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31 Things I Do to Combat Loneliness During the Pandemic

Kate Sloan

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that loneliness has been a serious problem for many of us during the pandemic. As a hardcore introvert who doesn’t live alone, I’ve been spared the worst of it, but it still sneaks up on me sometimes. Here are 31 things I do regularly that help ease the pain of loneliness:

  1. Have long phone calls with my spouse nearly every night.
  2. While on those phone calls, sync up shows/movies to watch together, so it’s almost like we’re cuddled up on the couch enjoying entertainment together like a non-long-distance couple could do.
  3. Look at real estate websites and imagine the parties I would throw, post-COVID, if I owned this brick-walled loft or that Grecian mansion.
  4. Skype with my best friend once a week to catch up and record our podcast.
  5. Watch live improv shows online (the Bad Dog Comedy channel on YouTube, and the usually-weekly performance of RaaatScraps, are my faves). It almost feels like being in an actual comedy venue again.
  6. Read books containing loveable characters. Literature, I think, is one of humanity’s best ways for mentally communing with other people when we can’t physically be around other people.
  7. Drink wine and play Jackbox games with my roommate and her boyfriend once a week or so.
  8. Occasionally lurk around online dating sites fantasizing about what my life would be like if I was dating this person or that. (Turns out that a tendency to visit site after site into the wee hours is maybe not the healthiest thing for me, but hey, life is a journey of self-discovery!)
  9. Flirt with people on social media.
  10. Argue with people on Reddit. (Would not recommend.)
  11. Learn to deeply enjoy my own company. This is a lifelong process, I suspect.
  12. Watch old videos of fun times with friends.
  13. Play songs on my piano and ukulele, close my eyes, and imagine I’m performing them for a massive crowd (in a post-pandemic world in which that would not be at all concerning for any of us).
  14. Chat with my therapist on the phone twice a month.
  15. Cuddle with cats.
  16. Cultivate obsessions with YouTubers – gorgeous women doing beauty tutorials, clever men making cocktails, etc.
  17. Use realistic sex toys and fantasize about various hot people.
  18. Learn to cook new meals and make new drinks, in the hopes of one day being able to serve them to people I love.
  19. Leave my favorite Twitch streamer’s videos playing on my iPad when I go to sleep, just to hear the comforting sound of a familiar voice (even if he happens to be battling the Elite Four or trying to catch a shiny Rayquaza or whatever).
  20. Have one-person dance parties in my room, and imagine I’m surrounded by sweaty bodies writhing in tandem at a club.
  21. Make a gratitude list.
  22. Go for (masked) walks down to the waterfront, to be with the wind and the waves and the other wandering souls who’ve found their way there.
  23. Send out compliments as often as it occurs to me to do so.
  24. Create families in The Sims and have them throw parties, go on adventures, etc.
  25. Listen to music that seems to “get” how I’m feeling, like that of Ben Hopkins, Paul Cook & the Chronicles, Sarah Vaughan, Ski Lift, Blossom Dearie, Hippo Campus, Fleet Foxes, and Nick Jonas (his most recent album Spaceman is full of COVID vibes!).
  26. Reflect on memories of wonderful social experiences, like being part of a competitive improv team, attending sex-positive mixers, and chatting with the folks who came to my book launch event.
  27. Add more lamps to my room. I don’t know why, but they make the space feel cozier.
  28. Be proactive about my own self-care, including stuff like taking my meds + vitamins every day and using my SAD lamp every day, because taking good care of myself is extra important when no one is physically around to take care of me.
  29. Step away from the internet sometimes. Being online may seem like a solution to loneliness, because there are so many people buzzing around on there, but often it just exacerbates the problem. “Touch grass,” as the kids say.
  30. Look out my window at all the lit-up windows of other people who are stuck inside.
  31. Remember, always, that this too shall pass.

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Sextistics 2021: An End-of-Year Sexual Stats Breakdown

Kate Sloan

It’s that time again, friends! Time for me to comb through my sex spreadsheet, crunch some numbers, and present you with a statistical portrait of my sex life this year. (Previously: 2020, 2019, 2018.)

Before we jump into those juicy juicy stats (!), I just wanted to say that I’ve very much appreciated your readership this year and that I hope you have a lovely New Year’s Eve, however you’re celebrating it, and a 2022 that’s as good as one can reasonably expect. ❤️

 

Overview

  • In 2021, I had partnered sex 154 times.
  • This works out to an average of 12.83 times per month, 2.96 times per week, and 0.42 times per day.
  • If you calculate the above based only on when me and my partner were physically together this year (which was 6.75 months out of 12), we had sex an average of 22.81 times per month, 4.39 times per week, and 0.76 times per day.
  • I had 139 orgasms from in-person partnered sex.
  • My partner had 118 orgasms from in-person partnered sex. That lower number is mostly due to time they spent in chastity.
  • An incomplete list, in alphabetical order, of kinks that were part of my sex life this year: biting, chastity, cock and ball torture, daddy dom/little girl roleplay, financial domination, forced orgasms, hypnosis, impact play, intoxication play, medical play, orgasm control, orgasm denial, roleplay, ruined orgasms, sadomasochism, scratching, sensory deprivation, sleepy sex, spanking, temperature play.

 

Compared to last year:

  • I had 23% less sex (which makes sense because my partner and I spent about 16% less time physically together this year than last year).
  • I had an orgasm 90.26% of the times I had sex, about the same as last year (90.5%).
  • My partner had an orgasm 76.62% of the times we had sex versus 89% last year – again, because of us doing chastity play.
  • I only had 1 sexual partner this year, versus last year when I did BJ porn with someone other than my spouse so I had 2.

 

Locations

  • I had sex in 4 different locations this year, same as last year.
  • Those included my place, my spouse’s place, a relative’s place, and the 6 Columbus hotel in New York City where we stayed for my birthday weekend.
  • I had a higher orgasm incidence rate at my own apartment (100%) than at Matt’s apartment (89.51%) but that’s mostly just because I had way more sex at Matt’s apartment (143 times versus 8 times) so there were way more chances for me to be too sleepy/tipsy/achy to get off.

 

Highs & lows

  • My most sexually active month was October (27 times), though all of the months we spent entirely together had a similar number (20-26).
  • My least sexually active months were, of course, the ones when I wasn’t with Matt and therefore had sex 0 times (May, June, July, and September).
  • The most times I had sex in one day was twice, which happened several times.
  • I didn’t have multiple orgasms during any sessions this year because my body seems to be increasingly incapable of doing so, but my partner had more than one orgasm in a session at least 3 times.

 

Sex toys

 

Phone sex

  • In 2021, I had phone sex 71 times, versus 122 last year.
  • That means that while we were physically apart (which was 5.25 months out of 12), we had phone sex 13.52 times per month, 3.26 times per week, and 0.47 times per day.
  • I didn’t keep track of orgasm rates during phone sex this year because I couldn’t be bothered, but we both came the vast majority of times, Matt’s stints in chastity being the main exceptions.
  • Comparing our phone sex numbers to our IRL sex numbers, phone sex was 31.55% of my sex life this year, compared to 37.9% last year.
  • The total amount of sex sessions I had this year (IRL sex + phone sex) was 225.
  • That works out to 18.75 times per month, 4.33 times per week, and 0.62 times per day.

 

Some of the funniest/oddest things in the “Notes” field of my sex spreadsheet this year:

  • New year’s spanking
  • Pearl necklace findom
  • I cried HARD and a LOT
  • Strap-on handjob trance
  • Squirted all over their dick
  • Very good, lots of squirting
  • “Made” them come in 20 seconds
  • Punched me to show their love for me

 

And there you have it! Another year of nerdy stats. Did you track your sex life this year? What did you discover?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 2 Fears Defeated

Kate Sloan

Every year I write about 2 fears that I’ve faced head-on over the course of the year. It’s a way of re-teaching myself a lesson that I (and many others) need to re-learn periodically: that pushing through fear helps you grow, makes good shit happen in your life, and feels fucking great!

Both the fears I faced this year were work-related, but for workaholic freelancers like me, work can play a big role in one’s identity so these feel huger and more holistic than they might seem. Let’s jump in…

 

Going fully self-employed

Early in the year, I began to feel a bit hemmed in at my “dayjob,” a part-time social media writing gig I’d had for 4 years. The people I worked with there were always fantastic and kind, but I had to wake up every weekday at 9 a.m. to write time-sensitive tweets, which was becoming less and less achievable with my chronic pain and fatigue from fibromyalgia ramping up.

I also was fortunate enough to not really need the job anymore – it was only bringing in about 7% of my income but was accounting for at least 40% of my work hours and stress, so I figured it was time to make a change.

I had a lot of fears about doing this, many of which I unpacked with my therapist. I worried that my sleep schedule would get fucked up if I was no longer tethered to the 9-to-5, that all my other “jobs” would fall apart, that I’d regret this decision somehow. But it’s been about 6 months since I stopped working there and none of that has happened.

Instead, I feel much calmer, freer, and (most days) happier. I can sleep as late as my body needs (usually to 10:30–11:30) and work on a schedule that makes more sense for my natural rhythms and energy levels. And a far higher proportion of the work I do now is stuff that I deeply care about. It was a scary choice, but I’m profoundly glad I made it.

 

Photo by Rose Glass Photography

Launching a book

Yep, I did it! I really did it. With the help of my publisher/editors, my agent, my spouse, and my friends, I was able to get 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do out into the world, and celebrate it in style at a little launch party in an East Village bar.

It’s been such a thrill to see the book making its way around the world, landing in the hands of curious kinksters everywhere. I had so much anxiety in the weeks and months leading up to the launch – that no one would buy it, that no one would like it, that no one would come to the party, etc. – but it was all bullshit from the “fearful liar” part of my brain. The launch went better than I could have ever expected and I’m so grateful. ❤️

 

What fears did you face this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 3 Fave Encounters

Kate Sloan

Strap in, folks… We’re talking about some of the best sex I had all year!

Like I did last year, I’ve asked my partner Matt to contribute some thoughts on each of the scenes/sessions I picked, so you’ll get both of our perspectives in here. Enjoy this glorious horny overshare of a post!

 

An ex-cellent roleplay

Matt and I had been watching the Netflix show Sex/Life a lot, and it inspired a scene. If you haven’t seen it, the show is about a woman who starts to feel restless in her life as a suburban wife and mother, and finds herself longing for the spontaneity and sexual excitement she experienced with her super-hot (but avoidantly attached and emotionally immature) ex-boyfriend. It’s full of hot sex scenes, largely because the actors playing the woman and her ex were dating and presumably fucking IRL while it was being filmed. 🔥

This show reactivated a long-standing fantasy of mine about fucking an ex again. It’s not that there are specific exes of mine I’d like to fuck again (well, not very many of them, anyway!), but more the overall idea of reuniting with someone who knows your body and your mind inside and out. Traditionally I’ve been the type of person who would sometimes (naughtily) stay in bad relationships too long because the sex was so good; that isn’t the most emotionally healthy practice, obviously, so roleplaying a sex-with-an-ex scenario is a better way of exorcizing those feelings, IMO.

Matt suggested I lie down with a blindfold on, and then left the room and came back in again, to heighten the sense that this was indeed a different person. They whispered filthy things to me like “God, I’ve missed this cunt” and “I bet I still remember exactly how to make you come.” This was such a fun example of a simple roleplay that somehow turns fairly “normal” sex into something turbo-charged with hotness.

Matt says: I’ve had a few experiences fucking actual exes, but predictably none were as hot or good as this roleplay scene. Getting to flirt, corrupt, and cajole you into “letting” me fuck you one more time hit on a lot of our mutual kinks and let us dirty talk in new ways. Since I was very much in character (and in top space), I don’t remember much of anything I said, but I do remember how your moans were different – more excited and surprised, and how much it seemed like you wanted to impress me once I started fucking you. A+++. Would fuck you as an ex again, but let’s not actually break up in order to do it, because we clearly don’t have to.

 

Languorous cunnilingus from 500 miles away

There is nothing quite like oral sex from someone who knows your body… but oral via phone sex comes close for me.

I know, that sounds absurd. How can one replicate the unique and nuanced sensations of oral by oneself?! But I’m never really “by myself” during phone sex. I have my partner’s voice and words, painting a picture and telling me what to do. And I have lube, and toys, and drugs, and other accoutrements that help me create an atmosphere of sexy relaxation and a sensation that approaches “real” oral sex and sometimes even surpasses it.

Sometime in May, while my partner was locked up in chastity, they spent a good 30-40 minutes describing giving me head in extreme detail, while I replicated each movement they described on my own body with lubed fingers and then a vibe. We do this often, but not usually for that length of time, or with that purity of focus. Given the prevalence of people ignoring or downplaying clitoral pleasure in the world, it feels healing and uplifting to have entire sex sessions sometimes that focus solely on my clit and all its magnificent nerve endings, whether a partner is touching them or I’m doing it myself.

Matt says: When you and I have sex of any kind (IRL or on the phone), going down on you is nearly always on the menu. But this session and others like it are different because of how singular my focus is on that one act, elevating it from quotidian cunnilingus to true cunt worship. Being locked in a chastity cage certainly helps, but so does closing my eyes and focusing on the sensations, scents, and tastes I crave after missing you for weeks or months of being apart. I’ll mix detailed descriptions of my tongue and finger work with explicit instructions about you should touch those spots with your own hands and toys to best mimic my technique. While it can be initially hard to get into the headspace of going down on you and talking at the same time, once it clicks into place, it’s one of my favorite ways to fuck you through the phone. Why even add penetration when I can focus on licking, sucking, kissing, and stroking your eager clit for as long as it takes to feel you come in my mouth? *chef’s kiss*

 

I mean does my spouse look hot in a suit or WHAT

Ready and waiting

I was about 20 years old when I first had the sexual fantasy of “getting myself ready” for a partner before they arrived home, so they could fuck me immediately upon their arrival, using my warmed-up body for their pleasure. My partner at the time was pretty vanilla, and loved giving oral sex, so he told me that to do this would be to skip some of his favorite parts of sex. While this was an understandable perspective, I still found that fantasy hot to contemplate from time to time.

My partner now is decidedly not vanilla (obvi!), but because they also love giving oral (as evidenced above), they recently found a way to enact this fantasy of mine without skipping cunnilingus. On an evening when they’d been out of the house all day attending to work stuff, they texted me, “At 9:30, put on lingerie, get into bed, turn the lights down, put on sexy music and a blindfold, and think about my mouth while you lie on my bed. Touch yourself however and wherever feels right and fantasize about what I’m gonna do to you.” They added that I should do a couple hits of weed to amp up my sensitivity, and put an Njoy Pure Plug in. Of course, I was eager to comply.

After setting up the space as instructed, I put my blindfold on, grabbed the Zalo Kyro wand, and started moving it lightly around my vulva, avoiding my clit so it would be at its most sensitive for my partner to enjoy. They were audibly delighted to see me laid out like that when we arrived, and I got to feel like a good little submissive for doing everything that’d been asked of me. What a win-win!

Matt says: It had been a long time since I’d had to stay out late for a business dinner, and I’d forgotten how horny that makes me: silky suits, fancy food, being away from my sub all day. We hadn’t fucked in few nights, and I knew I wanted to use you as soon as I got home before you got too tired, but I wasn’t sure exactly how late that would be. So I did what any good dominant would do: started the foreplay while I was at dinner from my phone, so you’d be ready for me when I got there. Walking into my room with the lights already low, my good girl high, plugged, and writhing against a vibe on my bed, and sexy music on the stereo was the perfect start to a perfect scene. I undressed as soon as I got in and remember how quickly you were ready for a dildo in your cunt after I started sucking your clit. You came hard and fast on the toy, and so did I once I slipped my cock into your cunt and used you like I had been planning for hours.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

Content note: There’s some depressing stuff in here about climate change, fascism, etc.

 

February 7th

A Spiritual Practice for Quarantine

wake up, take your meds
stretch & pee & check your phone
stretch & sigh, ignore your phone
brew some coffee, clear some cobwebs
set some goals & test your brain
watch the news, turn off the news
feel grateful you’re not on the news

don some ruby lipstick no one will see
take butt selfies in bed
suck cock every lazy morning
scribble notes to future selves
let haters tire themselves out
slither into slim-cut sweatpants
comb your hair for no one
read a book for pleasure
drink a boozy revelation
squint your eyes until you see
a pale unfocused vision
of the You you want to be

 

April 19th

Life all feels so absurd when you’re living through a global pandemic and a fresh wave of fascism and the end of the world due to climate change. I really don’t know how we are supposed to deal with it. There’s not even a frame of reference, a touchpoint in human history we can point to and learn from where we idiot’ed ourselves out of being able to even inhabit this planet anymore. It’s all new and a lot of it is bad.

I think one of the only things you can do to cope with all this is to do what the existentialists did and accept the liberating but terrifying meaninglessness of it all. I can’t affect humanity’s problems on a scale that would be effective, so I may as well feel pleasure and create joy where possible. I don’t mean it’s okay to be selfishly hedonistic all the time. I mean that we’d go nuts if we never allowed ourselves to be selfishly hedonistic. We’d be squandering the best parts of the very world and civilization our anxieties are trying to save.

 

May 29th

Lately I keep looking at real estate listings of 2- and 3-bedroom houses and condos in Toronto and New York and dreaming of what it would be like to furnish and decorate my own office in my own home. There would be lots of framed photos and art. An altar featuring citrine, blue topaz, and perfumed incense. Big white bookshelves displaying books, old journals, striking sex toys, and a rainbow of vintage typewriters. A smallish piano and my ukuleles and guitar. A luxuriant daybed for lounging and naps. A big plush armchair for reading in. Stacks of empty notebooks waiting to be filled with thoughts and ideas. Organized drawers containing my entire sex toy collection. A sex toy charging station à la Piph. Sophisticated coasters for having drinks at my desk. An array of fine pens and pencils. Tons of natural light, plus several lamps for atmosphere. Ahh, bliss.

 

June 9th

I bought a secondhand digital piano yesterday. Been wanting to get back into songwriting. It has been about 3 years since I’ve written a song. It’s just so weird because in high school I wrote multiple songs per month. It no longer feels like a skill I can access. I try playing and singing improvisationally but everything sounds terrible and doesn’t flow out of me the way it used to.

I think if I asked younger-me for advice on this, she would advise me to spend more time just idly messing around on my instrument(s); inspiration can’t show up if you’re not there to greet it. But I can’t shake the feeling that I was connected to some divine source of musical ingenuity and I no longer have a stable connection to wherever that came from.

I guess part of the reason for this is that my life now is fairly settled and content – I am married to the love of my life and our relationship is stable and healthy, so the main sources of interpersonal angst and sadness I used to pull songwriting inspiration from are just absent. I guess this means I have to carve out new ways of being a songwriter, ways that don’t rely on romantic drama. Writing from fictional characters’ perspectives is often helpful for this, I’ve found.

 

July 7th

Things to remember when I hate myself and feel like a failure:

  1. I will have had 2 books published by the time I turn 30.
  2. I am happily married to the love of my life, who is perfect for me on every dimension I can imagine.
  3. I live comfortably on the money I make as a self-employed person/freelancer in the sex media field. Dreamy.
  4. My work means a lot to people and they tell me so nearly every day.
  5. I am working through my traumas and flaws with a therapist, and I’m making good progress.
  6. I have a cozy home that I love and have put a lot of effort into making it feel as comfortable as possible.
  7. I achieve an amazing amount every single week for someone living with an invisible disability/chronic illness.
  8. I have made a lot of art that I think is good, and I will make a lot more.
  9. There is always more to learn, to see, to experience.
  10. Every single thing in life could change in an instant so the only thing to do is appreciate it when you have it.

 

July 26th

I’m emotional tonight, for a couple reasons. Firstly, today 11 copies of my first book showed up in the mail, and I got to hold it, and read it, and sniff it, and take selfies with it… I am truly so fucking proud of myself, and the pride feels unusually tangible to me today. It’s a really good book and I think people are going to like it.

The second emotional thing that happened is I went for drinks with T___, who I met several years ago because they were friends with L___ when I was dating him – and they told me that basically they never really liked him that much. They felt he was “a sad man who sucked” and didn’t treat his partners very well. (Uh, can confirm.)

My mind is honestly kinda blown. All this time I had believed what L___ said, which was that the two of them were very good friends, maybe even best friends – and I had felt that L___ must have some essential goodness or coolness because T___ thought he was cool, but in reality all this time they’ve seen him the same way I saw him on my most self-righteous and self-possessed days: as a sad, selfish, confused and confusing dude who wasn’t a very good boyfriend at all.

He was a person who frequently represented himself as perpetually right and good, as if his way of doing relationships was the best way or the only good way, and as if I was in the wrong for ever taking issue with anything he did. He was an extraordinarily bad boyfriend to me but framed himself as a generous and tolerant caretaker and protector.

Our relationship was this fraught mirage, always seeming like it had the potential to be so good and healthy and satisfying but never actually allowing that reality to materialize. He paid lip service daily to the kind of boyfriend he wanted to be, and wasn’t. He was a complete and total fuckboy, who would’ve been appalled to hear himself referred to as such. The only reason I stayed with him after he seriously hurt my feelings was that I believed deeply that he was desirable and special and “a catch” and that I was incredibly lucky to be with someone like him. That’s all it was. I mean, yeah, NRE makes idiots of us all, but I really think most of my poor decision-making in that relationship was directly related to me 1) assuming his inherent worth because he was a man who expressed an interest in me, and 2) thinking so poorly of myself that I couldn’t see how valuable and desirable I myself was. I didn’t know I deserved better, or that I was allowed to expect better, but I did and I was.