Musings

The Unladylike Project: Calling Men Out

Kate Sloan

me rolling my eyes and looking exasperated as hell

Empowerment is more easily said than done. There are so many feminist principles that I champion in theory, and that I’d gladly shout from the rooftops or text to friends in all caps, but that I find so damn hard to implement in my actual life.

One such principle is the idea that men should treat women well, listen to us, respect us. Obviously I believe this. I decry disrespectful men on the internet, point out when dudes treat my friends poorly, and criticize shitty men in TV and film. But when it comes to how I’m treated by the men in my life, I find it harder to kick up a fuss.

True, I’m lucky enough that most of the men in my close social circles are fantastic. My little brother is one of my favorite people on earth and treats me like a precious jewel; my dad is an upstanding protector and a fierce feminist; I have several male friends who perennially prove themselves feminist allies. Unfortunately, though, patriarchal conditioning is really hard to unlearn, and even the best men sometimes backslide into toxically sexist behaviors without noticing it. And sometimes I backslide right along with them.

These aberrations come in many forms. There are the family parties where the men sit comfortably in their armchairs after dinner while the women clear the table. There’s the subtle way I and my single female friends are likelier to be harangued about not having a partner than our male friends are. There’s the expectation that women are “naturally better” at emotional labor and are thus expected to nurture and support our male friends in times of need, even when we barely have the energy to take care of our own needs.

Most of the time, I am pleased as punch to help my friends – of all genders – in any way I can. But when the labor expected of me becomes too much, and operates along visible gender lines, sometimes I need to call out my dude-friends for tumbling into troubling tropes. And I’m usually too meek to speak up when I need to, due to yet another gendered trope which says women should be subservient, small, and “ladylike.” Well, fuck that. If someone’s walking all over me, I am well within my rights to point that out and insist that they stop!

Our culture encourages women to cattily compete with one another, while constantly deferring to men and seeking to impress them. This results in a psychological environment where I’m much likelier to blame a woman or get angry with her, even if a man is equally or moreso to blame for whatever slight has taken place. This is internalized misogyny through and through, and I hate that I sometimes unwittingly perpetuate it. I want to take off the rose-colored glasses through which I see men, and expect as much from them as I expect from everyone else in my life: respect, kindness, consideration, integrity. Men aren’t exempt from being decent humans just ’cause I find some of them attractive and want them to think I’m attractive too. That’s no excuse!

Some of my male friends know about my tendency to downplay my own needs and boundaries, so they’ll check in occasionally: “Please let me know if I’m talking about myself too much,” they’ll say, or, “Feel free to ignore this unsolicited advice if I’m totally mansplaining, but…” It’s great that they give me these opportunities to set boundaries when I need to. I should take them up on those offers more often. It’s important to me that I be a polite, kind, supportive person, but you start to lose your energy for supportiveness when people are constantly steamrolling over you. So maintaining better boundaries, and calling out people who mistreat me, is good not only for me but also for my friends. I am a better friend to them when I am mentally and emotionally healthy and happy.

Non-male readers: do you also have trouble speaking up when men treat you badly or carelessly? Got any tips?

Nude, Lewd, Screwed, & Tattooed

Kate Sloan
Photo by Taylor J Mace

The day before I got my first tattoo, someone on Twitter told me to take a break from sex for a while, and I laughed.

See, my sex life at that time was not exactly hoppin’. I’d only just broken a year-and-a-half-long dry spell, and the person who’d broken it for me had gone back to the far-away city where he lived. So my sexual future didn’t seem bright. This well-intentioned Twitter warning felt like when I got my wisdom teeth out at age 17. As I drifted out of my anaesthesia cloud and back to earth, the dentist told me, “You should probably avoid drinking, smoking, and exercising for a while.” And 17-year-old me – neither a partier nor an exerciser – burst out laughing, to the mixed embarrassment and amusement of the dentist and my mother.

It felt like a moot suggestion. Just like someone telling me to intentionally avoid sex, when it felt like I’d been unintentionally avoiding sex for a long-ass time.

And yet, the very day after I got that tattoo, I found myself cuddled up with a cute boy on his couch, his face so close to mine that my cheeks glowed red-hot.

“Wanna see my new tattoo?” I asked excitedly, two or three hours deep into one of those intense, confessional conversations that make you want to bang someone real bad. (Or maybe that’s just me.) “Yeah!” he confirmed, and I lit up. I pushed my skirt a little lower on my hips, tucked my thumb into the waistband of my panties, and tugged.

To our mutual horror, the underwear stuck to the healing heart, pulling the mushy top layer of skin along with it. “Eeeeuuuugghhh,“ me and Cute Boy both intoned. (Tattoo enthusiasts, worry not: I went for a free touch-up at my tattoo parlor a month later, so the damage was not permanent.)

It was a gross moment, but apparently not gross enough to scare him off; we had sex less than an hour later, in his cozy basement-apartment bed. After teasing me for long minutes – his hands and lips and tongue all over every part of me but my genitals – he paused and observed, “Normally, at this point, I’d take your underwear off, but I’m gonna ask for your help this time, ’cause I don’t wanna hurt you.” I giggled and obliged.

It was my introduction to an experience I would come to adore: Having Sex While Tattooed.

There are certain phrases that come out of my mouth a lot when I’m having sex. Some pertain to logistics: “Can you go a little deeper?” “I would really like to go down on you…” Others are hallmarks of my anxious brain: “Are you getting tired?” “Do you want to stop?” Still others are just stock phrases I blurt when excited or nervous: “Sorry I’m giggling so much; I do that.” “Aaah, words are hard!” I like to imagine listing these phrases to a room full of my past sexual partners. They’d all laugh and say, “Yep. She says that a lot.”

One such phrase, since I first got inked, is: “Do you like my tattoo?”

Without the benefit of hearing my inflection or seeing my face, you might have read that and assumed I ask this question out of insecurity or a need for validation: “My tattoo is cute, right? Please tell me you think it’s cute.” But that’s not how it feels when I ask it. It usually crosses my lips coquettishly, a sly grin on my face. It’s not really a question. The subtext is: My tattoo’s goddamn excellent, isn’t it.

One such incident happened on a chilly night in March. It was the type of first date I didn’t expect to end in sex: our rapport unfurled leisurely but delightfully over drinks, and I thought, I would like to have sex with this boy, but probably not tonight. But one thing led to another and he ended up in my bed with me – ostensibly just to cuddle and sleep.

“Do you like my tattoo?” I asked as I shed my skirt and tights and climbed into bed beside him, tugging my panties a little lower on my hips so he could see the little red heart.

“Yeah! It’s so cute,” he said, with genuine enchantment in his voice. “Can I kiss it?”

I laughed a little to hide my surprise, and said yes. This sweet, gangly boy slid down the length of my bed til he was eye-level with my pelvis. I felt his warm breath on my lower belly. He pressed a firm kiss to my heart tattoo. All that heat and pressure and careful attention, just inches from my clit. It would be an understatement to say that I swooned.

I hadn’t meant to have sex with him. But like… after that… how could I not?

My boyfriend in the summer of 2016 was covered in tattoos. They each meant something different and magnificent. When I confessed I wanted more ink but worried I’d regret it years later, he told me, “Tattoos are just a snapshot in time. They don’t have to represent who you’ll be forever; they just represent who you were at the time that you got them.”

He was one of the first people I told about the tattoos I wanted to get on the backs of my thighs – two pink bows with the words “good girl” above them. “They’re gonna look so sexy on you!” he declared. Sometimes he’d even talk dirty about my hypothetical tattoos while we fucked. “You’re such a good girl,” he’d grunt against my shoulder while I was pinned beneath him. “Soon it’ll be on your skin so everyone’ll know it.”

Ironically, though that boyfriend was more excited about my “Good Girl” tattoos than anyone I knew, he never got to see them on me; we broke up before I actually got them. But it was fitting: I was not a good girl with him. I was in love with someone else, constantly half-distracted, one foot out the door. He was excited for the good girl I would become, though he’d never get to meet her.

Three days after I got my thighs tattooed, my fave fuckbuddy bent me over in a park at 2AM and fucked me like the world was ending. We were drunk and nothing else mattered. He felt deliciously thick inside me and noises bubbled up from my throat unprompted. All I knew was that I didn’t want him to stop.

But he stopped. “Oh, shit,” he said suddenly, stilling inside me. “Am I hurting your tattoos?”

This possibility had literally not occurred to me. But then, of course, alcohol numbs us to such things.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, but by then we were no longer fucking, and instead, messily kissing, because drunk sex makes one activity blur into the next in a way that feels retrospectively picturesque.

He zipped his pants back up, I smoothed my skirt back down, and we caught a streetcar back to his neighborhood. He bought Subway sandwiches for both of us, because he is a goddamn gentleman. When we arrived at his place, I realized I had forgotten to bring moisturizer, and my flaky, healing tattoos felt dry and achy. “Hang on a minute,” he called from the bathroom, as I whined tipsily, face-down in his bed.

When he returned, he was carrying a bottle of fancy face moisturizer. “Shh, just stay still,” he instructed me, so I kept my face planted in his pillow as he rubbed cool wet lotion on my blistering thighs. His touch was warm and tender, and felt somehow more intimate than his dick had felt buried in me mere minutes earlier. “There. That’s better. That’s good.” That’s a good girl, I whispered in my own ear.

A few days after that, I met a cute boy at a sex club and went home with him. He made me laugh and I felt safe around him; that was all there was to it, and that was all I needed.

When we arrived at his apartment and I flopped face-first on his bed, I heard his voice from behind me: “Oh my god.” I didn’t know what he was reacting to: my curvy and excellent ass, the spanking bruises on my skin from earlier that evening, or my adorable new tattoos. Frankly, I didn’t care. The reason for the reaction mattered less than the reaction itself. It was the reaction I wanted.

Tattoos, I realized, are the only femme trappings I can never take off. My carefully-constructed outfit will be shed, a blowjob might erase my lipstick, my perfume will fade into the atmosphere, but my tattoos are forever. Never again will I be reduced to a blank human canvas, devoid of the markers that make me me. I am perpetually emblazoned with these images: one red heart, two pink bows, and the words “good girl.” No one can take these things from me. They are mine, for always, forever.

“God, your tattoos are so hot,” this cute funny stranger said to me as he laid down beside me and began to kiss me, and I thought, Yes, they fucking are.

5 Things That Surprised Me About Making My Own Amateur Porn

Kate Sloan

Filming yourself having sex or masturbating is a laugh and a half. If you haven’t already tried it, but the idea of it piques your interest, I highly recommend it. It teaches you a lot about performativity, your own sexual response, and your tastes in the porn you consume.

Influenced and encouraged by my many friends in the indie porn scene, I’ve experimented a few times with filming my own sex and masturbation. A lot of things surprised me about my own amateur porn when I first started making it; here are a few of those things…

The noises I make. You know that thing where, you think your voice sounds fine when you talk, but then you listen to a recording of yourself and can’t stand how you sound? (As a journalist who does her own transcriptions and also co-hosts and edits a podcast: yikes, I know this feeling well.) I actually find that the opposite occurs with my sex sounds, though: in the moment, I don’t think about them much, but listening to them back, I find them rather more appealing than I expect to.

Partners have variously described my pleasure noises as “cute,” “sexy,” and “a mix between a laugh and plaintive huff.” (I fuck such articulate people!) It’s neat to be able to assess and appreciate my sounds without the pleasures of sex clouding my judgment – and to realize that yes, they are adorable!

My sex faces. Admittedly, I’m less compassionate toward myself about my faces than I am about my noises. Watching myself on video still makes me cringe: “Is that what I look like when I’m coming?!” I’ll think, slightly panicked. “Why does anyone find me attractive?!”

But then I start applying cognitive-behavioral therapeutic strategies to my thoughts. I remind myself that I’ve had many partners who’ve expressed finding me extremely attractive – not only before having sex with me but also after, when they had already become intimately familiar with the deeply human faces and sounds and fluids I produce. They must, therefore, have found those things attractive. And therefore, even if I don’t agree with them that my twisted grimace of pleasure is beautiful to behold, I can at least believe them when they express that opinion. Watching my own porn hammers that point home.

Unexpected squirting! In the funniest solo porn scene I’ve ever shot, I squirted without meaning to. This never happens to me – I always feel a telltale pressure building in my G-spot that warns me of impending waterworks. But in this particular case, I was so focused on the toy buried in me – and maybe on the video camera pointed at me – that I didn’t notice an oncoming wave of vagjaculation. So when I slid the toy out of me, squirt rained down on my floor, and I exclaimed, “Oof!”

Filming yourself in sexual situations can lead to an overly stilted, self-aware performance – but if you manage to capture your own authentic goofiness, even for a moment, it might end up being your favorite moment in the whole scene. You’ll get to see a side of yourself that usually only your partners are privileged enough to witness – and it can bring you a new appreciation for yourself in all your glorious weirdness.

My stillness. It’s funny to observe the stark differences between your inner life and how it manifests externally. When I’m masturbating, my head’s all awhirl with fantasies: submissive predicaments, dominant archetypes, partners whispering dark promises in my ear while fucking me to pieces. It feels highly dynamic – but when I watch videos of myself jerking off, I’m struck by how still I stay. Aside from the hand operating my dildo, and the increasingly erratic rise and fall of my chest, I mostly stay put, my eyes squeezed shut in concentration.

Learning this about myself got me thinking about changes I’d like to make: it might be more fun for both me and my partner(s) if I seem more physically engaged and present during sex, whether by moving around more, or keeping my eyes open more of the time, or focusing more on what’s happening in front of me than what’s happening in my head. That said, there’s something very hot to me about the idea of a partner commanding me to stay perfectly still – while they pound me with a dildo, say, in an attempt to unravel my composure. Making your own porn is so thought-provoking!

Actually finding it kinda hot. There is nothing about my own face or body that I find sexy, to be honest with you. For that reason, watching myself in porn usually makes me uncomfortable at first. But once I’ve acclimatized to the cringeyness of it, sometimes I can actually start to enjoy it. And once in a blue moon, I can even find it hot.

It’s less a “this person is attractive” kind of hotness, and more of a “sympathetic arousal” kind of hotness. As I listen to my breath hitching in my throat, my moans doubling in volume, and the slick slide of toys against my skin, I’m reminded in a Pavlovian way of all the times I’ve heard those things while sex was actually happening to me. And my body responds as if those past experiences were reoccurring in the present. I still haven’t ever actually masturbated to my own porn, but maybe one day I’ll be able to set aside my insecurities enough to do that. Maybe one day, when a partner calls me a foxy babe, I’ll be able to deeply, truly, 100% believe them.

 

This post was sponsored by Smut6.com, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

Kate Sloan

One of the reasons I love the sex-positive community so much is that it’s chock full of excellent mentors and role models. At 24, I am but a baby in the grand scheme of things, and there are so many people who know more than me, and have more experience than me, and have learned things the hard way so that people like me can learn them the easy way. I find that reliably comforting.

Here are five people who’ve particularly influenced my sexual evolution this year, all for the better…

14474500_776431015829192_2600787072084082688_nTina Horn. It’s surprising Tina wasn’t on my list last year, actually; she’s been one of my favorite voices in the sex-positive sphere for a long time. But this year she did so much excellent work and introduced me to so many useful new ideas and fascinating new people. In fact, two of the other folks on this list, I discovered primarily because they guested on Tina’s podcast!

Tina’s book Sexting helped me get better at that titular act, while giving me a more nuanced understanding of the theory and ethics behind it. Her writing on sexual morality, porn, and sex work is always captivating and well-crafted. And her podcast often introduces me to kinks I’ve never heard of or haven’t thought about very deeply before – like latex, fire, bootblacking, and puppy play – in discussions that are as nuanced and nerdy as the kinks themselves. Tina is certainly one of the cleverest brains in my community and I always look forward to seeing what she’ll come up with next!

cl0mlyrvyaaciocJillian Keenan. I first heard of Jillian on the spanking episode of Why Are People Into That? and was immediately taken with her: the frank way she discusses her lifelong fetish, how nerdy she gets about kink, and her brave stance that spanking your kids is sexual assault. As someone who has a spanking kink and was also nonconsensually spanked a lot as a kid, her work instantly resonated with me.

Jillian’s debut book, Sex With Shakespeare, is equal parts memoir, kink missive, and Shakespeare analysis. It tells the story of her enduring obsession with spanking through the lens of the Shakespeare geek she’s always been. Not only did this book help me dive more fearlessly and fervently into my own spanking kink; it also made me want to write more fearlessly and fervently about the stuff in my psyche that embarrasses me. If Jillian could confess her spanking fetish to her husband and the whole internet in one New York Times-sized fell swoop, surely I can write about roleplay and mental illness without cringing and blushing, right?!

cyvgqb3weaabiseAlana Massey. I truly believe Alana‘s cultural writing is some of the most important of this decade. Though she went to divinity school, she now writes about a broad range of topics: sex, love, labor, femininity, and technology, to name but a few.

Though you may or may not be familiar with her name, two of her most well-known pieces went so thoroughly viral that you’ve probably read them or at least seen them on your social media timelines. “The Dickonomics of Tinder” spelled out the central problem with men on Tinder – that hardly any of them seem willing to put in the effort to seem charming and bangable – and also popularized what has become a dating mantra among many millennial women I know: “Dick is abundant and low-value.” I reread this piece periodically when I’m bone-tired of Tinder and need a cathartic rage-laugh and some hope that good men do still exist, somewhere.

Alana also penned “Against Chill,” an impassioned defense of enthusiasm and decisiveness in a culture that seems to want us laid-back and laissez-faire. As I’ve told you before, I have no chill, so this piece resonates deeply with me each time I read it again. Some of my other favorite Alana essays are “The Unlikely Appeal of the Dick Video,” “A Woman’s Right to Say ‘Meh,’” “Feeling Lonely When You’re Single Doesn’t Mean You’re Weak,” “The Monetized Man,” and “Stop Wasting Your Time on Bad First Dates.” I wanted to limit myself to only three links in that last sentence, but I could not; Alana’s writing is too good, too thought-provoking, too perspective-shifting. She’s one of the great writers of the 21st century thus far, and I think far more people will realize that when her book comes out in 2017.

imageSarah Brynn Holliday. I met and befriended Sarah at Woodhull this year and I’m so glad our paths crossed. She’s incredibly brave and strong, a badass social justice advocate whose activism takes many forms. This year alone, she’s written about Lelo’s baffling decision to hire abuser Charlie Sheen as a condom spokesperson, sex toy safety as health justice, fatphobia in sex toy marketing, women’s right to privacy, and self-care methods that don’t require money, among other things. She’s always calling out companies when they do terrible shit, highlighting ethical companies, and centering politics in her sex blogging because the personal is political. I admire Sarah enormously.

Though there’s been a lot of debate this year about the term “BlogSquad” and who it comprises, to me, it has always simply signified sex bloggers who are dedicated to intersectional feminism, social justice, sex toy safety for consumers, and so on. Sarah’s a new-ish blogger, having started her site in mid-2015, but to me she completely embodies the goals and values that sex bloggers can exemplify when we’re at our best. I love her and her work and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

crjsy1rwcaag-neLilly. I’ve been reading Lilly’s blog since before I even started mine; she’s a stalwart of the sex blogging world. I was mildly starstruck when I met her last year at the Sexual Health Expo in New York, and I continue to be mildly starstruck every time I remember she’s my friend now.

An incomplete list of the brave, badass things Lilly has done in 2016: When she won the #1 spot in Kinkly’s annual list of top sex bloggers, she wrote about the flaws in the ranking system and why these rankings can be hurtful. She has allocated her Kinkly prize money for scholarships to help other bloggers get to Woodhull, instead of just pocketing it (which she would have been well within her rights to do, given how hard she works on her blog). She has worked to build bridges between communities of sex bloggers and values our community enormously. She’s actively using her platform to help less privileged bloggers get to sex conferences so we can all hang out and learn together.

Also, on a personal note: at Woodhull this year, there was one particular afternoon when I hung out with Lilly and Epiphora in Piph’s hotel room, and told them semi-tearfully about a romantic interest who was treating me badly at the time. They both confirmed for me that his behavior was unacceptable and that I should call him out, set some boundaries, and expect better from him in the future. It was surreal and deeply appreciated to receive romantic advice from the two sharp-tongued bloggers who made me want to start my site in the first place. I can always, always use more people in my life to remind me that I’m awesome and worthy of respect, so I’m super grateful to Lilly and Piph for the support they gave me that day.

 

Who were your sex-positive heroes, idols, and role models in 2016?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 10 Perfect Sex Songs

Kate Sloan

I’m a music nerd and a sex nerd, so of course, one of the things I get nerdy about is sex music. I have an ever-expanding playlist of sexy tunes, the perfect soundtrack for sheddin’ yer clothes and bangin’ yer babe. Here are my 2016 favorites, hand-picked to facilitate your melodious fucktimes…

Yuna feat. Usher – Crush. At one point this year, a friend gave me some verrrrry potent weed while I was at his house, and I started to “green out.” I was dizzy, paranoid, and nauseous. To calm me down, my friend showed me the video for this song, which he’d only just discovered. It’s such a groovy, juicy slow-jam that it did indeed calm my nerves and lull me into relaxation. I thought I’d like it less if I re-listened while sober, but nope: still a solid sex song.

Campsite Dream – Kiss Me. This dancefloor-appropriate cover of the Sixpence None the Richer classic is sweet, simple, and pretty. I like a raunchy, X-rated jam as much as the next gal, but there is something uniquely appealing about songs that are subtler in their flirtation. Who doesn’t have a fond memory of a kiss that was utterly chaste and yet meant absolutely everything?

Chet Baker – My Funny Valentine. An oldie but a reeeeal goodie, which only just made its way into my sex-song rotation this past year. Chet’s voice is like a droplet of hazelnut coffee dripping languorously down a swatch of dark velvet. There are other renditions of this song I like better (Rickie Lee Jones’ comes to mind), but for pure carnal appeal, this one wins out.

Nick Jonas – Don’t Make Me Choose. Nick’s Last Year Was Complicated was indubitably one of my favorite albums of 2016. It’s chock full of sexiness (“How did our clothes end up all on the floor? Didn’t we just break each other’s hearts?”) but I think this is the smoothest song of the bunch. Nick’s effortless, slightly whiny falsetto is delicious.

Naive Thieves – Anxieté. Another of my most-adored albums this year was Naive Thieves’ Vamonos, which came out in 2014 but took me til 2016 to discover. The lead singer of this band has a voice like molasses; I find it hot any time, but especially when I’m high (a lot of music makes me wet when I’m high, actually). The whole record is full of yummy, jumpy pop, but Anxieté is the song I most want to fuck to. It’s flustered, frantic, and tense – like a memorable quickie in a bar bathroom on an ill-advised Friday night.

Bahamas – All the Time. “I’ve got all the time in the world,” this song begins, and that sentiment is echoed in the music itself: it’s slow, languorous, rhythmically sidling toward its lazy goal. It feels like a Sunday-morning fuck, when the sun arcs in through an open window and makes your darling’s face even more radiant than usual. It feels like being awoken by a boner pressed up against your ass. It feels like your sweetheart bringing you a perfect cup of coffee after they make you come spectacularly, and then snuggling up against you and saying, “Mmm.”

The Neighbourhood – Daddy Issues. Look, if you want your song to get my attention, put “daddy” in the title. But this song delivers, even once you move past the name. “Go ahead and cry, little girl. Nobody does it like you do,” the singer purrs. “And if you were my little girl, I’d do whatever I could do.” This is the most sexualized version of a daddy/girl dynamic I’ve ever heard in a song, and dammit, it’s lovely.

A Yawn Worth Yelling – Empty Space. This band’s EP Start Somewhere became a mental mantra for me in early 2016, something to listen to on loop when I was anxious or sad and needed to calm down. It’s angry and whiny, in typical pop-punk fashion, but the lyrics are smart and the melodies are clever. There was comfort in thrashing the same songs over and over until I knew them inside and out. I want to get fucked to Empty Space while someone cute kisses my neck and grips my wrists.

Johnny Stimson – So Good. This song is sexy in the way that Marvin Gaye’s songs were, with a splash of early Justin Timberlake for good measure. It feels like an unexpected kiss from your lover in the middle of the street during a leisurely autumn stroll. They back you up against a fence and step right into your space, and for a moment you’re embarrassed, but then you’re too turned on to care.

Alina Baraz feat. Galimatias – Pretty Thoughts. An Alina Baraz song made it onto last year’s list, too; she’s a returning champion. What can I say: her music is dangerous. Play this song in front of someone you find attractive, who finds you attractive too, and just try not to have sex. I dare you.

 

What were your favorite sex songs this year, darlings?