ever be loved or desired in the ways I wanted to be.

Of course, I grew up and discovered that the reality of dating was a bit different than I’d been led to believe. Not only do personalities matter as much as, or more than, looks for many people, but it turns out that plenty of folks actually think I’m hot and pretty. Who’da thunk!

That being said, the hangups that plague us at a young age often stay with us for a long time, even if life experience and self-reflection have both taught us that those hangups are unhelpful and based on falsehoods. So it still surprised me, well into my twenties, when someone I thought was attractive would express that they also found me attractive. Hell, even now, at 31, I sometimes still narrow my eyes when someone cute expresses desire for me, like, How do I know you’re not lying, though?

I still vividly remember the moment I received an initial email from the man who would become my short-lived sugar daddy, because it soothed these insecurities like an ice pack held to a bruise. I was at my optometrist’s office, of all places, sitting in the waiting room.

The email was wordy and polite, explaining that he had heard my podcast and read my blog and followed my Twitter for quite some time, but had only just learned that I offered audio-chat sessions for a fee. (I don’t think this is something I’d still do now, BTW, unless the remuneration was significant, but back then I still had the time and energy for such things.) He was interested in setting up a phone chat to discuss “our relative perspectives on sexuality,” and also to do some phone sex-type stuff if I was up for that. He lived in New York and I lived in Toronto, so our dynamic would be limited to the phone for the time being, though the possibility of in-person meetups was later floated, provided we hit it off via audio.

He’d included some photos and personal details and I found him quite handsome and impressive, in a way that awakened my impostor syndrome from its intermittent slumber. This man wanted to pay for my time? Seriously? I wasn’t a smoking-hot porn performer, or a finessed escort like the ladies at https://www.toronto-escorts.com/, or one of those slim, blonde, well-manicured women you might see on a sugar-dating website. I was just… me.

And here we arrive at one of the central lessons I took away from my time as a sugar baby, which ended up lasting only about a month before he called it off due to jealousy about my other partners (a bummer at the time, but ultimately for the best). I learned that not only was I desirable, but I was desirable enough to be worth spending money on.

That may sound like a weird distinction to make, but money is, in many ways, far more tangible than much of the other attention I’d received from suitors in the past. That’s not to say it’s better – I’d generally rather receive a well-tailored, flirty compliment from someone cute than a crisp hundred, although frankly it depends on the day – but I found it more believable, because money is… well, it’s currency. It’s cold hard cash, and it tells the cold hard truth. Someone might give a compliment they don’t really mean; people do it all the time. But if someone decides to pay me money for the privilege of spending time with me, or seeing photos of me, or whatever, then it’s extremely unlikely that they’re faking their enthusiasm for any reason. Money, as they say, doesn’t lie.

There’s a lot of Discourse™ about whether sex work is “empowering,” which I generally think is ridiculous. Few other professions are held to that standard, of needing to be ~empowering~ in order to be valid, respectable, and worthy of rights and protections.

But at the same time, few jobs I’ve ever had have felt as actively empowering to me as being a sugar baby did. I was being paid to be myself, being paid because someone liked who I was, inside and out. Not much else was required of me, besides the emotional labor of being in a relationship-type-thing, which I’d long given away for free to Tinder fuckboys and Twitter crushes who didn’t necessarily deserve it. During our phone calls, I could wear the things I liked wearing, and tell the jokes I’d normally tell, and be as nerdy as I’d normally be, and get paid for that. I could even get paid to receive pleasure, paid to listen to a handsome man describing in detail how he would touch me if we were in the same room. I felt high on the attention, the flattery, and – yes – the money.

I’m very good at talking myself into the belief that no one actually wants/likes/loves me, even when there’s ample evidence to the contrary. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’m married to the love of my life now, who courted me relentlessly even while we were living 500 miles apart (they incidentally also live in New York – actually I met them on the trip that was supposed to be my first meetup with my sugar daddy, planned and booked before he ended things with me), and even now, I still have times when I feel deeply undesirable and can’t understand why anyone would ever want me.

But I know that someone did want me, because he was paying me hundreds of dollars a month to make me giggle on the phone. And that means that I could be (and, in fact, am) wanted by other people – not only now, but in the future. And it’s hard for me to explain that away, even on my most insecure days.

 

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

Review: Velvet Thruster Sammie

Kate Sloan

Having been in this business for as long as I have, I can usually tell from a mile away if I’m going to love a toy. I’m not always 100% correct in my assessment – because it’s my junk, not my brain, that ultimately determines whether a toy works for me – but my hunches usually lean in the right direction.

So when the folks at Velvet Brands – who make the Velvet Thruster line of toys – asked if they could send me something, I was excited. I’d wanted to try one of these fuckers for years, because I had a strong suspicion that I’d love them. AND I DO, as it turns out!

 

The good

Velvet sent me their Sammie thruster, which is the biggest one they make. It’s got 7″ of insertable length and a hefty 2.25″ diameter. But my vagina’s not a superhero every day, so it’s great that they also sent me the Jackie attachment, which can be swapped for the Sammie attachment when I want to be fucked by something slimmer. This approach, of having a base unit that you can use with multiple different heads, is brilliant; it’s one of the many nice features that elevate Velvet Thrusters from regular self-thrusting toys and make them into something more akin to a fucking machine.

See, fucking machines are the go-to recommendation if you want something strong that can rhythmically pound into you without requiring much effort on your part. (As a frequently lazy masturbator, I understand this desire.) But a good fucking machine can run you upwards of $500, and also tends to take up a massive amount of space. So I love that the Velvet Thruster is relatively compact, and reasonably priced for the amount of power you get ($255 in the USA, $352 up here in Canada).

Because this thing is indeed fucking powerful. When I’ve tested other thrusters before, some (like the Fun Factory Stronic toys) have created a motion so small that it’s more akin to jiggling back and forth than slamming in and out of you. That can still feel plenty good at times, but when you really want to get fucked, it may not be what you reach for. Other thrusters I’ve tried have had such weak motors that they peter out when pressure is applied, and seeing as the vagina muscles (and anal muscles) contract and pulse during arousal and orgasm, it can be hard to get consistent stimulation with that type of toy, which can result in lessened pleasure and a weakened climax.

NOT SO with the Velvet Thruster! This thing’s motor has so much oomph that it doesn’t give a shit what my vagina is doing, it just keeps on truckin’ (and fuckin’). Its six speeds range from a slow-and-steady pace to a much more frantic 140 strokes per minute. The sensations are much stronger and more consistent than those I’ve gotten from any other self-thrusting toy, and it makes me come super hard.  I’ve never used a full-on fucking machine, because I’ve never had the space to spare and don’t often masturbate in the positions necessitated by such a behemoth; this Velvet toy delivers all the chutzpah I’d want from a fucking machine, but suits my needs much better.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the shapes and textures of the attachments I was sent, because they’re both utterly lacking in curve, and have a semi-realistic veiny texture along the shaft. With ample lube (which is required with this toy – more on that below) and enough warm-up/arousal, the texture was a non-issue; if anything, it left me feeling even more thoroughly fucked after a session, in a good way. And as for the shape, well, these heads are long enough to hit my A-spot on each thrust – with a little manual help from me by finding the right angle during initial insertion – and so I’m more than happy with them. The 2.25″ girth of the Sammie can feel too big for me some days, especially with how firm it is, but then I can always swap to the Jackie for a subtler experience.

Velvet sent me an optional suction cup base for this toy (pictured), and I think it’d be a smart thing to throw into your cart if you get one of these. It opens up your positioning options substantially, making it much easier for you to back up against a wall to get fucked, or sit on the dick from above as it thrusts up at you from the floor. These aren’t common positions in my masturbation repertoire at all, but it’s fantastic to have the option, especially since this is the exact type of toy I’d reach for if I wanted to feel like a real human was well-and-truly railing me.

The toy’s “balls” act as a flared base which makes it anal-safe; Velvet sells an anal-specific attachment, but the others work just fine in your butt too. I also like that the toy’s power button is on its balls, which face away from you during use; this makes it almost impossible to accidentally turn the toy off mid-session.

Oh yeah, and it can last 6-8 hours on a charge. Impressive.

 

The bad

My complaints about this toy are mostly the usual ones you’ll hear about almost any thruster. Namely: it makes a loud, mechanical whirring noise during use, and it’s bigger than your typical sex toy so it might not fit in small nightstand drawers. That being said, I find both of those qualities to be forgivable, given this thing’s dazzling power output.

You will need a lot of lube with this toy. You just will. Not only does it help with surface friction – which would be a major issue otherwise, due to the toy’s draggy matte silicone and veiny texture – but it makes the thrusting go more smoothly and makes it less likely that the toy will shimmy its way out of you.

The main logistical issue I face with this thruster – and many other thrusters – is indeed that it tends to work its way out of my vag as it thrusts. You need to anchor the handle against something to prevent this from happening; a firm pillow between your legs could work, and of course, if you’ve suction-cupped the thruster to a wall or floor, those surfaces will provide helpful resistance. But my most common solution to this problem, because I’m lazy, has been to bend one knee so my ankle is braced against the toy’s handle. The toy is long enough that I can do this comfortably, even though my fibro-ridden knees complain if I bend them too much for too long. Having to keep my ankle in one spot during use isn’t ideal, of course, but it’s not all that obtrusive and usually doesn’t bother me, especially since it results in me getting fucked so hard I see stars.

The thruster’s buttons sometimes seem uncomfortably far away from me; I usually have to bend over a bit and look at them in order to change speeds. But this isn’t the type of toy I tend to change speeds on very often, compared to, say, a clitoral vibrator, so it hasn’t been too much of an issue.

I’ll also say that this thruster is very firm. The silicone gives it a tiny bit of squish at the surface, but overall it’s way way harder than any human dick would be. This can be wonderful if you’re craving strong sensations, but less so if you want something realistic-feeling or more forgiving. I always feel thoroughly fucked after using this toy, and I find that cunt-ache kinda hot and fun in most circumstances, but if you’re prone to pain/discomfort from penetration, you’ll probably want to stick with a smaller attachment and, again, use a shit ton of lube.

Notably, it’s not waterproof. This makes me slightly sad as someone who would love to get fucked during a leisurely bathtub wank, but it’s by no means a dealbreaker for me.

 

Final thoughts

I’m really delighted with the Velvet Thruster Sammie. It provides enough force and consistency to fuck me the way I like, and I often have stellar orgasms when I pair it with a clitoral vibe.

It may not be appropriate for all situations – I wouldn’t use it if I was concerned about someone overhearing me, for instance, or if my vag was sore – but it’s the best toy I’ve found for fulfilling the specific craving to get ploughed hard. And since my partner lives 500 miles away from me and I’m not dating/fucking anyone else at the moment, that is indeed a craving I encounter from time to time.

Do I wish the Velvet Thruster was a little squishier, a little quieter, and a little cheaper? Sure. But is it also the best thruster I’ve ever tried? Absolutely. And that, folks, is the thrust of my argument.

 

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.

Pay For Your Porn, Please!

Kate Sloan
Me on a shoot day in 2016

One of the many ways I’ve seen porn performers get insulted and degraded online is by dudes (yes, it is almost always dudes) yelling, “Why would I pay for your OnlyFans (or whatever) when I can get any porn I want for free?!”

Besides being super mean-spirited and unnecessary (not to mention reeking of whorephobia), this argument – if one can even call it that – is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the porn industry works, and how art in general gets made. And yes, I would consider porn to be an art form!

See, as the world is learning in real-time right now from the Writers Guild of America strike, the art you love doesn’t just magically appear out of thin air – actual people make it (I’m not talking about AI art here, because it kinda sucks, both morally and artistically), and those people deserve to be paid fairly for their time, work, and expertise. This is true whether the art in question is something we generally understand to be expensive, like an oil painting, or something we generally understand to be cheap or free, like online porn.

As with any kind of art, if we want porn to keep being made, we need to ensure that its creators are able to sustain themselves financially so they can continue making it. I’m no porn-industry expert, but it seems to me that the emphasis has shifted massively from big porn studios to smaller creators and collectives over the last decade or so, and I imagine a lot of that has to do with how often people torrent porn, stream it on sites that have pirated it, and so on. Big studio productions are expensive to make, and can’t be continually cranked out if no one is paying for them. I love indie porn stars as much as the next hyper-online gal, but I can’t deny that I also sometimes appreciate the spectacle of a huge-scale porn production like Pirates (2005), which supposedly had a $1 million budget (!!), or Alice in Wonderland (1976), which had a budget of $500,000 (about $2.5 million in today’s money if we account for inflation!).

That’s not to say it’s impossible to watch free porn in an ethical way. Creators on YouTube and PornHub alike, for instance, can make ad revenue from people who watch their videos, at no additional cost to viewers. Many independent creators offer some free content as part of their overall marketing strategy, though of course the hope is that a substantial portion of their free viewers will become paid viewers over time.

It’s also definitely possible to pay for your porn even if you’re on a budget. Sites like Clips4Sale and ManyVids are chock full of videos priced at $5 or less, which you can then watch and re-watch to your heart’s content. Many performers offer sales to mark certain holidays or just when they need to drum up some extra cash, so follow your faves on social media if you want to be informed when/if that happens. You can even click here for a Naughty America discount. There is a TON of cheap porn out there, and every time you buy someone’s porn, or subscribe to their OnlyFans feed or similar, you’re helping them out and letting them know with your dollars that you want them to keep making wank material for you to enjoy.

I’m happy to pay for romance novels, because they make me giggle and blush; thriller movies, because they make me gasp and scream; and action video games, because they make my heart speed up and engage my brain. The other reason I’m happy to pay for these things (when I have the cash to do so) is that I want them to keep being made. By that token, it makes complete sense that I’d also want to pay for my porn – because it entertains me, inspires me, teaches me new things about my sexuality, and (of course) turns me on and gets me off. I hope you’ll pay for your porn too, at least some of the time, because a future without porn (or with porn created by soulless AIs) sounds pretty fuckin’ bleak, if you ask me.

 

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

3 Gorgeous Sex-Related Aesthetics I Admire

Kate Sloan
All images in this post were assembled using UrStyle

When I think of fetish aesthetics, I think of Bettie Page, and of the SuicideGirls. Although these two cultural phenomena hit their peaks decades apart from one another, I think it’s obvious that the SuicideGirl aesthetic was very much influenced by Bettie Page and other midcentury fetish models, and we also see these influences in aesthetics associated with pro dom(me)s and even with the later mania centering around Fifty Shades of Grey.

Sharp nails, sharp heels, sharp eyeliner wings – these are just some of the elements I associate with this type of look. One of the reasons it feels so transgressive is that women’s style is traditionally “supposed to” be subdued, soft, and conventionally feminine. When we incorporate elements that feel tougher, stronger, and scarier – think Sandy at the end of Grease – it can come across as threatening to traditional Western gender roles and even to Western conceptions of heterosexuality as a whole. For many of us, that transgression is exactly what is so appealing and sexy about this type of look.

Obviously the idea of a “sex worker aesthetic” is a problematic oversimplification, since sex workers are not a monolith by any means; even to break down the category of sex workers further and argue that, for instance, escorts in London have a particular sartorial style would be wrong, because they’re all individual human beings with individual aesthetics.

That being said, there are some stylistic elements that are often associated with sex workers in the popular imagination, whether or not these associations are accurate. Some of these come from Hollywood depictions (think Vivian’s thigh-high black leather boots in Pretty Woman) and some come from actual sex workers (such as the pops of red and pink often found in the looks of MF Akynos, founder of the Black Sex Worker Collective). Leather, leopard print, sky-high heels, and fishnets are just some of the stylistic elements commonly associated with sex workers, though of course one’s outfit selections will depend largely on geographic location, weather, the type(s) of sex work being performed, any safety concerns that may limit style choices (including the likelihood of being targeted by police), the type of clientele one is likely to have, and other such factors.

When I did online sex work of various sorts and was briefly a sugar baby, I enjoyed reflecting on the aesthetic legacies of sex workers, and incorporating elements into my look that I associated with them in order to subtly reference those who came before. Obviously these looks can be incredibly powerful and sexy, and they – like sex work itself – have a fascinating history.

Sundresses have come to be discussed as symbols of sexuality in and of themselves over the past few years; “getting railed in a sundress” has become a widespread idea and many women-attracted and/or femme-attracted people rejoice about the start of “sundress season” each year.

If kinky and sex work-influenced aesthetics are conceptually based around transgression, danger, and perversion, I think there’s a certain variety of sundress sexiness that is more about (the illusion of) innocence, inexperience, and immaturity. I don’t mean the fetishization of actual children, which is of course not okay, but rather the fetishization of a certain play-acted naïveté that is seen as feminine, youthful, and fun, but still quite adult in its manifestation.

The vibe, to my mind, is “getting fucked at a picnic,” or maybe “what if the Garden of Eden was a porn scene.” Pretty ideal aesthetic, if you ask me.

 

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