I’ve been doing this sex toy reviewer thing for a long time – over a decade, in fact – and there are a handful of myths about my line of work that I run into again and again. Let’s bust ’em, baby.
We “masturbate for a living.” Look, I completely understand why so many people react to hearing about my job in a way that boils down to “Must be nice!” My career, indeed, involves an activity I love (writing), focused on subject matter I’m passionate about (sex). I’m extremely privileged to have a job I enjoy and can physically do, despite the chronic illnesses I live with. But I promise you, I only spend about 2% of my working hours actually masturbating, if that – and it isn’t “normal” masturbation because it’s for work, not for pleasure. I have to pay attention, take notes, compare different toys to each other, etc. rather than just being able to enjoy myself, and often end up ruining my own orgasms in the process. It’s a fun job in many ways, yes, but probably not in the ways you’d think!
Sex toy reviewing takes no skill. Uh, nope. Most people can hold a vibrator on their bits or insert a dildo into their body; most people cannot summarize and analyze the cultural context of that toy, compare it usefully to several others in its category, write a compelling and well-crafted review, take photos to go with it, pre-emptively answer questions that consumers will wonder about, promote reviews effectively on social media, implement SEO, keep up with industry trends, and so on and so forth. As with media workers in any specialized “beat,” sex toy reviewers tend to develop their own skillset and style. To devalue that is to misunderstand the work and what goes into it.
We are sluts who are always DTF. Oh, certainly some of us are. I have been at certain times in my life. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a slut. But don’t assume someone’s personality and entire life revolve around sex just because their career does. And certainly don’t assume you’ll have an easier time getting laid if you’re on a date with a sexual media-maker than with anybody else. I often feel pressured to live up to the “manic sexy dream girl” fantasy some people seem to have about me, and it sucks.
We prefer using toys over having sex with human beings. There’s nothing wrong with people who do feel this way, but it’s reductive to assume someone will feel this way because their work focuses on sex toys. And, as ever, I must remind you: sex toys and human partners are not mutually exclusive. The two can and do coexist in sexual encounters. Most of my best sex ever has involved toys.
We can’t find sexual partners because they’re too intimidated by what they do. I have to laugh and call bullshit on this one. Many of my sex toy reviewer friends are in high demand in their sex/dating lives, sometimes partly because of what they do, not just in spite of it. As for reviewers for whom that’s not the case, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t even fucking matter. The number of sexual partners you attract or pursue has nothing to do with your intrinsic value as a human being, or the quality of the work that you do. And if someone would judge you for something as innocuous as reviewing sex toys, IMO they’re not worth dating or fucking anyway.
We’re also sex workers. Some of us are (kudos to those folks!), and I have dabbled in sex work myself and usually enjoyed it. But it’s strange to assume that someone writing about sex toys automatically means they’ll sell you nudes or a cam show, or that you’ll be able to meet up with them for sex, paid or unpaid.
We sell sex toys. It continues to surprise me how often I get emails and DMs from people who think that I run a sex toy store, or who want me to supply them with wholesale sex toys to sell at their shop. I do not do this and have never done this, but there are plenty of great stores and distributors out there that do sell toys (including wholesale adult toys) if that’s what you’re after!
Sex toy reviewing can only ever be a hobby. To be clear, there are a ton of people for whom sex toy reviewing is a hobby or a side gig, and that’s absolutely valid! But in my case, it actually is the vast majority of the work that I do, and brings in the vast majority of my income – so it’s funny and sometimes a bit insulting when people say stuff like, “Oh, fun! What’s your actual job, though?”
We owe you details about our personal life. I get that when someone shares intimate details about themselves, it can be surprising that they’d choose to be private and guarded in other areas of their life. But one thing sex toy reviewing has taught me is that I can be selectively open. Good boundary-setting is an important part of the job, I think.
We’ll regret it. I do know people who have regretted reviewing sex toys, often because they incurred harassment online, offline, or both, from people who thought that this work was worthy of denigration or evidence of some kind of moral failing. But a lot of sex toy reviewers use pseudonyms precisely so that they can do this work without (as much) fear of it coming back to bite them in the ass. I did that myself for several years, fearing repercussions if future employers stumbled across what I’d been writing – but then I realized that this was what I was meant to do, full-time, so I came out publicly about my name and identity and have never once regretted it.
What myths have you heard about sex toy reviewers?
This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
She doesn’t know I’m in here
She doesn’t have a clue
She gets to be your girlfriend
I get to be with you
I hide out in the closet
It’s nice and dark inside
She gets to cook you dinner
I get to keep you satisfied
When the door locks
And your pants drop
And you feel like messin’ around
I’m a good girl
With my mouth full
So I can’t make a sound
Chorus:
I wanna be your sex-shop treasure
I wanna be your secret pleasure
I wanna be your perfect plaything
So you will think I’m so amazing
And though I’m so alone without you
At least I get to think about you
I wanna be convenient, sweet and small
I wanna be your doll
Your doll, doll, doll
It’s nice to know my purpose
It’s nice to have a home
You always make me nervous
I always make you moan
If this is Stockholm syndrome
I can’t say that I care
You like it when I lie here
I like it when you pull my hair
When the mood strikes
And the vibe’s right
And you feel like messin’ around
When the night falls
I’m a good doll
Who never makes a sound
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
A friend of mine mentioned he was keeping his sex doll in a closet, and I found that idea weirdly haunting. For a while I had a note in my folder of music ideas that just said, “From the perspective of a sex doll hidden in the closet: She doesn’t know I’m in here…”
I was messing around with that idea and came up with a piano part that reminded me of the Dresden Dolls’ song “Coin-Operated Boy,” which is thematically similar. For a few days I only had the verses and prechoruses, and didn’t know how (or whether) I wanted to finish the song. But then a chorus melody came to me, and I made a recording of myself da-da-da-ing it. I was out walking around doing some errands and kept listening to these two recordings back-to-back, pondering what I wanted to say as the sex doll.
Ultimately the lyrics I came up with for the chorus are very reminiscent of times in my life when I’ve felt used, discarded, and ignored by men I was seeing, or wanted to be seeing. Maybe this is why I was so drawn to that image of the sex doll waiting around in the closet to be used – it reminded me of how it had felt to wait by the phone for a text that would never come, or that would be a booty-call text instead of an I-love-you text.
Song 24/52: “Difficult Woman”
Lyrics:
They call me a difficult woman
‘Cause I’m always late to the set
They chide me for needing reminders of lines
I admit I am prone to forget
I wait every day in my trailer
It gives me time to think
And I’m not a child, so once in a while
I speed up the wait with a drink
Chorus: I’m not perfect; neither are you
I’ll never be perfect the way they say they want me to
They call me a difficult woman
That rumor was spread by my ex
I helped the director get ever erecter
I shouldn’t mix business with sex
I’m worried my name’s on a blacklist
And that’s why the cameramen stare
But it could be the tits, the charisma and wit
Or it could be my famous blonde hair
(repeat chorus)
They call me a difficult woman
I swear they don’t care if I die
If not for my name and my face and my fame
I doubt that I’d still be alive
I take every pill they prescribe me
I never miss even one dose
And I’ve never taken too many to waken
But honestly, I have come close
(repeat chorus)
I don’t care what secrets they spread
They’ll never defeat me – I’ll never let them kill me dead
Songwriting diary:
I’d been watching a bunch of songwriting challenges on YouTube where someone would use a random word generator to come up with 3-5 words that they would then have to incorporate into a song. One of the times that I did this, the words I got were “me,” “difficult,” and “woman,” which was immediately very evocative to me. I wrote down the line, “They call me a difficult woman,” and then started pondering what type of person/character would say that line and why.
It seemed clear to me pretty quickly that this had to be a song about Marilyn Monroe. I was thinking about how she would often forget her lines while filming Some Like It Hot, show up late to the set, and thereby incur the rage of her male director and co-stars. Her mistakes, it seemed, were always blamed on her and her alone, even though she was struggling with a drug addiction, a painful chronic illness, a history of sexual abuse, and widespread mistreatment by the media and by people in her own industry.
As I wrote the rest of the lyrics, I also started thinking about Judy Garland, who (like many other actors of her time period) was given amphetamines and barbiturates by people at the movie studio she worked for, leading to lifelong struggles with addiction, which were (of course) frequently blamed on Garland herself.
This was such an interesting songwriting process to me because I don’t know that I would have ever sat down and thought, “I’m going to write a song about the injustices faced by midcentury Hollywood starlets” – but the constraints provided by the random word generator inspired me to do exactly that.
Song 25/52: “The One”
Lyrics:
Isn’t it romantic? Isn’t it so sweet
That I could fall in love with anyone I meet?
But you’re the one I stay with; you’re the real thing
The one who I come home to; the one who wears my ring
I’ve been in love with other folks
But none of them got all my jokes
So I’ve been looking for the love
I know that I’ve been dreaming of
Chorus: You’re the one
The one I need, the one I want, the one
Who keeps me safe and warm, just like the sun
And every day, I’m glad for all you’ve done
You’re the one
I know it’s idealistic, and soulmates aren’t real
But every time I kiss you, that’s just the way I feel
It sparkles like a firework, it’s catchy like a song
Your arms are like my armor; your bed’s where I belong
I know we both have been through hell
At first, it scared me when I fell
Love was work, and now it’s play
And all those memories melt away
(repeat chorus)
I know we’re not invincible
We’ve got a lot to learn
But we’re up to the task
And I think we can last
Even though I know we’ve both been burned
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
I don’t even know what to write about this one because it mostly just flowed out of me improvisationally! The first verse was inspired by a polyamory-related idea I was thinking about, which I think I first read in Dr. Liz Powell’s book Building Open Relationships: that one of the beautiful things about non-monogamy is that your partner stays with you not because they’d be lonely without you but because they actively choose to be with you specifically.
I worked on the second verse and the bridge over the days after I wrote the first verse and chorus, and did some lyric-editing after it was all done, but musically I don’t really know how this came to me because it just… did. Songwriting is weird like that sometimes.
Anyway, it’s a song about my spouse, who is the love of my life and the person who made all my many years of dating misadventures seem worthwhile just to have met them eventually. When my friend Bex interviewed me about songwriting on our podcast The Dildorks recently, he asked me if there were any subjects I wanted to explore more through my songs that I hadn’t yet, and I said that I’d always struggled to write happy songs about being in love with Matt because our relationship has always just been… really good, and loving, and open, and comfortable. Even when we have conflicts or issues, they’re approached in a way that is loving and compassionate. This song was my attempt to write an uncomplicatedly romantic song about my love, and while I certainly don’t think it’s my best work, I like how it came out.
Song 26/52: “Dear Professor”
Lyrics:
Dear professor, I confess you’re often on my mind
When you lecture and you gesture with those forearms so defined
It’s hard to focus, hard to notice anyone but you
But I obey and get an “A” because you want me to
Your red pen hurts like a slap
I’d love to sit upon your lap
But I don’t like to break the rules
I’ve always felt my safest here at school
Chorus: I need a lesson
I’m second-guessing myself
I need a witness
I need some forgiveness
I need a teacher
Not some smug and pious preacher
I need some pressure, I need some pressure
I need you, professor
Dear professor, let me guess: you’re married happily
Do you let her give you pleasure? Do you take the lead?
Does she know you? Does she show you reverence at night?
Does she love you more than I do? I don’t think that’s right
Your passion always shines right through
Oh, the things that I would do to you
But I don’t wanna get suspended
And I would be so sad when it ended
(repeat chorus)
When I’m home, and alone
I don’t get to be your girl
In my bed, I feel dead
With my stomach all a-swirl
But in class, I can pass
For a normal somebody
Raise my hand like I planned
If I fall for you, will you call on me?
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
While feeling uninspired recently, I looked through a Reddit thread of potential song ideas, and one that jumped out at me was “a college student who’s in love with their professor.” This is something I’ve experienced quite strongly many times, and realized I hadn’t really written about in a song before, so I decided to take a crack at it.
I wrote the lyrics for the first verse + prechorus in my Notes app late one night and kinda forgot about them for a while. Then I started trying them out with different melodies and instruments. I had originally envisioned this as kind of a cheeky, cheerful song, but when I paired the lyrics with a more sad-sounding ukulele part, it felt right and I decided to go farther down the path of this being kind of a tragic song about desperately craving validation from someone who can never fully give it to you in the way that you want.
Song 27/52: “Lullaby for Little One”
Lyrics:
You’re never alone when you’re with me
I know you’ve been hurt and I think that’s so shitty
But hey – look where we are today
I know you feel strange and exceptional
But, if it helps, I am strange and bisexual too
You’ve got me and I’ve got you
And I know that deep down, we are one and the same
I know that we’re sharing one body, one name
I know that we also share all of those memories and shame
Chorus: And I’m here now to listen
And I’m sorry that I’d gone missing
It may not be much, but now that I know you
I know all the love that I wanna show you
And I’ll still be here for you even when everyone goes
I love how you stand up to bullies
The stuff that they scoff at is always so silly
But you, you do what you wanna do
You may not believe that your brain is a blessing
And I know that life can be plenty depressing
But wait – everything’s gonna be great
And when you are lonely, I swear I’ll be here
I’ll never be far from your faith and your fear
I’ve muddied the waters, but soon I can make them run clear
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
Okay, this one was weird… A month or two ago, a friend of mine submitted the phrase “I am strange and bisexual” when I polled my Instagram followers for songwriting prompts, and I wrote the first verse of this song. I was envisioning it as a song about a friend, maybe a friend who was feeling down about the political onslaughts on LGBTQ+ rights and needed some cheering up. I wrote a chorus for it that I later scrapped which went, “Queers have each other’s backs/ Queers can getcha through it/ Queers help other queers relax/ Almost any queer can do it.” I could’ve continued in this direction but that chorus just didn’t sit right with me, in part because of how much infighting there actually is in queer communities these days.
I set that song aside and didn’t really think about it again until a month or two later, when I was walking around Newark airport and this song just started playing in my head randomly. My brain was kind of chewing on it, figuring something out. And then I sat down at my gate, took out my Kindle and read a chapter or two of You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For by Dick Schwartz, which is about using the principles of Internal Family Systems therapy to improve your relationships. A lot of that book is about getting to know your “inner children” so you can address your traumas and show yourself some compassion, and by the time my flight had started boarding, I’d realized that this song should actually be about my inner child.
When I got back home to my apartment in Toronto a few hours later, I took out my ukulele because I wanted to write a song. I was kind of resistant to the idea of working on the inner child one because it felt too heavy and emotional for the exhausted mood I was in post-travel. So I pulled two tarot cards as songwriting prompts, hoping they would give me a different idea. But the cards I pulled were the Nine of Swords and the Nine of Pentacles, which respectively symbolize (among other things) misery and anxiety, and safety and accomplishment. These notions, paired together, reminded me so much of the work I’ve been doing with Internal Family Systems that I literally said out loud, “OKAY, universe, I will finish that song!!” and then I did. I’m not really a religious person and don’t know exactly what I believe in spiritually, but the creative superconscious often feels wildly tangible to me. I know that sounds pretentious – oh well, it’s true!
I was describing this song to my therapist while it was in the works, and they exclaimed, “Oh! It’s like you wrote a lullaby for your parts!” which of course I immediately wrote down. Ultimately I decided “Lullaby for Your Parts” would seem weirdly sexual out of context, so I went with a slightly altered version of that title 😂
Blow out the candles, I’m 30 today
Sing me that dissonant song
People keep asking me, “Are you okay?”
And I laugh and I half-play along
Recently, while I was combing my hair
I spotted a grey on the right
Could be a sign that I’m aging
Could be a trick of the light
It’s just a date on the calendar
I’m shuttled along like a passenger
And I’d like to speak to the manager
How am I 30?
How am I 30?
A woman can fade like a desolate flower
That’s how it seems when we’re sad
Losing our beauty is losing our power
And every last charm that we had
Everyone seems to be asking me
“When are you starting a family?”
But who knows what’s left in my ovaries?
How am I 30?
How am I 30?
Don’t wanna grow up
Makes me wanna throw up
I’m still 16 in my head
Make the clock stop
Let me take a year off
Guess I’m grateful I’m not dead
Though some days I’d like that instead
I doubt I’ll be dying disastrously
But there’s always the fear of catastrophe
Even with decades ahead of me
How am I 30?
All I can do is appreciate
My face and my age and my body weight
I guess I’ve got plenty to celebrate
Now that I’m 30
Now that I’m 30
Songwriting diary:
I’d been vaguely aware that I wanted to write a song about turning 30 – largely inspired by Bo Burnham’s brilliant song on the same subject – but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted it to say. After I finished writing most of my song “Dreamgirl” in mid-April, I continued messing around on the little keyboard I’d written it on, and improvised a little section (“It’s just a date on the calendar/ I’m shuttled along like a passenger/ And I’d like to speak to the manager/ How am I 30?”) that reminded me rhythmically of “Another Hundred People” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company. I liked the nervous, syncopated feeling that it had, but still wasn’t sure what I thought the song should say – in part because I wasn’t having any particularly strong feelings about turning 30 – so I set it aside for a few weeks.
In early May I wrote some verses and a bridge about turning 30 but they were in a minor key and seemed like a weird fit with the major-key section I’d already written. I tried it on my keyboard and then on my baritone ukulele and it sounded sort of odd both ways. But then I decided to do a multi-instrumental arrangement for it in Garageband and it immediately made way more sense to me – the transitions between sections felt more purposeful, and had the sense of disorientation that aging can instill.
I did some minor lyric editing after the initial writing session. My spouse suggested using the word “catastrophe” in the verse about death, in lieu of “mortality,” and I’m glad I made that change because it works much better.
Song 20/52: “Credit Card”
Lyrics:
Got my new passport
And a burner phone I picked up at the airport
Got my next mark:
She’s a widow in a condo next to Central Park
I know where she’s goin’
And I follow her there without her even knowin’
Woo her at a bar
And play a character I carry in my repertoire
Chorus:
And I say “Hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab?
And when we’re heading home, would you pay for the cab?”
It’s oh so easy that it gets me hard
When you say yes and let me decimate your credit card
Yes, I’m a trickster
When she seems suspicious, I just stop and kiss her
That’s how it goes:
If you keep a lady happy then the money flows
(repeat chorus)
Would I do it to the queen? Yeah, you betcha!
To the stars on silver screens? Of course I would!
They can say they’d never fall for it
They can hide their cash and stall a bit
Still, I’d walk away with all of it
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
In February my spouse and I watched the documentary The Tinder Swindler together. I found it fascinating, not only because I like con-artist stories but also because, at times, I have dealt with anxiety-based delusions that my partner might actually just be pretending to like me in order to con me somehow. (You can hear that full story in this episode of the Bawdy Storytelling podcast if you’re interested.) I wanted to write a song from the perspective of a charismatic con man – equal parts Tinder Swindler, Harold Hill and Jordan Belfort – who uses his savviness and charm to get women to give him money.
I wrote the whole lyric one night. It was an odd case, as far as my usual songwriting process goes, because I didn’t start with any chords and wasn’t even playing an instrument; I just heard how I wanted the song to sound in my head, and then had to figure it out on piano. This was even trickier than I thought it would be because I heard the song distinctly as being in a bluesy/jazzy style, which is not a style I have a lot of experience playing in. (I think the last song I wrote in this style was a terrible one called “Ogle Me” when I was like 15.)
I ended up scrapping most of what I’d written, though. The verses were boring and the bridge was too redeeming – it showed the character’s human fallibility and vulnerability (“sometimes I feel a twinge of conscience/ but maybe it just means I don’t know what I want yet/ I’ll go online and click on ‘add to cart’/ and fill the empty pit inside my heart”) and I just didn’t think that was the right vibe for the song. But I really liked the chorus (“I say, hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab…”) and found that it would get stuck in my head a lot while I went about my day, which made me want to take another crack at the song. This has been a common thing lately: only deciding to continue with a song because it proves its catchiness to me.
Once again my spouse made a small-but-important contribution to my lyrics this week: originally the line in the chorus was “it’s oh so easy, gets me oh so hard” and then “it’s oh so easy and it gets me hard” and my spouse suggested that it should be “it’s oh so easy that it gets me hard.” It’s funny how sometimes you need an outside observer to tell you what the missing puzzle piece is, because you can’t see it yourself when you’ve been staring at the puzzle up-close for so long.
Song 21/52: “Bodily Autonomy”
Lyrics:
Have you heard the news today?
They’re trying to take our rights away
They think they know us, think they own us
And it’s not okay
You’d think that we could all agree
On bodily autonomy
They’d rather praise the olden days
And the economy
Chorus:
But I own my body, and it’s mine alone
And you own your body – every nerve, every bone
They don’t own our bodies; they just think they do
But thinking doesn’t make it true
I’m worried ’bout my oldest friends
Most of whom are queer and trans
And all the pride they’ve had to hide
It’s like it never ends
If someone wants a surgery
Or to end a pregnancy
It shouldn’t matter who gets mad
Or says they disagree
(repeat chorus)
If we never owned our bodies, do we own anything?
If they control our bodies, don’t they own everything?
How can they patrol our bodies? Their own bible says be kind
If they control our bodies, next they’re coming for our minds
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
I wrote this song in a way that was totally backwards compared to how I normally write songs. I was feeling deeply uninspired trying to improvise on my ukulele and piano like I normally might, so I fired up Garageband on my iPad and plugged in my Novation Launchkey midi keyboard. I had a vague idea that I wanted to write something in a waltz time signature with jazzy-sounding chords, so I tapped out a simple drum beat and laid down the first chord progression that popped into my head. Then I looped the 8 bars I’d recorded and tried improvising vocally over them for a while.
There were a bunch of different potential topics and ideas on my mind for the lyrics, one of which was the recent news that the U.S. Supreme Court plans on stripping its citizens of the right to safe abortions. I improvised the lines “Have you heard the news today?/ They’re trying to take our rights away” and it immediately felt well-suited to the melancholy vibe that the chords had, so I continued writing from there.
The lyrics went through many rewrites, most notably the second verse, which I knew had to be about trans issues. Initially it was totally different (“Some people need a medicine/ An androgen or estrogen/ To smile and thrive and stay alive/ And feel born again”) but I decided it was too medically focused and I moreso wanted to emphasize the feelings involved in being denied bodily autonomy.
The bridge took a lot of attempts to get right, too. Initially it was way more angry (“Give us a democracy instead of a theocracy/ Stop insisting blood and bone should ever be a battle zone/ Check your bible and you’ll find that your own savior says be kind/ All the founding fathers died and why should corpses be our guide?”) but the vibes were off. I usually just feel sad and despairing when I think about basic human rights being taken away; anger is a rarer response from me in that situation, so I didn’t really think I could “sell” it when I performed it, plus I knew people would be pissed about me referring to the founding fathers as corpses even though a bunch of them owned slaves and were demonstrably fallible. So I wrote a softer, more plaintive bridge that fit the mood of the rest of the song better.
Song 22/52: “The Stage”
Lyrics:
We come to this hallowed place not to kneel or repent
We come to this magical place ’cause we know what it’s meant
We’re saying goodbye to our co-star, our friend and our leader
Tomorrow’s the last day he’ll ever perform in this theatre
Our backpacks are packed up with pillows and candles and wine
We’ll stay overnight; it’s a secret, but it’ll be fine
We hide in a corner, so quiet, for almost 2 hours
We hide while the janitor mops and then shuts off the power
And then we float onto the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we say a little prayer and read a poem
We’ve said it again and again to each other
That I’m like his sister and he’s like my brother
But 8 shows a week, we pretend to be lovers
It’s acting, I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real
And audience members will never know quite how that feels
The touching and kissing and that’s all before intermission
Rehearsals where you never moved til you had my permission
I know when we opened, we never thought we’d run for years
So we savored each moment, each curtain call given through tears
Family isn’t just chromosomes, blood and trauma
Our family shared a marquee and some backstage drama
And we sit up on the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we linger in the love of those we’ve known
We’ve said it again and again to each other
At Saturday matinees all through the summer
I cry like I’m losing my soulmate, my lover
See the thing is: I’ve loved you for a long, long time
And not just ’cause it’s in our lines
We’ve stared into each other’s eyes
For hours on end – lord knows I’ve tried
To keep my art and life apart
But that is not what’s in my heart
The critics said I seemed genuine
They didn’t know how much trouble I’m in
Now you hold me on the stage; it feels like home (’cause you’re my home)
And I think of who we were, and how we’ve grown
We’ve said it again and again to each other
When you say “I love you,” I still feel a flutter
The last time you kiss me, I’ll long for another
Songwriting diary:
My spouse and I watched a documentary together, Those You’ve Known, which is about the Broadway musical Spring Awakening and a recent reunion/anniversary concert that the original cast did. There was a touching story in the doc about the three leads of the show sneakily staying overnight in the theatre (which I’m sure would’ve been an insurance nightmare for the production company) and sharing wine on a candlelit stage, to say goodbye to a cast member who was leaving. It really stuck with me, as did Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff’s relationship, which seems to have been more than a friendship but not quite a sexual or romantic connection.
I’ve been doing a thing lately where, when I can’t sleep, I try to write a complete set of lyrics for a potential song. I either use a random word generator to give me a starting point, or I use a concept I’ve been wanting to write a song about. One night before bed, I typed up some lyrics on my phone that told the beginning of this story: sneaking into the theatre, hiding in a corner, etc. I didn’t get very far with it, just a couple stanzas.
When I looked at it again the following morning and started trying to put it to music, the chorus-y section (“And then we float onto the stage…“) came to me naturally while I was improvising. But I didn’t start conceptualizing the song as a romantic story until the bridge kinda popped into my head (“See, the thing is, I’ve loved you for a long long time, and not just ’cause it’s in our lines…”). I thought that would ultimately be more compelling than a song about friends hanging out platonically in a theatre after hours, but maybe that’s just because I’m more comfortable writing romantic stuff.
Always leaving me on read
Makes me wish that I was dead
That isn’t love, or so I hear
Love should not be everything you fear
I’m a moth and you’re the flame
Mixing signals, that’s your game
Why do you make me feel so sad?
It’s scary that your love can hurt this bad
Chorus: I’ve had enough, so I guess I’ll go
Thought this was love, but I didn’t know
That you’re not who I thought you’d be
There’s a lot I could not foresee
And I’m choosing me
I gotta put my feelings first
You never do, ’cause you’re the worst
Figured out why I’ve been so blue
Here’s a little clue: it’s ’cause of you
(repeat chorus)
Here’s to all the ladies dating dudes who make them feel like shit
Here’s to anybody who decides they’ve had enough of it
Here’s to grit and guts and hearts that hustle
Self-esteem is just a muscle
You can get stronger if you try
But first, you gotta dump the fucking guy
(repeat chorus)
Songwriting diary:
If you’re a songwriter, it’s really smart and helpful to use some kind of voice memo app that’s specifically for song drafts, bits and pieces of melody, etc. The one I use is called Voice Record Pro and was recommended to us in journalism school because you have a lot of granular control over the recording settings. I use it to store any and all musical ideas, and I also usually record each section of every song as I’m writing it, so that (for example) I don’t forget the verse melody by the time I get to the bridge.
I had one day left in the week to write a song, and set aside an evening in which to do it. Nothing new was coming to me after a while of trying, so I pulled up some of my old recordings to see if there was anything I could salvage. I came across a tiny fragment that ended up becoming the first half of the first verse of this song (“always leaving me on read… love should not be everything you fear”). I think I had originally envisioned those lines as being part of a sad, mopey song about dating fuckboys who disrespect you, but I was in a bit more of a cheerful, triumphant mood on the day that I wrote the rest of the song, so it ended up being much more positive in tone and style.
“Choosing oneself” was an idea I’d been pondering since seeing it come up in the show Love is Blind (which I wrote a song about the previous week). When I reached the bridge, I realized I wanted it to provide comfort and advice to people who are dating jerks. I wrote the advice I wish I’d gotten back when I was in that situation.
Song 15/52: “At the Wedding”
Lyrics:
Really need to wash my filthy bedding
Clearly I’m depressed and something’s missing
Today I’m seeing April at her best friend’s wedding
It’s always weird to see her just existing
It’s not that we’re not on good terms
I think we’ve both lived and we learned
But still, I’m just a little bit concerned
When I dug this suit out from my closet
It’s ’cause I knew the grey one was her fave
I wanted her to blush and I wanted to cause it
I know that that’s a creepy thing to crave
She always looked perfect in pink
I think I’ve had too much to drink
I’m tired of feeling; I don’t wanna think
I guess that’s her new boyfriend
Cemented by her side
I hope he knows he’s lucky
I hope he’s filled with pride
And if she catches the bouquet
I know she’ll make a beautiful bride one day
When I saw them twirling by the band
I wished that it was me holding her hand
But I had my chance
So I watched them dance
I should’ve kept her happy like I’d planned
I wish I’d kept her happy like I’d planned
Songwriting diary:
This song was heavily inspired by the Andy Shauf song “Jeremy’s Wedding,” which I listened to obsessively on loop when it first came out. It’s a song about seeing your ex at the wedding of a mutual friend, and how sad and awkward that can be. (I also once briefly dated a guy who was, at the time, about to attend a wedding that his very recent ex was going to be at. He bought a very expensive suit and sent me photos of it, which was weird because he had clearly bought it moreso to impress her than to impress me. But I digress.) Andy Shauf’s version is a bit more hopeful – the protagonist and the ex are friendly, smoke a joint together, and have some fun on the dance floor – and originally I had written my song to have some more interaction with the ex in it (e.g. the protagonist was seated at her table at the reception) but I ended up deciding to make it more of a tragic story where he probably never even talks to her all night.
I wrote this song on my baritone ukulele, but the rhythm was really odd for the uke and I kept hearing the song in my head as having more of an ’80s-’90s high school prom type of sound. (This was, in itself, probably inspired by another Andy Shauf song, “Martha Sways,” which always has the vibe to me of something you’d slowdance to if you and your sweetie were the last people on the dance floor at 2 a.m. at a sad prom.) I had been watching all these videos on YouTube of songwriters making music with midi keyboards and laptops, and realized how much I’d missed doing music production and incorporating multiple “instruments,” the way I did on my self-produced album Know It All in 2015. So I bought myself a Novation Launchkey Mini (it is sooooo cute and small!!) and spent several hours piecing together an arrangement for this song in GarageBand that included synths, bass, drums, clapping, electric piano, vibraphone, flute, and hammered wood. It really elevated the song to a different level, to the point that I had sort of disliked the song before I arranged it, but after finishing the arrangement, I felt like it was really fun and sad and a pretty solid song.
Song 16/52: “Call Me Back”
Lyrics:
Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning
I pour a coffee, pore over my phone
Your phoniness is surely just a sore and sour warning
Your hollowness has left me all alone
Chorus: Will you call me back?
I’m bending over backwards
When you call me back
I swear that I will answer
Wish you’d call me back, but
Maybe you’ve been hacked, or
Did you never really care at all?
God, I really wish that you would call
I’m reading all these books, and I think you might be avoidant
Not trying to point fingers or lay blame
But honestly, it’s hard for me; I don’t think I enjoy it
It always ends up more-or-less the same
(repeat chorus)
Should I turn my phone off?
Should I block your number?
You’ve already flown off
Wish I wouldn’t wonder:
How hard is it to punch in digits?
I know it’s sad, but I’m counting down the minutes
(repeat chorus)
Why’d I ever think that you would call?
It would be so nice if you would call
God, I really wish that you would call
Songwriting diary:
I actually wrote this song on the same day as last week’s. It’s funny going back into my voice memos from days when I was hopping around wildly between multiple different songs, but it also makes sense to me – sometimes you just take a song as far as it can go that day, and you have to give your brain some time to work on the puzzle of the song in the background.
I built this whole song from one line that popped into my head, “Ignoring me goes poorly when I’m lonely in the morning.” I was walking around one morning making instant coffee and feeling kind of lonely, and I liked the sonic weirdness of all those internal rhymes packed close together. It had the vibe of an anxious person who’s been rehearsing her argument all night long and is now faced with the task of explaining to her avoidantly attached partner why the avoidant behavior is stressing her out. I continued to include a lot of internal rhymes throughout the rest of the song too, as well as overwrought alliteration, trying to follow the “clues” laid out for me in that first line that inspiration struck me with (this is what Dar Williams calls “listening for the Voice of the song” in her book How to Write a Song That Matters).
I set this song aside for a while after it was finished because I really didn’t like the second verse I’d written for it originally (“I’m reading all these books and I think you might be avoidant/ Also I am anxious but we knew that/ Insecure attachment always pours in like a poison/ I guess I never knew that it could do that“). But in the days that followed, I found myself humming the chorus of this song a lot, so I decided it was good enough to be worth salvaging, and rewrote the second verse. I also made some tweaks to the chorus so that there would be 3 “W” words at the starts of prominent lines (“will/ when/ wish“) because I thought that’d give it a more powerfully plaintive sound.
Song 17/52: “Dreamgirl”
Lyrics:
It’s lonely to be in love
When even your best friend doesn’t know
It’s lonely to be alone
But that’s the way it goes
You say you’re missing your ex from Texas
You say he just understood you
I can’t help wondering how good the sex was
Wish I could show you what I could do
But I can’t begin to rock your world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
When you say that you’re looking for love
Why am I not a contender?
I guess it’d be awkward as hell
And a forever friendship-ender
You say on Monday, you had a fun date
But by Tuesday, he’d blocked your number
I think that clown is clearly insane
I say, “Wow, damn – that’s a bummer”
I can’t protect you from the world
When I’m not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
Don’t you know I adore you
More than you could ever know?
I think there’s more to explore here
No fear
Let’s give it a go
We’ll take it slow
I can’t admit that you’re my world
I’m still not even brave enough to say:
You’re my dreamgirl
You’re my dream, girl
Songwriting diary:
I had already written a whole other song that day (which eventually turned into the following week’s song) but decided to continue. I was messing around on my midi keyboard and started improvising over top, and sang, “It’s lonely to be in love/ When nobody knows/ It’s lonely to be alone/ But that’s the way it goes.” I liked it and immediately connected it to an unrequited love plotline in the TV show I’m watching a lot these days, Superstore. So this song ended up being a mix of the perspective of a character who’s in love with his already-married friend, and my own perspective when, several years ago, I was in love with someone who only saw me as a friend and would often confuse me by using me as a sounding board for his romantic problems.
The chorus (“I can’t protect you from the world…”) also came to me while I was improvising, and I liked the idea of making it slightly different every time (“I can’t begin to rock your world,” “I can’t admit that you’re my world”) to emphasize all the different facets of unrequited love. It can bring up feelings of romantic longing, sure, but also sexual desire, competitiveness, shame, judgment (including self-judgment), and more, and I wanted to get that all in there.
Originally I had the idea that I wanted all the verses to alternate between lines that started with “I think…” and “I say…” to tell a story of unrequited love through the ways we censor our true thoughts and feelings when we know they aren’t mutual. It’s a cool concept and I might use it somewhere else, but in this song, it only ended up surviving as the part in the second verse where the love interest tells the protagonist about getting ghosted and his outward reaction is different from his internal one.
As occasionally happens, the bridge (“Don’t you know I adore you…”) popped into my head pretty much fully-formed, and I had to scramble to get it recorded before I forgot it. After finishing the song, I did a lot of lyric editing, moving stuff around so the story would progress in a way that was easier to follow. Considered changing the “Texas/ sex was” rhyme because I’ve somehow already used that in a song before, but by that time I had grown to love the lilty weirdness of the phrase “your ex from Texas” so it felt too settled to change it.
Song 18/52: “Does He Know?”
Lyrics:
You’re not in love; I see it in your eyes
You say you are – you say it, but it’s all just lies
It’s not a rough patch; it’s not the eye of the storm
I wish you had a better love to keep you warm
But it’s not my place to foster doubt
So I’ll give you space to work it all out
Chorus: Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true?
Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?
Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?
‘Cause if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone
Yes, if I am wrong, I’ll leave you alone
They say that marriage vows are meant for life
But what if then a husband isn’t nice to his wife?
They say it’s not my business, and I know that
But I’d be so much better for you – I just wanna show that
I can see close-up the pain you’re in
And if you broke up, it’d be a win-win-win
(repeat chorus)
If this is how I make my move, so be it
I know that we’d be good together, even if you don’t see it
I’ve loved you for a long, long, really long time
I’ve loved you knowing you might never ever be mine
(repeat chorus)
I don’t think I’m wrong, but what do I know?
Songwriting diary:
This was a weird one. The melody of the first few lines was the first thing that came to me, and I made a recording of myself just la-la-la-ing it. Later that day, I sat down and fleshed it out into a song based on Jonah’s perspective in the early seasons of Superstore (yes, another one – look, there’s a pandemic going on, not a lot is happening in my actual life to inspire me 😂). When I listened to the demo recording in the days after writing it, I realized that I liked the verses and bridge but the chorus wasn’t working. It had a totally different rhythm and feel than the rest of the song, and it hit my ear weird every time I heard it.
The prechorus of this song (“but it’s not my place to foster doubt…”) kept getting stuck in my head, though, so I thought the song would be worth updating with a completely new chorus. I wanted something catchy that really summed up what this character was thinking and feeling. I was tidying my room while mulling it over, and suddenly started improvising, “Does he know you don’t love him? Is that even true? Or have I been misreading the hell out of you?” It sounded like country music to me, but (as I’ve been learning from the various songwriting books I’m reading) it’s best not to judge or analyze a song you’re writing while you’re writing it, but rather to take an approach of “let’s just see what happens.” If I wasn’t doing a weekly songwriting challenge, I might have stopped at this point, because I’m not a country singer and don’t even really like that genre, but I knew I had to get a song written so I pushed on through.
I liked the alliteration of “Are you dropping hints, or are you happy at home?” so I kept that line exactly the way it came out when I first improvised it. I could hear a twangy E7 chord in my head while I was writing the latter half of the chorus, which worked well because the verses already had an E7 chord in them. It was surprisingly easy to stitch together these disparate bits of music and make them into a cohesive song.
The G-spot is one of the most misunderstood parts of sexual anatomy, so let’s dive into some of the most common G-spot myths and why they’re total garbage!
Myth #1: G-spot stimulation is always pleasurable for everybody who has a G-spot.
Here’s a pro tip when it comes to sex: literally any sentence that begins with “everyone likes…” or “no one likes…” is false. So, although the G-spot is often framed as this holy grail of pleasure for many people with vulvas, it’s important to know that it’s not a magic button that you can just press and expect fireworks.
Many people – including me, at one point – find G-spot stimulation uncomfortable, annoying, or even painful. This doesn’t automatically mean they won’t find penetration pleasurable at all, though; there are other internal erogenous zones worth exploring, such as the A-spot and the posterior fornix.
Myth #2: It’ll feel good from the get-go.
I especially need cis men to understand this: please do not start poking ‘n’ stroking the G-spot of someone who is not already turned on, unless you know for a fact that they want you to do so.
Like many other erogenous zones, the G-spot typically responds best to stimulation that happens once you’re already aroused, both physically and mentally. For me personally, it really is the difference between “ow ow ow stop that right now” and “oh my god please never stop.”
Get turned on (or get your partner turned on) using whatever methods reliably work for you. For most vulva-owners, this will involve some amount of clitoral stimulation – and in many cases it can feel good to continue stimulating the clit while you start to touch the G-spot. I would also suggest using a lot of lube and starting slowly, like with just one finger and minimal pressure against the spot, until you’re ready for more.
Myth #3: G-spot orgasms are superior to clitoral orgasms.
Remember that time a cis male neurologist from 19th-century Austria theorized that clitoral orgasms were “immature” and that becoming an adult meant getting off from vaginal penetration alone? And remember how this crackpot theory has continued to shape present-day sexual discourse, leading millions of women to feel like they’re broken because their bodies work in completely normal ways? Cool cool cool. Thanks, Freud, that’s super helpful of you. 😬
What we know now, based on modern science (including the practice of, y’know, actually listening to the stories and experiences of people with vulvas, rather than making up psychoanalytic lore about how their genitals are wrong), that the clitoris is the anatomical equivalent of the penis. The two structures literally develop from the same tissues in utero, and share some commonalities, namely: they both provide the majority of sexual pleasure for the majority of people who have them.
While we’re on the subject, let’s clear up a few more misconceptions about G-spot stimulation vs. clitoral stimulation. First of all, you can combine the two, and many people have their best G-spot experiences when the two are paired. Secondly, not everyone can have G-spot orgasms, and there is nothing wrong with you if you can’t. And thirdly, researchers have yet to firmly conclude whether the G-spot is its own structure or is in fact part of the internal clitoral network, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter because it’s still a spot that feels good for many people to touch. Let’s focus less on pedantic semantics and more on pleasure, mmkay?
Myth #4: G-spot stimulation always results in squirting, or squirting only happens from G-spot stimulation.
Nope and nope. Not everyone can squirt, either because they just haven’t stumbled upon the right technique to make it happen for them yet, or because they’re simply not set up for it anatomically. (For example, I once heard the porn star Nina Hartley, who used to be a nurse, saying that she believes the reason she can’t squirt is that her urethra is located too close to her vagina, so whatever’s stimulating her G-spot gets in the way of the spray and stops it from coming out.)
If you want to squirt, or to help somebody else squirt, typically the best thing to do is to build a lot of arousal beforehand and then stimulate the G-spot really hard and fast for long enough to induce squirting. The ejaculation itself does not automatically coincide with orgasm; I tend to squirt the most after I’ve orgasmed, for instance.
Some people are able to squirt without G-spot stimulation being involved at all – such as from touching their clit, A-spot, or perineum. This may have something to do with the G-spot’s aforementioned integration in the internal clitoral network.
Myth #5: You have to have a big dick to hit the G-spot.
This one really depends on anatomy. I’m not going to lie to you and say that nobody will require a dick to be big in order for it to hit their spot the way they like.
That said, the G-spot is only about 2-3 inches inside the vagina, so you don’t have to have a long dick to hit it – and in fact, I’ve often found that short-to-average-length dicks hit mine the best, because the head of their cock strokes over that spot without much effort on every thrust, whereas longer dicks tend to hit my A-spot instead.
A penis also does not necessarily need to be thick to stimulate the G-spot. Angles that tilt your dick toward the front wall of the vagina can achieve a lot. Not to mention – say it with me now – fingers and sex toys exist! If you’re thinking of your cock as the only sexual tool you have at your disposal, you’re limiting your partner’s pleasure, and your own, a great deal.
What G-spot myths have you heard?
This post was sponsored by the folks at Honey Play Box, who are offering Girly Juice readers 20% off all products right now with the coupon code JUICE20. As always, all writing and opinions here are my own.
Songwriting diary: