How-To

10 Ways to Make a Blowjob Kinky

Kate Sloan

Blowjobs are gleefully discussed and pontificated upon in all sorts of vanilla sex media, from Cosmopolitan to the Sunday Night Sex Show. However, that doesn’t mean they’re a strictly vanilla activity. Like most sex acts, BJs are as kinky as you choose to make them.

That said, sometimes kinkifying a sexual activity is easier said than done… so here are 10 suggestions for ways to infuse a little D/s or fetishistic fun into your next blowjob. (And to be clear, these work just as well for strap-on BJs as they do for sucking bio-cock!)

1. Dirty talk. This is one of the easiest ways to bring a kinky narrative into your blowjob. As the giver, whenever your mouth isn’t full, you can talk about how good your partner’s cock tastes, what a desperate slut you are for them, how much you enjoy serving them (or controlling them), and so on. As the receiver, you can spin stories about the purpose of the blowjob (is it a punishment? a privilege?) and who you imagine your partner to be in relation to you (your good girl/boy? your tormentor? your slave?). A raunchy monologue or dialogue is a fantastic way to keep your erotic imagination as engaged as your body is.

2. Hair-pulling. Sharply tugging someone’s hair at the root will certainly get their attention, and may also enable you to guide their head where you want it. It adds elements of sadomasochism and control to your blowjob, without a ton of effort required.

3. Distraction play. It’s tons of fun to use your mouth to try to distract someone from a task, like writing, playing piano, or reading aloud from a book. (“Hysterical Literature,” anyone?) Some people like to do this in riskier situations, like while the receiver is on a business phone call, but I think that crosses into “involving non-consenting parties in your play” territory. You can certainly pretend to do that, though!

4. Sensory deprivation. It’s even easier to focus on the sensations in your mouth when your other senses are limited in some way. This may involve a blindfold, noise-canceling headphones, or both. As an added benefit, this may be particularly relaxing for receivers who are insecure about how they look or sound while being sucked off.

5. Bondage. Try cuffing the giver’s hands together behind their back; it makes a blowjob instantly kinkier and more difficult. You could also try strapping them to a bed and fucking their face, if they’re into that (see below), though that’s an advanced-level move that should only be undertaken by confident experts! As for the receiver, they can be immobilized in various fun ways too, with cuffs or rope, making them helpless and unable to do anything but feel the sensations being bestowed upon them.

6. Deepthroating. This nifty move is a staple of the blowjob porn genre, and for good reason: it’s a dramatic, impressive party trick that can also feel really good, so I’m told. Depending on the dynamics at play, deepthroating someone’s cock could either be a submissive act of service, designed to please them by taking them as deep as you physically can, or an act of dominance through mastery, controlling them by giving them pleasure with your sheer competence. Either way, it’s a fun skill to learn and practice. Check out these “7 Essential Tips to Help You Deep Throat Without Gagging” for more on this.

7. Facefucking. Once you’ve mastered the art of deepthroating, you may be able to take things even further by getting your face fucked. This act can look violent and scary from the outside, but then, so can a lot of kinks. Always start slow, and make sure the two of you agree in advance on a “safe-signal”: a gesture or action the “facefuckee” can do if they need the “facefucker” to stop immediately. Some common options include tapping or slapping your partner’s thigh, shaking your head back and forth repeatedly, or dropping a small object you’ve been holding.

8. Roleplay. There are all sorts of different characters and archetypes you could project onto a blowjob to make it more illicit and hot. The roleplay can last the length of the BJ, or it could be a whole extended scene that culminates in oral sex. In either case, playing a role can help both partners release their inhibitions and find new ways to enjoy this tried-and-true sex act. Some popular relationships to roleplay include teacher/student, doctor/patient (or doctor/nurse), boss/secretary, masseuse/client, and sex worker/client – but you can be as creative and original as you like!

9. Hypnosis. This requires a special skillset, of course, but it’s not as hard to learn as you might think – pick up a copy of Mark Wiseman’s book Mind Play and you’ll soon be equipped to start hypnotizing people in sexy and consent-conscious ways. You could trance a BJ-giver into having a more sexually sensitive tongue or throat, being totally focused on the service task they’re performing, or becoming more and more deeply mesmerized the deeper they take the cock into their mouth. Likewise, you could give the BJ-receiver suggestions that’ll make them feel pleasure more strongly, feel as if they’ve been cuffed to the bed, or sink deeper into trance with every wet stroke of their dick. Hypnokink is magic!

10. Cock-slapping. This always makes me laugh in porn, but when it’s actually happening to you, it can be surprisingly intense! To be clear, I mean the kind of cock-slapping where the BJ-receiver grabs their dick and smacks it against the cheek/lips/face of the person sucking them off – which is delightfully rough and degrading – but you could also actually slap a cock in between oral interludes, if the receiver is into that. For certain kinksters, intermingling pleasure with pain is the fastest route to arousal!

What are your favorite ways to add some kinky flair to a blowjob?

 

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

10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Pegging

Kate Sloan

The sex act known as pegging is most often written about, in my experience, by two groups of people: vanilla straight people advising other vanilla straight people on how to do it, and, uh, Dan Savage.

Needless to say, this means that a lot of pegging-related media doesn’t provide a full picture of what pegging actually entails and what can make it hot. So here I am, harnessing (ha!) all my queer, kinky experiences with this act to tell you some stuff I wish I’d known before I ever strapped a dick onto me and pushed it inside a butt. Gather round!

1. Lube, lube everywhere. This should be obvious to anyone who’s ever done any kind of anal play, but, you know, a lot of couples attempting pegging for the first time probably never have! You should drizzle a good, butt-friendly lube all over the dildo you’re using, as well as on the outside of the ass you’ll be penetrating. You really can’t overdo it with lube in this case. Go hard or go home!

2. Positioning aids are your friends. Don’t be a hero: it’s okay to accept help with pegging, even if that help comes from a piece of foam meant to elevate the receptive partner’s ass. My Liberator Jaz is my favorite tool for this; slid underneath my partner’s hips before penetration, it makes insertion a whole lot easier and seems to improve contact between my dildo and their prostate. Plus the outer lining can be zipped off and laundered, always a plus for lube-heavy, potentially messy sex acts.

3. It’s okay to be particular about your cock. Why does queer and trans media know and accept that it’s okay to be picky about which strap-on dicks you’ll use, but so much cis-hetero media describes your choice of strap-on as a logistical consideration more than an important personal decision? Answer: because LGBTQ+ folks are typically more used to using “accessories” during sex, to make the experience both physically and emotionally better, so we have more opinions on said accessories. Anyway, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender, if you’ll be wearing a strap-on, you deserve one that makes you feel great – gender-wise, aesthetics-wise, and otherwise-wise. My cock of choice is a glittery Godemiche Ambit and it makes me happy every time I strap it on.

4. Your choice of harness matters. Again: you are allowed to want to customize your setup; you don’t just have to grab the first velcro-strap harness kit you spot at the sex shop! Obviously there may be financial reasons you’d want to go with something simple, but that doesn’t mean you have to pick an ugly harness that you hate, in the name of practicality. You should feel hot in your harness! My Aslan Jaguar is easy to put on and take off, and it makes me feel (and look) gorgeous.

5. Try on your setup before the crucial moment. Much like I would never advise a teenage boy to try condoms for the first time right before having sex (YIKES), I would strongly suggest you get your harness and dildo properly configured long before you’ll be using them to fuck someone. “Show time” has the potential to be awkward enough already without you struggling to get your leg through the straps and your dildo right-side-up! Try getting into and out of your setup a few times so you know exactly how to do it, and maybe have your preferred dildo already in the harness for faster assembly. You and your partner will thank me!

6. Be careful and pay attention. If you’ve never done anal play before, then I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing this, but: a butt is far more delicate than a vag, so you have to fuck it a bit differently. Certainly don’t just ram it in there. Go slower than you think you need to, watch your partner’s face closely, and ask them a lot of questions for guidance. You might be able to thrust with wild abandon once they’re used to the sensation and you’ve got enough lube in the mix, but for the most part, assume you should slow your roll.

7. “Strap-on sex” is a more inclusive term. What even is “pegging,” anyway? Much like “guyliner,” it’s a term adopted by the cis-het community to soothe toxic concerns about the “unmanliness” of things traditionally understood to be for women and/or queer people. Besides which, the term “pegging” was coined to refer to a woman fucking a man with a strap-on, and that may be a limiting word if you or your partner don’t fit neatly into those gender categories. It’s okay to call it “strap-on sex” – and once you do, you might open yourself up to even more sexual possibilities. (There’s far more you can do with a strapped-on cock than just stick it in an ass!)

8. Non-physical types of pleasure are perfectly valid. Based on the influx of “couples’ vibes” and vibrating strap-on accoutrements, it seems like straight cis people are overly hung up on the idea of both partners receiving pleasure at the same time. Queer folks, by contrast, are often used to “taking turns” during sex, in my experience. While there are a whole lotta bells and whistles you could add to your strap-on setup to make it more pleasurable for the wearer (e.g. a bullet vibe tucked behind the dildo, or a ridged base that rubs against you with every thrust), sometimes it’s also fun to just embrace that a particular sex act won’t be directly pleasurable for you, and that’s okay. After all, your partner can get you off at a different point in the sex session, and taking the emphasis off your own junk will help you focus better on fucking your partner well. And that is its own type of pleasure.

9. It’s not humiliating (unless you want it to be). Pegging is too often depicted (especially in straight porn) as a man submitting to a woman’s will by “letting” her fuck him. It’s often presented as humiliating, emasculating, and painful. Now, I’m extremely perverted and am certainly not going to deny you your kinky dynamic if that makes sex more fun for you, but I want you to know that power play doesn’t have to be a part of your pegging sesh. Things can be totally vanilla and equitable between the two of you – or the receptive partner can even be the dominant one in the scene, as I’ve learned when dommy partners have tugged on my leash to force me to fuck them harder. That said, if “submissive bottom” and “dominant top” is truly your dynamic of choice when it comes to pegging, go right ahead and make that happen!

10. It can be super romantic. I’ve honestly found few sex acts as intimate and connective as pegging. Needing to focus that closely on my partner really points out to me how cute and hot they are, and the trust they put in me by letting me fuck them is an incredible compliment. Though some people wax poetic about “lovemaking” in more traditional forms like penis-in-vagina sex, I’ve felt that gooey emotional closeness more often during pegging than during PIV!

What do you wish someone had told you about pegging before you did it?

11 Ideas for D/s Writing Assignments

Kate Sloan

I’m a writer, an overachiever, and a submissive, so of course I love when my dominant gives me writing assignments. They feel like a task at which I can tangibly succeed – plus, unlike with many other types of scenes, I’ll have the evidence forever if I want to look back at it. Writing tasks have become a major (and majorly satisfying) part of my dynamic with my partner.

That said, we weren’t always as amazing as we are now at coming up with these assignments – so I’ve put together this list you can refer to if you’re similarly strapped for ideas. How many of these have you tried?

Describe a fantasy

This can be one of the most deeply embarrassing things to have to write as a submissive (depending on what type of person you are), so of course, it’s a favorite with dominants! It’s one of the sexiest and most tangible ways for a dominant to gather information about what a submissive wants, making it a highly useful tool in a D/s dynamic. The sub can make lists of their fantasies, write one out as a short erotica story, or use any other framing the dominant desires. This is a great way to unearth some unexplored desires or just expound on some desires you already know you have.

Recap a past encounter

IMO, it’s always fun to hear about sex you’ve had from the other person’s perspective. You get to find out which parts they particularly liked, what turned them on, what they want more of. The sub could write out the events of a past scene, erotica-style, or they could list some favorite past scenes and explain why they enjoyed them so much. You could even do this assignment as a collaborative task, with each of you filling in details of the session as you remember them.

Keep a journal

Some dominants require that their subs keep some kind of diary for them. This could be all-sexy-all-the-time, like a daily log of masturbation or fantasies, but it could also be geared toward making positive changes in the sub’s day-to-day life: they could be required to log their food or exercise if that’s an issue for them (tread carefully!!), keep tabs on the ups and downs of their moods and the factors that influenced them, or make a note every time they do something nice for themselves. Becoming more aware of your patterns is the first step in changing them, and a D/s writing assignment can be a lovely way to achieve that.

Summarize a book

I don’t know about you, but the books I was required to write about when I was in school are the ones that have stuck with me the most. It’s a good way to make information stick in your head. A dominant could assign their submissive a book about kink, sex, relationships, or anything else they want to learn more about, and the submissive could write up a classic essay-style book report, a bullet-point list of things they learned, or any other type of book review the two agree on. (Shout-out to Sinclair and rife for initially introducing me to this idea!)

Keep a to-do list

My partner and I have done this for nearly a year now (wow!) and it’s served us very well. My daily to-do list is kept in a note which I’ve shared with them via the Apple Notes app, which syncs across all our various devices. Particularly in a long-distance relationship, it’s a lovely way to maintain a feeling of connection to each other and involvement in each other’s everyday lives. My dominant can keep tabs on me, see how I’m doing with my tasks, and reward or motivate me accordingly.

Craft an instruction manual

Remember the time my partner made me write directions for giving me multiple orgasms as though I were a literal toy? That was one of the first tasks they assigned me, and it’s still one of my favorites. Especially early in a relationship, the sub might know their body and mind better than their dom does, and requiring them to write an instruction manual is one way to ascertain that information from them without breaking role. They could provide directions for physical skills, like how to give them a nipple orgasm or how to spank them properly, or for more mental/emotional skills, like how to comfort them when they’re depressed or how to best help them relax when life gets stressful.

Research a skill

There may be times in a D/s dynamic when either the submissive or the dominant wants to learn or improve upon a skill, in order to better serve/please their partner. These could be kinky skills, like flogging or bootblacking, or they could be “vanilla” skills, like cooking or cleaning. Either way, it’s fun to have the submissive research the skill and write up their key findings, perhaps including a list of links to more detailed information. (KinkAcademy remains the best place to learn a new BDSM skill, BTW!)

Write lines

While traditionally understood as a punishment, making a submissive write out the same sentence over and over can also be a process of edification and improvement if you approach it that way. For example, if your submissive is chronically self-critical, you could make her write “I am a good, kind, talented, and useful girl” 50 times. That said, it can also be a punishment, as I learned the time I forgot to wear my collar when specifically instructed to and had to write lines and mail the page to my partner as proof. Ooh, how mean!

Help the dominant

My dominant has sometimes required me to put together a report specifically designed to assist them with something – like the time I made some recommendations for androgynous clothing items when they were midway through coming out as non-binary, or the time they asked me to recommend some fragrances I thought they’d like. This is a fun way for a dominant to feel served and catered to, while making their submissive feel useful and needed.

Write a love letter

Love letters are romantic and bonding, and they also help create a tangible record of your romance. I think more people (including vanilla people!) should write love letters, because it’s good for your relationship – and in D/s, you can make this mandatory!

Collaborate creatively

Some of my most satisfying moments with my partner have happened while we’ve been collaborating on something: a song, a podcast, a book. You could do this in-person on paper, or online via the multitude of cloud-based writing tools available, like Google Docs or Evernote. Try retelling the story of your first date together or writing a collaborative poem about your relationship, for example.

 

What are your favorite writing-based tasks you’ve assigned or been assigned in a D/s dynamic?

How to Look Like a Sex Doll

Kate Sloan

Being a sex doll is a recurrent fantasy for me. It’s hard to say whether I would actually like it – I haven’t tried pretending to be a doll in a scene yet – but it definitely holds some appeal. Being blank-brained and helpless while someone (consensually) handles and uses my body for their pleasure? Yes please.

That said, it’s possible a large part of my excitement about this fantasy really centers on the beauty and fashion aspects of it. What can I say; I’m a femme! I pored over the beautiful babes on Joy Love Dolls to figure out the best ways to make yourself look like a sex doll, if that’s something you want to do for kink reasons or just for fun, and here’s what I came up with…

Preparation

While obviously it’s not required for fulfilling this fantasy, because you and your partner can both suspend your disbelief a little, it could be fun to shave or wax large swathes of your body to play the role of a sex doll. They’re almost always hairless from the neck down, after all. Afterward, exfoliate the hell out of everything, with a body scrub or a dry brush, and then moisturize. That way your skin will be as smooth and uniform as it can be.

The skin on your face could use some love, too. A scrubby clay mask (like the rose clay mask from Origins) would be my go-to if I was prepping for a dollification scene, because it’ll gently exfoliate your skin while pulling some of the gunk out of your pores, leaving a smoother surface that’ll look slightly more like TPE or whatever sex dolls are made of. Don’t forget to moisturize!

Makeup

When sex doll designers aren’t opting for the youthful “natural look” (which, let’s face it, is boring for the purposes of this article), they tend to give their dolls lots and lots of eyeliner. You can smudge it for a sexy, rock-star vibe, or keep it precise if you prefer. It’s usually black or dark brown and goes all the way around the eye, sometimes with a winged flick at the outer corner. This serves to emphasize the eyes, one of a sex doll’s most prominent facial features. If you want to make your eyes look extra big and wide, you could run a white or pale skin-colored eyeliner pencil over your waterline (though I, admittedly, am too squeamish to do this because it feels like sticking an eyeliner pencil directly into my eye). Lots of mascara is also crucial.

As for the mouth: sex dolls usually have big, full, pouting lips. You can use mildly lip-irritating plumpers like Lip Venom to achieve this effect, or you can fake it by blending a lighter-colored lipstick onto the center of your lips on top of whatever other lipstick you’re using. This creates the illusion of fuller lips and is famously a trick that Marilyn Monroe’s makeup artist used on her (and if she isn’t an aspirational icon for sex dolls everywhere, then who is?!). Many sex dolls wear a lipstick shade that’s fairly natural and low-key, but you could also go with a bright pink or purple if you want to be bolder. In any case, a shiny gloss on top is a must.

The rest of your face is less important than those two major features, but you can still increase your “dollishness” quotient by doing a full face of foundation and concealer to even out your skin tone so it looks vaguely plasticky. Make sure to set these products with powder – sex dolls’ skin is almost always matte. Some subtle, well-blended blush on the apples of your cheeks completes the look.

A note for all the makeup you choose: assuming you’re not pursuing a smudgy look for kink reasons (some people love to see mascara streaks on a teary-eyed submissive’s cheeks, for example), you should choose products that are waterproof and rated well for longevity. (Look at reviews on the Sephora website or MakeupAlley for this.) Dolls’ makeup is firmly painted on and unlikely to flake or smear, so yours should be, too!

Hair

If you only need to look like a sex doll (say, for photos) and don’t plan on being touched/fucked/manhandled like one, a wig is the obvious route to take. Long blonde hair is a popular choice, but there are a million wig options out there waiting to be explored.

If, however, you plan on being “used” when you’re a doll, a wig probably won’t cut it, because your “user” might want to pull your hair. Wear your real hair down, or in pigtails if it’s long enough; those are the two easiest styles to pull on. (Securing the pigtails with cute, colorful hair ties is a nice touch, particularly if you’re going for a youthful look.)

Clothes

It goes without saying that most sex dolls are probably mostly naked most of the time. That’s fine if your dollification scene will be limited to your bedroom, but if you plan on going out first (or even starting the scene with some kind of seduction/warm-up), you’ll probably want to be wearing something.

Some popular choices for sex-doll clothes include shiny bikinis, tight cropped T-shirts, miniskirts, tiny shorts, matching lingerie sets, and low-cut form-fitting dresses. It’s best to wear something that another person could easily remove from your body without your cooperation, since you might want to remain perfectly still as part of the fun of a dollification scene. So, tight jeans and restrictive dresses are probably a no-go, unless your partner wants a challenge!

Most sex dolls are remarkably busty. If you want to beef up your boobs (so to speak), you could wear a padded bra under whatever else you’re wearing. By the same token, some shapewear can help give you the hourglassy shape sex dolls are known for, but it can be hard to remove and doesn’t always look sexy once all your other layers of clothing have come off, so keep that in mind when selecting your ensemble.

A lot of sex dolls are barefoot, but if your partner likes heels, boots, or some other specific type of footwear, you might as well give it a shot. Knee-high or thigh-high socks can also amp up a playful, girlish aesthetic if that’s what you’re going for.

Facial expression and behavior

The way you act and move when you’re in sex-doll mode really depends on what you’re hoping to get out of your scene, but generally, you’re probably gonna wanna be blank-faced and stationary. Practice letting your eyes “zone out” the way they do when you stare out the window of a moving vehicle, say, or when your mind wanders while you’re standing in line somewhere. (Not to be too much of a hypnokink evangelical, but staring at a gif of a spiral can help you unfocus your eyes in the sexy, mindless way we’re talking about.) You don’t wanna look bored, so keep your eyes open wide for the most part, but just soften your gaze a little.

As for the rest of your body, traditionally sex dolls are rigid and posable. Your partner doesn’t have to manipulate your whole body weight every time they want to move you around – you can agree beforehand that you’ll help them out when they move you, so long as it doesn’t ruin the illusion for either of you.

 

How would you attire yourself if you planned on doing a dollification scene? Or, alternatively: if you were going to fuck someone who was pretending to be a sex doll, what would you want them to look like?

 

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

2 Psychological Tricks For Conquering Hard Feelings in Polyamory

Kate Sloan

I’m a psychology nerd. I minored in psych at university, and have seen various therapists over the course of my life to help pick apart my tangled psyche. After all this exploration, two of my favorite psychological frameworks are dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.

I’ve found these methodologies especially useful in dealing with difficult polyamory-related emotions lately, so I thought I’d write a bit about the two key strategies I use when those feelings rear their head.

Emotion regulation through opposite action

DBT teaches us that when you’re feeling an emotion that’s irrational (i.e. it doesn’t fit the facts of the situation you’re in), you should do the opposite of whatever that emotion is telling you to do.

I find this helpful in polyamory because my most difficult poly feelings are, frankly, irrational. Fears that my partner will leave me for someone else, that him dating someone else means I’m unattractive, or that I’m being rejected – these all go against the higher-level decision I’ve made to be polyamorous, based on my ethics and ideas about relationships. These fears are holdovers from the monogamous culture I was raised in, and they neither make sense nor serve me now that I’m practicing polyamory. So it’s often helpful to do the opposite of what the irrational feelings are telling me to do.

Some examples:

  • When my partner is out on a date with someone else, a feeling of betrayal or rejection might come up, and it might make me want to push him away or say something mean to him. I could do the opposite action by writing him a love letter to show him later, mentally reviewing some of my most romantic memories with him, or texting to say “Have a good time!”
  • When my partner is infatuated with someone new, it might make me feel rejected and alone, especially if I’m not dating anyone else at the time. The emotion might tell me to self-isolate, stay home, and cry – so I can do the opposite action by making plans with friends, taking myself out to a restaurant, or watching a stand-up comedy special on Netflix.
  • When hanging out with a metamour, I might feel inferior or anxious, and it might make me want to avoid interacting with them. I can do the opposite action by striking up a conversation with them, being nice to them, and looking for their likeable qualities.

These “opposite actions” can often feel totally artificial, and it can seem counterproductive to do the opposite of what an emotion is telling you to do, without actually dealing with the emotion. But in my experience, a “fake it til you make it” approach can actually be really helpful with these types of feelings. If I find that being nice to my partner when I feel rejected creates an equally good or better result than not being nice, I’ll be likelier to want to be nice to him the next time that feeling comes up. It’s a way of teaching my brain the appropriate responses to these situations, and learning to trust that positive and proactive action is good for me.

Refuting your own thoughts

CBT offers us the technique of making “thought records”: you write down a situation to which you had a strong reaction, identify the emotion(s) it triggered, determine the thoughts or beliefs you have that are related to that emotion, and then look for evidence for or against those emotionally-charged thoughts or beliefs.

You don’t have to actually write out a worksheet every time if you don’t want to; you can do an abridged version of this process mentally. When I have a strong, irrational feeling, I look for the thoughts and beliefs supporting that feeling, and look for evidence for or against those beliefs. There’s always more evidence against them, because they’re irrational.

Some examples:

  • If my partner is on a date with someone else and I get sad and scared that he’s going to leave me for that person, I can review text screenshots, love letters, etc. to remind myself that he’s committed to me for the long haul. (It’s often helpful to collect these positive reminders in one place, like a box on your desk or a folder on your phone, so you can look at them when you need them.)
  • If I’m worried that my partner’s new crush means he’s not attracted to me (or has perhaps never been attracted to me), I can review old messages that dispute this, look at my sex spreadsheet to see all the times we’ve fucked, and mentally revisit the look in his eyes when he sees me naked.
  • If I’m worried that my partner’s new relationship will prevent him from spending enough time with me, I can remind myself of other times he’s juggled multiple relationships before and how well he did it. I can also reach out to gather evidence against this belief directly from him (e.g. “Can you promise me we’ll still have at least 2 dates a week?”).

If you encounter evidence supporting your irrational belief (e.g. “A partner left me for someone else in my previous relationship”; “My partner has seemed less attracted to me lately”), I would strongly recommend bringing up that stuff with your partner(s) so they can offer some kind of refutation or explanation. It will put your mind at ease and is much better than obsessively ruminating on these thoughts by yourself.

Do you use CBT and/or DBT skills to support your relationship(s)? I’d love to hear about it!