Musings

8 Pieces of Useful Wisdom From Sex Workers

Kate Sloan

Each time I’ve dabbled in forms of sex work, like putting on cam shows and selling my used underwear, one of the best things about these endeavors has been connecting with other people doing similar work. I can’t think of a group more passionate, open-hearted, and resourceful than sex workers. They provide crucial services to people who need and want them, despite frequently encountering crushing stigma and legal roadblocks like SESTA/FOSTA. (See the last point on this list for more on that.)

So I’m delighted that I’ve partnered with Escorts & Babes – Sydney Escorts to put together this list of some of the major lessons I’ve learned from genius sex workers in my social spheres. Anyone who says you don’t need skills or smarts to do sex work is fooling themselves.

Trust is hot. Sex and kink, in my experience, just seem to get better and hotter the more trust there is between the participants. I imagine it must be hard to establish this trust as quickly and thoroughly as you would need to in a sex work context, which makes it all the more impressive that so many service providers do it on a regular basis. Their work invites me to look at my own sex life and ask: Where could I be more trusting, and how might that improve my experiences? And, inversely, where am I being too trusting, and how can I solve that?

Dirty talk is magic. After all the many, many hours I’ve spent having phone sex and being erotically hypnotized, I’ve come to think of dirty talk (and related sexual oration) as a form of literal magic: like casting a spell in the Hogwarts universe, you say some kind of incantation and it has real, observable effects in the body and brain of the person you’re talking to. Sex workers tend to wield this power better than anyone I know; it’s often a sharpened and well-loved tool in their toolbox, and part and parcel of what keeps their clients coming back. Hearing these stories makes me want to step up my own dirty-talk skills!

Disabled people can be (and often are) sexual too! I can’t believe there are still so many people who don’t understand this, but there you go… While it sucks that our ableist world too often tries to paint disabled people as unsexy and unsexual, I know some who’ve sought sex workers’ services and found them immensely healing and helpful. Obviously it sucks that this route is financially inaccessible for many, and that ableism continues to exist, but I’m glad some disabled folks have the option to pursue sexual touch on their own terms by hiring a sex worker. (Did you know there’s even been a recent push in Australia to get sexual services for disabled folks covered by national disability insurance? I hope the Aussie government comes around on this eventually; it could be a big life-changer for many disabled folks, as well as Australian sex workers, like those at Escorts & Babes – www.escortsandbabes.com.au.)

When it comes to kink, more communication is better. I admire the thorough negotiations many sex workers (especially pro dommes) insist on doing before sessions, and I think every sexually active person could benefit from adopting similar practices in their own sex lives. No partner can give you the mind-blowing sex you’ve been dreaming of if they don’t know what gets you hot. Share your likes and your limits – it can only make things better!

Kink can be startlingly intimate. Granted, just like vanilla sex, kink can feel awkwardly distanced, deliciously connective, or anywhere in between. But I find that intimacy and kink tend to go hand-in-hand moreso for me, and I can access depths of connection through kink that I didn’t even know existed back when I thought I was vanilla. I’ve heard from sex worker friends and acquaintances, over and over, that a large part of what their clients are seeking isn’t just sexual gratification but some sense of emotional communion with another human being. That’s what kink feels like to me, when it’s at its best.

Asking for consent isn’t hard. It’s sex workers’ job to ensure their clients have a good time, so of course they would tend to prioritize consent highly in their transactions. We all should take a leaf out of their book, and weave consent check-ins into the tapestry of our sexual encounters. This doesn’t have to be as unsexy as some people insist – as Lo points out here, there are tons of super hot turns of phrase you can use to make sure your paramour is into what’s happening and wants it to continue. You truly have no excuse.

Knowing what you want is half the battle. This is a major lesson I’ve taken from kink and repeatedly applied to my own life: you can’t progress toward the objects of your desires until you’ve identified what those desires are. Sounds simple, but it’s often deceptively difficult to figure out what your heart is actually calling out for. This type of soul-searching is worth doing, and is one of the initial steps on the path to enduring happiness.

SESTA/FOSTA is killing people and must be stopped. This is the most important item on this list, so listen up. If you don’t know, SESTA/FOSTA are “anti-trafficking bills,” signed into law in early 2018, that have actually taken aim at sex workers by raiding and shutting down escort listing sites (yes, this is why Craigslist’s personal ads got slashed) and getting tons of adult content banned from various platforms. It will come for us all eventually – and has already started to – but it mainly impacts sex workers, especially those who live and/or work in the USA. You can help by raising awareness about these laws in your networks, donating to sex work advocacy organizations like Red Light Legal and SWOP Behind Bars, contacting your political reps to demand they take action, and supporting sex workers directly by hiring them, buying their content, and giving them money.

 

What wisdom have you picked up from sex workers in all their industrious brilliance?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at Escorts & Babes – Sunshine Coast Escorts. As always, all writing and opinions (except, of course, in quoted tweets) are my own.

The Joys of Distraction Play (or: I Wrote This While Getting My Clit Sucked)

Kate Sloan

Author’s note: As the title of this post implies, I wrote it while having sex, so in a way, reading this post is entering into a “scene” with me. I wanted you to know that upfront so you can make your own decision about whether or not you want to keep reading.

 

My Sir is the perfect partner for a sex blogger. Here’s one of the ways I know: we were having a conversation recently about the genre of activities we call “distraction play” – people getting deliberately distracted by sexual stimulation while they try to do a non-sexual task – and Sir said, “Why don’t you write a blog post on that topic… while I’m distracting you with my mouth?”

This wouldn’t be our first foray into this particular kink. In the epic sexting sessions of our early relationship, both of us fetishized the idea of me blowing them while they took a business call (dating the owner of a company is hot). Our first time actually trying something like this, they sat in a chair in our room at the James Hotel and read aloud to me from Kinky Trifles while I knelt in front of them and sucked their cock. It was hot to hear them stumble on their words while they were deep in my throat; I liked reducing my normally smooth, golden-voiced partner to a stuttery mess.

This type of kink scene has interested me for years. My first memory of encountering it was the launch of “Hysterical Literature,” a viral video series in which performers read aloud from favorite books while being stimulated by an unseen vibrator. I was immediately entranced and wanted to try this type of kink play from both the bottom and the top. I recall fantasizing about going down on a musically talented beau while he tried to play the piano, and imagining he’d turn the tables on me and finger me with escalating fervor while I tried to play the ukulele. I liked that these kinky games essentially fetishized competence, a thing I already fetishize: the sensation-receiver has to be exceptionally good at the task they’re trying to complete, and the sensation-giver has to be exceptionally good at distracting them. It’s a perverted battle of wits and will. What could be hotter than that?

This type of scene, at least in fantasy and porn, often involves non-consenting third parties: the clients on the other end of a blowjobby business call, for example, or the audience members listening to a piano performance that skips and sputters to the rhythm of a veiled handjob. That element never appealed to me about it, but then, risk and danger have historically destroyed my arousal like a bucket of ice water being tossed over me. I was never the type to enjoy the thought that someone could walk in on me during sex at any time or that I’d be “caught in the act.” I likewise don’t want any uninvolved observers to get grossed out when they realize what’s going on; I’d rather my distraction play be a private one-on-one game, or, at most, that it take place at a small party where everyone present knows what to expect and is excited about it. (God, can you imagine attending an intimate concert at someone’s home, knowing their partner would be sucking them off while they played?!)

A problem with this type of scene, of course, is that you’re doing everything by half-measures. You can’t fully enjoy the pleasure you’re receiving, nor can you fully immerse yourself in the task you’re doing. It’s a wonder this blog post is at all coherent, in fact, given that my partner’s wet lips have been methodically stroking my clit the entire time I’ve been typing this. For this reason, I wouldn’t want “distraction play” to be a regular part of my sex life, because I like to focus on sex as much as possible when it’s happening – but it’s fun to mix things up once in a while with silly, experimental games like this. Seeing your partner in new and different situations is always a hoot, because you get to see as-yet-unexplored parts of their personality or even their sexuality, and this is a great example of that.

Would I ever actually have an orgasm from this type of scene? Probably not – I’m a tough nut to crack, climax-wise, and need to be pretty focused if I’m going to get off. But in fantasies anyway, an orgasm always seems to me like the ideal finale to this type of scene. There’s something unimaginably hot, for example, about the idea of someone’s cock trembling in my mouth, squirting cum down my throat, while their body writhes, their breath catches, and… they finish the sentence they were reading. I always like feeling someone orgasm in my mouth, but I think I would like it even more if I knew my tongue and lips felt so good that they came hard even while scatterbrained and multitasking. A hard-won climax, after all, is sometimes the best and most intense kind.

 

Have you ever done a “distraction play” scene? How did it go?

5 Non-Standard Things You Can Do With a Sex Doll

Kate Sloan
Image via sexdollmarts.com

Sometime last year, I got the kind of email that sex bloggers hope for, pray for, live for. It was an email offering me an item that was not only free, but weird.

The company in question produces and sells adult dolls, and they were reaching out to offer me one of my own – no strings attached. Apparently they had made a surplus of dolls for a recent film shoot and now thought they might as well try to distribute them as promotional samples. Despite living in a tiny apartment already bursting with my possessions, I was elated. This felt like the pinnacle of my entire life as a sex writer. What’s cooler than being offered a free life size sex doll?

This act of generosity didn’t end up coming to pass – the company ghosted me, as so many do – but for those few hopeful days, I thought a lot about what I would actually do with a sex doll. I don’t have a dick to stick inside her, and the thought of fucking a silicone doll with a strap-on cock doesn’t exactly thrill me. But, when I managed to set aside the potential creepy factor, I still viscerally wanted that vapid blonde to be propped up on a chair in my room, peering at me, keeping me company. Why?

Here are a few fun things one could do with a sex doll other than fucking its orifices…

Play dress-up. I mean, this is the obvious one for a femme comme moi. I haven’t entirely grown out of my youthful, Barbie-influenced desires to put cute outfits on beautiful, inanimate human facsimiles. Just as you might swap out certain decor elements in your home to mix things up from time to time, I could put my doll in different outfits to suit my mood on any given day. She could be like a sartorial mascot of my bedroom, setting the tone for the day with her ensemble du jour.

Kinkspiration. As I’ve told you before, my Sir and I are entranced by the idea of using erotic hypnosis to make me think I’m a sex doll. Of course, you don’t need an actual doll to be present for this activity – that’s kind of the entire point – but I did request that my partner show me some photos of sex dolls before and during the trance induction to give me a mental image of what I’m aiming for. Having a sexy real sex doll right there in the room with us would be even better! I could observe her up close and get a more concrete sense for how she occupies space, thereby enabling me to be a better doll when the time came.

Exhibitionism. I’m sort of interested in being watched during sex in theory, but in practice I don’t seem to like it that much. It makes me too anxious and self-conscious, which I’m sure is common. For that reason, I think having a sex doll in the room could be a kind of happy medium – I could suspend my disbelief enough to imagine someone was peering at us from the shadows, without needing to actually contend with the anxiety this would produce if the voyeur was human. One step at a time, you know?

Pictures. Would I look cute kissing a sex doll? Or kneeling between her legs? Or sitting on her face? I don’t particularly think so, but my partner probably would. ‘Nuff said.

Practice. There are a lot of physical kink and sex skills one could practice on a sex doll – flogging, face-slapping, foot worship – but I am thinking mainly of more cerebral ones. For example, I want to work on my dirty talk, especially in a more dominant mode than I’m used to, and practicing by speaking aloud into my empty bedroom doesn’t always cut it. Gazing into the eyes of a doll – however vacant and constructed they might be – would at least approximate the oft terror-inducing experience of saying filthy words to someone’s face. And then maybe I could ramp up to addressing an actual person that way, someday.

What would you do with a sex doll, if you owned one, besides fuck it?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at sexdollmarts.com, where you can buy premium sex dolls customized to your specifications (fun!). As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

10 Things I Could Do If I Hired a Male Escort

Kate Sloan

I thought a lot about male escorts when I was younger, because the thought of sex with men worried me and I wanted someone to shepherd me through it non-judgmentally. I wanted to be taught tricks and strategies, and to thereby embolden me for future (non-transactional) sexual encounters with men. When young male virgins write to me now to ask for advice on building sexual confidence and “getting into the game,” I’m being very serious when I suggest they see a sex worker – because I strongly considered taking this route myself.

However, I ultimately decided not to, because 1) I didn’t have enough money, 2) I was scared, and 3) I fell in love with a man who was just as patient and kind about my sexual inexperience as I had hoped an escort would be. BUT. Even still today, I think about hiring sex workers every once in a while, as an indulgence if some extra dough ever fell into my lap. Being demisexual, however, I don’t think I would employ them for sex – and some escort agencies explicitly say that their workers don’t even offer sex. So here are 10 other things I might consider doing if I hired a male escort…

1. Massage. Yeah, I should really just hire a masseuse if this is what I’m after, but there is something different about a massage that is allowed to be flirty or even sexy. It has a different energy and I’m able to relax into it in a different way. Sometimes it’s nice to be touched in a way that is sex-adjacent but not explicitly sexual, y’know?

2. Masochism. As a masochistic submissive, I crave pain and subspace almost as often as I crave sex. But unlike pleasure and orgasms, good pain isn’t easy to administer to myself. Outsourcing the task would be better, especially if I found an escort who was experienced in whatever activity I was craving (let’s be honest – probably spanking).

3. Topping practice. Granted, I would imagine submissive male escorts are harder to find than dominant ones (correct me if I’m wrong), but I think some “hired help” could allow me to hone my topping skills, like impact play, face-slapping, and even just dominant dirty talk. It’s less embarrassing to practice on someone who does this stuff all the time than on someone who could literally break up with you if you mess something up.

4. Vacation accomplice. A while ago I was invited on a press trip to an all-inclusive swingers’ resort, and I had to decline, partly because of scheduling issues but also partly because my partner wasn’t available to accompany me and I would’ve been in social anxiety hell if I went alone. It’s a pipe dream that I’d ever have enough cash to splurge on a whole weekend or week of an escort’s time, but in a dream world where I do, they’d be a good date to a getaway.

5. Flirting. So underrated and so important! Sometimes – especially when you’re single and/or lonely – you just need somebody to make you feel wanted and wantable. I could see hiring an escort for a fun dinner-and-drinks date for the express purpose of being flirted with. Mmm, crushy energy.

6. Cuddles. Some studies show human touch is actually necessary for our well-being, and I believe it. It would be nice to hire a professional cuddler in the midst of a particularly lonely dry spell, or to comfort me at the end of a hard day.

7. Wedding guest. Weddings suck if you’re sad about your romantic life. I have definitely cried at them for totally self-absorbed reasons as well as the normal reasons people cry at weddings. I could imagine hiring an escort to be my +1 if my originally-planned date dropped out for some reason (like a breakup) and I didn’t want to go alone.

8. Photos and videos. Provided the escort was okay with it, it might be fun in an artistic-collaboration way if we shot some sexy pictures or clips together, either to sell (with profit-sharing, of course!) or just for personal perusal. Seeing myself from different perspectives is sometimes a good way to boost my self-esteem when I need it, and “entwined in intimate embrace with a hot escort” is certainly a different perspective!

9. Tourism. When you visit a new city, your experience of it is vastly influenced by the person or people who show you around. My Toronto is different from a Bay Street banker’s Toronto or a hippie artist’s Toronto, for example. It would be neat to hire an escort while visiting a new place, and have them lead me around to some of their favorite spots.

10. Learning. I have known enough escorts to know that they have skillsets almost nobody else has. They have to have above-average emotional and social intelligence, in addition to whatever sex and kink skills they may use in their line of work. I find that inspirational and could put similar skills to use in many areas of my life, so it would be cool to get some one-on-one tutelage from a willing escort on these topics.

Would you ever hire an escort for a non-sexual reason?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at Gentlemen4Hire. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

What Does Clitoral Suction Say About Gender?

Kate Sloan

Trends in the sex toy market are fun to watch, not only because they portend new pleasure possibilities but also because they tend to signal something about how our cultural beliefs on sex and gender are evolving. So when toys like the Satisfyer and Womanizer kept popping up left and right, it made me wonder: what do clitoral suction toys say about gender?

Granted, it’s technically incorrect to refer to these toys’ mechanisms as suction. They use a new mechanical method – variously referred to as “non-contact pressure wave technology,” “gentle sonic waves,” and “Pleasure Air Technology” – to gently and touchlessly stimulate the clitoris. But the effect can feel remarkably suction-like in practice, to the point that a minority of users complain these toys cause a pressure-y pain the likes of which you might notice when you crank up a clit pump too high. Most reviewers compare these toys’ sensations to oral sex – because, like a warm and willing mouth, they surround the clitoris and apply gentle, rhythmic pressure that can escalate to something like suction.

I was not initially sold on these toys; their brand of stimulation felt so soft as to be basically imperceptible at times, and they too often led me into orgasms half-ruined by the aimless, air-based tapping they administer. But after a while, my body got used to their more delicate and nuanced sensations, and I noticed that these toys, more than any others, allowed me to fantasize unimpeded about one of my favorite sex acts: cunnilingus.

You can think about getting your clit licked if you’re using a vibrator, your hand, or anything else, of course – but toys that feel vaguely like suction lend themselves especially well to this imaginative task. No human being has ever sucked on my clit as tenderly or rhythmically as these toys do, and yet their soft, rubbery nozzles hearken back to smooth lips wrapped around my bits, and their relentless “pressure waves” feel remarkably akin to a tongue rap-tap-tapping against my clit. So you can see how, when cunnilingual cravings hit, I began to reliably reach for an air-pulse toy.

The runaway success of this toy category is hard to miss if you spend any time monitoring industry trends. While Womanizer was the O.G., multiple copycat companies have leapt onboard the bandwagon and started cranking out their own versions. These toys have been profiled in Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and many more heavyweight sex-focused publications. There’s a fervor around them that I haven’t seen since the rabbit vibe or Magic Wand. My theory? These products strike a nerve because clitoral suction subverts gender norms.

I think about this a lot vis-à-vis cunnilingus, because I am somebody who gets off on being sucked off. My clitoris is average-sized, but, like most, it has a long enough shaft that it can be taken into someone’s mouth and sucked on, like a tiny cock. But despite how easy it is to do this – and the common-sense assumption that many people would enjoy having their most sensitive sexual organ surrounded and stroked by wet lips – this oral technique has been surprisingly rare in my sex life. Most of my past partners (the ones who bothered to go down on me, anyway) stuck to wet tongue flicks on the top or sides of my clit. Depending on intensity and stamina, this could sometimes get me off – but nonetheless, whenever someone momentarily slipped my clit into their mouth, I moaned much louder and clawed at them in frenzied desperation. You would think they would notice this and keep doing the thing that was obviously working, but many of them did not. Why?

I think there are two basic gender-based reasons for this phenomenon. One: Most straight dudes (and unfortunately, my past sexual partners are predominantly straight dudes) – whether consciously or not – associate phalluses with dicks, and assume that any kind of “fellation” would make them gay, or at least effeminate. And two: They assume, on some level, that I, being a cis woman, don’t want my clit to be “treated like a dick” because it’ll make me feel “like a man.” Wrong on both counts, gents.

Some important nuances in this discussion: Some people who have clits are not women, such as pre-op/non-op trans men and assigned-female-at-birth non-binary folks, and some of those people like to have their clits sucked on for gender affirmation reasons (in addition to physical pleasure reasons). On the flipside, not all women have clits (e.g. trans women and victims of clitoridectomy) and not all clit-havers even like having their clits stimulated. Nonetheless, I think clitoral suction as a whole is a powerful metaphor for how our culture thinks about sex and gender – because it’s the satisfaction of an organ often considered “female” in a way that’s usually reserved for phalluses often considered “male.”

The reason I know this is partly a sexual orientation issue is that my queer partners (of any gender) have never seemed to have a problem with sucking my clit. They tend to do it wholeheartedly and wholemouthedly upon request, even if that request is non-verbal (e.g. by gently pushing my clit forward toward their lips). It’s only the straight men who pointedly avoid it, so I have to assume their aversion has something to do with thoughts of dicks and gayness and fellatio.

I don’t entirely blame them – homophobic and transphobic cultural myths are highly prevalent and hard to ignore – but I do think that we, as a society, need to move past these myths. Sometimes we do that in big ways, like by naming and calling out toxic masculinity through media campaigns and the #MeToo movement, and other times we do it in small ways, like by confronting our feelings about sucking on a partner’s genitals during sex. Both types of societal inquiry and self-examination are important and necessary, I think.

I’m not saying the way I prefer to receive oral sex will change the world. There’s too much going on for gentle gender subversion behind closed doors to have much of an effect. But it is heartening to observe the success of clitoral “suction” toys in the sex toy market right now, because it means something is shifting. Our sexual culture is learning to prioritize clitoral pleasure at long last, after the persistence of the orgasm gap throughout basically all of human history. We’re becoming more comfortable, too, with the homologous nature of the clitoris and the penis – which I think leads us closer to a much bigger and more important realization: that everyone, regardless of gender, is human, and should be treated as such. Women are not delicate caregivers or winnable objects; men are not relentless warriors or heartless cads. Our socialization and social locations change how we behave and are treated in the world, but they do not make us fundamentally, inherently different from each other, and it’s dangerous to approach gender relations as if they do.

I always look forward to seeing what happens next in the sex toy industry, just as I always look forward to seeing what strides we’ll make in the fight for gender equality. Sometimes these two progressions intersect in the most delicious ways.

 

This post was sponsored by the good folks at The Hot Spot. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.