Musings

5 Kinks I Hope to Try in 2018

Kate Sloan

It’s long been a tradition here at Girly Juice that I set myself sexual goals at the beginning of each year. Last year was a rare exception: in lieu of concrete goals, I endeavored to scale back on relentless hookups and focus on quality over quantity with regards to my sex life. I think that, for the most part, I accomplished that in 2017.

This year, though, I am feeling reinvigorated to try new things, chase fresh dick, and boldly go where I have never gone before. Here are 5 utterly new-to-me kinks I’m curious about and would like to experiment with this year…

E-stim (electrostimulation) intrigues me because it promises a different sensation from anything else I’ve ever tried. Unlike the brusque pain of a spanking or the deep pleasure of standard genital stimulation, E-stim is described variously as tickly, prickly, warm and tingly. As a sex nerd and unabashed perv, when I see new sensations available on the horizon, I say: sign me up!

I am hopeful that I can get a sex toy company to send me a Neon Wand to try soon, or that I’ll meet a new play partner who has an E-stim setup of their own and would relish subjecting me to it. We shall see!

Hypnokink (also known as erotic hypnosis) is fucking fascinating! I have a new partner who’s super into it and has been teaching me some things – including by trancing me over the phone a couple times – and I instantly want to know everything about it. I love the idea of a dominant partner being able to get inside my brain and dominate me psychologically in an even more direct way than other types of D/s allow for. Obviously you should only attempt this with people you trust and who actually know their shit!

In a couple weeks I’m going to see my hypnotic beau and we’ve negotiated some more intense hypno stuff we’re going to try. I am fiendishly excited!

Fear play is scary and hot, and hot and scary! Many moons ago, I heard Violet Blue read a chapter from an N.T. Morley erotic novel on her podcast Open Source Sex which opened my mind to the carnal appeal of knives, consensual “kidnapping,” and other fear-based sexy stimuli. In the story, a woman is abducted (consensually) and forced to lie face-down on the floor of a boat, masked and shackled, while an anonymous assailant wiggles a knife back and forth on her clit. It doesn’t cut her or hurt her, merely rubs her to orgasm, but the threat of injury is always there, igniting the pleasure with a spark of peril.

Consuming the oeuvres of fear-play aficionados like Ken Melvoin-Berg and Dick Wound this past year (the latter of whom used some knives on me in an introductory, not-especially-scary manner a few weeks ago, whetting my fear appetite further) has acclimatized me to the idea that terror can be sexy – in the right context, and with the right partners. My limited experiences with fear play have proven this to me: a partner nibbling along my jugular but not biting down, for example, or taking me to the edge of my pain limits with a thorough spanking but never quite pushing me into active distress. I’m interested to see if I can evoke even deeper trust, subspace and catharsis with a fear-savvy partner this year!

Bootblacking thrills me, in theory, but I’m unsure if it’s for sexy reasons or simply because I am a fancy femme with a penchant for beautiful, high-quality footwear. (Maybe it’s both. My femme brain and my sex brain have a lot of overlap.)

This is a rare kink where I can equally see myself enjoying being on either side of the interaction. I think I’d like to begin by getting my boots blacked by someone who knows their shit, and then maybe attempt to shine someone else’s boots. There is a taboo sort of intimacy to this kink that makes me feel all tingly inside…

Medical play has come up many times before on this here blog. It haunts my fantasy-brain but I have no idea if I’d actually like it in real life. (That’s true of many kinks, actually…)

I have a lot of feelings about the idea of a hot domly person in a lab coat putting my feet up in stirrups, slipping into some nitrile gloves, lubing up a speculum, and giving me a “routine examination.” These fantasies are often tinged with elements of the treatments doctors supposedly gave Victorian women to help abate their “female hysteria” via “hysterical paroxysm.” Just as the Daddy doms in my little-girl fantasies make me come “for my own good,” so too do the efficient and dexterous doctors in my medical-play fantasies…

What kinks or activities are you hoping to play with in 2018?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 5 Sex-Positive Superheroes

Kate Sloan

This is one of my favorite instalments of 12 Days of Girly Juice each year, because I get to honor the folks who have genuinely changed my life and the way I think over the past 365 days. (Previously: 2016, 2015.) I’m lucky enough to have access to tons of mentors in my field – smart, curious people who are generous with their knowledge and energy – and I’ve soaked up so much wisdom from them this year. Here are 5 of the most important teachers and mentors I’ve idolized this year, even if they had no idea I was viewing them as such.

Photo via Mollena.com

Mollena Williams-Haas is a tour de force, a badass, a whirling firestorm of candor and insight. I first learned about her at the Playground Conference in 2015, where she and her husband/Master were the keynote speakers, and I was instantly struck by her story. A kink educator and advocate, for a long time she was single and sad about it, unable to find a dominant who complemented her particular style of submission and was also a person she could love. The way she tells it, she had given up on love entirely, when suddenly a mysterious message landed in her OkCupid inbox. The message turned out to be from Georg Friedrich Haas, a German composer with long-suppressed dominant desires. They met, fell in love, and the rest is history.

Beyond just being massively inspirational for a sometimes-lonely and always-romantic submissive comme moi, Mollena is also brilliant and I’ve learned so much from her. She always has a nuanced and clued-in take on things like race play, sobriety, and service. My friend Bex often says they would happily listen to Mollena explain how to boil water, or something equally mundane, and I would have to agree: she elevates and illuminates any conversation she’s a part of.

Image via DrLaurieMintz.com

Dr. Laurie Mintz published a book this year called Becoming Cliterate which would not have crossed my desk if not for an editor I sometimes work with, who emailed me to ask if I wanted to review the book for her magazine. What was supposed to be a short book review turned into a feature story about the orgasm gap, because I was so fired up by what I read in Mintz’s book (as well as Sarah Barmak’s Closer) that I wanted to write more about it. I felt the public needed to hear about what these two people were saying: that gendered orgasm inequality still exists, and that the solution to this problem requires action on both individual and systemic levels.

A lot of “how to orgasm” advice aimed at women puts the onus on the woman to physically stimulate herself, or to find ways to wring a statistically improbable orgasm from penis-in-vagina sex so as not to offend the man she’s presumably sleeping with. What I like about Mintz’s book is that it talks about alternative solutions to this problem – oral sex, supplemental clit stim, sex toys, etc. – and it also emphasizes the communication skills one needs to make the brash assertion, “My orgasm matters, too, and here’s how we’re going to make it happen.” Interviewing Laurie for my story was a joy, and I’m so glad her book exists, so I can gleefully shove it into the hands of anyone who needs a little clitoral bravery!

Photo via ReidAboutSex.com

Reid Mihalko is the first cis man to ever appear on this list in the 3 years I’ve been doing it. Normally I relate better to sex educators who’ve been raised as female, because they grasp the specific struggles I tend to grapple with. But Reid’s wisdom was invaluable to me this year, and I think anyone of any gender or sexual orientation could learn a lot from him.

Reid teaches a broad range of subjects, from sex techniques to dating strategies to advanced relationship skills, but the two things with which he’s helped me the most are flirting and jealousy. His approach to flirting is authentic, confident, and playful, and he’s taught me exciting new tricks in that arena, including meta-communication, a toolbox I pull from all the time. Meanwhile, his “eight-armed monster” framework for understanding jealousy has repeatedly helped me figure out why certain relationships made me feel more jealous than others, and what I could do about it. I’m sure his work will continue to help me in my dating life for many years to come!

Photo via ToBeASlut.com

Caitlin K. Roberts was essentially the catalyst for me getting involved in my local sex-positive community ~5 years ago, and she continues to shake up my paradigm on the regular. This year she pursued training in sexological bodywork and sex surrogacy work, and upon her return to Toronto, she started hosting little pay-what-you-can educational sex lectures in her living room. I went to a few, took ample notes like the geekiest keener, and left with my brain swollen from new knowledge. Concepts like Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent and sensate focus are still rattling around in my brain, encouraging me to reexamine how I experience sex and how I would like to experience sex.

On a more personal note, I went for a four-handed erotic massage with Caitlin and her collaborator Cosmo three days after a harrowing breakup, and it was a revelation of pleasurable healing. Caitlin brought so much sex magic to my life this year – and every year that I’ve known her, really – and for that, I’m so grateful.

Screenshot via Girl on the Net

Girl on the Net is one of my favorite sex bloggers, and actually one of my favorite writers, full-stop. Her writing is filthy, witty, and fearless in the way it probes into all facets of sex: the hot, the sad, the dark, the astonishing. She regularly reminds me of all the reasons I love sex, and all the ways sex can scare me.

When I first set out on this sex blogging adventure almost six years ago, I deeply admired women writers who were able to capture the gross, gritty, often mundane realities of female sexuality. Men can talk about quick stress-relief wanks and everyday horndog leering like it’s no big deal, while our culture often depicts women’s sexuality as sensual and sacred – which had rarely been my experience of it. I loved – and still love – writers like Girl on the Net and Epiphora who present a more casual, everyday picture of what it’s like to be a libidinous lady. It’s not all rose petals, sax music, and Epsom salt baths – nor should it be. I’m grateful to writers who showed me I could write about sex in a different way.

Who have been your sex-positive superheroes this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 8 Classic Tweets

Kate Sloan

Once again this year, Twitter‘s been my favorite medium for jokes, puns, and short-form rants. It has its problems, certainly – like lacking a good system for dealing with harassment, and adding unasked-for features like extra characters when what people really want is an “edit” button – but I love my community there so I’m stayin’.

Here are 8 of my fave things I tweeted this year. Aww, memories.

This joke has everything. Chocolate. Allusions to spanking. One of my very favorite emojis. 10/10, would make again.

More times than I can count, I’ve heard friends and acquaintances say that diagrams of the internal clitoris “look like a Pokémon.” Most couldn’t specify which one they meant, but I knew it was clearly Lapras, so I made this handy shareable comparison…

Love a good sexual portmanteau. They’re so useful. (See also: cunstructive cliticism, cumblebrag, Peenex.)

The ethical misandry is so real.

Several people replied to say it would be ideal if you could say all three things on the same occasion. I look forward to the day when I can.

I tend to only play video games when I have very little going on in my life, so, y’know, this makes sense. (Also: two separate Pokémon references in one blog post?! Damn, I have outdone myself.)

When my then-boyfriend said this, I laughed so hard and for so long that I thought I was going to die of asphyxiation. He had such genuine confusion in his eyes when he said it. I love good-hearted kinksters so much.

One more portmanteau for the road. You’re welcome.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 10 Perfect Sex Songs

Kate Sloan

Here are 10 songs that gave me sexxxy feelings in 2017… What were your faves this year? (Pro tip: you can listen to all 10 of these, plus all the songs I’ve profiled in previous years of 12 Days of Girly Juice, in my Spotify playlist!)

Shady Elders – The Night Air

I made a note way back in February to include this song in this list; I’ve loved it for that long. It’s a sultry, spacey unfolding of sound. I especially love jerking off to it when I’m stoned off my ass. Marijuana makes the slick beats and smooth vocals coalesce so it feels like someone is playing my vulva like a jazzy old Fender. I can’t listen to this without wanting to roll my hips, close my eyes, and sink into sin.

Betti – Ordinary

In the tradition of Amy Winehouse and Adele, Betti’s hearkening back to the ’60s with this mellow and melodramatic love song. And like many mid-century hits, this one describes a relationship that borders on toxic and abusive, but is painted as quixotically romantic. “We argue til midnight, and make love til daylight,” Betti sings; “Fold your clothes out the dryer; one wrong move, and I’ll light them on fire.” I’ve never been in a relationship this mercurial, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Sometimes I like to imagine this song is about a consensual D/s relationship – or a relationship between two kinksters so closeted, they don’t even realize the capricious game they’re playing is a function of their kinks. It makes me feel a little less conflicted about lyrics like, “We break up just so we can make up… We’re so perfectly fucked up, one step short of crazy.”

Hippo Campus – Boyish (Acoustic)

There’s no way I could omit Hippo Campus from this list. Their music isn’t “sexy,” per se, but it’s most of what I’ve listened to all year. This jazzy acoustic rendition of “Boyish” is the closest thing they have to an anthem of lust – and in classic Hippo Campus fashion, it’s difficult to entirely parse what the song is trying to express. But it sounds sexy, anyway.

There are lyrical elements that remind me of various kink scenarios: “Daddy’s coming home but mama’s looking guilty,” for example, or “Wolf-child’s heavy with the weight of the world, storing all his love in an adolescent girl.” Then there are lines that allude to the tropes of toxic masculinity, like, “I never really knew if I did something wrong; all I ever heard was it wasn’t my fault.” I can never quite decide if I think this song is about a complicated, conflicted man, or a literal werewolf, or the latter as a metaphor for the former. In any case, this version is beautiful. (And I have a hell of a crush on Hippo Campus’ graceful, goofy guitarist, Nathan Stocker. Hnnng.)

Sleeping At Last – Venus

This is a song about finally finding a planet you’ve been sleuthing out in your telescope for ages, but it seems intentionally written like a love song. It’s a metaphor for that moment when you spot someone from across a room and instantly realize they’re going to matter to you. “After a while, I thought I’d never find you; I convinced myself that I would never find you… and suddenly I saw you,” Sleeping At Last mastermind Ryan O’Neal murmurs romantically as the first verse resolves. I’ve listened to this song dozens of times and it gives me chills every. fucking. time because I know that feeling so damn well.

“Venus” reminds me, too, of the electric exploration of a new partner’s body the first time you get them naked: the constellations of freckles and hairs, the sparks of sensation when you discover an erogenous zone, the effervescent present moment that extinguishes all external distractions. You are entirely focused on this beautiful person’s beautiful body – like you’ve got a telescope trained on them and nothing else fucking matters.

Oliver Nelson – Stolen Moments

This track was the theme song for a late-night show I used to listen to on a local jazz radio station when I was in high school. When insomnia loomed over me, and I felt too scared or sad to lie in the dark by my lonesome, I would turn the radio on – and there would always be someone at the station, growling in a rough baritone between meticulously-chosen jazz tracks. This was one of my faves, and still is.

Fucking to jazz feels inherently classy, like you’re doing it under a streetlight’s smoky beams in a gritty 1970s movie. Jazz is also a safer choice than some others on this list (see: Nick Jonas) if you’re wary of sexual partners judging you for your taste. I can’t imagine anyone complaining if you wanted to fuck to this sultry, stunning tune – and if they did, surely you wouldn’t want to fuck them anyway.

DVSN – Sept. 5th

I had a boyfriend this year who told me he wished every band sounded like DVSN. He used to blast their music while we had sex (along with Alina Baraz; see below) so I deeply associate their pulsating R&B jams with deliciously slow-paced kink trysts in a basement apartment that smelled of sandalwood and marijuana.

“I could make it better, if I could have sex with you,” the singer of this track warbles in the chorus. This notion resonates with me. Sometimes sex is like medicine. But medicine that goes down smooth.

Paul Cook & the Chronicles – Ships Pass

Has there ever been a sadder song about one-night stands? I’m no expert, but I don’t think so. This one hits the nail on the head, perfectly capturing that empty feeling that follows an ill-advised hookup with a stranger when what you really want is something more substantial. “It’s cold outside your window, but warm between your thighs,” Paul Cook croons. “We both know what’s happening, but we leave it aside.”

I spent a lot of time this year contemplating what kinds of sex I want to have, and why. I’ve come to the conclusion, again and again, that one-off hookups are not my heart’s desire or my genitals’ jam. For me, they’re like throwing back a few McDonald’s fries when you’re aching for a steak and a heap of roasted veggies. But sometimes you’re starving and there is nothing else available, and that is both dissatisfying and sad. “I will find someone who stays with me all night… Yeah, I will find somebody just right,” Cook promises himself, but it rings hollow. You never know how long it’ll be until the next special person crests over the horizon of your life.

Nick Jonas – Teacher

This year I went to a Body Pride workshop, at the end of which we were encouraged to choose a song that made us feel sexy and dance around doing a naked photoshoot. This is the song I picked. It’s impossibly slick and sexy, overflowing with funk, like a modern-day “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.” If you listen to this while you walk down the street, you will end up strutting like a supermodel. There’s no way around it.

As you might infer from the title of the song, “Teacher” also pings a lot of my subby kinks. With lyrics like “It’s like your mama never taught you how to love – so let me teach you” and “This game we’re playing makes me wanna break the rules,” my boy Nick fuels the fire of my staunch belief that he’s a big ol’ kinkster. You can pry my Daddy Dom Nick Jonas headcanons from my cold, dead, submissive-babygirl hands.

Dirty Projects – Little Bubble

This song does things to my vagina. I don’t know what else to tell ya.

Alina Baraz – Buzzin’

I’ve put a song of Alina’s on this list every year this list has existed. What can I say: girl knows how to make a sexy track. I don’t have much to say about this one except that I can’t listen to it without wanting to make out with someone, grind against a cute person’s thigh while they press against me, and/or party down on a great vibe. Alina nailed it again.

What sexy music did you love this year?

3 Times Working Sex Toy Retail Made Me Feel All Warm and Fuzzy

Kate Sloan

It’s a commonly-spouted truism that working retail sucks, and I can’t argue with that. But some types of retail establishment suck less than others. As far as retail goes, if I get a choice, I’ll choose sex toy retail every time.

Sex shops are truly a weird universe unto themselves. You’re expected not only to sell customers the perfect products for their needs, but also to give them makeshift therapy of sorts. Folks come in not only with questions but with heart-rending monologues, long and storied histories, and years of baggage to pick apart. I would wager sex toy retail requires more emotional labor than practically any other category of retail.

But with great investments come great rewards, and I have indeed found sex toy retail to be some of the most fulfilling service-industry work I’ve done. I’ve often come away feeling like I’ve genuinely helped people and made their lives brighter.

On top of all that, I’ve had some of the raddest coworkers ever while working in sex shops. As you might imagine, these establishments are hubs for cool, offbeat, open-minded people. I’ve made some connections that are very dear to me in those environments.

Here are three of my favorite stories from working sex toy retail…

1. A young, straight-seeming couple came into the shop once, looking for a realistic dildo. I helped them choose one to fit their specifications: a particular shape and size they wanted, and a color that matched the guy’s skin tone. I didn’t think much of it – maybe he was having erectile issues, I thought, or couldn’t last as long as his partner wanted, or maybe they both just thought it would be hot to incorporate a dildo into sex. It didn’t seem relevant for me to know the details, so I didn’t ask.

It wasn’t until they inquired about harnesses that I began to suspect the guy might be trans, but I wasn’t sure, and again, it didn’t really matter for my purposes. I led him to the fitting rooms to try on a couple different harnesses, and his girlfriend waited outside the door to provide opinions as needed.

Leaving them to it, I wandered off to help another customer. But a few minutes later, as this couple walked toward the cash register with harness and dildo in hand, they caught my eye and approached me. “I just wanted to say thank you for being so helpful,” the guy said. “Some shops make me feel really awkward about being trans, and I didn’t feel that here.”

I immediately burst into tears, because I’m a sap. I’ve had multiple close trans and nonbinary friends over the years and it’s always so infuriating when they get misgendered and/or mistreated in public (or at all); it makes me want to punch people in their throats, which, y’know, isn’t exactly socially sanctioned. “That makes me so happy,” I gasped. “Thank you.” I hoped my manager couldn’t see me openly weeping on the sales floor, but ultimately I didn’t really care. The couple bought their stuff and left, and it was all I could do to compose myself for another few hours on the clock.

2. Another straight-seeming couple came into the store, all shifty and giggly. She beelined for the back, where one of my coworkers started helping her out. He, meanwhile, came to me.

“Me and my girlfriend are each shopping for something to surprise the other with,” he explained. “Oh, cute!” I chirped, and asked him for more details about his lady’s toy preferences. #RelationshipGoals, I thought.

In the end, we arrived at two possible options. She’d mentioned wanting to try a clit pump, but she also liked clitoral vibration, so he was torn between a pump and a strong bullet vibe I’d recommended. Offhandedly, he disclosed, “She already has a Magic Wand, and she loves it.”

My eyes went wide. “Oh, if she’s got a Magic Wand already, she probably doesn’t need this,” I told him, tapping the bullet. “Go with the clit pump. That’s gonna be a totally new sensation for her.”

At that moment, his girlfriend came striding toward us, and we both instinctively ducked, hiding the toys before she saw. “Shit,” he said, and we giggled.

“Also,” I whispered conspiratorially, “if you put the clit pump on her and hold the Magic Wand on it, the pump will vibrate, which feels really cool.”

He grinned. “Sold.” I watched them purchase their selections, backs to each other – “No peeking!” – and walk out arm-in-arm holding their plastic shopping bags. I hoped she would like the pump, and I wondered what she’d picked out for him.

3. I was blessed enough, at one point, to have coworkers who would consensually flog me with various products from the shop on slow nights. It certainly livened things up.

Once, I saw my tallest, buffest, domliest coworker perusing the impact play section of the store. I was bent over the glass dildo display case at the time, my chin cupped in one hand in a gesture of repose that said, Why the fuck aren’t there any customers tonight?! I watched coolly as Domly-Dom Coworker picked up the heaviest flogger we carried and weighed it in his big, broad hands.

He happened to glance my way. Wordlessly, I bent slightly further over the display case in a mildly suggestive pose. Wordlessly, he quirked an eyebrow at me and gestured with the flogger. Wordlessly, I nodded. Wordlessly, he strode over to me and cocked the flogger in both hands. I nodded again. He brought the falls down with a satisfying crack. I squealed. He smirked. We went back to work.

He and other coworkers took to hitting me with other things on occasion. A sex-ed hardcover in a dust jacket (“This one’s real thick; it should be good”). A heavy clotheshanger from the lingerie section (“I’m not sure this is strictly safe”). A giant PVC dildo the length of an arm (“This probably isn’t what people mean when they say they ‘play with double ended dildos‘”).

One day, a couple came in and inquired about the studded rubber paddle we carried. “Oh, it’s actually really cool!” I enthused. “Look, my manager just hit me with it a few hours ago and I still have these red marks on my arm! See?!” They were not as excited as I was, and did not buy that paddle. Oh well. Their loss.

 

This post was graciously sponsored by the folks at DearLady (who also supplied all the product photos in this post)! As always, all writing and opinions are my own.