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I’m a Good Girl

Kate Sloan

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Sometime in 1995. I’m a good girl. An exceptional, clever little girl. I know I am. I’m three years old and I’m reading aloud from the TV Guide to my mom. “Set in an apartment building in New York City, I Love Lucy centers on Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and her singer/bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), along with their best friends and landlords…”

“Okay, wait, wait,” my mom says, laughing. “You’re not really reading that. You just know Lucy ’cause we’ve watched it so many times.” She slides the small magazine from my hands, flips it to a page about some nature documentary or political drama, and hands it back to me.

I read it to her. Barely stumble on any words. And then look up at her with wide eyes, knowing (and awaiting) what’s coming.

“Oh my god,” she deadpans. “You can read now?” I nod. An addiction to educational CD-Roms will do that to a person. She gulps. “What a good, smart girl you are!” Yeah, mom. I know.

Winter 2010. I’m a good, smart, studious girl. I’m waiting for my 9AM high school philosophy class to start, and I’ve got my nose buried in some snappy, captivating tome – Alain de Botton, maybe, or Mary Roach.

My philosophy teacher walks in, toting his literature-stuffed messenger bag, thermos of cafeteria coffee, and signature charisma. “Good morning, plebes!” he crows. “Ready to talk about existential dread?!” He’s my favorite teacher, and I’ve had so many good ones. Nerdy, witty, and unflaggingly enthusiastic, he’s like if Adam Brody and Jimmy Fallon had a (breathtakingly handsome) lovechild.

My classmates continue to buzz and chatter like nothing has happened. While he waits for the slide projector to power up, he sidles over to me. “Hey, bookworm! I’ve noticed you share my love of the written word,” he comments, gesturing at the book I’m clutching. “What is it this time?”

I tell him. The details of my answer are inconsequential. I don’t remember what book I was reading, or what I said to him. What sticks with me is his reply. “Ohhh,” he coos, raising his eyebrows like I’ve just said the most fascinating thing in the world. “Good girl!”

I have no idea how to respond to this or what I am feeling – the hot burst of blood rushing to my cheeks, the flood of carnal butterflies migrating southward – so I just giggle and get back to my book. He strides to the front of the room and starts a lecture on Sisyphus. Or Sartre. Or something.

September 2015. I’m a good girl – usually. Good, polite, conscientious girls don’t sext when their friends are around. Unless, of course, their friends are cool with it. Mine are. I’m lucky.

“He said he wants to see how deep I can get him in my mouth,” I call out to the room at large. I’m in Bex‘s office on the air mattress serving as my bed this trip. Bex, Penny and Lilly are in the next room, watching TV or playing video games or… I don’t know, actually. I’m pretty absorbed in my phone. “What should I say?”

“‘Yes, sir, I promise I’ll do my best,'” Bex supplies. They’re way better at this than I am. I type the words into my phone unquestioningly and hit “send.”

I do that thing you do when you’re sexting with someone you really like and they’re a little slow to answer. I pick up my laptop, then my journal, then the pajamas I laid out to change into twenty minutes ago, but none of them holds my attention because right now I have zero brainpower for anything that isn’t the domly dude on the other side of that phone.

It buzzes. I lunge at it. “Good girl,” the illuminated screen tells me.

Before I even know what’s happening, I’ve screamed and thrown my phone halfway across the room.

“What?!” Bex cries, running in to see me. “What happened?” They look at my phone, lying face-down on their hardwood floor (both phone and floor thankfully unharmed).

“He good-girl’ed me,” I say, helplessly. I really don’t know why I threw my phone, or screamed, or had the breath knocked out of me. I’ve never responded that way to a sext before, not even a really, really dirty one. I’m stunned.

My friends make noises of sympathy that are hard to translate into written words. Hnnng. Unf. YESSSS. They understand. I feel less silly than I did in the moment when I thought I’d broken my phone, or Bex’s floor. But my body and mind still feel thoroughly unhinged, and when I awkwardly ask the group if it’d be okay if I jerked off, they don’t seem remotely surprised. They say yes, and I do, and it’s good.

October 2015. I’m a good girl, scribbling notes furiously while my psychology professor talks. My grade in this class has consistently surpassed all my other grades this semester. I tell myself it’s because the subject matter captures my attention more, or the late-afternoon class time works better for my sleepy brain. That’s not why, though. I’m doing well because my professor is appallingly attractive and gives me heart feelings and vag feelings and daddy-kink feelings. I’ve nicknamed him “Professor Hot Dad,” taken to calling him “PhD” as shorthand when I tell my friends about him, and they know it doesn’t stand for Doctor of Philosophy.

Today’s lecture is about developmental psychology, and I’m dying. “Some theorists say reinforcement and punishment are most of how we learn,” he explains, raking a hand through his sandy blonde hair and changing the slide. “Like, you know, ‘Be a good girl for daddy, princess, and maybe he’ll get you an ice cream cone.’ That kind of thing.”

I let out an involuntary sigh so loud that people turn to look at me. I grab my bag, get up, and leave the class for a minute, ostensibly to get a drink of water or use the bathroom. But instead of doing either of those things, I just stand outside the classroom, tweet, and try to breathe.

December 2015. I’m a good girl, waiting at Bex’s house all day for them to get home from work so we can drink wine, watch Magic Mike XXL and maybe spank each other on Periscope for funsies. But even good girls get bored sometimes when they’re cooped up inside. So maybe they send taunting texts to their domly fuckbuddies back home in Toronto.

Our digital flirting starts light, then gets heavier. And then he tells me to go get my toys and come for him. “Why should I?” I demand, full of sass and spunk.

“Because you’re a good little girl,” he replies. Um. Yup. Yes I am. I hunt for my Tango and Double Trouble in my suitcase and make excellent use of them, immediately, so I can tell him I did. He’ll be so proud.

February 2016. I’m a good girl, cheeks still glowing pink from a guiltily recent blowjob. We’re out for dinner at the brew pub and no one in this place can even tell what we were up to twenty minutes ago. Well, probably not, anyway.

Sipping a pint and nibbling my chicken club sandwich, I can’t get my eyes off my clever, handsome friend as he tells me funny stories, slips in and out of silly voices to make me laugh, gets all puffed up from the pleasure of sharing a jovial meal with someone who’s just blown you.

We’re talking about kinks. This is a frequent topic of conversation for us, two dyed-in-the-wool sex nerds, though we come at it from pretty disparate perspectives: I’m a burgeoning little kinkster, and he’s a self-described vanilla dude. “One of my exes used to call me ‘daddy,’ and liked me to call her ‘princess,'” he recounts, casually digging into his curry like he didn’t just drop a bomb on me.

I laugh a little too loud. “Well! I’m having feelings about you saying those words,” I tell him honestly, which I probably wouldn’t if I was just a little sober-er. “At least you didn’t say ‘good girl.’ Then we’d really be in trouble.”

He stares at me blankly. Vanilla people always do.

March 2016. I’m a good girl. I’m a good girl. That’s what my boyfriend keeps telling me as he roughly rubs his fingers in and out of me, scoring my A-spot with ecstatic stripes. “That’s your sweet spot, huh, babygirl? You’re getting so wet for daddy,” he murmurs against my thigh, speeding up his thrusts. “You gonna be a good girl and come for me?” I do. Immediately. What can I say – he’s got a way with words.

It takes me long minutes to catch my breath and slow my heart. He holds me while I recover from rapture. When I’m well enough to speak, I tell him, “Holy shit. You are really good at dirty talk.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m pretty good at knowing what people want to hear.” And though I don’t say so, I’m crushed. Those words aren’t hot because I want to hear them; they’re hot because I thought he wanted to say them. I thought he was getting off on being my domineering daddy, same as I got off on being his good little girl.

We’re only together a couple more weeks after that, and one of the reasons is: I can’t trust someone who only tells me what I want to hear. I can’t go deep into my dark, taboo, intimate kink with someone who’s standing on the outside of it, performing the ritualistic rites without actually being part of the club. It’s a sharp, staggering betrayal that he thinks “good girl” is a character I’m playing, a mask I’m wearing. He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see what I am.

Early April 2016. I’m a good girl, dutifully working on my last assignment of the semester, when I get a message from a domly pothead acquaintance who wants to take me to my first marijuana dispensary.

“I can’t,” I explain. “My deadline’s soon and I still have so much work to do. I can only go if I get a ton done tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you’re the highly responsible type,” he tells me. “Work really hard all day tomorrow. Let weed serve as a motivator. Agreed?”

He should not be allowed to talk to me this way when I have so much to do and need to focus. “Are you getting kinda dom-y with me right now?” I ask, and add a “haha” so I’ll seem cool and nonchalant, although I am utterly not.

“Just friendly advice,” he says. “Read into it whatever you’d like.”

I bite my pen and stare at his message for a few moments before answering. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll work extra hard tomorrow.”

“Good girl,” he says. Dammit. Now I have to actually get my work done so he can take me to the freaking dispensary.

Late April 2016. I am a good, brave, capable girl. That’s what Bex tells me, sitting in their car in the parking lot of a Minneapolis pizzeria where I’m about to go on a Tinder date with a total stranger. “You can totally do this,” they assure me. “It’ll be fine.”

I’m still anxious. What if Tinder Dude doesn’t find me attractive IRL? What if I don’t find him attractive? What if he’s boring and insufferable? What if he thinks I’m boring and insufferable? “What if he’s a serial killer?” I ask Bex, because that seems like a more reasonable concern than all of the smaller worries puncturing my resolve.

“He won’t be,” my best friend promises. “But just incase: I expect you to text me within 15 minutes, to tell me all’s well. If I don’t hear from you by 7:30, I’ll come back with a Double Trouble in each hand.”

I laugh. “Okay, dad,” I sneer, leaning in to hug them goodnight. “I’ll text you.”

“Good girl,” Bex says, and I get out of the car with renewed grit and mettle. Whatever happens, happens. I can do it because Bex said I could. I’ll be good and go on this goddamn Tinder date.

Later that night, when dude is inside me, I reach down to touch my clit to try to get myself off. “Oh, you’re touching your pussy for me, huh?” he jeers. “Good girl.” I laugh in his face, because I’m amazed that I feel absolutely nothing in response to his words. No rush of arousal, no dutiful call to action, no swell of pride. Maybe this particular loaded compliment – like sex in general – only stirs emotions in me when I’m emotionally invested.

This stranger from the internet who I’ll never see again after tonight? He’s nice, and fun enough to spend an evening with. But I don’t care about him enough to try to impress him. I don’t care if he thinks I’m a good girl.

May 2016. I’m a good, talented, gutsy girl. I mount the stairs onto the stage of the 519 ballroom. Me and my ukulele get a warm welcome from the boisterous Smut in the 6ix crowd. “I’m gonna play you a song I wrote when I was just coming into my identity as a submissive person,” I purr into the mic. “It’s called Good Girl, because, uh… that is a phrase that gives me a lot of feelings.”

I strum the opening Cminor7 chord and go into my sweet, kinky little waltz. “Tie me to the bedposts, kiss my wristbones, leave bruises on my arms,” I sing. “Do it really nice, though – gentle and slow. Don’t leave me lasting harm.” I can remember the mythical dream dom partner I vividly envisioned when I wrote those words – someone I knew hadn’t entered my life yet but was drifting around the periphery, waiting to arrive for me when I least expect it.

As I come to the last line of the song – “I’ll show you that I’m a good girl” – the room bursts into applause, and I glow from the attention. The act before me was a beautiful burlesque performer who shamelessly stripped on stage, and that image lingers in my mind and emboldens me. “Is it okay if I take off my skirt?” I ask the audience, and they holler their jubilant yeses.

I shimmy out of my pencil skirt til it falls to the floor, and I’m just wearing my figure-hugging gold lamé bodysuit. I have one terrifying moment of self-consciousness – does the lamé make my belly look fat? Are my thighs too pale? Is my cellulite showing? – before someone near the front shouts, “Good girl!”

Everything’s okay. I grin. I play my second song.

On a Sex Blogger’s Desk: A Sexy-Weird Mini-Altar

Kate Sloan

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I have long been obsessed with totems: physical tokens which represent, and remind you of, a mental or emotional idea. I believe you can invoke magic, meaning, passion and purpose through the use of these small symbols. Magic, the way I see it, is a blend of attitude and action: when you’re reminded of your intentions all the time, they stay in the forefront of your mind, making it likelier that you’ll take small (and big) steps toward them every day.

A totem, the way I view it, can be any item that reminds you of something you want to feel or something you want to accomplish. Lately I’ve been enjoying the process of maintaining an altar of sorts: a collection of these totems, grouped together in one place, to remind me of what I’m trying to bring into my life.

My little mini-altar is a grey stone bowl that sits on my desk, perched atop a piano-shaped music box. It’s positioned to the left of my computer, so its presence looms lovingly over every moment of work I do at my desk. It’s filled with objects that keep me on-task and feeling good whenever I look at them.

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Central to my altar right now (it changes frequently) are two vulvas: a custom-made vulva ring I commissioned from CatStache Accessories, and a turquoise silicone vulva cast that was a gift from Colin at Hole Punch Toys. Obviously, sexuality is central to my work – especially the encouragement and validation of the sexuality of female-assigned-at-birth people – so these vulvas act as a daily reminder of the Power of the Pussy! Colin also gave me a cast of a butthole, so that’s in there too.

I bought a quartet of beautiful dice at a Long Island nerd shop last time I was there visiting Bex. They viscerally called to me when I saw them in their display case, even though I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons or do anything else that would necessitate me owning dice. I think I was drawn to their nerdy-fun energy: most of the people I’ve ever been attracted to are nerdy enough to participate in stuff like D&D with great enthusiasm. (Cough, the McElroy brothers, cough.) The presence of these dice in my altar reminds me of the type of romantic and/or sexual partner I’m always trying to attract into my life, and they also remind me of how much I love nerds in general. Sex nerds are my ideal readers here; I connect so deeply with nerds’ extreme enthusiasm and obsessive love of their interests.

Last week I went out dancing at a bar with my friends Dan and Sarah, and drunkenly bought an expired vintage-looking condom from the vending machine in the bar bathroom. It’s in my altar now because it makes me laugh (“Do not use as a substitute for a condom,” the packaging dares you in a distinctly 1970s-looking font), but also because it reminds me of how absolutely crucial sex education is. There are people in the world who wouldn’t know how perilous it could be to use an expired, “for-novelty-use-only” condom, and that kind of gap in knowledge is part of what I’m working to eradicate with my sex education work!

When I had coffee with Kidder, my sex-positivity hero, he gave me a box of gifts, including a signed copy of his book, a new-in-the-box copy of a sexy card game he developed when I was but a youngin’, and a silver coin emblazoned with the “Sex is Fun” logo. That coin holds a place of honor in my altar, because it reminds me that my heroes are people too, and that maybe someday I’ll be somebody’s hero the way Kidder was for me.

Tucked into the top of my altar is a white index card folded into an origami heart. Periodically I like to write down my current hopes and wishes and do some kind of magic ceremony with the piece of paper to release my wish to the universe, whether that be burning it, shredding it, or just folding it into a meaningful heart. I don’t even remember what’s written inside this particular heart, but the sight of it makes me happy.

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I own lots and lots of crystals. Like a lot of magical items, I’m not 100% convinced of their ability to make magic in the ethereal sense of rearranging the universe and attracting specific things into our lives, but I do think they serve to remind you of what you’re trying to achieve, and that’s always a useful thing. Each crystal in my altar was chosen for a specific purpose; some of my favorites are my rose quartz wand (for encouraging self-love and compassion), a chunk of labradorite (for quelling anxiety and overwhelm), citrine (for prosperity and higher self-esteem), and amethyst (for increased creativity and intuition). Sometimes when I meditate about my hopes and dreams, I like to clutch a rose quartz heart in one hand and a carnelian heart in the other; those are the love and sex crystals, respectively, and it feels divinely right for me to combine their powers and use ’em together.

I own a lot of jewelry, some of which I keep in my altar because it holds specific meanings for me. I have a rose quartz point necklace, to (again) evoke self-love. (Never enough rose quartz!!) And I have three rings: an emerald and diamond ring given to me by my high school girlfriend (to remind me I’m capable of being loved deeply), a ring my late grandmother willed to me that features a panther with glowing jade eyes (to remind me of my inherent feminine power and bravery), and a blue topaz heart ring I bought myself (to increase my writerly powers). Sometimes I stack them all on my fingers when I leave the house, on days when I need cheerifying and emboldening.

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There are a few things my altar is missing, that I’d really like to find for it:

• A penis, or at least some kind of phallic symbol (other than the semi-phallic rose quartz wand up there). There’s a lot of vulva-energy in this spread and I wanna balance that out. A miniature dildo would be ideal!

• Something that reminds me of Bex. They’re my best friend, my romantic advisor and my favorite shoulder-angel. I want a little symbol that basically functions as a reminder to ask myself, “What would Bex do?”

• Something kink-related, like a tiny handcuffs charm or a heart-shaped lock. Kink is an important part of my sexuality and even my spirituality; it’s odd that it isn’t represented here.

• Maybe some specific mementos from happy past sexual experiences. A receipt from a drinks-date. A matchbook from an illicit hotel. A chocolate wrapper from a romantic weekend. I think these things are imbued with colossal positive energy and we can always use more of that!

Do you have any kind of altar-like space in your home? How about tokens that serve to remind you of what you want? What are they?

I’m an Obsessive, Intense Weirdo and I Wouldn’t Trade It For Anything

Kate Sloan

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Today as I write this, my body is heavy with depression. My thoughts feel foggy and it’s been hard to move all day. It took enormous energy just to write to my best friend and tell them what was going on with me, and their gentle prodding from afar was the only thing capable of rousing me from bed. I slogged to a café, ordered something peppy to counteract my sluggishness, but even robust espresso can’t shake my sads off. I have bipolar II and this is how my depressive episodes are, sometimes: a deep and inexplicable sadness I feel in my mind and my body, and just have to ride out.

When I ask myself how my life would be different without mental illness, the temptation is to think: “I would be so much happier and more productive!” And while that might be true, I also wouldn’t wish my bipolar disorder away. Because the manic episodes are worth the depressive ones for me. My occasional mania is key to my personality, a perky prism through which I sometimes view the world. Most of my best ideas, my finest work, my biggest contributions to the world, originated in mania. It’s my superpower.

Back when I was in high school, and hadn’t yet been diagnosed, my emotions confused me. It always seemed that I felt things more deeply than the people around me. When I was sad, I wept for hours and journaled endlessly about my feelings. When I was happy, I giggled hysterically, distributed hugs freely and couldn’t keep a big dumb grin off my face. I noticed details more than other people seemed to, fixated on them for longer, and remembered them more clearly. When I liked someone, I really, really liked them.

This is still how I am now. Getting a diagnosis gave me some answers, but it didn’t really change anything. I still seem to experience emotions more strongly than most people I know, and that can be very isolating – especially romantically. I get addicted to and obsessed with people in a way that’s supposed to be special and rare, but is just par for the course for me. If I’ve ever been romantically or sexually interested in you, I guarantee there are pages upon pages about you in my journals, dozens of complimentary musings about you in my chat histories with friends, and elaborate fantasies about our future married life floating around in my brain.

Media narratives tell me that this kind of fixation occurs only when you’re deeply, truly in love with someone – but that’s not consistent with my experience. I obsess over potential beaux regardless of the longevity or validity of my feelings for them. It’s like I’m drowning in a sea of New Relationship Energy, except it happens with everyone I’m interested in, whether or not they’re new to me or we’re actually in a relationship.

As you might imagine, this brain problem makes it hard for me to engage in casual sex, or to approach romantic encounters with any degree of “chill.” When I had casual sex for the first time last summer, I journaled lengthy missives about the dude’s perfect dick and top-notch sense of humor, complained to friends about how he would never be my boyfriend, and then wrote a song which contains the lines, “I don’t have the strength/ to keep you at arm’s length/ I fall for all callers to my bed.” And, truth be told, I didn’t even like the dude that much. After he’d left my life and the dust had cleared, I saw that we’d never been that compatible. (He openly hates puns and musicals, and loves sports. I mean, really!) I’d seen him through rose-colored glasses, because my brain is addicted to romantic and sexual stimuli. Dick, any dick, lights up my neurons and makes me feel desperately out of control of my emotions.

Writing this is embarrassing. I am sitting in a coffee shop and cringing as I type these words, because I know someone will read them who I wish wouldn’t. At least one person reading this right now, inevitably, is someone on whom I have turned my laser-focused headlights of infatuation at some point. Maybe they are recoiling in surprise and fear, shocked to learn how deep my feelings went – but it’s more likely they’re just nodding in recognition. I am not good at hiding my feelings. Faced with a crush, I dissolve into a blushy, giggly, dorky mess. It is not subtle and it is not “cool.” Sometimes folks are okay with it, and sometimes they’re not and I scare them away. Either way, I am always profoundly embarrassed by how strongly I feel my feelings. There are times when I wish I could shut down my heart, so I could, at last, become chill and detached like everyone else.

But, deep down, I know I would never do that, even if I could. My strong feelings are what make me me. When I write corny love songs or impassioned blog posts, that art stems from my bottomless well of emotion. If I’ve ever written anything about desire or heartbreak that you found relatable, it’s only because I’ve been flooded with those feelings so completely for so long that I know them inside and out. My heart is in a constant cycle of passion, joy, desperation and despair, and though I’ve been down this road a thousand times, it hasn’t gotten any easier. But that intensity makes my life exciting, my art compelling and my world vivid as hell.

Maybe one day I’ll get tired of it. But for now, after 24 years of living inside this crazy roller-coaster brain, I’m still pretty at peace with it. At least, as much as you can be “at peace” with anything while riding a roller coaster.

When Sex Nerds Plan a Threesome

Kate Sloan

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This weekend, I’ll hop on a bus and ride it for 10 hours, into another country, where I’ll have my first out-of-homeland threesome. We’ve been planning it for six weeks. Those weeks have felt like years.

See, both of my previous threesomes were impromptu – happy accidents of timing and circumstance. This one was deliberate, chosen, considered. I can see the merits of both approaches: spontaneous sex gives my anxiety less time to take root and psych me out, while long-haul schemin’ allows for excitement to build like a pre-record-launch hype campaign.

Any activity is more fun if you’re doing it with people who love it. That’s true of sex, and it’s also true of planning sex. Both of my threesome co-conspirators in this case – Bex and a gentleman friend of ours – are as nerdy about sex as I am. This made our brainstorming, scheduling and co-ordinating into a delightful process, like planning a party… except with more sexting.

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The Negotiations

When you think about sex critically and deeply on a regular basis, you become more aware of what you want, what you like, what turns you on – and what doesn’t. Once you know what you want, the next step is to ask for it. That can be scary sometimes: our carnal cravings are so close to our hearts and entrenched in cultural shame that often our inclination is to downplay our desires. But I’m lucky enough to be having a threesome with two people I deeply trust, who I know would never shame me for articulating what I want.

In weeks of chatting and spitballing, we came up with some mutually exciting activities to include in our threesome docket. And the best part of it is, all three of us are so easygoing and invested in each other’s enthusiastic consent that we know we can abandon anything on the list if it feels wrong on the day of. “We’ll just be like a bunch of little puppies,” dude said to me in one of our many excited exchanges about threesome logistics. “We’ll try stuff out.”

Bex and I are solely-platonic friends who engage with each other sexually on a very limited basis, so part of our negotiations involved setting boundaries for what we will and won’t do to each other. Fortunately, we were on the same page about everything we discussed: we’re cool with doing a double BJ, making out, and some boob stuff, but below-the-belt action is off the table except for maybe manoeuvring dildos.

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The Feelz

Sex nerds understand that sometimes sex stirs up feelings, and the best defense against icky feelz is to talk them out, before, during and after your experience of them. Good communication where everyone feels respected, heard, and valued = good sex, with minimal drama.

The dude in our trio is someone with whom I have sexual history. He also gives me hella heart-eyes feelings, and I sometimes struggle with jealousy when I really like someone. Both he and Bex repeatedly made sure I was okay with “sharing him,” before and during the planning of our ménage. Though I might have felt gross if he’d jumped into the three-way headfirst without regard for my feelings, the amount of care he took with me put me at ease. As of right now, I’m not feeling a shred of jealousy – but I know that if I do feel strange on the day itself, I’ll have two friends there to talk it out with.

If you find yourself dealing with similar jealousies leading up to a threesome, think about what kinds of accommodations might help with that. I asked Bex if I could be the one to swallow dude’s cum after we blow him together, because being “rewarded” with jizz at the end of a beej feels satisfyingly intimate to me and I think I’d be sad if I missed out on it. Bex said yes, ’cause they’re an angel.

Bex has also recently started using they/them pronouns full-time and publicly identifying as non-binary, and that entered into our pre-threesome talks as well. Dude was amenable to learning about gender stuff, especially since he knows getting it wrong could kill the moment – so we talked about what pronouns, names and titles were and weren’t okay. Yay, respect and correctness!

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The Gear

I know all you sex toy nerds are curious about what I’m bringing, so here’s a rundown:

• Pegging may or may not happen, depending on the Whims of the Butthole. I’ve packed my pink Aslan Jaguar harness. Assuming we get the go-ahead, it could either be me or Bex who’ll do the fucking; we’ll see how we feel. I’ve also packed my bright blue Happy Valley Perk, because it feels the most like “my cock,” though I’m open to strapping on other dildos too.

• Dude likes using toys on people, and has proven his prowess at doing so. Bex and I think it’s hilarious to imagine him fucking us each simultaneously with our own Eleven or Double Trouble, so I’ve packed both of mine. Dual-wielding!!

• Vibe-wise, I’m bringing my Magic Wand Rechargeable and maybe my Tango. I just need something reliable to hold on my clit while dude finger-bangs me or pounds me with a toy or fucks me… Um, no, I’m not blushing! Why would you say that?!

• Bex and I like when I spank them, so that’ll probably happen during this threesome. They own all our favorite implements (including the almighty Pelt), so the only impact toy I’m bringing is my Maddie’s Dungeon wooden paddle, ’cause it’s cool.

• I threw my Ryder in there because last time I slept with this dude, he liked how tight my vag felt when the Ryder was in my butt. I am always eager to please.

• Like a Boy Scout, I am prepared as hell: my sex toy bag is topped off with dude’s favorite condoms, some lube samples, and black latex gloves.

Have you ever planned a threesome? What was the process like for you? (And what toys did you bring?!)

I Met My Sex-Positive Hero (And We Kissed)

Kate Sloan

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“This is a show about human sexuality, told from the approach of fun, enjoyment and pleasure,” the cheerful male voice chirped at me through my headphones. It said this at the start of every episode of the podcast. Today’s would be a good one; Kidder was going to talk about exhibitionism. I was excited; I had so much to learn. “It’s a rational conversation, but it’s for adults,” the voice continued, “so if you’re a younger listener, please go to Scarleteen.com, where you can learn about your body and your sexuality in an age-appropriate setting.” I was twelve years old. It didn’t matter. I knew I wasn’t like the other middle-schoolers. I was sex-positive.

I’d been interested in sexuality for as long as I could remember, scrawling erotica in my Anne of Green Gables diary, hunting for “vagina” and “clitoris” in the indices of library books, and researching masturbation techniques on my family’s shared computer when my parents were asleep. But until I discovered Kidder Kaper and the Sex is Fun podcast he co-hosted, I had no unifying ideology for all my jumbled thoughts on sex. Kidder made me feel like being a sexually precocious preteen was actually a good thing. As I absorbed his podcast between eighth-grade classes, or late at night in bed, I began to feel like less of an immoral pervert and more of a sex-positivity activist in the making.

Ask me what it means to be “sex-positive” now, and I’ll rattle off a pat answer about consent, boundaries, acceptance, and exploration. But back then, I didn’t have language for what I felt. I just knew that Kidder’s approach to sexuality felt innately right to me. He and his podcast cohorts enthusiastically accepted each other’s kinks, even (and especially) the ones they didn’t share. They talked about their vibrant sex lives without shame or regret. They explored questions like “Why are people into that?” and “What gets you hot?” rather than propagating stigmas or taboos. They talked about sex in a way I’d never heard before, and I truly believe they rewired my brain permanently. I can’t imagine I’d be doing the work I do now if I hadn’t obsessively devoured the Sex is Fun podcast in my early teens.

Flash forward 12 years or so. I’m an adult now (well, a confused kid who is legally and technically an adult but still doesn’t feel like one). When some sex blogger pals and I were planning a road trip to Minnesota, I pondered the question, “What’d be fun to do in Minneapolis?” A few weeks before the trip, I suddenly remembered: the Sex is Fun crew lived in Minneapolis. Or at least, they did, way back when they were doing the podcast. Who knew where they’d ended up?

I started doing research. Kidder had left the podcast many years earlier, and the show itself had ended a few years after that. I checked Kidder’s social media accounts, scanned the podcast website, Googled incessantly, but it seemed like the person behind Kidder Kaper had checked out of that pseudonym long ago. It frustrated me that I didn’t know any useful information about him – his real name, his real-life occupation, even the real names of his co-hosts on the podcast – so, while he probably still existed somewhere in Minnesota, I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t tell him how much he’d meant to me when I was 12, how much he still meant to me. I resigned myself to a Kidderless trip to Minneapolis.

However, the night that we arrived, I mentioned my quest to our Minnesotan friend Calvin over dinner and drinks. “I’m looking for this guy,” I said. “He wrote the Sex is Fun book.” Immediately, Calvin said, “Oh, Kidder?” and my eyes practically fell out of my head. He knew him!

By the next day, Calvin had gotten in touch with Laura Rad, one of the other hosts of SiF, to get Kidder’s contact info for me. Bex texted me while hanging out with Calvin: “So, uh, if you wanted to talk to Kidder, here’s his number… Apparently he said he’d be down to get coffee.” Upon receiving this message, I threw my phone down on the kitchen table at our Minneapolis Airbnb, shouted “WHAT?!” and then proceeded to panic about what to do next. (#AnxietyLyfe, am I right?!) I’m proud to say that I managed to text him without breaking down in anxiety-tears… although I did cry later in our conversation when he referred to me as a member of “the next generation of sex educators/activists/authors [who] progress sex-positivity.”

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The next day, after a morning of touring local sex shops, Bex drove me to the café where Kidder and I had agreed to meet. My outfit consisted of a collar, vulva ring, and what Bex calls my “boob dress,” because, well… when you meet your sexuality hero, it makes sense to dress sexy in every sense of the word. As I crossed the street and walked into the coffee shop, I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I bought a hot chocolate and my hands were shaking too much to even hold it properly.

He arrived promptly, and I recognized him immediately, even though the few pictures I’d seen of him were from years and years before. We said hello, hugged, and launched into conversation. Kidder is intense, brilliant and loquacious, just bursting with ideas and opinions; that was true when he hosted the podcast and it’s still true now. We talked for hours about sex (of course), relationships, the internet, technology, my blog, his work, squirting, butt stuff, and so much more. He’d checked out my blog and he complimented me on my “witty” and “self-aware” writing, and when I showed him a screencap from a porn scene I performed in, he told me he thought I looked like Bette Davis. I haven’t blushed that hard in months.

Some people say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, because they’ll inevitably be human and flawed and that’ll just disappoint you. I worry about that a lot, because I’ve met some of my heroes and I’ve also met people to whom my work has been important. But I didn’t experience that with Kidder – maybe because he’s always been so honest about his struggles and shortcomings. Even as a fresh-faced eighth-grader, I knew that my sex podcaster crush/idol was arrogant, stubborn and a little bit bonkers. He’s still that way and I still love it. Meeting him and talking to him just made me more certain of that.

We talked for so long that the café employees announced they were closing for the night. But it still felt like there was more to say. He offered me a ride back to where I was staying, and even though it was a 15-minute walk at most, I said yes. He suggested I text a friend to fill them in on my whereabouts, and acknowledged that it was okay if I didn’t feel comfortable getting into a car with a strange older man, but he didn’t feel strange to me. His wisdom and wit have helped motivate my mission all these years; he feels close to my heart, ingrained in my brain. I trust him.

“Alright, let’s throw down the gauntlet,” he said. We would cap off our conversation by asking each other five questions each, and the answers had to be honest. We talked about virginity, death, regrets, nanotechnology, fisting, blowjobs, and Steve Jobs. I felt myself straining to absorb his smarts like a sponge.

As Kidder pulled into a parking space outside my Airbnb, we each had one more question left to ask. He turned to me, both of us still sporting seatbelts, and said, “You wanna kiss?”

Though I’m officially agnostic, I believe in a sentient universe to some extent. I believe that our fondest wishes and deepest yearnings create changes in the great cosmic order, and that we are sometimes delivered the manifestations of our hopes. Sometimes what we want manifests in ways we could never have predicted or planned, because the universe’s genius extends far beyond what our human minds can formulate. This moment in Kidder’s car felt like the fulfilment of an old, old wish. I could feel my tiny 12-year-old self, somewhere deep inside me, looking enviously forward in time. I wanted to tell her: Look. Look at this. You’re confused now – you feel like a freak, a weirdo, a pervert – but there are people like you. And some of them will think you’re beautiful and brilliant. And that guy you listen to on your iPod, who makes your stomach feel fluttery and your brain feel bouncy? One day he’ll think you’re pretty nifty too. And he’ll even want to kiss you, if you can believe that. So just hold tight. It’ll all be okay.

Kidder kissed me, and it was an amazing kiss. But it was also more than a kiss.

When it was done, we got out of the car and took some silly selfies together. Then we hugged, and he wished me a good trip and a safe journey home. We said our goodbyes. I walked into the Airbnb, where my friends were waiting excitedly to hear what had happened. And I burst into tears. Because, gosh, 12-year-old me would just be so goddamn excited if she knew.