Personal

I Masturbated With My Best Friends and It Made Me Smile

Kate Sloan

My two closest lady-friends are two of the most sex-positive people I know. One of them is poly and does feminist porn; the other was raised in a kink-positive lesbian household and comes with me to Pride every single year. Obviously, I have good taste in friends.

Not too long ago, we were having a “girls’ night in,” as we often do, but things were just getting… raunchier than usual. Maybe it was the wine and rum we were downing, or maybe it was just one of those hot summer nights that makes you want to be sleazily open-minded. Either way, it was a rather sexier evening than I was used to spending with these ladies.

First we were chatting about porn; next we had taken off our clothes; shortly after that, we started photographing each other’s naughty bits on my instant camera; and sometime after that, it was suggested that we masturbate side-by-side.

The only folks who’d ever seen me jerk off were lovers of mine and strangers on the internet (who never even saw my face), so this was a new and ever-so-slightly intimidating prospect for me.

We drank a little more, turned the lights out, laid on our backs on the floor of my friend’s basement, and got down to business.

At first, I was unsure if I’d be able to reach orgasm. I didn’t have any toys with me, and it’d been a long while (as in, several months) since I’d gotten myself off with just my hands. My fingers felt fumbling and inadequate.

However, then one of my friends started having an audible orgasm just a few feet away from me. I have always found “sex sounds” to be the biggest turn-on – bigger than visuals, sometimes bigger than actually being touched – so this helped a hell of a lot. I found myself spilling over the edge of orgasm within thirty seconds or so.

That same friend came again a couple minutes later (which I listened to with jealous ears, being pretty mono-orgasmic myself). As for our other friend, it turned out she had fallen asleep. I guess she’d had a long day. And also was extremely drunk.

At some point, one of us said, “We should do this again soon, but with toys.” And then someone else said, “This is like… the culmination of our entire friendship.” It’s true, it kind of was. It’s surprising that it never occurred to us to do this before, actually.

So, I had a fun group masturbation experience and I’m looking forward to doing it again!

Have you ever masturbated with friends/non-lovers before? Did you enjoy it?

Photo by Keith Hamm.

Cyclical Cock Cravings

Kate Sloan

The female hormone cycle is a strange thing. I’m on hormonal birth control, so you’d think I wouldn’t have any of the odd, cyclical mood swings and changes in desire that accompany certain times of the month for many women, and yet, somehow, I do.

Every time I’m on my period, I develop a weeklong craving for realistic dildos.

My current favorite, by far, is the VixSkin Mustang. It’s easily the most realistic toy I own, in both appearance and sensation. And every time my Shark Week comes around, without fail, I end up laying a towel under my hips and going to town on myself with the Mustang. That poor little dildo has bloodstains on it more often than any other toy of mine.

The Tantus Mark O2 and Adam O2 fulfill similar cravings, though they are a fair bit firmer, so sometimes my sore menstrual cervix can’t quite handle ‘em when I’m bleeding.

Lately I’ve been trying to make up my mind about whether to buy myself a VixSkin Maverick – essentially a bigger, juicier version of the Mustang I love so much. Last night I finally went ahead and did it. It’s probably way too huge for my relatively small vag, but it’ll be something to work toward, I guess!

What kinds of sex toys do you sometimes crave? Does your hormonal cycle have anything to do with it?

3 Non-Sexual Things That Made Me Better at Sex

Kate Sloan

I find it simultaneously comforting and awe-inspiring that sex is such a holistic activity. It uses your body (obvi!) as well as your logic, your emotions, and sometimes even your spirit, if you believe in such a thing.

If you think of it that way, you start to realize how much your various life experiences have made you not only a better person but also a better sexual person. Here are some of my recent revelations in that regard…

1. Owning a pet.

No, y’all, this is not about bestiality!

When you own a pet – a pet who you love and touch and spend time with – you have to be attuned to that animal’s moods and responses. If you stroke your cat too lightly, it could tickle her, but if you push down too hard, it could hurt. If you give your dog too many snuggles, he might feel smothered and take off, but if you give him room to breathe, he’ll probably chillax. Get my drift?

Learning how to love your pet is a great way to learn how to walk right up to a sexual partner’s affection/pleasure threshold without crossing any lines that might cause them discomfort or pain. Of course, non-pet-owners can and do learn these skills too, but surely having a pet is more fun!

2. Volunteering at a support hotline.

I may have mentioned that I sometimes work at a phone line where youth can call in with questions about relationships, sex, or whatever’s troubling them. It can be emotionally draining work and I have to keep up with my self-care in order to do it, but in a lot of ways it’s also very fulfilling.

One of the things we learn in our training is a “basic listening sequence,” i.e. a series of active listening techniques. It involves things like asking open-ended questions (“How does that make you feel?”), mirroring emotions (“Sounds like you’re feeling angry”), normalizing (“Yes, a lot of people have that same problem”), and avoiding giving direct advice (“What do you think would happen if you were to try x?”). And guess what? A lot of these techniques translate well to having hard conversations with your sexual partner(s).

I am a firm believer in having occasional check-ins with your lover instead of just letting things always remain the way they are. It’s good to ask, “Are you happy with our sex life?” “Is there anything you’d like me to do differently?” “Is there anything new you’d like to try?” Asking these sorts of questions, and then actively listening to the responses, has taken my sex life to amazing new levels time and time again.

3. Yoga.

Oh, man. Even just typing the word “yoga” makes my body feel all buzzy and calm and blissed out. It is a mega restorative practice for body and mind.

This barely even needs to be explained, but: anything that makes you more aware of your body (how it moves, how it feels, what it is and isn’t capable of) will naturally make you better at sex and more able to enjoy yourself during sexual experiences.

Not to mention, a lot of the slow, methodical, meditative breathing stuff that you learn in yoga classes is sorta similar to the mindful breathing that tantric practitioners preach about.

What non-sexual practices make your sex life better?

Photo credits: YouWall, SelfAssess Listen, Women’s Health.

Sexual Goals for 2013

Kate Sloan

I’m a big list-maker. I make lists year-round, but especially when a new year is starting. And because my life and work are sex-centric, many of my goals end up being sex-related too. Here are some of the sexy things I hope to accomplish in 2013.

1. Get fucked in the ass with a strap-on.
Though I am interested in having anal sex eventually, it’s not something I think I’ll be emotionally and physically prepared for this year, at least not with my current partner’s average-sized penis. But I do want to explore anal play with him, so I came up with this compromise: he can wear my harness and fuck me with the teensy Tantus Acute. It’ll be much less intimidating than “real” anal sex, on multiple levels, and it’ll allow us both to figure out whether we’re ready to actually take that next step.

2. Enjoy G-spot play more often.
The sensations that emanate from my G-spot are almost scarily intense. They evoke all sorts of frightening thoughts and feelings, from the profound (“Will this open a door in my sex life that I will never be able to close again?”) to the trivial (“Am I going to pee the bed?”). For this reason, I tend to shy away from playing with my G-spot as much as I should, even though it feels awesome. In 2013, I want to step up my sexual exploration and take additional steps toward figuring out my G-spot.

3. Be photographed nude by my partner.
A girl I know has started up a magazine of feminist erotica, filled with hot images and words. I want to take some photos to submit to her, even if they get rejected for being too amateurish (hey, I’m no model). I want my partner to look at my naked body through a camera and take some shots of me playing with toys. This shit will be hot on so many levels.

4. Incorporate more spanking into our sexytimes.
My boyfriend used to spank me on a semi-regular basis, both as foreplay and as an accent to doggie-style sex. We’ve let it dwindle lately, which is silly, especially since I have an awesome paddle. More ass bruises, please!

5. Kiss somebody cute at #CrushTO.
I am an introvert. If I want to kiss someone, I have to put it on a list where I can check it off when it’s done, or it just won’t happen; I won’t have the motivation. So, here it is. I hope 2013 brings another giant game of tipsy Truth or Dare in a dark bar where everyone is sex-positive and in costume, and I hope for sweaty chemistry with some random stranger for a minute or two. Yesss.

What sexual things are you going to do in 2013?

Bisexual vs. Pansexual

Kate Sloan

When I was 15, I came out as bisexual, because I liked boys and girls.

A few months later, my friend confided in me that she thought she might be bisexual too, because she’d found herself unexpectedly crushing on another girl at summer camp.

We did some research online together, excitedly chattering about sapphic infatuations all the while – and as we learned more and more, my friend said to me, “I think I might be pansexual, not bisexual.” I asked her why and she said, “Because I’m attracted to people regardless of whether they’re male or female.”

This felt strange to me then, and it still feels strange to me now when I hear this argument from other people. Being bisexual doesn’t mean I’m attracted to dicks and pussies – it means I’m attracted to people, people of either sex, but people nonetheless.

It’s been suggested to me many times that perhaps pansexual would be a better label for me, since I’m often attracted to people who don’t conform to the gender binary – mainly, boyish girls or genderqueer female-bodied folks. The term “pansexual” was essentially invented to describe people whose attractions don’t fit within the clean-cut gender binary of male/female – and yeah, that’s me.

But the more I think about it, the more I feel that bisexual is a suitable label for me – because I’m attracted to people within a binary. It’s just not the traditional gender binary. I’m attracted to cis men and gender-fucking female-bodied people. There are occasional exceptions, but those are the two major groups I find myself drawn to, romantically and sexually.

The prefix “pan” means “all” or “every,” and that just doesn’t apply to me. I don’t seem to have the capacity to be attracted to people of every gender identification; only a few.

From time to time, I toy with the label “androsexual,” since masculine energy is really what gets me hot, regardless of what type of body it’s emanating from. But that’s not as recognizable a term as bisexual. I don’t always relish having to explain my attraction patterns to heteronormative folks, because they’re prone to asking questions like, “If you’re attracted to butchy women, why not just date men? Isn’t it basically the same thing?” (Oy vey.)

How do you feel about terms like bisexual and pansexual? Do you identify with one, neither, or both? How do the people in your social circles use these terms?