Author: Kate Sloan

Review: Bestvibe Smart Little Sweet Tongue

Kate Sloan

Probably the thing I miss most about my spouse when they’re in New York and I’m in Toronto – apart from their sparkling wit, radiant kindness, comforting cuddles, and gorgeous face – is the way they go down on me. They certainly rank among the most skilled cunnilinguists in my sexual history, and as you may know, people with that skillset often seem to be few and far between.

So I do quite a bit of fantasizin’ about oral sex when I’m jerking off, which means I extra-appreciate toys that focus on clitoral stimulation in a way meant to evoke the human mouth. Obviously, then, my curiosity was piqued when I saw the Smart Little Sweet Tongue vibrator on Bestvibe’s website. Let’s talk about it.

 

What is the Bestvibe Smart Little Sweet Tongue?

Okay, as per usual for Bestvibe, this toy has a different name in its instruction manual than it does on the company website. The website has it listed as “Bestvibe Pink Tongue Teasing with G Spot Vibrator” [sic] and I am just not going to call it that. Elsewhere I’ve seen it called the Smart Little Sweet Tongue or simply the Sweet Tongue, which is at least a bit more memorable, if not more arousing.

The Sweet Tongue is, in fact, a tongue. It has a textured silicone body made to resemble a human tongue as closely as possible, and there’s a rose gold ABS plastic endcap on the handle side that makes it clear it’s a sex toy and not just a gag gift from the Halloween store.

It has three functions: licking, vibrating, and heating. It is rechargeable and water-resistant (I’ll get into what exactly that means below). On the Bestvibe.co.uk website (which is the one that sent me this product to review), the Sweet Tongue is listed at a regular price of £39.99 (about $47 USD or $65 CAD) and is currently on sale for £23.99 (about $28 USD or $39 CAD).

 

Things I like about this toy

  • As far as oral sex simulators go, this one is actually decent. A common problem with these tongue-like toys is that they usually either go way too slow, boring my clit into oblivion, or way too fast, battering my clit into numbness. But this toy is different. The tip of the tongue, as well as about one-third of the rest of the tongue, wiggles up and down in a way that is actually quite like a human tongue when someone finds exactly the right spot and keeps lapping away at it. When properly lubed, it feels really good (especially since I can reposition it as needed, as described below). The fact that the tongue’s tip is made of squishy, bendy silicone helps a lot with the realism of the sensation, as does the tastebud-esque texture on the toy. Like real licking, the sensation may not impress you much if you’re not all that sensitive and/or if you use powerful vibrators on the regs (which isn’t a judgment, by the way – I’m not always as sensitive as I’d like to be, and I’m also, obviously, a frequent vibrator user). But, on that note, if you’re accustomed to vibrators but want to learn to get off in a way that a human being could replicate sans technology, using a toy like this might be a good middle ground.
  • Even with my hand pain and muscle strength limitations, I find it easy to position and reposition this toy as needed to get it where I want it. As with real oral sex, I don’t tend to like being licked in the same exact spot for the entire duration of a session; my clitoral hood, the sides of my clit, and the tip of it are all differently-sensitive spots with different needs and preferences, depending on where I’m at in my arousal cycle. I love how easy it is to put this vibe right where it feels the best and then move on to another area when I want that.
  • The heating function is cool (uh, pun not intended, but we’re gonna run with it). It makes sense that a toy meant to emulate the human mouth, notably a warm place, would have this feature. The heating is unfortunately focused more toward the center of the toy, rather than at the tip of the tongue where you’d generally be able to feel it more, but it partially translates to the tip and can help with arousal, realism, and comfort.
  • For the most part, the licking function barely slows down when I press the toy more firmly against my body. This allows me to adjust the amount of pressure it’s exerting at any given moment, and widens the variety of sensations that this toy can produce.
  • The price of the toy is affordable; as I mentioned, it’s currently £23.99 (about $28 USD or $39 CAD), which is not a ridiculous amount of money to access an interesting sensation that may be new to you.

 

Things I don’t like about this toy

  • Look, I’m just gonna say it: disembodied tongues aren’t very arousing for me, it turns out. I can’t look at this one for too long or I start thinking about the last true-crime miniseries I watched, y’know? Also the fact that there are VEINS on the tongue’s underside seems… excessive. I’m sure some people would enjoy the texture of them, but I’m not sure that’s worth the horror of seeing them. (Thankfully though, they’ll generally be facing away from you during use.)
  • As with most oral-adjacent toys, this one requires a lot of (water-based) lube to feel its best. This is not an issue for me since I’m perpetually swimming in bottles of lube (seriously, there are over a dozen by my bed right now) but it’s worth considering, especially if your lube budget is limited.
  • Why oh why do so many sex toy companies try to cram multiple functions and settings into one or two buttons?! It’s very annoying. This toy has two buttons, one with a tongue on it and one with a vibrations symbol on it. You hold down the vibrations button for a few seconds to turn the toy on, at which point it’s in standby mode. From there, you cycle through licking modes and vibration modes by pressing each of their buttons, respectively, and you activate the heating mode by quickly double-pressing the tongue button. You can turn off either function by long-pressing its button. This all feels needlessly complicated and the distraction of dealing with controls can sometimes sour any arousal I’ve managed to build.
  • There are only three modes of steady licking and three steady vibration modes, after which both functions have a bunch of patterns (which, of course, you have to cycle through if you want to get back to the steady modes). Three speeds is just not enough. I am always left wishing there were a few more.
  • On that note, the amount of power this toy has – both licking-wise and vibration-wise – leaves something to be desired. It truly works well as a warm-up toy for building arousal, but the stimulation is just not enough to get me off, even with the vibration and licking both turned up to their max speeds.
  • You have to keep a decently firm grip on the toy’s handle while using the licking function; otherwise, due to how physics work, the handle will start moving up and down in your hand when it should be the tongue tip that’s moving. I mostly managed fine by bracing my arm against my thigh, but if you have profound hand strength issues, you might find this toy difficult to use. Possibly you could anchor it in place (say, between your body and the bed, or between two firm objects) and use it hands-free that way.
  • The vibrations are very “meh.” They’re buzzy and not very strong. Certainly they might be enough to push you over the edge if the licking function has gotten you close and you just need a little extra stimulation, but for me, they weren’t enough to get me off even in combination with the licking.
  • It’s loud. Both the vibration and the licking make a pretty loud mechanical noise that can be distracting. I enjoyed watching cunnilingus porn while using this toy but often found it hard to hear the porn over the toy’s repetitive robotic whine.
  • It’s IPX5 water-resistant. This means, according to the IPX Waterproof Rating Guide, that it is “protected against [a] low-pressure water stream from any angle” but should not be submerged in water. This is probably fine for most people’s purposes – it won’t be an issue to use it in the shower or to wash it in the sink – but is worth noting if you were hoping to use this toy in the bath or similar.
  • The silicone is particularly prone to picking up lint, hairs, etc. which is kind of unappetizing to see on a tongue.
  • Bestvibe’s website says that this toy is also a G-spot vibrator and I would beg to differ. Like, yeah, you can shove it inside yourself and try to get it to lick or vibrate your G-spot, but it doesn’t have the firmness, girth, or deep curve that would generally make that pleasurable.

Final thoughts

While I have a lot of issues with the Bestvibe Sweet Tongue, I actually think it’s pretty damn good for its price point, if you view it as purely a mechanical tongue. The vibrations are bad-to-middling and so I wouldn’t factor them into your decision to buy this toy or not; it all comes down to the licking. Do you want a soft silicone tongue to flick against your clit (or another body part of your choosing) in a manner that is steady, gentle or firm (depending on how much pressure you apply), and rhythmically consistent? Then you should give this toy a shot, and throw some water-based lube into your cart while you’re at it, ’cause you’re gonna need a lot.

But since this toy wasn’t powerful enough to get me off, I doubt I’ll return to it unless I really want to tease and arouse myself with the sensation of a tongue that’s almost-but-not-quite enough for me.

 

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

Using a Sex Doll With a Partner is Underrated

Kate Sloan

It’s interesting, the narratives that evolve around particular sex toys. A woman who likes big realistic dildos, for instance, will often be assumed to like big dicks too, even if that’s not the case. A man who uses an anal vibrator can easily elicit comments about how he’s probably gay, even though anyone with a lick of sense knows that butts have no sexual orientation. And similarly, if you poll the public about what type of person owns a sex doll, odds are good that they’d tell you it’s single and (involuntarily?) celibate people who own them.

It’s true that sex dolls tend to be big investments – Best Real Doll has offerings ranging from $80 to $2,199 – and one could make the argument that a person is likelier to make that type of investment if they’re highly motivated by, say, horniness or loneliness or a combination thereof. But as anyone who’s ever been in a relationship can tell you, being coupled up is not an automatic or everlasting cure for horniness or loneliness!

Not to mention – and this is what I’d really like to talk about today – using a sex doll with a partner (or with multiple partners!) can be fun as hell. Let me count the ways…

 

Scenario 1: Long-distance play

Most applicably to my own life as a person in a long-distance marriage, adult sex dolls can be wonderful toys for couples who are separated by distance, whether for the long-term or the short-term.

Masturbating for each other over FaceTime or Zoom is fun, but it doesn’t necessarily help you feel like you’re there in the room with your sweetheart, because, well… if you were, you’d probably be touching them, rather than them touching themself. Watching them use a sex doll, on the other hand? *chef’s kiss*

Seeing my partner do things like go down on their sex doll, or get on top of it and fuck it, is like seeing my own sex life with them represented from a different angle. It’s also a bit like watching amateur porn the two of us have made together, except I’m not even there. It’s great! Highly recommend!

Scenario 2: Cuckolding

Cuckold kink is having a bit of a moment in the popular consciousness right now. (There’s even a whole book about the history of cuckolding, called Insatiable Wives. The more you know!)

However, even people who fetishize being cucked (or doing the cucking) may not want to actually go through with it in real life, for various reasons. Maybe they’re worried about STIs or COVID safety; maybe they work in childcare, education or politics and are concerned about being outed if they scout for a third on the apps; maybe they just prefer to be monogamous IRL despite their profoundly non-monogamous fantasies. That’s all valid, and cuck fans in those situations deserve to be able to explore their kink nonetheless!

That’s where sex dolls come in. They pose way fewer problems than a human stranger in your bed, and they also conveniently can be stored under said bed when you’re done, which… is generally inadvisable with real-life people. (Unless they’re into that, in which case, mazel tov.)

 

Scenario 3: Voyeurism, exhibitionism and/or denial

Chastity play is a part of my dynamic with my partner, and I could see it being fun to ride a sex doll in front of them while they’re locked up, as a way of teasing them with what they can’t have.

But even if denial isn’t explicitly part of your play, it can be hot to give your partner a show. They can “look but don’t touch,” like at a strip club, or they can get involved after a while if the spirit moves them. Sex-doll three-way, anyone?

 

Have you ever used a sex doll with a partner? Is it something you’d consider?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Safety: A Secret Ingredient of Arousal

Kate Sloan

I’ve been in this situation many times, and maybe you have too:

I’m ostensibly about to hook up with a person I find very attractive, both physically and emotionally. We’re kissing, groping, grinding, etc., and while I feel like I should be aroused, I’m just… not. It feels like staring at an equation that says “1 + 1 = 0” and trying to figure out how that can possibly be true.

More often than not, there’s a secret ingredient that’s missing. And that ingredient is a sense of safety.

 

As the sexologist Emily Nagoski has pointed out in much of her work, stress has a real, measurable impact on our libidos. It actually alters your ability to get aroused, both psychologically and physiologically.

This makes sense if you think about how evolution works. If pre-civilization humans could just keep on fuckin’, even while the threat of an imminent tiger attack loomed in their peripheral vision, they never would have survived long enough to make babies and carry on their genetic line. So, naturally, we evolved to treat cues of danger as more important inputs than just about anything else, including sexual desire.

 

However, in modern times, even in places where tiger attacks are rare-bordering-on-unheard-of, our stress responses can still get in the way of arousal. These responses can occur due to a vast number of stressful inputs, including stuff like:

  • Worrying about whether it’s safe to be naked in the bed of a person you just recently met
  • Worrying about whether you might accidentally get pregnant or contract an STI
  • Worrying that your sex noises or sex faces are unattractive
  • Having been sexually assaulted or harassed in the past and worrying it’ll happen again
  • Wondering whether your date thinks you’re a slut for hopping into bed with them
  • Not yet knowing whether your date cares about your pleasure and comfort

A lot of these types of worries fall disproportionately on the shoulders of women, especially women who date men, due to the rates of sexual assault and other forms of abuse being heavily skewed along gender lines. In my view, this is a huge part of why so many guys struggle with knowing how to make a girl wet; they may be modeling their understanding of her arousal on the way they view their own arousal, and so they may not realize how important these mental and emotional components of sex are to the people they sleep with, if those aspects are not as much of a make-or-break factor for their own arousal.

I find it interesting, though disheartening, that this circumstantial difference is often written off as “Women are just more emotional in general, and their libidos are fundamentally different from men’s!” I don’t think this is inherently true, but I think a lot of systemic factors have made it seem that way, and people have simplified it in order to understand it better.

 

In any case, regardless of the gender(s) of the people you have sex with, it’s worth keeping in mind that a sense of safety is probably a component of what helps them get aroused. You can cultivate a safer-feeling environment by doing things like:

  • Asking them about their day and making them feel listened to
  • Always respecting their sexual boundaries, no matter what
  • Being proactive about determining what their boundaries are, so you can respect them
  • Setting the scene with calming music, dim lighting, etc.
  • Holding space for them to discuss their sexual anxieties openly so you can assuage their fears and avoid their triggers
  • Helping with housework and other tasks that may be weighing on their mind before sex
  • Asking them what helps them relax and feel able to get aroused – it may be different than what you’d have guessed!

You can keep these strategies in mind when you’re struggling with arousal while you’re alone, too. What stressors are present, and how can you address them, at least enough to feel comfortable setting them aside for a while?

It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where so many people feel unsafe so much of the time, largely for structural reasons that would be lessened or nonexistent in a more just society. But we’ve gotta work within the system we’re stuck inside, for the most part – and sometimes that means giving your partner a backrub while telling them you’re there for them, so that they can feel safe enough to open up to you, sexually and otherwise.

 

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

How to Enjoy Giving Head More

Kate Sloan

I enjoy giving head – but this was not always the case. It took a lot of practice, self-reflection, and kindness (both from my partners and from myself) for me to find the aspects of giving oral sex that resonated with me, sexually and otherwise.

With that journey in mind, I thought I’d take this opportunity to distill some of my thoughts on how to give a blowjob you might actually enjoy, as a giver. (A lot of these tips probably apply to going down on someone with a vulva too, but BJs are definitely what I have the most experience with.)

Before we begin, though, it’s worth noting: If you don’t wanna give head, you don’t have to. Period. Anyone who makes you feel otherwise is not a safe person for you to be around, or at the very least, not compatible with you if giving oral is on your “hard limits” list. It’s absolutely fine to have that limit; as with any other measure of sexual (in)compatibility, it’s all about finding a partner or partners whose tastes and preferences line up decently well with your own.

Now, let’s get to it. Here are some things you can try, if you’re not the biggest fan of giving head, but want to be.

 

1. Identify the reason(s) you dislike it, and address those if possible.

Some examples:

  • Find that it always makes you gag? Do it more shallowly, tell your partner that thrusting into your mouth is strictly off-limits, and/or use a product like the Ohnut to keep the dick from going fully into your mouth.
  • Does giving head remind you of a traumatic experience from your past? If so, therapy may be warranted, if you’re able to afford/access it. There are other, at-home interventions that can be helpful in working through trauma for some people, like journaling or using a book such as Jay Earley’s Self-Therapy, but these are riskier and less effective than getting the help of a trauma-informed mental health professional.
  • Is your partner’s personal hygiene lacking? If so, can you have a chat with them about that, and/or give them head immediately after a shower or bath?
  • Do you find cum upsetting, for any reason? If so, your partner doesn’t need to orgasm in your mouth and can give you a warning when they’re about to come so you can finish them off with your hand, and have them come on your chest or elsewhere.

 

2. Find something you can find hot about it.

There are about a zillion ways to make a blowjob kinky, so if you’ve got kinks, you can probably “kinkify” oral.

If not, you might still enjoy aspects of oral, such as your partner’s moaning, or the pride of being complimented and praised during the act. Give some thought to what would be hottest for you and ask your partner about incorporating (more of) that.

 

3. Consider flavors and barriers.

If tastes and/or textures are the main problem for you, you might want to experiment with some workarounds, such as:

  • Flavored lube
  • Flavored lube on a condom
  • Flavored condoms
  • Regular ol’ condoms

A lot of these admittedly don’t taste as candy-like as one would hope – many are more in the neighborhood of “children’s cough syrup” – but if the taste of dick and/or cum is what’s getting in the way of your enjoyment, these might be enough to shift things for you nonetheless.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t switch to vaginal sex after using one of these products, at least not without switching to a different condom (or putting one on, if you weren’t using one before), because the sugars in flavored products can cause vaginal irritation/infections.

 

4. Add some sexy stimulation.

Arousal can make a big difference for many people. Some say it can even lessen your gag reflex. (I have definitely found this to be true.)

Get very turned on before going down, in whatever ways work best for you. You may even want some stimulation while you’re giving head, whether that’s using a vibrator, grinding against part of your partner’s body, or something else you enjoy.

 

5. Watch porn for inspiration.

But not just a narrow genre of mainstream porn. Watch various different performers giving head in various different styles.

This can be especially useful if you’ve internalized certain messaging about how, for example, giving oral is “degrading” or inherently submissive. When you see the broad range of ways people can look and act while sucking dick, you might understand better that you can create your own narratives of what giving head means and what it can look like and feel like.

 

Hope that helps! And remember: “No” is a complete sentence. And so is “I’d like to give you a handjob instead; pass the lube, please.”

 

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

Why “Amateur Porn” is My Fave Kind of Porn

Kate Sloan
An Instax photo taken of me in my twenties. BTW, if you want more like this, click here, here, and here. 😇

It took me a long time to start enjoying porn. I had already been masturbating and reading erotica (especially erotic fanfiction) for several years before porn became a regular part of my solo sex routine.

Up until then, it just… hadn’t really interested me. What little I’d seen of it, online or while flipping through TV channels late at night, had seemed ridiculous to me: over-the-top, unrealistic, melodramatically acted. I’d never had sex, so I didn’t know what sex was “really like,” but I knew that the images in those videos didn’t resonate with me (or my vagina) anywhere near as much as the flirty banter in a great fanfic story, or the frisson I felt when talking to a crush at school. If devising fantasies and replaying memories felt more exciting than watching porn, why bother watching it?

There were a few exceptions; I liked the punk-rock pinup pics on the website SuicideGirls, and I had watched that one notorious Nina Hartley cunnilingus tutorial so many times that it had eventually earned a place of honor on my iPod Video. (Now there’s a throwback!) But most porn, especially most straight porn, was off-putting to me. I just didn’t get it.

 

Eventually, though, I discovered amateur porn. In comparison to the slick overproduction of mainstream studio porn, these amateurs making sexy videos from their bedrooms or basements felt like a revelation. Their work turned me on, not just because their bodies and lives looked closer to my own, but because – what with so many amateur porn makers being real-life couples – they showed me a vision of what a future sex life could look like for me: intimate, fun, sometimes a little silly, and hot. Very hot.

I was always the type of anxious kid who would Google things like “how to know if someone wants to kiss you” and “what do dicks taste like?” so there was something calming about watching real couples have the kinds of sex they apparently regularly had, even when the cameras were off. They showed me that you didn’t have to be an industry professional to be “good at sex” and to be thought of as sexy. That comforted me.

I’ve also always been turned on by the idea of someone knowing your body so well that they can get you off easily and consistently; I eroticized the thought of being known that deeply. And there’s no better place to watch that fantasy unfold than in amateur porn, where performers are often intimately familiar with one another’s bodies and know all the right buttons to press. This seemed romantic to me, and helped me dream about the sexual futures I wanted for myself.

 

While “amateur porn” is still an extremely popular porn category, the term itself has evolved over time. Its popularity prompted many mainstream porn studios to adopt an “amateur” aesthetic in some of their work, hoping to draw in some viewers who (like me) had previously been unimpressed with big-studio porn.

Meanwhile, the internet continued evolving, eventually empowering some performers to attract bigger and bigger audiences and to use more powerful platforms to reach new people. Both then and now, it almost feels disingenuous to call some of these people “amateurs” when they may have as much industry knowledge as, if not more than, many performers for mainstream companies because they’ve always been responsible for doing their own lighting, filming, editing, etc.

Some purists might argue that the well-lit and well-marketed independent performers on OnlyFans, ManyVids, etc. aren’t amateurs in the true sense of the word, because their production values are too high or their videos are too pre-planned and performative. While it’s fine if you prefer the low-res, low-lit amateur videos of yore, I actually think it’s wonderful that video technology has become accessible enough that you don’t have to have big studio bucks to make porn that looks great. And I also know – particularly from talking to friends of mine in the industry – that just because something is “performed” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inauthentic. Some people find exhibitionism exciting, and so, in their videos, you may see performativity and authenticity blended together seamlessly into something gorgeous and hot.

 

Still to this day, it’s incredibly rare that I watch porn made by mainstream studios. Most of it just doesn’t interest me and doesn’t turn me on. I can’t relax and enjoy myself if I don’t feel that the performers on-screen are also relaxed and enjoying themselves, ideally with someone they like to fuck off-camera as well. And sure, that kind of thing can be found in some mainstream porn, but it’s much more readily available (and more believable to me) in the “amateur” category.

I want to feel like what I’m watching could plausibly happen in my bedroom, or my friends’ bedrooms. I want to feel the performers’ real flirtation and attraction and deep knowledge of one another’s bodies. I want real orgasms, real squirting, real giggles and real romance. And I want to pay creators directly (or as directly as possible) for what they’ve made, with no bigwig middle-man standing between us. I want to feel connected to the porn I watch, and to the people in it, almost as much as I feel connected to my actual sexual partners and my friends.

And so, I still love amateur porn, and probably always will – although I hope it’s eventually given a name more befitting of the immense work and expertise that can go into making real-life sex look real damn beautiful.

 

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