Musings – Page 12 – Girly Juice

4 Hot Roleplays You Can Do At Home

January 7, 2022January 7, 2022Kate Sloan

Being at home all the time can get pretty monotonous, and that monotony can start to show up in your sex life too. I don’t know about you, but when I think about “shaking things up” sexually, my mind goes to two places: kink, and roleplay. And since I’ve already written a lot about kink on this blog (and in a whole book!), today let’s focus on roleplay.

If you and your partner are stuck at home due to the pandemic and feeling trapped in a sexual rut, I’m here to help. Here are 4 suggestions for roleplays you can do at home – no COVID risk required.

First meeting, first hookup

It can be fun to revisit “firsts” with an established partner through the magic of roleplay, especially if things are feeling a little rote lately. Normally I’d recommend you meet up at a bar or restaurant and pretend you’re on a first date, or that you happen to strike up a conversation with a sexy “stranger” at the next table – but since that’s obviously not the safest activity at the moment, you can do a different version at home.

Imagine the two of you have been corresponding on a dating app for weeks, that your chemistry via texting or phone calls has been undeniable, and that both of you are vaxxed, self-isolating, and have recently tested negative. Imagine, then, that the conditions are finally perfect for you to meet in person for the first time, but that you’ve chosen to do so at one of your homes because it’s more secluded. Will you cuddle up on the couch for some “Netflix & chill,” or will you get right to the sexytimes? Will you seduce each other with slow foreplay or will you be so touch-hungry that you jump each other’s bones? No way to know until you try…

Massage therapy & sexual healing

Stress has a demonstrable, physiological effect on your ability to get aroused, so it can be really helpful to incorporate relaxing activities into sex, like exploring erotic massage with your partner. Why not combine that with a roleplay to make it extra hot?

I love the fantasy of a massage therapist getting so turned on by my body during a massage that they have to make a move on me… or vice versa: me getting so visibly turned on by their touch that they choose to take the massage in an erotic direction.

Have some pre-warmed massage oil on hand (I like one with a scent for this type of roleplay because it helps recreate the sensual environment of an actual fancy massage parlor), lay down a towel or Liberator Throe before you start to catch any drips, and have at it!

Exes reconnecting

Picture this: you have a super hot ex, with whom things ended for reasons that were purely circumstantial (e.g. they had to move across the country for work, or one of you didn’t have the mental and emotional bandwidth for a serious relationship at the time). During the pandemic, that ex reached out, ready to meet up, hang out, and see where things go. And now you’re both vaxxed and recently tested, and they’re sitting on your sofa, looking fixedly at you just the way they did when they were in love with you. What would you do?

I recently did a similar roleplay with my partner and it really helped me connect to feelings of desirability and romantic longing, which are both aphrodisiac emotions for me. Oh, the drama of it all!

Marvelous medical play

At some point last year, a hired nurse came to my apartment to swab my nose for a COVID test because I was going to be interviewed for a TV show in-studio soon, and I was surprised by the intimacy of the interaction: inviting a stranger into your home during a pandemic, making stilted small-talk, and sitting with them on the couch while they do a medical procedure on you. I think this could be a great jumping-off point for an at-home medical-play scene if you’re into that.

Obviously, you can make it a bit sexier than a COVID test. Maybe a doctor needs to examine your genitals to make sure they haven’t been affected by the loneliness of the pandemic, and to revitalize them if they have been. Maybe a nurse wants to test how the pandemic has affected your hand-eye coordination… by seeing how well you can get them off with your hands. Maybe a medical professional has the only “vaccine” available for miles and you have to bargain for it with your body. The possibilities are endless!

Have you done any roleplays at home during the pandemic? What was your fave?

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

6 Reasons I Sucked at Being a Webcam Performer

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022Kate Sloan

I have the greatest respect for webcam performers, in part because I have done small and infrequent versions of what they do, and have found it to be almost insurmountably difficult for me (as I think it would be for many people). Here are just some of the numerous reasons I wasn’t cut out for this type of work, though I admire it deeply…

It takes me a while to come and I don’t enjoy faking orgasms. There was a constant tension, in my camming days, between what my clients wanted to see and what I was physically capable of showing them. When someone would book a 15-minute session and say they wanted to see me come, I got tense immediately because I knew it likely wasn’t possible. Either I’d have to get myself very close to orgasm in advance of the session (which was time for which I should’ve been, but wasn’t being, paid), or I’d have to fake an orgasm.

Of course, a third option would be to just tell the client that there was no way I could get myself off in that amount of time, especially in a way that was picturesque (i.e. not just holding a Magic Wand against my clit for 15 minutes), but sometimes this was perceived as cash-grubbing. Sigh.

I’m not an exhibitionist. Like, at all. This became pretty clear to me after my first few cam sessions. I had heard friends and colleagues of mine discussing the unique sexual rush of performing for an audience, and aside from a brief glow of pride whenever someone complimented my body, I never really felt that. It just felt like work, because, well, it was. But I’d been hoping I’d enjoy it more than I did. Ah well, diff’rent strokes…

The amount of work it involves is gigantic, and I have limited energy. Back when I thought I might take camming seriously and try to make it into one of my income streams, I read tons of articles with headlines like “8 Things Every Camgirl MUST Know” and “Tips for Chaturbate Performers,” and realized I had barely scratched the surface of how much work is actually involved in camming.

It’s not only the on-screen performances, which are taxing enough, but also the self-promotion, audience-building, administrative labor (like answering emails and filling out tax forms), emotional labor (like chatting with prospective clients via DM and filtering out the ones who demanded freebies), graphic design and editing of promotional images, personal branding, etc. etc. etc. I’m tired! I don’t know how cam performers do it all, especially ones who live with chronic illness like I do, but kudos.

I’m way too anxious. Are they having a good time? Am I moving at a good pace? Should I be nakeder than this? Are they regretting paying for this? Are they screenshotting this? Are they secretly recording video? What if I don’t orgasm in time? What if THEY don’t orgasm in time? How do I gracefully exit the conversation once the clock runs out? How do I ever expect to make money doing this when I look like THIS? Is my face doing pretty things? Is my body too contorted? Are my vibrators too loud? Are my dildos obscuring my vulva? Are they getting what they paid for?

I’ve never been great at shutting off the anxious voice in my head, but this was especially true during webcam shows. They’re just not my medium, methinks.

Sometimes it required tech know-how that I don’t possess. Granted, I do have a spouse now who’s very tech-savvy, so this is addressable if I wanted to address it… but that doesn’t necessarily mean my feeling of overwhelm and incompetence would go away!

When I read articles about optimizing streaming speed, troubleshooting platform glitches, and why it’s important to customize your Chaturbate profile, I just get stressed out and tend to shut down emotionally + shut down my computer. I know the tech side of things is largely handled by whatever streaming service you use these days, but I just don’t think I have the bandwidth (emotionally or internet-wise!) to handle the rest.

I kept getting distracted by the other performers on the site. Listen, I’m very bisexual. Any website where hot people of various genders are touching themselves live on camera is pretty hard to resist at least perusing. And if I peruse, I will watch. And if I watch, I will totally forget why I went to the website in the first place (i.e. performing myself). But I don’t mind that – it’s a pretty good dilemma, as far as dilemmas go. 😉

Any of you also dabbled in cam performing and found it wasn’t for you? Or did you eventually figure out how to make it work for you?

This post was sponsored by the folks at Designurbate, who will make you a Chaturbate profile template free of charge. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 1 Fantastic Company

December 29, 2021September 16, 2022Kate Sloan

Today, 12 Days of Girly Juice comes to a close! And I’m finishing it in the way I always do: by highlighting one company in the sex industry that I think is doing wonderful work, and that made a significant contribution to my year.

The company I want to shout out this year is the Pleasure Tailor, co-creators of the Easy A dildo, which I launched earlier this month. They worked with me to get every detail of this toy exactly how I wanted it, and as a result, it’s a visually striking and profoundly pleasurable toy. It’s one of the only ones on the market that explicitly targets the A-spot, or anterior fornix. It’s also one of the only toys on the market designed by and for people with pain or strength issues in their hands – although, notably, anyone can use it, regardless of ability level, and the cleverly-designed base allows for more precise thrusts whether your hands are weak or strong.

I mostly wanted to highlight the Pleasure Tailor because I think what they’re doing is so damn cool. They collaborate with guest designers like me, yes, but they also allow all of their customers to customize toys, at a price that’s reasonable for the services being offered.

One of the fundamental issues with being a sex toy reviewer is that my advice can only be extrapolated so far; I may love a toy, but that doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily work for the particular bodies of all my readers. For that reason, I’m happy I can recommend toys made by the Pleasure Tailor to folks, because they can make their own decisions about things like size, shape, finish, and color – rather than having to hope a pre-made toy works for their unique genitals. The services offered by the Pleasure Tailor are empowering, democratizing, and (from my ~decade of experience in this industry) unparalleled.

Full disclosure: I was not paid to write this, and (as always) I genuinely do believe everything I’ve written here; the Pleasure Tailor really is that fuckin’ great. I receive a portion of the proceeds when you buy the dildo I designed.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

December 19, 2021December 18, 2021Kate Sloan

With so much of my life this year taking place indoors, I relied even more on my favorite media-makers to keep me entertained, informed, and uplifted. All 5 of my picks for this year’s sex-savvy superheroes list are people whose media creations I adore, but they’re also just wonderful, smart people. I hope you check out their work and that you enjoy it as much as I do!

Rachel Rabbit White is mostly known as a poet these days, and while her poetry is indeed transcendent, I first encountered her work about a decade ago, when she was one of the only people I’d ever heard of who was successfully making a living as a sex journalist. I actually interviewed her in 2012 for a first-year journalism school assignment where we were tasked with asking for advice from a journalist we admired; she was gracious and kind. Her debut book of poetry, Porn Carnival, felt like a useful reminder this year to lean into hedonism, glamour, and messy joy, even in times of great global strife.

Tuck Woodstock is the host and creator of the Gender Reveal podcast, one of the best sources of high-level gender discourse on the internet (IMO). They’re also a journalist who has covered anti-police protests in Portland, among other topics. One of the things I admire most about him is his commitment to mutual aid: over $150,000 has been redistributed to trans and nonbinary folks in need, due to Tuck’s work and advocacy, and the generosity of the community they have created. There is always more to learn about gender, regardless of how you identify in that area, and I’m so grateful for Tuck’s work and all that it has taught me.

Princess Kelley May is a spanking fetishist and professional disciplinarian. This year I absolutely fell in love with her YouTube channel, Spanking University, which is full of indispensable advice, not only for spankophiles but really for sadomasochists of all stripes. Her advice is more thoughtful, thorough, and experience-backed than most I’ve seen; I love, for example, her thoughts on accounting for differences in body size and ability level in her video on the over-the-knee position, and her detailed explanation of how to play safely without a safeword. Her education is life-changing and I wish I could show these videos to every spanking newbie!

Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performer, and former therapist who writes my favorite advice column on the internet, and I was so grateful for all of her words this year. She writes with such kindness on topics like sex, gender, dating, mental health, addiction, and abuse. She also studies conflict resolution techniques and has (bravely) publicly opposed the widespread harassment campaigns that often result when the left turns against itself in cancel-culture spectacles of misguided, performative rage. She’s one of the most courageous and compassionate writers I know of.

Dixie De La Tour is the host and creator of Bawdy Storytelling, a sex-themed storytelling event that I was lucky enough to perform in this year (you can listen to my story on the Bawdy podcast). Prior to speaking at Bawdy, I had no idea the extent to which Dixie makes herself available to storytellers for help shaping and sharpening each story to make it gleam. She transformed mine from a quirky little anecdote to a fully-fledged emotional tale with a beginning, middle, and end. She’s also just incredibly charismatic and a joy to watch on stage (or on Zoom, as the case may be) – she has a way of making the audience much more comfortable with explicit subject matter, even taboo stuff, with her easy charm and matter-of-fact approach to all things sexy. Definitely check out the Bawdy podcast if you need more sexy stories in your life!

Who were your sex-positive heroes this year?