Musings

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?

You Can Test Out This Cool New Sex App With Your Partner

Kate Sloan

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I have dated and fucked more game developers than the average person. There are concrete reasons to bang game devs over other types of people, sure, but I think I’m just fundamentally, viscerally drawn to people who nerd out about games. I’m not much of a gamer myself, but show me a room full of dweeby video-game enthusiasts and I’ll show you a room where I will get my flirt on.

So, as you might imagine, games and sex integrate pretty frequently in my life. My game-dev ex once built us a game for Valentine’s Day that spun two wheels: one randomly selected a verb (lick, suck, spank, tease…) and one, a body part (ear, tongue, thighs, labia…) and you had to perform said act to said body part. It was somehow both sexy and hilarious. I also love the idea of dice-based spanking games, Truth or Dare as a sexy starter course for shy folks, and a long-distance kink partner telling me I have to do [X brave thing] before I earn [Y reward]. See? Games and sex are a fantastic combination.

My involvements with game devs have also taught me that it’s super fun to be involved in a game’s prototype/development stage. You get to offer feedback that potentially shapes the final game, and your very experience of having fun (or not having fun, as the case may be) is what the developer is watching out for. It’s like being in a goofy science experiment, only with more autonomy and agency.

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I’m telling you all this because I want you to know about Lovely, a smart new sex toy and app in its development stage. It’s not exactly a game, but the spirit of it is playful and it challenges you to get better, like a game does. Lovely is a vibrating cock ring meant to be worn during intercourse, and the accompanying app suggests personalized sex positions, stimulation techniques, and other saucy tune-ups. It looks like a real hoot!

What I love about sexy games is that they give me an “excuse” to do things I might otherwise be too shy or anxious to do, even with a trusted partner. It takes a lot of gumption to say, “Hey, how ’bout tonight we don’t do that thing we always do, and try this new thing instead?” Sex is hard to talk about, and anything that makes it easier is a good innovation in my books!

Lovely is currently in the process of recruiting couples to test their product and offer feedback on the app and the toy itself. The product will retail for $169, but tester couples can get it for $99. Their suggestions will be used to shape the way the app’s algorithms work, making it into a better and better product over time. Think of it like performing a philanthropic act for the future customers who’ll benefit from your feedback – only with way more orgasms than philanthropy usually involves!

You only have three more days to sign up to be a tester – so if you wanna get in the ground floor of this cool new couples’ toy, sign up quick!

 

Heads up, babes: this post was sponsored, but as always, all writing and opinions are my own!

7 Ways Weed Boosts My Libido

Kate Sloan

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My relationship to marijuana has been a journey. There was a time, years ago, when I was “straight-edge,” but now I firmly consider myself a member of the #StonerFemme contingent. Weed helps me on a near-daily basis with my anxiety and depression, my chronic joint pain, and – yes! – my libido.

I get a lot of questions about this whenever I mention it on Twitter, largely from people who are confused because they haven’t experienced this effect from marijuana. I can’t really explain it; I’m sure it depends on your body chemistry, your method of consumption, and what type of weed you’ve got. As for me, I find that sativa-dominant hybrids work best if I’m trying to amp up my libido, but really, almost every strain I’ve tried has made me feel this way. (The first Leafly review for my favorite sexytimes strain just says “Yo I was vibrating and shit,” so apparently I’m not alone.)

Hopefully I don’t have to tell you that intoxicants can complicate consent. If you need a refresher on that, read the first four paragraphs of this article I wrote. But with that caveat, I want to tell you today about the seven (!) key ways that marijuana helps raise my libido and my enjoyment of sex and masturbation…

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Arousal. Oftentimes, when I go several days without masturbating, it’s because it just feels like too much work. My sex drive is more responsive than spontaneous, so if I want to jerk off, I have to spend some time warming myself up and getting turned on: watching porn, reading erotica, and/or gently touching myself in places that aren’t my genitals until that area is ready to be touched. That process is lovely when I’m in the mood for it, but sometimes it just feels like an extra barrier to entry that isn’t worth the hassle. So I skip masturbation entirely.

Weed, amazingly, helps me circumvent the arousal process. If I smoke up, I’ll reliably get turned on within about 10 minutes, without having to actually do anything to make that happen. My genitals start to feel all warm and engorged like they do when I’ve been engaging in foreplay for several minutes – except I haven’t. It’s brilliant.

I remember one time, I smoked some weed at my then-boyfriend’s house just before leaving to head back home. On the walk home, I felt my own wetness start to drip down my leg. That’s a level of lubrication I usually only reach after, say, an hour of teasing and edging and fucking with someone I find colossally attractive. And weed made it happen without any effort or work at all. Strange and lovely!

Sensitivity. There is science to back this up: weed increases our capacity to feel physical sensations. Whether it’s a partner’s fingertips trailing along your spine, someone’s soft lips pressed against yours, or a vibrator nestled against your clit, sensory information tends to feel amplified when you’re high.

I wouldn’t say that weed makes my orgasms come more quickly or easily – I’m still a tough nut to crack, even when I’m stoned – but the lead-up to orgasm does feel better than it normally would. It’s as if I’ve never felt those exact sensations before, and my body and brain are experiencing them anew. It’s pretty magical.

Worth noting: this increased sensitivity isn’t always a good thing. When I had anal sex for the first time, my fuckpal – a seasoned stoner – advised me not to smoke beforehand, because anal penetration is already an intense sensation and weed could make it so I’d feel every bump and vein. I’m glad I listened to him. But for less overwhelming sex acts, that boost in receptiveness can be positively delicious.

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Tactility. So, yes, weed makes me more physically sensitive, and it also makes me more excited about the whole notion of touching people. Or touching myself, as the case may be.

I once smoked weed with a beloved fuckbuddy while at a party, and when it hit me, I became obsessed with his arm hair. We were standing close together and I kept brushing my arm against his, sloooowly, to feel his comforting hairiness slide against my porcelain smoothness. It felt shockingly intimate and sexy, despite the fact that we were fully dressed and not even looking at each other – he was absorbed in conversation with someone else and I was pretending to listen to that conversation, too. But my attention was reduced to just those few inches of skin on skin, and how fucking delightful he felt against me.

This obsession with tactile information also means that oral sex on weed is a damn good time. You know what they say about “the munchies”…! When I’m high, I’m equally thrilled if there’s a Reese’s cup in my mouth or a dick in there, and for roughly equivalent reasons.

Visualizations. I wrote about this a bit when I had my first stoned orgasm. Weed isn’t a full-on psychedelic, in the sense that you’re probably not going to have a spiritual breakthrough or an LSD-esque “trip” on it, but it can create some visual and sensory hallucinations sometimes.

For example: once, Bex was sexting with their long-distance Sir while high, and when the topic of a blowjob was broached, Bex says they could actually feel their Sir’s cock in their mouth. I’ve had similar experiences when I’ve combined weed with fantasies, sexting, or porn: I become very suggestible, such that the mention of, say, a fist in my vagina can create the sensory illusion that there actually is a fist fucking me. When I try to sexually fantasize while sober, my mind often wanders and I can’t focus enough to get a vivid fantasy going; weed makes that process a lot easier and more fun.

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Disinhibition. Much like alcohol, marijuana can loosen your inhibitions so you don’t feel as self-conscious. For an anxious person like me, this is a godsend. Anxiety triggers my sexual brakes, making it hard for me to get turned on and relax into the moment. Weed lifts the oppressive weight of anxiety off my shoulders, so I can be in the moment and quit worrying about shit that doesn’t matter.

While this effect is, like I said, similar to the disinhibition alcohol can facilitate, weed is physiologically a far better pre-sex choice than alcohol. Due to how booze affects the blood vessels, being drunk stunts our sexual sensitivity, our capacity for orgasm, and our ability to maintain an erection (penile or clitoral). They don’t call it “whiskey dick” for nothin’!

Joy. Gala Darling has written that regular exercise creates “a constant undercurrent of joy” in her life; I feel similarly about marijuana. It melts my stress and transports me to a place of childlike delight, where I can see the present moment for what it is: an opportunity for happiness, growth, and play.

There is certainly a time and a place for sex that is emotionally intense, focused, and serious. But that type of sex is a rare craving for me; what I want, far more often, is the goofy, giggly, relaxed kind of sex. I firmly believe that sex is grown-up playtime. I’m happiest in my sex life when I remember that and take it to heart. Weed makes that even easier to do.

When I’m depressed, or recovering from some kind of heartbreak, I often find it difficult to get turned on, because my sexual thoughts and fantasies just make me sad instead. Weed helps with that: it puts me into a happy-go-lucky brainspace where even people who’ve hurt my feelings can’t really bother me. So I can fantasize about them to my heart’s content.

Ecstatic pain. This one is weird, and I don’t have a scientific explanation for it, just firsthand experience to draw from: marijuana sometimes makes me experience pain as pleasure.

I first noticed this years ago when, stoned at a party, a friend and I began doing sun salutations. I noticed immediately that the stretching of my muscles – usually an intense, slightly uncomfortable feeling for me – felt almost orgasmic. I moaned aloud as I moved through the poses, pushing my body farther than I normally would, because the more I pushed, the better it felt.

It took me a few years to figure out how best to use this effect to my advantage: kink! I looove getting spanked, slapped, bitten, and scratched when I’m stoned. It all feels so fucking good. When I’m in that headspace and someone really skilled is spanking me just right, sometimes it even seems like I could get off from that alone. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still holdin’ out hope!

 

How do you find marijuana interacts with your libido, sensitivity, and enjoyment of sex? Got any tips, tricks, or favorite strains to share?