Musings

7 Great Reasons to Read Sex Toy Reviews

Kate Sloan

The statistics are in: sex toys have gotten many of us through the pandemic. Sex toy sales are up as much as 600% (depending on whose stats you trust), and anecdotally, it seems that those of us whose toy collections were already large have not only spent time revisiting and enjoying what we already owned, but have, in many cases, expanded our collections even further. (Guilty as charged!) Whether you prefer wholesale sex toys mega-sites like SexToyUnion or just window-shopping at your favorite local erotic boutique, there’s something deliciously uplifting about buying a new sex toy, if it’s your first-ever or even your 1,000th.

I always tell people who are curious about a toy to read the reviews of it. Not just the toy company’s on-site reviews, which are sometimes fabricated and/or very selectively curated – I’m talking about sex toy bloggers’ reviews. I swear I’m not just saying that because I am one of those bloggers – I, too, read multiple reviews (if available) before buying any new toy. While not all bloggers are scrupulous or ethics-focused (and they don’t necessarily have to be – it’s their blog and their life!), many are, and you can oftentimes find more truthful details in a single sex toy review blog post than in a whole slew of bland, insincere 5-star on-site reviews.

Here are 7 reasons you might want to read sex toy reviews more often…

 

1. To help you make a purchasing decision for yourself. There are just too many sex toys out there for you to automatically know what’s good and what isn’t. Trust me – I’ve been in this biz nearly a decade, and while I have a pretty good radar for when a toy will satisfy me or disappoint me, there’s just no way to know for sure, but reading reviews often leads me in the right direction.

Pro tip: look for bloggers whose tastes mirror your own. Many disclose this on their About page or in their reviews. If you know you like intensely pinpointed clitoral stimulation and very slim penetration, for example, you’re probably not gonna get much value from the reviews of a person whose pleasure comes primarily from huge dildos and broad massage wands – although you may still find them plenty entertaining!

 

2. To help you make a purchasing decision for a partner or friend. I have done this many times, in part for the reason discussed above: my tastes are different from other people’s, so if I have a loved one who wants a new sex toy but has vastly different preferences (or anatomy) than my own, reading reviews is the best way for me to figure out if it’ll work for them.

When a close pal asks me for a toy recommendation, generally I’ll do a diagnostic process of sorts, asking them about toys they’ve tried in the past (if any), why they liked or disliked those, and what they’re hoping to get out of a new toy. That gives me a useful filter through which to devour sex toy reviews searching for something that’ll make them happy.

 

3. As foreplay for using the toy. Anyone else do this?! Sometimes when I’m gearing up for a masturbation session with a toy I love, I’ll read other people’s reviews of it, to remind me of what’s so great about it. It’s sort of like reading movie reviews as “foreplay” for seeing the movie – which is to say, some people will hate it because it’ll spoil their experience or influence their perceptions, but some people will love it because it’ll increase their enjoyment of what follows.

 

4. To learn about new features or uses of a toy you already own. Sex toys have gotten so high-tech that many have functions you may not know about, even if you’ve used yours several times. Do you know how to turn off the Smart Silence mode on your We-Vibe Wand? Enable the travel lock on your Fun Factory Big Boss? Loop vibration patterns on your Lovense Lush? Sex toy reviews can often help you learn stuff like this. (Not mine, though, tbh – I have long been burned out on writing up technical details of a toy, and am much more focused on language and narrative since I’m a pretentious artsy fucker – but there are lots of reviewers who write about toys with fantastic amounts of detail, like Felicity from Phallophile Reviews and Cy from Super Smash Cache.)

 

5. To learn about your body. Especially if you have little experience with sex toys and/or masturbating, you may not have a 100% clear sense of why you like or dislike particular toys. I know that it took me years of exploration and research to learn, for instance, that overly aggressive G-spot stimulation without proper warmup feels awful to me, or that buzzy vibrations make my clit want to die.

Like movie critics and music critics, seasoned sex toy critics are armed with contextual knowledge that enables them to describe why a particular toy is good or bad, or at least why some people might love or hate it. Comparing their observations to your own firsthand experiences can teach you a lot of useful lessons about your wants and needs when it comes to sex toys.

 

6. To keep up with trends in the industry. If the sex toy world interests you, but you’re not on the inside of it (i.e. receiving press releases from random vibrator companies on the regular and avidly reading the trades with your friends), it can be hard to keep up with what’s going on in that sphere. It’s like how music critics always seem to know what album is gonna change the world when it drops in a few months, while the rest of us are still listening to our favorite playlists from high school. (No? Just me?)

Learning about the latest and greatest in the sex toy industry is not only interesting – it also helps you make wiser purchasing decisions. For example, you’d be forgiven for thinking high-quality body-safe toys are automatically expensive, because for many years, they were – but reading sex toy reviews regularly can show you that the industry has shifted and now you can get safe toys at a reasonable price.

 

7. For entertainment value. Many sex toy reviewers, like my friend Epiphora or the wonderful Girl on the Net, are very funny! Many are also able to tell compelling stories in the form of a sex toy review (I’m thinking especially of Girl on the Net’s review of the We-Vibe Nova 2, written immediately after her long-term relationship ended, which was far more about the breakup than the toy). I actually think a lot about how to make my reviews interesting not only as reviews but as pieces of writing unto themselves. It’s tricky, but it can be done, and a lot of my favorite pieces of sex writing exist in this space between criticism and entertainment.

 

Why do you like to read sex toy reviews?

 

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

Camshows in Cramped Apartments: Online Sex Work During the Pandemic

Kate Sloan

Online sex work has become even more of a booming business since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. Some sites, like OnlyFans and www.panamecorte.com, have experienced boosts in new memberships as high as 75%. More people than ever are turning to online sex work to supplement their income – and likewise, more people than ever are stuck at home with no access to partnered sexual experiences outside of their interactions with online sex workers. It’s no wonder this industry has seen a massive uptick.

But it’s important to note, too, that the past few years have been some of the hardest ever for sex workers, including those who work predominantly or exclusively online. Laws like SESTA/FOSTA, signed in by Trump in 2018, have severely limited sex workers’ ability to advertise their wares, recruit and vet clients, and get paid for what they do, among other things. There’s also still huge stigma surrounding sex work, despite its proliferation being such that you probably know at least one person who does it, even if you think you don’t. It may be the “oldest profession” but it’s nowhere near the easiest or most fun.

I’ve never been a full-time sex worker, but I’ve done cam shows, made porn videos, and sold nudes occasionally over the past several years – and I have to say, the pandemic has been an interesting time to be in that biz. I’ve gotten more unusual fetish requests than I ever had before, including some that were so extreme I didn’t feel comfortable fulfilling them. It makes me wonder if some people have been exploring their sexualities more deeply over the past year, since “normal life” is on pause and many of us have more time for self-reflection. (Kudos and congrats to those folks for their discoveries!) I think there’s also an element of touch-starvation here – sometimes when you’ve gone a long time without sexual contact, your fantasies can become more “out-there” to make up for the lack of physical stimulation with some additional mental stimulation.

My clients’ communiqué has been different, too – some of them are unusually polite and sweet, presumably because we’re all living through a difficult time so kindness is paramount, while some have been surprisingly brusque and rude, presumably because the conditions of this pandemic are stressful AF and have also atrophied many of our social skills. You would think people would be nicer to sex workers, given what the folks in that industry have been put through these past few years, but nah…

I’ve also had to be more careful about the ways I take payments than ever before, having been burned by whorephobic payment processors and the puritanical laws that try to keep sex workers off all such platforms. It’s gotten so bad that many times I’ve considered giving up sex work completely, and focusing only on my more “respectable” writing work. If you care about sex workers’ livelihoods (which you should), please reach out to your local lawmakers to make that clear, and to demand that they work to repeal laws like SESTA/FOSTA that make sex work much more dangerous and precarious than it needs to be.

Despite all these roadblocks, I’ve still found comfort and solace in doing online sex work (sparingly) over the past year. When a client pays me to put on a cam show or make a sexy custom video, I have to put some effort into my appearance, something I’ve often let slide during this depressing hell-year despite how good it tends to make me feel. I also have to cultivate sexual energy in myself, because it’ll be super obvious if I’m not turned on at all – so sometimes I’ll take the time to do that by using sex toys in a hot bath, or spritzing on a perfume that makes me feel like a bombshell, or just giving myself a sensual mini-massage before filming. Most of my life over the past year has existed inside a computer or a TV, so my connection to my body feels somewhat weakened – and these little preparations help.

It’s a difficult, interesting, painful, yet uplifting time to be a sex worker. If your favorite sexy service provider helped you get through this past year, I hope you’ve been tipping them accordingly, treating them well, and writing to your congresspeople to express your concerns about how sex workers are being treated in the legal system. Shit’s tough out there, and anyone who brings more pleasure into this world – sexual pleasure included – deserves to be praised and rewarded for that tenacious effort.

 

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

5 Things That Are Basically Porn For Me Now

Kate Sloan

It’s no secret that the coronavirus era has massively changed the way many people relate to their own sexualities. Some people are coming out as gay, bi, or pan; some are realizing they’re further toward the asexual end of the spectrum than they realized; some are trying new sex toys, kinks, or positions; some have forgotten what sexual desire in non-stressful times even feels like.

I find all of this deeply relatable and understandable. My own desire levels have waxed and waned countless times during the past year, but mostly they have waned. I’m still having sex regularly, due to the genius ministrations of my lovely spouse, who has read Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are cover to cover and thus understands how to turn on someone whose sexual brakes are engaged and whose desire is responsive, not spontaneous. But there are also non-sexual things I find nearly as exciting as sex these days, that help me relax and experience simple pleasures in much the same way as sex can.

I abhor those books and articles that joke “porn for women” can be pictures of men doing housework or childcare, as if 1) women have no inherent sexuality and 2) men being functional adults constitutes sexiness all on its own. So that’s not what I’m doing here (and if your domestic partner’s been doing all the dishes or scrubbing all the toilets lately, maybe go do some of that right now). But here are 5 non-sexual things that have consistently given me rushes of near-pornographic pleasure, relaxation, and satisfaction over the past year. They may not be as racy (or as stigmatized) as the most-viewed clips on the top porn sites, but they help me nonetheless.

 

1. Building Sims houses

I had resisted getting into The Sims 4 for ages, despite having adored the original games as a kid/teen, because The Sims 3 didn’t impress me all that much (I thought the open-world-ness of it all was weirdly out of step with the game I’d fallen in love with). But then the pandemic hit, and what was I gonna do, not buy a life simulation game that allows me to travel and socialize and go to work at a time when I couldn’t do any of those things IRL?!

There are a lot of things I love about this latest iteration of the game, most notably that they have better options for your Sims’ gender identity/expression and that there are several super inventive expansion packs, including one called Eco Lifestyle so your Sims can reduce their carbon footprint now (amazing). But the building part of the game is more versatile and fun than ever, so much so that entire communities have sprung up on YouTube, Instagram, etc. focusing on beautiful houses people have built in their games.

I think I find it relaxing and satisfying to build houses in The Sims because it gives me a huge amount of control, at a time when I feel very out of control in the rest of my life. It’s also really neat to watch Sims living their lives in a space I built from the ground up – kind of like how it can be gratifying to build a kink scene for a partner and then usher them through it.

 

2. Loungewear shops

I’ve written about loungewear a lot here over the past year, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but suffice it to say… most days I would rather slither into a crimson modal slip than slide into some Tinder beefcake’s arms (or DMs).

 

3. Flirty fanfiction

Something I learned about myself, in my earliest forays into non-monogamy nearly a decade ago, is that when I’m not allowed to date/kiss/fuck people other than my partner, it’s not the sex I miss most – it’s the flirting.

In fact, many times, I’d rather skip the sex entirely, which I know is not exactly a common stance in the non-monogamy community. But the sex I have with an established partner is so much better than the sex I have with randoms, in part because of my complex web of anxieties, fantasies, kinks, and physical limitations. It’s the flirty banter, the innuendo-laced double-entendres, the rising heat of my own blushing face that I miss most about dating other people.

But since I have neither the energy nor the vaccination status to do that stuff right now, fanfiction is one area where I’m able to live out those flirty fantasies and feel transported into a romantically intriguing life other than my own. Romance novels work great for this too, of course, but sometimes I just don’t have the mental wherewithal to spend time getting to know new characters; I just want to read about characters I already know and love, making each other giggle. Is that so much to ask?

 

4. Comedy, in all its many forms

The three things that got me through this pandemic, above all else: my spouse, my family, and comedy. It’s as simple as that.

mb and I have torn through multiple comedy TV shows this past year; we’ve (re-)watched practically every comedy movie I’ve ever loved (most recently: School of Rock, an absolute masterpiece of poignant goofiness); we’ve laughed our asses off at weekly live improv shows over Zoom (PLEASE subscribe to the Bad Dog Comedy TV channel on YouTube if you’re into this!). My days and weeks have often felt structured around comedy, oriented towards it. Some people are “workin’ for the weekend”; I’m working to get through the day until I can watch Stephen Colbert or Maya Rudolph or Tom Hearn or Catherine O’Hara at night.

mb sometimes semi-jokes that watching comedy together is the best foreplay for me, and I think they’re right on the money with that theory. It helps distract me from the troubles of the day, ease my physical and mental tension, and flood my body with endorphins. It made this year bearable for me, which is no small thing at all.

 

5. Poetry in the bath

Modern poets like Rachel Rabbit White, Shane Koyczan, and Zoe Whittall have inspired me deeply over the course of this pandemic. I’ve devoured their books, and various other poetry tomes, at lightning speed. I’ve even started writing poetry myself, something I hadn’t done with any degree of seriousness in many years, despite it being a favorite hobby in high school (I even won some contests and got published in some anthologies back then). It feels like a way to rediscover beauty in a world currently so stripped of it.

Reading poetry in the bath is particularly hedonistic. I’ll usually load up the tub with some scented bath salts, light a candle, and lay down in the hot water with my waterproof Kindle in hand. I take my time with each poem, trying to absorb its artful words and its layers of meaning. I build a little world for myself in the tub, glittering and beguiling, in a way that everyday life once was and might be again someday. It makes me feel like a normal human again, despite everything that’s going on.

Poetry “frees us from the tyranny of the sentence,” says Rachel Rabbit White; “poetry is play.” We could all use some freedom from tyranny after the year we’ve had. We could all use some play.

 

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

I Felt Guilty About Findom, Until I Didn’t

Kate Sloan
A pair of red patent leather Louboutins my spouse bought for me (which I sadly had to return because they were too small)

Financial domination is one of the most profoundly misunderstood kinks. There’s a common perception that all it involves is “making” someone give you money without giving them anything in return – which, sure, would be exploitative if it wasn’t consensual. But by its very nature, findom is only findom when it is consensual. Otherwise it’s just financial abuse.

Findom is most often done in a professional setting, as an interaction between sex workers and their “paypigs.” Sometimes it may involve exchanging provocative pictures, incorporating adult roleplay chat, and other perks – but in its most basic form, it is quite simply one person being consensually bossed into giving money to another person. In that way, it’s not all that different from any other type of power play in the BDSM world. Sure, money is a more tangible measure of the power being exchanged, and it can alter the conditions of your actual life, outside of the bedroom and the dungeon – but that’s part of why it appeals to so many people. It’s like playing poker for real dollars when you’re used to only playing for Monopoly money.

That said, financial domination can happen outside of professional contexts too. It’s become part of my dynamic with my spouse. During an initial findom chat when my partner and I were negotiating this new addition to our relationship, one of the things we discussed was my concern that I was somehow a “bad” financial dominant if receiving gifts and cash didn’t physically turn me on, the way receiving oral sex or a good spanking can. My partner gets a boner (albeit not necessarily a raging one) when I command them to buy me a cute new bag or pair of shoes; I felt like an impostor for not having the same type of physiological response to what was supposed to be a kinky, sexy act.

But the more that I’ve thought about it, and the more that we’ve discussed it, the more I’ve realized that physical arousal is not the only measure of whether an activity is pleasurable or “sufficiently” kinky. Of course, I already knew this in other areas – I knew, for example, that many asexual people enjoy kinky activities for their psychological effects, despite having little-to-no sexual response to them – but it was surprisingly hard to apply this knowledge to my understanding of findom in my own relationship. I think that because money is such a heavy, fraught topic IRL, it can be equally tricky and fraught to accept your desire to play with it in a kinky way. It brings up enormous feelings about “deservingness,” privilege, power, scarcity, and fear. But you know what? So do a lot of other kinks!

The dual-control model of sexuality, popularized by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. in her seminal book Come As You Are, has been a helpful framework for me in thinking about findom. This model understands sexual arousal as being affected by both a “sexual accelerator” and “sexual brakes.” Your accelerator is stuff that actively turns you on, like porn, erotica, dirty talk, and receiving pleasurable touch, while your brakes are things that inhibit your ability to get aroused, like stress, distractions, or chronic pain.

I think my hesitance about findom came from the expectation that it had to be a sexual accelerator in order for it to be “valid” as a kink – when, in reality, for me it operates much more like an alleviation of my sexual brakes. When my partner buys me a beautiful new lipstick, for instance, wearing it makes me feel prettier, thereby alleviating some of my appearance-related stress. When I “made” them buy me a body pillow and started sleeping with it every night, my chronic pain eased up and I was able to sleep better, which certainly made arousal easier to achieve. Likewise, when my sugar daddy way back in 2017 gave me enough money each month to cover my rent, I was obviously way less stressed about making ends meet, which made space for me to get turned on much more easily. Money is a near-constant stressor, as it is for many people, leaning hard on those sexual brakes – so any relief in that area results in relaxation that can blossom into arousal.

There’s more than one way to enjoy kink, and anyone who tells you there’s only “one true way” is lying to you. If you and your partner consent to particular acts or a particular dynamic, and you prioritize risk-awareness and open communication, it’s hard to go wrong. An erect dick or wet pussy isn’t the only measure of whether something excites or fulfills you. If a kinky activity makes you a bit happier, or makes your life a bit easier, or makes your days a bit more beautiful, then I think it’s been a success.

 

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

5 Sex Dolls I Wish I Owned (& What I Would Do with Them)

Kate Sloan
Thanks to SexDollGenie for all the images in this post!

Periodically, a sex doll company reaches out to me wanting to collaborate, and I’m once again forced to confront the fact that I find sex dolls fascinating.

Maybe it’s because I once wrote a piece about robotic sex dolls which posited that they have the power to shape our sexual future as a culture… or maybe it’s just because so many of them are extremely fucking hot, and I am extremely fucking bisexual.

In any case, today I’m partnering with the nice folks at Sex Doll Genie to show you 5 sex dolls I think are particularly captivating – and what I would do with each of them if I owned them.

 

Jessika is a 5-foot-tall sex doll with K-cup breasts (!!), delectable curves, and blazing red hair draped over one eye. Her designers clearly looked to Jessica Rabbit for inspiration; all she’s missing is those long purple gloves.

Since her namesake cartoon character was a showgirl, I think Jessika would be an excellent “practice bottom” for stripteases and lapdances. I’m definitely not confident enough to jump straight into putting on a sexy show for a new partner (or for any partner, really), so it would make sense to practice on somebody else – or something else – before giving it a shot. Jessika’s constant low-key smirk and quirked eyebrow read to me as devilishly dominant approval and amusement – she constantly looks like her sexual curiosity is piqued. I’d sit her in a chair and work on my moves, grinding against her lap and various other spots, until I felt ready to perform for an actual human.

She’d also be a fantastic prop for shooting Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-themed porn… though I’m not quite sure how I would figure into that! Would I have to be Roger?!

 

Doesn’t Chamae look like somebody’s badass older sister at a high school house party? She’s 5’6″ (taller than me!) and has an absolutely killer booty. If I saw her sitting on the couch sipping a beer, I think I’d have to go talk to her, even if I felt shy (which I definitely would, in the presence of someone so beautiful and cool).

Aside from kissing a Chamae doll – because she looks incredibly kissable – I think I’d most like to dress her up in hard-femme ensembles, as an avenue for my own inclinations toward goth/punk/”alt” style. I’ve always admired these aesthetics but never really felt cool enough to pull them off, so dressing up Chamae in leather, flannel and PVC would be super fun.

She also looks like she’d definitely be low-key kinky – I mean, just look at that spiked collar – so I wonder if it’d be fun to set her on one end of a sofa and then fuck someone on the other side, Chamae acting as a silent voyeur, as if the aforementioned high school house party suddenly got very sexy. (You just never know where those games of Spin the Bottle will lead…)

 

Speaking of high school… Shanaya is a 5’4″ sex doll with massive N-cup boobs, and she’s pictured wearing an outfit I can’t help but associate with cheerleaders.

I think one of the reasons cheerleaders are such a popular archetype in the land of sex and kink is that many kinky people were nerds in high school (and likely continue to be), and it feels powerful to roleplay a scenario where you finally get to rub shoulders – and other body parts – with a “cool kid.” Of course, social hierarchies in high school are elitist garbage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun roleplaying them in adulthood.

Shanaya is so over-the-top hot that I think I’d have to involve her in a scene involving bimbofication, humiliation, or both. Maybe I’d pretend she was a bunny at the infamous Playboy mansion, stealing all the men’s attention despite how slutty I’d dressed for the occasion. Maybe I’d be the dorky girl at a high school sports game after-party, enviously watching the cheerleader get to fuck my crush. Or maybe I’d just lay my head on her N-cups and take a nap.

 

Hattie is dressed as a nurse, so obviously, upon seeing her, my mind jumped straight to medical play. A doctor treating my “hysteria” is a long-time fantasy of mine, one I’ve roleplayed numerous times with my partner, and I have to imagine the fantasy would only be furthered by the presence of a watchful, helpful nurse.

I could also imagine I was an inpatient at a clinic – perhaps for something silly like overly frequent masturbation or too much porn-watching – and that Hattie had been assigned to sit in my room and watch me for hours at a time to make sure I didn’t misbehave. It would be hot to envision her as my ever-watchful guard while I try to sneakily eke out an orgasm with my hand under the covers.

I could also, of course, just steal her entire costume and use it to roleplay as a nurse myself… What a versatile gal she is!

 

You know, I was going to write a whole Tinkerbell-themed thing about a fairy sex doll for this last one, but then I discovered Clarine, WHOSE BOOBS ARE VULVAS, and my brain exploded.

The fantasy implications of this innovation are innumerable. Remember Deep Throat, the classic porn movie where a woman has a clitoris hidden in the back of her throat that makes overzealous blowjobs orgasmically pleasurable for her? Clarine’s situation is similar, but different. She could (theoretically) glean as much pleasure from having her nipples played with as the average woman would from having her clit played with, so she’d be an ideal doll-partner for someone whose fondness for breasts verges on fetishism.

I can’t figure out from the pictures whether her breasts are actually penetrable (…yikes) but, if so, I do have to wonder what it would be like to “fuck” someone else’s boobs with your own erect nipples… Y’all, bodies are so strange and cool. Especially sex doll bodies.

 

Thanks to SexDollGenie.com for sponsoring this post! They have a truly wild selection of sex dolls to choose from; I find the “fantasy/mysterious looks” section the most compelling, if you want to take a gander. As always, all writing and opinions in this post are my own.