Monthly Faves: Cuisine & Cosmetics

Kate Sloan

It was a good month in my sex life but I don’t have too much new stuff to report vis-à-vis sex toys, fantasies, or femme stuff, so… in lieu of a typical Monthly Faves, here’s a straight-up list of things I liked this month, in any category.

• I just moved from a big apartment in the west end of Toronto to a smaller apartment downtown, with a much more respectful roommate, and I’m already feeling so much better about my living situation. My room has a huge window, and I live with two excellent cats and a sweet femme – ideal.

• The Southside remains my favorite summertime cocktail, and I had a bunch of good ones this month. It’s truly the most refreshing boozy drink imaginable.

• Staying at the NoMad Hotel with my partner was a dream. Our room had a deep bathtub, beautiful art on the walls, a giant white bed, and a big-screen TV which we used to watch The L Word while high and giggly (best). Their in-house restaurant is one of the fanciest places I’ve ever been, and their Library Bar makes me feel like a Gryffindor on an illicit night off.

• The other culinary highlight of my month was doing the tasting menu at Eleven Madison Park with my beloved. My meal included caviar, asparagus salad, lobster, glazed duck, two fancy chocolate desserts, and some perfect cocktails. I mean. How much better can you get?!

• My favorite book of the month was Night Film by Marisha Pessl, a fast-paced murder-mystery featuring elements of investigative journalism, New York City chaos, and the occult. I was gripped from start to finish.

• It was fun taking a friend on their first makeup shopping trip after they came out as non-binary this month. We settled on a Marc Jacobs eyeliner (this shit STAYS PUT), MAC Brave lipstick, and a MAC 212 brush for smudging the aforementioned eyeliner as needed (although, I will say, it’s not very smudgy). My pal went on to buy Glossier’s Cloud Paint blush and Boy Brow pomade; together, I think these 5 products make a great starter kit for new makeup enthusiasts.

• Watching John Oliver videos has been a favorite diversion of mine lately. He’s funny and cute and smart and I like him.

• I dropped by Folsom East and it was great: we perused leather bondage goods, watched a fireplay scene, saw some effervescent drag performers, and basked in all the kinky queerness. Ideal.

What were your fave things this month?

5 Great Reasons to Hire an Escort

Kate Sloan

I’ve learned a ton from my friends who are Toronto escorts about the power and magic of sex work. Contrary to shitty popular opinions about it being a seedy profession for the desperate and destitute, it’s often empowering and uplifting for both service providers and their clientele. (This, by the way, is part of why it’s so important we fight back against SESTA/FOSTA in any way we can.)

Aside from a session of basic (yet likely mind-blowing) sexual satisfaction, there are lots of reasons it might behoove you to hire an escort. Here are a few of them…

You want group sex, without the drama. When couples write to me inquiring about how to find a “unicorn” (a third person, usually a bisexual woman, to have a threesome with), I usually recommend they save up and hire a sex worker. It’s better to pay someone to play exactly the role you want them to, than to try to slot someone into a pre-decided role they haven’t totally signed up for. Plus, particularly in first-time forays into non-monogamy, group sex can incite lots of feelings, like jealousy and insecurity; hiring a professional can help you keep things simple.

You want to try a new kink, without judgment. It can be scary to raise nascent sexual interests with a romantic partner, or even a FWB; you might worry they’ll think differently of you once they find out what you’re into. Even if your newfound curiosity focuses on something relatively culturally accepted, like spanking or facesitting, you might still feel shy bringing it up. That’s totally okay, and it’s one area where sex workers can be a huge help: making fantasies come true is literally their job, and it’s practically guaranteed they’ve heard weirder requests than the one you’ve got up your sleeve. (You should, however, let SWs know beforehand about the fantasy you’re hoping to have fulfilled, so they know what they’re getting into and have a chance to decline if they want to.)

You want to lose your virginity, shame-free. I remember when I was a meek 18-year-old who’d never gotten intimate with a penis before; it seemed to me like the scariest thing in the world, and yet I wanted to give it a shot. I fantasized often about hiring a cis male sex worker to guide me through my first “straight” experience. An escort, I figured, would be professional and non-judgmental, and would happily teach me some dick tricks if that’s what I wanted. Similarly, if you’ve never had sex and it’s starting to get you down, I would really recommend hiring a sex worker. They won’t be able to teach you everything in just one session, but the experience could give you a boost of confidence you can take forward into your future sex life.

You’re too tired or busy for the dating game. Some people talk about sexual satisfaction as if it were a basic human right. I’m not sure I agree, but the fact remains that many of us crave sex even when our lives and minds are too chaotic for us to pursue it in societally-sanctioned ways, like dating apps. (When I’m depressed, I’d honestly rather watch paint dry than try to make conversation with some rando from Tinder.) A sex work transaction can be the simplest solution to this problem.

You need a date to an event. Lots of escorts offer special rates to accompany you to concerts, dinners, the theatre, and so on. This could be a lovely option if you’re feeling lonely but still want a fun night out on the town – because, let’s not forget, the services sex workers provide are often just as much emotional as they are sexual. After the event wraps up, you can extend the date to end in sexytimes, if you’ve negotiated that, or not. Bringing a happy, paid professional is probably better than dragging along an unenthused partner who’d rather be at home, anyway!

What are some reasons you’ve hired (or considered hiring) an escort?

 

This post was sponsored by the lovely folks at OhMy. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Protocol Diaries: Love Letters

Kate Sloan

mb

“Dear mb: It’s hard to know what to write to you in a love letter because we are already so forthcoming about our feelings. A letter of this genre should be juicy, revealing, exciting, and you already know the juiciest thing I could tell you, which is that I’m extremely, embarrassingly, unchill-ly in love with you and have been for a while.” -April 1st 2018

When mb came to visit me in Toronto for the first time, 3 months into our sparkly new long-distance relationship, he brought me a present: a little blue Moleskine notebook and matching pen. Tools for my favorite vocation, in my favorite color. I glowed from the romance of it.

Once we’d spent a lovely weekend together and he’d flown back to New York, I began pondering what to do with this adorable notebook. In discussing this via text, one of us mentioned something about love letters, and the other said, “I was thinking that too!” And so began one of our many romantic traditions.

“I love you, Kate Sloan. Come fly with me. Be my co-pilot as we chart new adventures together. The plane I’m in is about to land, but six months in, I still feel like our journey together is just beginning. Yours with love, mb.” -June 22nd 2018

We each hand off the notebook to the other every time we see each other in person. We jettison it back and forth between Toronto and New York (and, on unique occasions, Boston, Alexandria, and Montreal). Each time we say goodbye, the person who now possesses the notebook writes a love letter for the other. Then, when we’re together again, mb reads the new letter aloud to me, whether he wrote it or I did. Typically, there is cuddling and crying. And then we go out for dinner.

“Dear mb: You know this already, but let me reiterate how happy it makes me that you are coming out as my partner this week. It makes me feel so loved, I feel like my heart is going to overflow and explode. It makes me feel like I’m really a part of your life, and like you want me to be.” -October 19th 2018

I dutifully copy each of mb’s letters into my own notebook, so I’ll have them to review even when our tome of love letters is in a different country from me. They remind me, at difficult times, that I am loved and appreciated. I am a verbally-minded person who absorbs information best when it comes in the form of articulate words, and so these letters are one of my best tools for combating the “Does he really love me?” shadows that come creeping in. Of course he does. It’s right there in black and white. (Or blue and cream, as the case may be.)

“Don’t be afraid that you or your feelings are too much for me. Their muchness has helped me get in touch with my own in a more authentic way than I have in a while. Your transparency and empathy as a partner are striking and rare. I treasure you, your tears, and the sense of relief that comes when we’ve said our deepest truths to one another.” -November 9th 2018

The practice of writing love letters – a new one every other month or so – is an exercise in mindfulness and being present. I have to dig deep in my heart and ask myself honestly: What do I love about this person, and how can I express it to him well enough that he will deeply, truly understand?

It’s so easy, in long-term relationships, to stop complimenting each other on the qualities and behaviors you love, because you’ve loved them for so long that it seems unnecessary to point them out further. But, as mb once told me, some things bear repeating in relationships. “I love you” is one of those things. I want to say it as much as I can, in as many ways as possible.

“You’re serious about me, and I’m serious about you too. I want to be with you for more years, more laughs, more trips, more late-night phone calls, more milestones, more orgasms, more kisses, more everything I can experience with you. I want to work hard to make this last and to make it good. That’s what I mean when I say I’m serious about you, Sir.” -December 11th 2018

I also appreciate our little notebook as a record of our budding romance – the way it has bloomed, deepened, and aged. For all my past relationships, I only have my own journal entries to refer to if I want to remind myself how each romance felt. For this one, I have direct windows into the people we each were when we were newly in love. Our limerence leaps off the page, and re-reading our letters always reinvigorates me, like: Oh yeah. I can feel like that. That’s amazing.

“Even at times when you feel sick, anxious, depressed, or exhausted, I want you to know that I’m happy I’m with you. I love taking care of you, holding you, figuring out ways to help you smile, relax, and feel safe again. I’m here for you through all of that, little one, and I want to be. I’m not going anywhere.” -December 28th 2018

We’re about halfway through the notebook now, more than a year into this tradition. I hope we keep it up until the book is filled, and beyond. I hope we can remember, even on days when our connection may be strained or the distance may be hard, that the most basic and important thing you can do in a romantic relationship is to love your partner and to make sure they know that you do.

No matter how many different ways I say it, no matter how many letters I write, no matter how much time passes or how many miles we are apart, one thing remains true: I love mb and I want him to know it.

2 Psychological Tricks For Conquering Hard Feelings in Polyamory

Kate Sloan

I’m a psychology nerd. I minored in psych at university, and have seen various therapists over the course of my life to help pick apart my tangled psyche. After all this exploration, two of my favorite psychological frameworks are dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.

I’ve found these methodologies especially useful in dealing with difficult polyamory-related emotions lately, so I thought I’d write a bit about the two key strategies I use when those feelings rear their head.

Emotion regulation through opposite action

DBT teaches us that when you’re feeling an emotion that’s irrational (i.e. it doesn’t fit the facts of the situation you’re in), you should do the opposite of whatever that emotion is telling you to do.

I find this helpful in polyamory because my most difficult poly feelings are, frankly, irrational. Fears that my partner will leave me for someone else, that him dating someone else means I’m unattractive, or that I’m being rejected – these all go against the higher-level decision I’ve made to be polyamorous, based on my ethics and ideas about relationships. These fears are holdovers from the monogamous culture I was raised in, and they neither make sense nor serve me now that I’m practicing polyamory. So it’s often helpful to do the opposite of what the irrational feelings are telling me to do.

Some examples:

  • When my partner is out on a date with someone else, a feeling of betrayal or rejection might come up, and it might make me want to push him away or say something mean to him. I could do the opposite action by writing him a love letter to show him later, mentally reviewing some of my most romantic memories with him, or texting to say “Have a good time!”
  • When my partner is infatuated with someone new, it might make me feel rejected and alone, especially if I’m not dating anyone else at the time. The emotion might tell me to self-isolate, stay home, and cry – so I can do the opposite action by making plans with friends, taking myself out to a restaurant, or watching a stand-up comedy special on Netflix.
  • When hanging out with a metamour, I might feel inferior or anxious, and it might make me want to avoid interacting with them. I can do the opposite action by striking up a conversation with them, being nice to them, and looking for their likeable qualities.

These “opposite actions” can often feel totally artificial, and it can seem counterproductive to do the opposite of what an emotion is telling you to do, without actually dealing with the emotion. But in my experience, a “fake it til you make it” approach can actually be really helpful with these types of feelings. If I find that being nice to my partner when I feel rejected creates an equally good or better result than not being nice, I’ll be likelier to want to be nice to him the next time that feeling comes up. It’s a way of teaching my brain the appropriate responses to these situations, and learning to trust that positive and proactive action is good for me.

Refuting your own thoughts

CBT offers us the technique of making “thought records”: you write down a situation to which you had a strong reaction, identify the emotion(s) it triggered, determine the thoughts or beliefs you have that are related to that emotion, and then look for evidence for or against those emotionally-charged thoughts or beliefs.

You don’t have to actually write out a worksheet every time if you don’t want to; you can do an abridged version of this process mentally. When I have a strong, irrational feeling, I look for the thoughts and beliefs supporting that feeling, and look for evidence for or against those beliefs. There’s always more evidence against them, because they’re irrational.

Some examples:

  • If my partner is on a date with someone else and I get sad and scared that he’s going to leave me for that person, I can review text screenshots, love letters, etc. to remind myself that he’s committed to me for the long haul. (It’s often helpful to collect these positive reminders in one place, like a box on your desk or a folder on your phone, so you can look at them when you need them.)
  • If I’m worried that my partner’s new crush means he’s not attracted to me (or has perhaps never been attracted to me), I can review old messages that dispute this, look at my sex spreadsheet to see all the times we’ve fucked, and mentally revisit the look in his eyes when he sees me naked.
  • If I’m worried that my partner’s new relationship will prevent him from spending enough time with me, I can remind myself of other times he’s juggled multiple relationships before and how well he did it. I can also reach out to gather evidence against this belief directly from him (e.g. “Can you promise me we’ll still have at least 2 dates a week?”).

If you encounter evidence supporting your irrational belief (e.g. “A partner left me for someone else in my previous relationship”; “My partner has seemed less attracted to me lately”), I would strongly recommend bringing up that stuff with your partner(s) so they can offer some kind of refutation or explanation. It will put your mind at ease and is much better than obsessively ruminating on these thoughts by yourself.

Do you use CBT and/or DBT skills to support your relationship(s)? I’d love to hear about it!

Review: Bodywand Midnight Plug-In Massager

Kate Sloan

Astute readers will recall that the quest for a rumbly, reliable, petite wand vibrator has occupied a lot of my sex toy testing time over the past year. Seeking a travel-friendly wand capable of getting me off in hotel rooms, I’ve tried colorful contenders, sleek silver selections, and rose-gold gadgets. But all of them have come up short: most often, they’re too buzzy or weak; sometimes they have mechanical problems that make them short out at crucial moments; sometimes they just don’t feel sexy enough to slot into a fantasy-like hotel tryst.

But I’m elated to announce that I’ve finally found the compact wand of my dreams: the Bodywand Midnight plug-in massager.

Sometimes I feel like Bodywand is a secret I’m keeping from the sex toy world. They just don’t seem that widely known about; they’re almost never recommended in the same breath as the Magic Wand and the Doxy. I’ve had an original plug-in Bodywand for years and it remains a staple of my collection, a failsafe for times when many other vibrators just aren’t up to snuff, because its vibrations are strong enough, rumbly enough, and it has a DIAL.

Let me tell you about the dial, because it’s a big fucking deal. The vast majority of wand vibrators – and indeed, vibrators in general – have buttons (or sometimes, infuriatingly, just one button) which you use to navigate through the various speeds and settings. This system probably works fine for most people, but my clit is easily numbed and easily overstimulated, so sometimes a too-big jump between speeds can desensitize or overload my bits before I even realize what’s happened. I almost always wish I had more granular control over vibration strength. With Bodywand, I finally fucking do.

Both this smaller Midnight edition and my older, bulkier Bodywand have a dial, and it’s a fucking godsend. I can edge up their power just the tiniest bit at a time, and slide it back down again when I need to. I can control my entire experience, second by second, with the smallest flicks of my thumb. It makes me feel empowered where a lot of vibrators leave me frustrated and defeated.

The quality of the vibrations, too, impresses me. I find them deliciously rumbly – but I should note that they’re only really rumbly for the bottom one-third to one-half of the vibration range. Friends who need more power have described these vibes as buzzy, but I tend to stay on the lower side of this vibrator’s capabilities so I only ever encounter rumbliness for the most part. Sometimes I nudge up into buzzy-land toward the end of a long session, but at that point it’s the type of buzziness that pushes me over the edge, rather than numbing me out.

This vibrator’s flexible neck works fine for me because I don’t put a lot of pressure on my clit when I use vibes, but if you do like pressure, you’ll probably find this vibrator unworkable. While we’re talking about the neck, I should also mention that the head is apparently made of thermoplastic rubber – a bummer, for sure. It would have been so easy to make it silicone and it would have improved this product substantially. Since TPR is porous, I’ll have to stick a condom on this wand if I ever want to share it with a partner I’m not fluid-bonded with, use it anally (which I wouldn’t recommend, but hey), or use it while menstruating or while getting over a vaginal infection. It’s not the biggest deal but it is annoying.

But for the most part, I’m over the moon for this vibrator. At 10″ long, it’s a reasonable size for my carry-on luggage, and also doesn’t take up much room on my nightstand when I’m using it at home. The dial makes a satisfying clicking noise when it kicks on, and gives me sublime control over my experience. The vibe being electric might inconvenience some people, but for me, it just means I don’t have to worry about batteries and charging. The head thrums faithfully against my body and gives me easy, consistent orgasms, which I appreciate all the more because so many other vibrators have utterly failed at this task.

The Bodywand Midnight massager is the best new vibe I’ve tried in a long time, and I’m sure that it and my suitcase are about to get closely acquainted.

 

Thanks so much to Bodywand for sending me this product to try!