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12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 3 Fave Encounters

Kate Sloan

This has been a more difficult year than usual for me to keep track of memorable sexual experiences in my mind. Not because I didn’t have any good or great sex this year – I had a lot! – but because normally I have some situational or locational markers to help me remember specific instances better. In 2020, there was no “that time we did watersports after a night out at a cocktail bar” or “that time we used a new toy we’d just picked up at the local sex shop” or “that time we fucked immediately upon finally arriving at our hotel after a cross-country flight.” There was, however, a lot of “that time we had sex in bed after hanging out in bed all day.” 😂

As a result of these circumstances + the way my brain organizes sexual experiences, I don’t remember the exact dates of every stellar rendezvous I had this year, despite (still) keeping a sex spreadsheet. But I remember the feelings, and the vibes (so to speak), and the highlights – which is sort of how I feel about 2020, too. So today I’ll tell you about some of the best encounters I do remember.

I’ve also thrown in a little write-up from Matt about each of these, like I did last year, because it’s fun to hear both perspectives sometimes. Enjoy!

 

Non-reciprocal (but surprisingly reciprocal) oral

My very first sexual partner, back in 2008–2009, could have orgasms from going down on me. You can see how this experience might lead a person to be disappointed by subsequent relationships where that didn’t happen!

Of course, I know how uncommon and unrealistic this is for most people. It makes for a great fantasy – that someone could find your pleasure and your genitals soooo hot that it could make them come, basically untouched – but it just isn’t how most people’s bodies work. And yet, somehow, a decade after that first sexual relationship, I found myself dating (and eventually married to) someone who happened to have the same talent.

Some of my most satisfying sexual experiences this year were times when my love went down on me – slow, gradually escalating, dedicated, and reverent – and brought me to an orgasm so intense that it made them come against the bedsheets in the same moment. Sometimes this happened while they were in chastity, which makes sense, what with their sensitivity being amped up and orgasm threshold lowered – but sometimes it was just sorta random.

I am very lucky to have a sweetheart who loves giving oral sex that much. It feels powerful to me every time, and affirms that I am actually hot, even at times when I severely doubt that to be true. Some people chase and fetishize the elusive simultaneous orgasm during PIV – but I prefer a simultaneous orgasm during oral, tbh!

Matt says: I’ve always been a little embarrassed with past partners when I’ve come from going down on them, because of what culture tells us about “premature” ejaculation. The fact is that eating pussy is one of my all-time favorite sex acts, so of course it turns me on. And sometimes tasting someone come in my mouth is enough to push me over the edge. The first time this happened with you, I was shy to admit it at first, but when you reacted with a loving giggle and a beaming smile, I knew you were into it. This is also the most frequent way I experience simultaneous orgasms, with my orgasm almost always beginning just as you start to come and peaking as I work hard to maintain the rhythm of my tongue on your clit and ride out the waves of pleasure. It’s definitely worth the cleanup. 

 

Slapping their cock to orgasm (content note: inflicting pain on a penis)

One of the kinks Matt and I explored more this year was CBT (that’s cock and ball torture, not cognitive-behavioral therapy!). While many people with dicks are scared to death of any pain or injury befalling that area (and reasonably so), personally I think it’s nice to mix a little pain in with my pleasure – and fortunately, my spouse agrees.

We had experimented with occasional cock-slaps here and there, but one night in June after they’d already made me come with my Bandit and Eroscillator, we got into some dick-slapping that was much more purposeful and concentrated. After a few minutes of teasing slaps, I realized that it seemed like they could come from the hits I was raining down on their dick. (One of the benefits of being in a long-term sexual relationship can be developing the ability to sense such things.) I kept up my rhythm, the slaps becoming gradually more firm and fast, until eventually, they came hard, whining and whimpering.

Though I’m not much of a natural domme, there is something thrillingly powerful about being able to give someone a totally new-to-them type of orgasm. I’ve subsequently improved my CBT skillz and can now make them come with slaps pretty easily and consistently. Cool!

Matt says: I don’t remember exactly how we started doing CBT together. But I definitely remember the first time I came from it. I was in a subby, trancey headspace and every one of your slaps was making my cock harder. I felt myself beginning to leak precum against your hand and craving release. I didn’t know it was possible for me to come from slapping alone, but I felt myself getting closer as your hits became more rhythmic and focused on my frenulum. I asked for permission to come, and had one of the most intense orgasms of the entire year. It’s amazing to learn a new way to come, and we’ve had a lot of fun playing with it since.

 

Wedding night sex

Of course, there are traditionally a lot of expectations heaped onto the night of one’s wedding, sexually speaking – and though we wanted to make it special, we also knew it was just one night of many, many, many nights we’ll spend together as a married couple, so there was no need to put undue pressure on ourselves.

After our post-wedding dinner with a few friends, we checked into the Conrad Hotel for the night, where they had set up champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries in our suite (aww). After some kissing, cuddling, and decompressing, Matt fucked me with the Njoy Eleven – the dildo that indirectly led to us meeting in 2017, because they mentioned on Twitter that they liked my review of it – while I used the Eroscillator on myself. (I remember the way their brand-new wedding ring clinked against the metal of the Eleven…) Then we had good ol’ PIV. Classic.

It surprised me to notice that despite wedding night sex being considered “special,” an anomaly, in real life it actually felt pretty similar to great sex we might have on an average day, save for the location (and the fact that we had to peel off our formalwear beforehand!). I reject the idea of waiting until marriage to have sex (for myself, anyway – you do you), because it prevents you from assessing your sexual compatibility with the person you plan on tethering your life to – and the flipside of that coin is that I already knew I love fucking Matt, and that I could be happy doing so for the rest of my life. That night just confirmed it.

Matt says: Romantic! We were a little drunk and a lot exhausted, but we weren’t going to waste a beautiful hotel room and our wedding night by going to bed early. After some champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, I fumbled around trying to figure out the complicated lighting system and went down on you in the dark for what felt like the perfect amount of time. I knew I wanted you to come on the Eleven, like we discussed. And I knew I wanted to come inside you. So that’s exactly what happened. It couldn’t have been more perfect. And then we fucked once more in the morning, for good measure.

 

Hope it was a wonderful year in your sex life, too (if that’s what you want/enjoy)!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

Ages ago, I read an article which mentioned that donating personal journals to historical archives can be really helpful to historians of the future, because it gives them a sense of what daily life was like for average people during a given timeframe. I thought about that almost every time I put pen to paper this year, because 2020 will certainly be written about in history books (to the extent that history books are still a thing in the future!).

Here are 6 entries I pulled from my journals this year. Hopefully next year we’ll have many more cheerful things to write about!

Jan. 31

Matt asked me recently to what degree I want to be surprised with a proposal. I said, “I don’t want to know exactly when it’s going to happen, but I do want to know when we are entering a period of life in which a proposal might occur.” They said, “So you want to know when I have a ring,” and I said yes. I love that we have, and have always had, these meta-conversations about important relationship milestones – it’s so different from the traditional Cosmopolitan model of relationships where you never talk about anything and always have to guess what your partner is thinking and feeling.

March 3rd

Everything is really scary right now because a pandemic called the coronavirus is spreading globally and there’s no vaccine for it yet. That sounds so dramatic and crazy but that is what’s happening. People are stockpiling flu meds and face masks and hand sanitizer, and some affected people are self-quarantining for weeks at a time. My immune system sucks so I feel like I will probably get it, but who knows. Currently I am coping by leaving the house as little as possible, washing my hands a lot, distracting myself with podcasts and movies, and drinking homemade martinis.

March 15

Existing in a pandemic reminds me of a feeling I get in the days and weeks following a really brutal breakup. You walk through the world in this daze, unable yet to process that your entire reality has shifted on its axis. Periodically you find minutes or hours of respite in the form of distraction, or perspective, or positive social connection, or just a random feeling of unusual optimism and shrugging resignation – but always, at some point, your mind skids squeakily like a record being scratched as the remembrance of your true situation hits you afresh. Being alive through COVID-19 is like that, except everyone is going through it now, all the time.

It’s fucking surreal how fast everything has changed. No aspect of life can be the same now. Nine days ago I saw fit to go to a crowded karaoke bar. Today I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. We are staying home and moving all our appointments online, or canceling them. We are afraid even to walk around the block or pick up groceries. We don’t know how long it’ll be until we can safely gather in crowds again.

May 13

I’m having a lot of episodes of… feeling triggered/having a trauma response/having an extreme nervous system response/not sure what else to call it… lately. Mostly triggered by stressful things in my relationship (we worked some things out yesterday so it’s okay now) but sometimes basically random. I’ve noticed that I often go into a shut-down dissociative mode when I feel like I’ve disappointed or upset someone I care about – the world slows down like I’ve done a lot of drugs, and the inside of my mind and body feel helplessly, scarily sluggish – and I think this must be related to all the many times my dad yelled at me until I cried, for both justifiable and unjustifiable reasons, when I was a kid/teen/young adult. I remember feeling so frustrated and sad that I could never seem to articulate myself well enough to provide a decent rebuttal to whatever he was bellowing at me – but of course I couldn’t; my nervous system was under attack and I was essentially paralyzed, with nothing to do but stand there and take it. Often I wouldn’t even be allowed to go to my room and cry in private to feel safe and calm again, because that would be perceived by him as “sulking” and he hated that. I think he mostly just hated the guilt of knowing he had upset me that much, after his obvious glee in hurting me had faded.

I asked Matt why they think all these trauma feelings and emotional flashbacks have been coming up so much for me lately – mostly ex-boyfriend stuff and dad stuff, I think – and they said it’s likely due to the stress of living through a global pandemic. Which, yes, that is true. I reached out to several therapists who specialize in trauma/PTSD as well as non-monogamy, because that is really what I’ve needed for years, I just haven’t been able to afford it. But now I finally can, and I want to work on myself and my dumb brain.

May 29th

Increasingly I feel like human civilization as I know it will end within my lifetime. Increasingly I find that tuning out the news and the world for periods of time is the only way I can even function. Increasingly I worry that dismantling capitalism is both the only solution to our major problems as a species and one of the only things we will never do.

July 17th

Matt went back home a couple days ago after living with me for 4 months of coronavirus lockdown. It was really hard for both of us. I cried a lot and they told me that my deep emotionality is a catch-22 because it makes the hard things extra hard but it also makes the good things extra good.

My days now are much more quiet, still, and unstructured without them here. I guess this is what quarantining alone would have been like. I’m not sure it’s all that great for my mental health but it’s also an opportunity to pursue any projects I feel like, read a lot of books, and play a lot of video games. I miss Matt but I like being alone, too. And I’m very very privileged and lucky to be able to do so safely, in such a hellish year.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

Every December, I write about some of the most significant selfies I took throughout the year. Despite the fact that I spent most of 2020 sitting on my couch in my pajamas (anyone else?!), I nonetheless managed to take many photos of special moments with special people. Here are 7 of my faves!

January 13th

This was taken while Bex and I were on a work trip to Burbank, California. We had been provisionally hired to helm a sex magazine which never ended up happening (thanks, COVID) and had to spend a couple days chatting with fellow sex-industry professionals at ANME and learning about the latest innovations in the sex toy field.

They have legal weed over there, so we got a little silly. I snapped this selfie on our way back into our hotel after a smoke break in the parking lot; I had gotten wayyy too high on that legendarily strong California kush, and my childlike glee started to break through the veneer of polished adulthood we’d had to project all day at the tradeshow. Bex, sensing my over-intoxication, helped me plan my next steps, and when we got back to our room, he encouraged me to get into a hot bath and call my partner so they could take care of me over the phone.

I love this picture because it captures so much of what I love most about my friendship with Bex: our ability to make each other howl with laughter. It’s the reason our podcast has remained so fun to do all these years, and it’s one of the things I missed most about my normal, pre-pandemic social life while everything was up in the air this year.

January 17th

It’s still so wild to me that I wrote a book. It’s not coming out until September 2021, but at this point it’s been so long since I actually wrote the thing that sometimes I forget what my daily routine was like during that process. My calendar archives make it very clear, however, that I was surprisingly disciplined and productive for a chronically fatigued person, generally writing 2 short chapters every weekday for about 3 months. I’m proud of myself!

This photo was taken the night of my official book deadline. I’d submitted the completed manuscript a couple days earlier, because I have way too much anxiety to leave things like that to the last minute, but it still felt like a momentous day. My partner and my friends encouraged me to get dressed up and go out for a solo date to celebrate. I put on one of my favorite dresses and a full face of pretty makeup, and walked down to the Fairmont Royal York hotel, which contains the Library Bar, an ornate and auspicious salon filled with good books and excellent cocktails. It’s the same place Matt and I went when I ceremonially signed my book contract and had some celebratory drinks, so it made sense to return there when the book was finished, albeit by myself.

I have a lot of trouble acknowledging and celebrating my own achievements, even big ones. Part of me always believes I didn’t quite earn them, or that something will go disastrously wrong and I’ll embarrass myself somehow if I actually take ownership of what I’ve achieved. But it felt good to sip a dirty martini by myself and write in my journal about how proud I was to have written a whole goddamn book.

February 22nd

Doing shrooms for the first time was one of the oddest things I did all year. I took them (in tea form) in the early afternoon, and what followed was basically a full day of laughing, crying, dancing, marching, hallucinating, joking, and singing. Fortunately my trip-sitter and friend Brent willingly put up with all of it.

I think I took this selfie when Brent had stepped out of the room for a few minutes. His presence had been an anchor to my floaty mind, and I’d gotten mildly panicky every previous time he’d tried to step out, so this time I picked up my phone (even though my phone had been unofficially off-limits to me all day because of the loopy things I might tweet) and texted my partner so I could make it through the duration until Brent got back. But in classic “me” fashion, I also needed to take a selfie.

This picture really captures the childlike giddiness I felt for much of my shrooms trip. While I didn’t necessarily have any of the “epiphanies” many people report from psychedelics, the experience did lead me to reflect on the artifice and malleability of (some aspects of) identity – and truth be told, I like the part of me that’s silly and happy-go-lucky, whether she shows up in an age-play scene or during a shrooms trip. This photo shows a side of me I sometimes ignore or repress, but I’d probably be much happier if I let her out to play more often, like I did on that day.

March 8th

This picture is important to me because it was taken at the last big event I went to before the coronavirus shut everything down.

My mom and I went for dinner at Insomnia – y’all, I miss their kale salad with grilled chicken so much that my stomach made excited anticipatory noises as I was writing this sentence – and then we walked across the street to the Bloor Cinema, where Drunk Feminist Films was holding a screening of Cats. I had thus far avoided seeing Cats even though everyone was saying it was the most outrageously goodbad movie in decades, but I knew Drunk Feminist Films would be the best possible setting in which to see it, and I was right.

As far as “last major outings before a global pandemic” go, this one was pretty excellent. I was wearing pink sequinned cat ears. I was quite tipsy. I was with my mom, who I love and who makes me laugh a lot. There were whispers about “that coronavirus thing” but I wasn’t all that concerned yet. And I got to scream at the screen, along with hundreds of other raucous feminists, about Judi Dench breaking the fourth wall and Ian McKellen drinking milk from a bowl. I have a few coronavirus-related regrets from this year, but attending that screening of Cats is not one of them.

June 20th

After months of staying at home, the case numbers finally started to decrease to a level where I felt comfortable visiting my family, who had also remained at home except for essential trips to the grocery store or pharmacy. My mom picked up Matt and me and drove us to her house, where we drank martinis in the back yard with my mom and brother, told stories, and joked around.

I know I’m not alone in feeling that this year really emphasized the importance of family and togetherness (to the extent that such things are possible and enjoyable for you – I know not everyone is lucky enough to have a family they like, who likes them back). You can see in my face in this photo that this was no ordinary “sitting around drinking and chatting” kind of night – this was special, even though the tone was casual. I was so glad to finally get to see these people again who had seemed hundreds of miles away even when they were just across the city from me.

September 15th

This photo represents two of the major kinks Matt and I played with together this year: chastity and financial domination. While they were locked up in chastity, we decided it would be fun to do one of our long-distance “phone dates” – wherein we each go to a restaurant or bar in our respective cities and talk on the phone throughout – but for them to foot the bill for the entire evening, because sometimes it turns them on to spoil me.

I put on the set of blue Agent Provocateur lingerie Matt had bought me as an earlier financial domination task, and added (of course) the necklace on which I keep my key to their chastity cage. On top of that, I wore a blue dress and a yellow cardigan, and walked to a restaurant Matt had chosen for me in swanky Yorkville called Sassafraz. (I sat outdoors, away from other guests; me and the staff had masks on whenever possible; there was ample hand sanitizer available; etc. etc.) We chatted on the phone during dinner, and they paid for my whole meal and my Uber ride back home.

I like this photo because I look powerful in it, even though you can’t see my face. Being dominant doesn’t come naturally to me, but this year I’ve enjoyed finding new ways my dominance can manifest, and how those newer routes can help me access different sides of my dominance that feel authentic and restorative. Here’s to more kinky adventures in 2021 (hopefully also in gorgeous lingerie)!

November 14th

A wedding-day selfie was a necessary inclusion in this post, of course!

As I explained on a recent Dildorks episode about weddings, although it’s common for couples to avoid seeing each other before the event so as to preserve the surprise, Matt and I decided not to do it that way for our tiny COVID wedding. It just made more sense for us to both get ready at their apartment and then walk over to the wedding location together.

I had thought this might feel disappointing when we actually did it, but it was totally fine, and even kinda fun. On such a potentially nervewracking day, it was nice to be with the person who alleviates my nerves most skilfully – and also to share in our excitement together.

We took this selfie just before heading out to Madison Square Park to get married. We look happy, calm, and excited to continue our lives together. ❤️

 

In the comments, feel free to tell me about a favorite selfie you took this year, and what made it so special!

Our Wedding Outfits!

Kate Sloan
All of the beautiful photos in this post were taken by the supremely talented Ashe of Rose Glass Photography, who I would 100% recommend!

Supposedly every little girl grows up dreaming of her perfect wedding, and specifically, her perfect wedding dress. I haven’t found this to be very true in my friend groups, perhaps since so many people I know are queer and/or trans (and thus not prone to heteropatriarchally-rooted fantasies) or just don’t really care about weddings all that much. Personally, as a chronic romantic fantasizer, I was usually more moony-eyed about the idea of my perfect future spouse than I was about the dress I would wear. But I do have a wedding Pinterest board dating back years and years, so I guess at some point I hopped onboard the “dreamily musing about what I’ll wear to walk down the aisle” train.

The COVID-era wedding Matt and I threw together was initially so informal that I wasn’t even sure if I needed a specific outfit for it. I figured it would happen at a courthouse and would be more about signing documents and waiting in line than doing a full face of makeup and throwing a bouquet. One of the first nights we started planning it on the phone, I semi-joked, “I guess I probably have to buy a white dress, huh?” and Matt said, “Yeah! You should!”

Over the next couple of months, we cobbled together our outfits from various sources. We really like to match each other when we go out on dates, so we already had practice syncing up our color palettes. What resulted is a pair of outfits centered around white and blue, with little pops of red and pink here and there. Read on for all the juicy outfit details!

My outfit

The dress: I’ve always wanted a 1950s-style, knee-length wedding dress with a full tulle skirt, but to get it exactly right would require tailoring and a bunch of money, both things that are kind of tricky during a global pandemic. So I set aside that desire for the time being, figuring I could always splurge on my dream dress for the bigger wedding-y event we plan on having post-pandemic so all our friends and family can come party with us. I started looking at more practical and affordable options.

After scouring various online stores for a few days, I eventually settled on this ’50s-inspired A-line dress by Grace Karin. It’s a really classic fit-and-flare silhouette, the kind of thing I wear all the time, but getting it in white was special. I made sure to read a bunch of reviews before pulling the trigger, to make sure buyers thought it was well-constructed and not see-through (a common problem for white dresses), and the reviews were excellent, including some from people whose body shape and size were similar to mine. (I’m generally a size 10-12 and I bought this dress in a size L, if you’re wondering.)

When the dress arrived, I tried it on, and it fit perfectly and looked exactly how I’d hoped it would. I’ve always loved the 1950s aesthetic and was so glad I’d found such a lovely manifestation of it for my “big day”! It was also fortuitous that I only needed to spend $35 on it (!!), because our wedding was in a kinda muddy park and the waitress at our post-ceremony dinner accidentally squirted hand sanitizer on the front of my dress. I think she was pretty horrified, but I just laughed and said, “It’s totally okay, it only cost me $35!!”

The crinoline: While I used to rock crinolines as skirts in high school, I’m not sure I had ever really worn one the way they’re supposed to be worn – under an A-line dress to help it look fuller and more flouncy. But this dress really called for it, and your wedding is one of the days when you get to be unapologetically fancy if you want to, so I decided to go for it.

I got a pale blue one from the same brand, Grace Karin, for $26. Since this type of item is literally created to be voluminous, packing it in a suitcase was a challenge, but I figured it out eventually. I folded it up as small as it would get, stuffed it into a Ziploc bag, and stuffed that inside one of the packing cubes I had recently bought for just such an occasion. I had set aside one entire cube just for wedding clothes, so as to keep them separate from my regular clothes so I wouldn’t accidentally let Matt see them before the day itself.

The shoes: I had bought these pale blue Manolo Blahnik peeptoe sandals almost a year before, and the more that I looked at them, the more I thought they’d be the perfect wedding shoe. My dream pair prior to that had always been Melissa x Vivienne Westwood slingback heels with a red heart detail, but they’re discontinued so they get pretty pricey on eBay. I still think I might hunt down a pair at some point in the future.

The Manolos were a bit impractical, given that the temperature was starting to drop by the time our November wedding rolled around and the event itself took place in a park, where my heels kept sinking into the ground as I walked or stood – but I engaged some muscles I didn’t even know I had, and made it work! However, I did also have Matt stash my beloved Frye harness boots in their bag for me to change into after the ceremony. They looked surprisingly cute with the dress too!

The sash: The more I looked at my dress, the more I felt it should have some kind of belt. What can I say – I love a cinched waist! I considered getting this pale blue vintage leather Moschino belt, but it bugged me that it had gold hardware when all the other metallic tones in the outfit were silver. After a while, I opted instead to buy a 9-foot-by-2-inch length of pale blue satin ribbon to tie into a sash.

On the actual day, I looked up some YouTube tutorials on how to tie a wedding sash, but ultimately I abandoned them and just tied a regular bow, adjusting it until it looked right. I think it came out decently cute for a first try! (Should’ve practiced in advance, yes. Definitely.)

The cardigan: Due to the aforementioned dropping temperatures, I began to consider the possibility that I’d be too cold in just my wedding dress to truly enjoy myself at the event. This became even more of an issue once we settled on having a post-ceremony dinner on the patio of a nearby Italian restaurant, because (reasonably so) we and most of our guests weren’t too comfy with indoor dining, given the, y’know, public health crisis.

Just six days before the wedding, I ordered (secondhand through TheRealReal) this Tiffany-blue cashmere cardigan by Autumn Cashmere. I wanted something kind of dainty and feminine, but still warm enough to keep me cozy, and this fit the bill. I took it off for the actual ceremony, but wore it the rest of the time. I’ve worn it a bunch more times since then, too!

The bag: I didn’t strictly need a bag, and could have kept any personal items in Matt’s backpack (which they had to bring because it contained the marriage certificate, ceremony script, etc.), but hey, I’m a femme and I love bags. So I started looking around for one that would fit the vibe and color scheme of the event.

I’ve loved Rebecca Minkoff’s designs for years but had never owned anything from her, so I was excited when I saw this pale blue saffiano leather clutch of hers on TheRealReal. I love that it’s made to look like an envelope; it reminds me of love letters! The silver zipper-tooth edging also gives it a bit of toughness to balance out the delicate femininity of the color. I think all that was inside my bag during the wedding was my phone, my vows written out on notecards, some makeup items for touch-ups, and a bunch of Kleenex in case of crying!

The lingerie: I bought a set of white lacy lingerie from Avidlove for $20. The panties are high-waisted (very 1950s) and have a corset-esque lace-up panel in the back, which is why putting on my underwear was actually the part of getting dressed for my wedding that took the longest!

I ended up swapping out the bra for a blue one from Agent Provocateur. It felt more glamorous, gave me way better cleavage (look, we all have our own priorities!), matched my collar almost exactly, and had a connection to our romance because it’s part of a set Matt bought me as a financial domination task. I was worried it might show through the dress, because it’s a vivid royal blue, but the fabric was opaque enough that it didn’t turn out to be an issue.

The earrings: I wanted something pretty but very basic and not-cumbersome, since I don’t wear earrings all that often. The ones I went with are aquamarine-colored Swarovski crystals on a sterling silver backing, from an Etsy shop called UniqueGlassTreasures. Maybe one day I’ll get some real aquamarine ones…

The nails: My fingernails were painted with Revlon’s “To the Chapel” topped with Essie’s “Set in Stones.” The night before the wedding, Matt painted my toenails with Essie’s “Lacquered Up” while we watched TV. (Perks of having a foot fetishist spouse!)

The masks: Since we knew we’d have to wear masks for at least part of the day, we decided we should get fancy ones. I found these sequinned masks from AvaReignCreations on Etsy and totally fell in love. I got one for me in white and one for Matt in navy. Mine needed a little resizing, since I have a small-ish face, but fortunately all I had to do was tie a tiny knot at the end of each ear loop and it fit much better.

The makeup: Two of my fave beauty YouTubers, Jaclyn Hill and Lisa Eldridge, both have bridal makeup tutorials that I took a lot of cues from. For my eyes, I used a lot of different beige, brown, black, and nude shades from the LORAC Pro palette and the Morphe x Jaclyn Hill palette. (The latter has a shade called “S.B.N.” which stands for “smoky but natural,” because Jaclyn says when she was a professional makeup artist for hire, every bride seemed to ask for a look that was “smoky but natural”!) I did my usual black winged liner with MAC Liquidlast (the only thing I’ve tried that can truly stand up to my crying), and finished off the look with Sugarpill Saint false lashes.

I wore a Revlon foundation over a Bite Beauty primer. It was hard shopping for foundation during a pandemic – normally a makeup pro would test a bunch of different shades on your skin, but I didn’t feel comfy with that for hygienic reasons (and I’m not even sure if they’re still allowed to do that), so instead I just brought along my MAC concealer and matched it to a foundation at the drugstore, and it seems to have worked out fine. On top of those, I put some Laura Mercier translucent setting powder (holy grail for mattifying combo/oily skin!), Tarte blush in “Natural Beauty,” and Becca highlight in “Moonstone.” I contoured with NYX blush in “Taupe,” and set the whole thing with an ELF matte setting spray.

For my lips, first I filled them in with a red lip liner from the drugstore, and then I went over that with Tom Ford’s “Cherry Lush.” Matt and I both own and love this lipstick, and decided we both wanted to wear it to our wedding!

Matt’s outfit

The suit: This gorgeous navy suit is from Suitsupply. They wore it on our second date too, and I remember thinking, as we met up outside a Manhattan coffee shop, that I had never seen somebody look so handsome before! It’s made of wool and is really well-tailored, and it brings out the color of Matt’s eyes beautifully.

The shirt: One of the things I love about Matt is that they have an appreciation for fancy things, even when the fanciness won’t be noticeable to most people. This white Brooks Brothers dress shirt is exactly that sort of item. It has a really subtle herringbone pattern that’s only visible from up close, and adds a touch of luxury and style to what would otherwise be a pretty basic item.

The shoes: I love these shoes. Matt was wearing them on our first date and I commented on how shiny they were; little did I know, they were one of Matt’s favorite pairs, and one that they reach for when they want to feel fancy. They’re the Park Avenue oxfords by Allen Edmonds in the shade “Walnut.” Sometimes I wish I could pull off an oxford… Maybe someday!

The tie: Matt assigned me a task, a couple months before the wedding, to research some accessories they could wear for their outfit (ties, socks, pocket squares, etc.) and write a little bit about why each one would be a good pick. I had a few ties on my list (any other non-tie-wearing people weirdly love shopping for ties for loved ones?!), but one of my faves was this Liberty tie featuring white flowers on a pale blue background. I love that it’s an unconventional and somewhat androgynous choice, perfect for my offbeat nonbinary sweetheart.

The pocket square: Might be my favorite detail of the outfit! I was trawling TheRealReal and I stumbled across a secondhand silk Tiffany’s pocket square emblazoned with a blue and white map of Manhattan. It seemed like a perfect pick for my love, a long-time New Yorker and (as discussed) a big fan of subtly fancy details. Weirdly, I suggested this for Matt fully a month before I even knew my engagement ring was also going to be from Tiffany’s!

The socks: I picked out these navy and pink polka-dotted dress socks for Matt from the Tie Bar. They’re so much fun, and I love the way they subtly allude to the trans pride colors.

The pin: Speaking of trans pride… This sweet little trans heart enamel pin is from RisingVioletPress on Etsy.

The makeup: Matt kept it really simple – just some Glossier Boy Brow on their brows, and Tom Ford lip liner in “Charge” under Tom Ford lipstick in “Cherry Lush.”

Whew! That was a lot of outfit details. If you feel like leaving a comment, I would love to know what your favorite parts of your wedding outfit were, or what items you’d like to wear to your wedding if you ever have one!

I’m Engaged!!! Here’s the Story…

Kate Sloan
All the photos in this post are by the wonderful Ashe of Rose Glass Photography, who you should definitely hire for any and all romantic or boudoir photos if you can!

I’ve gone back and forth over the years about whether or not I want to get married. At times, I’ve thought marriage was a pointless patriarchal relic, or at least a bureaucratic process that sought to legitimize love through paperwork and ceremonies – none of which sounded very appealing to me. But as I’ve continued to grow, learn, and change, I’ve come to realize that – like many other modern-day traditions – weddings and marriage largely mean a very different thing now than they did at their inception, and that’s a good thing. Creating our own meanings for age-old rituals is one of the most powerful skills I’ve picked up from being a queer feminist.

Matt and I started talking about marriage a little over a year ago. I remember we were in a dimly-lit French restaurant, eating dinner at the bar, and they said something like: “Last week I was chatting with the woman next to me at the Gramercy Tavern, and I told her that my girlfriend lives in Canada, and she said, ‘Why don’t you just get married? It’ll make immigration easier.’ And I thought, why don’t we just get married?”

I was so surprised that I started literally crying into my food and Matt had to calm me down 😂  It was so affirming to hear this because I’d already basically accepted that me and Matt weren’t ever going to get married or be “life partners,” for a variety of life-circumstance reasons – but in my heart, I felt conflicted and sad about it. Of all the people I’ve dated, Matt seemed like the best long-term partner for me I could possibly imagine: we “get” each other on practically every level, make each other laugh all day every day, support each other when times are tough, and had already proven ourselves capable of working through relationship issues as they came up. Part of me had started to feel like, if I couldn’t marry the person I really wanted to marry, maybe I shouldn’t/wouldn’t marry anyone at all. That made me a bit sad, but also, as a queer non-monogamous kinky feminist, I felt I should probably just accept it, and continue living my unconventional life.

So obviously, I felt a lot of feelings when they brought up marriage as not only something we could do but something they wanted to do. This was also shortly after they came out as nonbinary, and they asked me later that night – tearfully, over tiki cocktails – whether I’d have any problem being spouses/life partners with “a gender-weirdo.” My answer: Of course not. They are the gender-weirdo that I love, and want to be with.

It was unclear for a long time exactly when we’d be able to get engaged and then get married, because of complications involving borders, work, and family, among other things – and then when the coronavirus hit, everything was even more up-in-the-air. Fearing oncoming border closures between our two countries (which did indeed happen), we spent 4 months quarantined together in my tiny Toronto apartment (along with my excellent sweetheart of a roommate and her two adorable cats), and it confirmed for us what we already suspected from shorter stretches of time we’d spent together: that we were indeed a good match, even in close quarters, even under dire circumstances.

Matt went back home in mid-July, and by mid-September we were missing each other so much it hurt. We’d never spent that much time apart in the entire course of our relationship (we’ve been blessed to always live only 500 miles apart, or about a 90-minute flight, which we do not take for granted, knowing that many other long-distance couples are not nearly that lucky). One night, on the phone, Matt said, “I’ve been doing research all day, and I have a romantic plan I’d like to propose. Would you like to hear it?” Their voice shook with nerves. I said yes.

They’d discovered a loophole of sorts in the border closure rules. While they were not allowed to fly up to Toronto, I was for some reason allowed to fly to New York (albeit with all the proper precautions, like pre-flight temperature screening, post-flight quarantining, masks, and contact tracing). They could only visit me if we were legal spouses (although this rule has since been overturned, LOL), so they suggested I fly down to see them and we get married. It would be a tiny, COVID-era wedding – just a few guests, socially distanced, with masks on, in a park somewhere. Sometime in the future, post-pandemic (if such a thing exists), we would have a bigger, more traditional wedding, with friends and family and catering and first dances and tossing the bouquet and so on.

I was nervous at first, and took a couple days to think about it – but upon pondering it more, it just made more and more sense to me. We’d wanted this for ages anyway – why not let the pandemic speed it up a little? Why not look the curveball that was COVID dead in the eye and knock it out of the park?

After I booked my plane tickets, we started plotting and planning. Being queer and progressive, we wanted to look critically at the trappings of marriage and decide which pieces we actually cared about and which we wanted to toss out. We talked about rings – I wanted an aquamarine as the central stone, not a traditional diamond (even though diamonds are, weirdly, my birthstone), both because blue has always been a significant color in our relationship and because I just… like blue. We talked about proposals – Matt wanted to do the asking, and I wanted to be asked, which worked out well. (We joked that they’re a “proposal top” and I’m a “proposal bottom.”) They asked what kind of proposal I ideally wanted – public or private? Surprising, or not at all? Lavish or low-key?

We both sorta disdained the whole “asking for your daughter’s hand in marriage” tradition, but I wanted to check with my parents incase it was important to them. (I know a lot of these way-old traditions feel important even if you know they’re irrational or even in direct conflict with your ethics.) I called them and asked, and they both said they didn’t care about that tradition at all because I am my own woman and I get to make my own choices, but that they adored Matt and knew we’d be happy together.

As I prepared for travel, Matt kept dropping inscrutable hints about the plans they were putting into motion. They told me they’d talked to a few jewellers; when they decided on the final ring, they texted photos to several of my friends and sent me screenshots of everyone’s reactions. (My favorite was Brent‘s; he said the ring looked like it had “mythical powers”!) One Saturday, they texted me, “I maybe am standing in the exact spot where I’m gonna propose to you…” I pried for details, but they wouldn’t tell me anything useful. So sneaky!

The day they actually proposed to me was Friday, October 23rd. In the afternoon, we had a Zoom meeting with a New York city clerk, whose job it was to check that we were physically in the same place and had our marriage documentation ready to go. Matt seemed super nervous beforehand, which was very out of character, so I should’ve guessed something was up! The clerk issued us our marriage license over the internet; it was very weird. Then Matt said, “We should go on a date tonight to celebrate! I’ll make some reservations.” Them handling our plans is the norm in our relationship, and part of our D/s dynamic, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me at all that they were planning us a date without asking me for input or telling me where we’d be going.

It also wasn’t out of the ordinary that they picked my outfit. For the Zoom call, they’d put on a nice blue dress shirt that happened to be the same one they were wearing when we met. The dress they chose for me was also the same thing I was wearing on our first date… Again, I should have known something was going on! They put my collar on me, we applied matching lipstick (Tom Ford’s Cherry Lush, a fave), and then we got in an Uber.

I was a bit confused when we pulled up to the High Line, an elevated public park built on an old railway line, because I’d been under the impression we’d be going to a bar or restaurant. “There’s a bar up there,” Matt assured me (reader, there was not). We got into line and there’d been some technical problem with Matt’s reservation (they must’ve been SO freaked out!) but fortunately, the staff let us go up anyway.

The High Line is a special place for us because we hung out there the morning after our 2nd date, chatting, laughing, and basking in New Relationship Energy. At one point we were sitting on a bench and this little girl ran by; pointing at the railway, she asked her parents loudly, “Why are there train tracks?” and we spent a few minutes giggling over the philosophical rabbit hole that that question could be if viewed through a particular lens.

Back in the present, we strolled across the park, holding hands and marvelling at art, architecture, and autumn foliage we saw along the way. Eventually we reached a particularly beautiful lookout point, and Matt stopped walking. I stopped too, assuming they just wanted to take a moment to admire the view. (Although, honestly, a little bit of me was like, “Where’s that bar, tho?!”)

They asked if they could take off my mask for a sec, and they took theirs off too; I assumed they wanted a kiss. But then they got down on one knee. “HEY!” I yelled, caught off-guard.

Kneeling in front of me, they said, “I don’t know why there are train tracks, but I’m glad they led me to you, and to this moment. I’ve got you, I love you, and I want to be with you forever. Kate Sparkle Sloan, will you marry me?” They took out a Tiffany-blue ring box (I remember thinking, “Huh, that’s funny, that jeweller uses the same color as Tiffany’s does,” never once imagining the ring might actually be by Tiffany’s!) and showed me the ring. It was so completely stunning that I gasped. A vivid ice-blue aquamarine, surrounded by two sparkling diamond halos, set on a shining platinum band. Wow! I started crying, obviously. That’s a lot of information to process at once – that the love of your life not only wants to marry you but also bought you the most beautiful piece of jewelry you’ve ever seen!

Memories of this magnitude are really strange in the way the brain encodes them. I felt simultaneously like the entire image would be burned into my brain forever and like I was missing so many important details because I was just too gobsmacked to process anything properly. It’s funny how, even though I already knew they planned on proposing at some point, the actual event still felt shocking and exciting like it had been a total surprise.

I said yes (of course!!), and they tried to slip the ring onto my right hand, so I said, “Doesn’t it go on the other hand?” and we had a funny moment of confusion until we got it right. They stood up and we hugged and kissed. “Bex and Ashe are here somewhere, but I think they got a bit turned around,” Matt said. Indeed, my best friend Bex and his partner Ashe – who is also a pal of ours and happens to be a professional photographer with a lot of proposals/weddings in their portfolio – had come to surprise me! The plan had been for Ashe to photograph the actual proposal, but the High Line is a super confusing place so they hadn’t actually made it there in time. But, by some ridiculous stroke of luck, a woman who happened to be walking by had snapped a few shots of the proposal on her phone, and came up to us a couple minutes afterward to ask if we’d like to have them. She AirDropped them to me and I was so grateful for her kindness!

Ashe and Bex finally caught up with us, and I cried even more when I saw them. Ashe, who is super professional, skilled, and brilliant, directed us through a re-creation of the proposal, which fortunately we were able to pull off pretty well, perhaps because of both having grown up doing theatre…! Then we strolled along the rest of the High Line doing an impromptu engagement photoshoot (well, I guess it was only impromptu from my perspective), Ashe directing us the whole way and making us feel cute as hell.

At some point, a random man came up to us (wearing a mask) and yelled, “Congratulations!!! …from six feet away, of course.” It was so funny. I love New Yorkers.

After that, the four of us went to La Bain – the rooftop bar on top of the Standard High Line hotel, where we stayed on our second date – and got celebratory drinks and snacks. (Matt had champagne, I had a dirty martini, we split some oysters, yummm.) I carefully crafted an Instagram post announcing the engagement, and it immediately started to get a lot of, um, engagement. We both called our parents and told them the good news. I also talked to my brother, who told me Matt had showed him the ring a while back and that he’d thought it was perfect for me. (It is!)

After drinks, we said good night to our pals and made our way to Upland, the glowy golden restaurant where we had dinner on our second date. It was so special and magical to revisit a place that has taken on such massive mythological meaning in my mind over the years. I felt just as nervous and excited as I did on that date, just in altogether different ways. We spent much of our meal giggling over proposal logistics and swilling champagne that the restaurant thoughtfully brought over for us.

The whole night made me feel incredibly loved and valued – by Matt, and by our friends and family. It was such a wonderful evening of closeness and joy in a year that has otherwise been defined (for me and for everyone) by distance and worry. I’m overcome with gratitude to Matt for loving me this much and showing me their love so tangibly and frequently. I’m excited I get to spend forever showing them my love too! ❤️