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10 Reasons Why Sex-Positive Friendship is Important

Kate Sloan
L to R: Reenie, Aerie, Bex, Penny, Kate, Epiphora, GJ
L to R: Reenie, Aerie, Bex, Penny, Kate, Epiphora, me!

 

#DildoHoliday is decidedly over, and dildrop is real.

I miss the beautiful house we stayed in. I miss the delicious group meals. I miss the mid-day masturbation breaks.

But mostly, I miss my friends.

When my dad was driving me to the airport to depart for Portland, he asked me, “Won’t it be weird to stay in a house with strangers?” but that’s not how I felt at all. These people weren’t strangers; I’d been corresponding with them on Twitter and other mediums for years. I already knew them better than I know most of the acquaintances I regularly see at home in Toronto: the guy who owns my favorite café, the distant classmates in some of my courses, the boys in my brother’s rock band.

I have sex-positive friends “in real life” as well, but #DildoHoliday really showed me just how important it is to have friends who are on the same page as you in as many ways as possible. There’s comfort and strength in that, for all of us, I think. Here are 10 reasons why sex-positive friendship is so valuable and crucial…

1. There’s no sexual shame. With my deeply sex-positive friends, I can talk about my kinks – even the ones I consider weird, taboo, or potentially unethical – and there’s no shame associated with it, from me or from my friends. If someone mentions fantasizing about exhibitionism or incest or watersports, no one even bats an eye. The most reaction you might get is something like, “Cool! Sounds fun!” or “Interesting! How’d you get into that?”

2. There’s no body shame, either. Body-positivity and sex-positivity are two different concepts with two different communities, but there’s a lot of overlap; most of my friends in each category also fall into the other. Being a chubby lady, I sometimes feel weird about getting naked (or even just exposing “problem areas” of my body) around people who I think might judge me; that’s not an issue with my body-positive pals. I can also eat what I want without worrying about how my food choices are being perceived. And in seeing all the carefree, happy body acceptance exhibited by my friends, I can get a little closer to that goal myself.

3. We don’t have to explain ourselves. Yeah, I own a lot of sex toys. Yeah, I sometimes post nudes on the internet. Yeah, I’m ideally looking for a kinky, non-monogamous person to be my next beau. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, and my sex-positive friends understand that without having to be convinced. Likewise, I accept their kinks and quirks, because that’s what “sex-positive” means: everything is A-OK as long as it’s safe, sane and consensual.

4. We don’t have to provide basic education. Look, I’m all for making the world a better place by teaching folks about sex, but I don’t want to do it all the time. It takes a lot of energy to explain, for example, why penetrative orgasms are an unreasonable goal for most vagina-havers, why a particular advertisement is sexist or racist, or what it means to be a sex toy reviewer. It’s nice to be around people who’ve taken the time to educate themselves and who therefore understand me without requiring me to explain what I consider basic-level concepts.

5. We nerd out about the same stuff. We refer to Tristan by her first name only, because we all know who she is and what she does. We get enthused about new sex toys on the market and discuss ‘em with wild abandon. Making our own glass dildos sounds 100% fun and 0% weird. (More about that in a future blog post, OF COURSE!) Sharing in each other’s enthusiasms brings us closer and – yes – makes life a ton more fun.

6. We can give each other advice. And not just basic, unhelpful advice that you could find on Google or Yahoo Answers – high-level advice tailored to the person asking. If I’m on the hunt for a new sex toy and I ask an in-the-know friend, she can suggest a toy that’s not only good but good for me specifically. Or I can ask a friend how to approach a difficult sexual conversation, knowing that she’ll keep my anxiety issues in mind when she answers. Or I can help my friend craft a tricky email to a sex toy retailer, knowing exactly what’s at stake and why she’s struggling with it. The better you know your friends and the worlds they’re a part of, the better equipped you are to help them navigate those worlds.

7. We can be sexual around each other without it getting weird. I once had sex with my then-FWB while my best friend photographed us. I’ve masturbated in front of friends, and watched them do the same. I’ve told friends explicit stories about sex and masturbation, and listened to theirs. I’ve watched porn with friends, groaned at the hottest parts, and talked in detail about how our vaginas were reacting to the scenes’ events. When you do this stuff with sex-positive pals, it tends to feel like a natural extension of your friendship instead of like some strange, stilted step into another realm. Sexual pleasure is a massive source of joy and I see no reason to fence it into my romantic relationships exclusively.

8. We get excited about each other’s sexy adventures. I still remember the time I texted a friend to tell her I’d given my first-ever blowjob and she responded by telling me she didn’t want to hear about stuff like that. It hurt to have a friend snub me about something I considered thrilling and momentous. With my present-day sex-positive friends, that kind of thing would never happen. My family and casual pals may not applaud me when I manage to insert a large dildo for the first time or gasp in delight when I tell them I met my favorite porn star, but my sex-positive friends do – because they get it.

9. We complain and commiserate for the greater good. My friends understand that it’s gross when some dude silently favorites all my selfies, that mansplainers are the scum of the earth, and that weak vibrators make clits sad. When we complain together about stuff like this, we can make it into a joke, something to laugh at, so it becomes more palatable and easier to tolerate. We may not be able to rid the world of douchebros and shitty toys, but we can laugh our asses off about them, which is almost as good.

10. We help each other expand and explore. I would never have gotten naked on camera if I didn’t have friends who shoot porn and nudes, but I’ve loved doing it and it’s helped me evolve as a sexual person. I would have taken much longer to end my last relationship, even though it was clearly dead, if my friends hadn’t encouraged me to go through with it. One of my most treasured memories from #DildoHoliday is a round-table discussion we had where we all shared what we’d like to see each other blog about. When your friends are living sex-positive lives, they can help you see how to live that way too, in bigger and better ways every day. And that’s a very good thing.

What do you appreciate most about your sex-positive amigos?

I Talked About Orgasms & Fanfiction on Public Radio

Kate Sloan

Last week, Jon Pressick invited me to be his guest on Sex City Radio on CIUT 89.5 FM. The sum total of my previous radio experience was a 15-minute highlights reel CBC broadcast of the podcast I co-hosted when I was 12, so… it had been a while. And I was a bit nervous. But very excited nonetheless.

I’d been tearing through Jon’s book and could tell from his editing and writing that he’s thoughtful, open-minded, and well-informed, so I knew it’d be a good interview – and it was!

The CIUT radio studio is located in beautiful Hart House, up a zillion winding flights of stairs. I felt like I was being interviewed in the Gryffindor common room! (Can you imagine the sexy games of Truth or Dare that take place there when Gryffindors are supposed to be sleeping?! BRB, visiting Hart House again to glean some fanfic inspiration…)

You can listen to our chat on Souncloud by clicking here. Some of the topics we touched on: how and why I started this blog, the elements of a good sex toy review, toxic toy materials, Brooklyn Nine-Nine fanfiction, the physical and mental effects of daily orgasms, and how my improv training helps me sexually. (More on that in future blog posts!)

I had such a good time chatting with Jon over the airwaves, and people were very sweet about it on Twitter. Epiphora even told me she wants to steal my brain in my sleep because I have ideassssss. My site needs a testimonials section just so that can go in there!

Thanks so much to Jon and Sex City for giving me this rad opportunity! I got to feel very damn important, and my mom got to brag about me to all her friends. Success!

I Showed My Face on the Internet & Nothing Awful Happened

Kate Sloan

I am a sexy ghost. A faceless apparition. My Twitter avatar is a picture of my boobs. My bio photo is my knees, adorned in sex toys. The name I go by is not my real name, obviously (although: admit you would be at least somewhat impressed by my parents if they had, indeed, legally named me Girly Juice).

There are two main reasons I have always hesitated to show my face in any capacity connected to this blog:

1. I worried that potential future employers, distant conservative family members, shitty misogynist trolls, etc. would stumble across my pictures and use them against me in some way. These worries, if I let them get too far, always morphed into melodramatic waking nightmares in which I ended up homeless, alone, and disgraced. (I know. I’m ridiculous. I told you, I have anxiety.)

2. (And this is an even sillier and more embarrassing reason…) I’m insecure about how I look, and I worried that if people saw what I looked like, they wouldn’t think I was sexy or pretty, and it would cause them to discount my opinions and stop reading my blog.

When Caitlin and John came to my house to interview me and film me masturbating (which is a whole ‘nother story for a whole ‘nother blog post), we got onto the topic of sex blogging and anonymity. Caitlin point-blank asked me why I kept my identity (and my face) so private in the blogosphere, and I went on a meandering ramble about closed-minded office jobs and facial recognition technology and sex-negative assholes… and my tirade was so aimless that at the end of it, I was left thinking, “Why don’t I show my face? Is there a real reason, or is it just my stupid anxiety-brain?”

I have so many friends in the sex-positive corner of the internet who reveal not only their faces but their names, their real-life accomplishments, their identities. And I’ve always been jealous of them, because they can be their whole selves. When their readers and fans love them, they really love them, not some reductive persona.

A few months ago I tweeted that I was toying with the idea of showing my face, and some douchebro replied something like: “Don’t. I like mysterious women.” It reignited all my old doubts about how anonymity might be more alluring to readers than my actual face and body. What if you thought you were reading the sex stories of someone who looked like Jamie Dornan and then you peeled back the curtain and it was actually Gilbert Gottfried under there?! (That’s not to say that I think I look like Gilbert Gottfried… or that he doesn’t have some perfectly lovely characteristics… but you see what I’m saying, yeah?)

When I got dolled up for the Feminist Porn Awards, I came downstairs and there was no one in my house. (This is quite unusual; I live with three other people and two of them work from home.) I got frustrated that there was no one around to tell me, “Hey, you look good!” and that combined with the overall sex-positive, yay-for-sex! attitude that tends to pervade Feminist Porn Week… so I impulsively posted some selfies. Of my face.

And people were really fucking nice about it.

Like, literally every single person who sent me a reply was incredibly sweet and supportive. No one made me feel like it was a particularly big deal or shocking reveal. Everyone was just… great. And it’s one of my most-favorited tweets to date.

I’ve posted a few more Twitter selfies since then (and not just of my cleavage or underwear or disembodied lips), and the results have always been the same. My followers are complete and utter sweethearts. They have made me wonder why I was so scared of doing this for so long.

And they’ve also shown me that my constant self-criticism about my looks is unfounded. I don’t look like a magazine model, and I never will, but lots of people still think I’m pretty. No one, so far, thinks my face or body are incongruous with my femme-sexpot internet persona. It’s just not a big deal. At all.

Sex bloggers and other sexy-on-the-internet types: do you show your face? What’s your reasoning behind showing or not showing it?

Everyone I’ve Ever Fucked Is a Taurus

Kate Sloan

Do you ever make lists of all the unifying qualities of the people you’ve romanced and banged? Or am I the only resident of that particular neighborhood in Nerd-town?

I don’t know why it took me so long, given my penchant for list-making, to realize that both of the people I’ve had sex with are astrological Taureans. I’m a Taurus myself, so it really should have clicked sooner.

Whether or not you believe in astrology (and I’m certainly not sure about it, myself), what I know for certain is that both of those partners embodied all the classic Taurean traits, as do I. We’re fiercely loyal and trustworthy. We’re reliable; you can count on us. We’re creative, passionate, and hellbent on the finer things in life. On the other hand, we’re known to be stubborn, self-indulgent, lazy, and sometimes closed-minded.

How does this translate to the bedroom? Lots of different ways, I’m sure – Taureans aren’t a hive-mind. In my experience, though, Taurus-on-Taurus fucking is consistently and dependably good, but it can veer into the land of routines and ruts a little too easily.

You know those times when you’re trying to decide where to go for dinner, and you and your friend or partner keep asking each other, “Where do you want to go?” “Well, where do you want to go?” Neither one of you wants to rock the boat by suggesting something out-there or new. It may very well be that you’d both love to try that quirky Scandinavian bistro that just opened up down the road, but unless someone actually comes out and says that, it ain’t gonna happen.

That’s sort of what it’s been like when I’ve slept with other Taureans. I knew what I liked, I knew what my partner liked, we knew what had worked for us in the past and would continue to work for us – but we rarely went out on a limb and suggested something new.

I could happily eat steak and fries for dinner every night and not get sick of it. And I do mean every night, like, for at least a year. That’s also how I feel about certain sexual acts, like receiving oral and then getting fucked doggie-style. I could easily do that every time I have sex and it would take me a damn long time to start feeling bored. I know that’s true because I’ve lived it. When us Taureans found the routine that worked for us, we stuck to it pretty closely. And we liked it – that’s why it became a routine in the first place, after all – but we might’ve also liked other, different things, if we’d bothered to try them.

My best friend is a Sagittarius. Her sign is known to be adventurous, sometimes to the point of recklessness. That quality is one of my favorite things about her, and one of the reasons we’re so drawn to each other as friends. If she needs some Taurean comfort, she can come to me, and we’ll go to our favorite sushi restaurant and then maybe watch a movie we’ve seen 50 times before, and laugh at all the same jokes. But when I need a Sagittarian shake-up, she can help me with that. We’ll go explore a random ravine, or check out art galleries downtown, or get on a bus to Montreal.

I guess what I’m saying is… As much as I love other Taureans, and as familiar and comforting they feel to the very core of me, I don’t know if I want to fuck them anymore. At least, not the very Taurus-y Taureans like me. The sex is fantastic but it’s not an adventure. And I think it’s time I had some goddamn sexual adventures.

What are your thoughts on sexual astrology? Is there a particular sign with whom you tend to have amazing sex, or terrible sex? Is there a sign you tend to adore, or can’t stand?

#DidYouJerkOffToday: Some Initial Observations

Kate Sloan

As you already know if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve given myself a challenge in honor of Masturbation Month: I’m forcing myself to masturbate to orgasm at least once a day for the whole month.

The experiment is still playing out, but here’s what I’ve observed so far:

• Daily orgasms have definitely increased my libido. I find myself getting spontaneously turned on in the middle of the day and needing to do something about it, which ordinarily would only happen a few times a month, if that.

• Further to that: although I’m not typically prone to multiple orgasms, there have been days during this challenge when I’ve needed to get off more than once a day. I’ll have one orgasm, go and do something else for an hour or two, and then suddenly notice that I’m still turned on. That’s incredibly rare for me but it’s been commonplace during this challenge.

• On the other hand, there have also been days when I’ve felt completely demotivated, and had to dredge up an orgasm using the strongest vibrators and dirtiest fantasies in my arsenal if it was going to happen at all. I suppose it’s natural that if you force yourself to do something every day, it’s going to feel like an obligation at least some of the time.

• As per usual for me, having orgasms more frequently has made them a) more difficult to achieve and b) stronger. So, there are positives and negatives. (Let’s be real, though: it’s mostly positives. I mean, I’m having a fuckton of orgasms. That’s pretty rad, any way you slice it.)

Have you been celebrating Masturbation Month in any particular way? Wanna tell me about it?