5 reasons why YOU (not an A.I.!) should write your own online dating messages

Kate Sloan
Photo by mb

Sometimes people are surprised to hear I’ve been writing about sex and relationships for over a decade, as though there can’t possibly be that much to say on those subjects (this blog’s 1.4-million total word count would beg to differ!). What I always tell them is that sexuality and romance are endlessly fascinating – not only because they contain infinite variations, but because technological and cultural progression constantly pushes them to evolve. Sometimes these evolutions are slow, and sometimes they’re rather sudden – such as, for example, the way language models like ChatGPT are affecting dating online.

I won’t go too deep into the common criticisms of this type of A.I., since you’ve probably heard them already: the creative theft, the ecological impacts, and so on and so forth. All of that stuff is important and has been written about at length by people who know more about it than I – but another thing that troubles me about A.I., personally, is the way it might affect our relationships.

It already is affecting them, in fact. I know several people (myself included) who’ve been surprised and hurt when a friend or partner sent a text that seemed to be ChatGPT-generated, as if personal connection is something that can be delegated to a digital assistant. Similarly, several news outlets have reported on the phenomenon of people using A.I. for online dating – either to help them craft their profile, or (worse, in my opinion) to write messages for them.

I very much understand the impulse, as a socially anxious person myself – but today I want to make the case for why you absolutely should not do this, even if you really want to.  You’ll be shortchanging your potential partners, but most of all, you’ll be shortchanging yourself. Here’s why:

1. A.I.-generated messages are bad. Like, embarrassingly bad.

Seriously. And they’re easy to spot, especially by people who’ve used these LLMs and are familiar with their cadence. Do you really want someone’s first impression of you to be “this person is intellectually lazy, socially unskilled, and totally disinterested in authentic human connection”?

I promise, even if you think you’re a bad writer, you’ll be ahead of the curve if you just write a specific compliment about the person’s profile followed by an open-ended and interesting question their profile inspired in you. And it’ll sound like you, not like a soulless collage of stolen excerpts. On that note…

2. You (not the A.I.) need to figure out what interests you about the person you’re messaging.

Sometimes people ask me, “What should I say in a first online dating message?” After telling them about Girl on the Net’s ‘compliment + question + connect’ formula, I’ll usually add: What caught your eye about the person’s profile? What made you swipe right (or whatever’s the equivalent on your app/site of choice)? Surely it’s something a little more specific and interesting than just “They looked hot in their photo.” Ponder the answer(s) to that question and you’ll have some good starting points for initial messages.

Sure, you could screenshot someone’s profile and feed it into an A.I. to generate a list of potential questions and talking points – but then you’re messaging them about what the robot finds notable. By contrast, the things that you find notable about someone’s profile are hugely useful clues – they can help you come up with conversation topics, sure, but more importantly, they help you assess whether this is someone you want to go out with/could be attracted to/might be compatible with. When you entrust that discernment task to a robot, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to get more in touch with your desires and to connect authentically with people who could fulfill them.

3. You only get better at socializing by doing more of it.

As I mentioned, I’m socially anxious myself – so I sympathize with folks who find it soothing to navigate social interactions with ChatGPT, I really do… but the thing about taking the easy way out is, you never learn to take the harder route, and so that route remains unfamiliar and foreboding. That can be a massive bummer when that route happens to lead to somewhere cool – like deep, fulfilling intimacy with another human being. Dating is a numbers game, and it ends up being a social-skills training ground for all kinds of people, not just socially anxious ones – so try not to feel bad about being unskilled at it; we all have to start somewhere.

Further, not to sound like an alarmist luddite, but some burgeoning science has shown that ChatGPT usage may make you more intellectually lazy and unengaged over time… which doesn’t bode well for its effects on relationships, an area where mental disengagement can be very noticeable, hurtful, and destructive. (Ever tried to tell a vulnerable personal story to a partner or close friend who was very obviously not listening? It fucking sucks!!)

4. When you meet IRL, your A.I. messages will be soooo obvious in retrospect.

Seriously, no one talks the way ChatGPT writes – and if they did, they’d sound strange! – so your date will probably realize pretty quickly that the texts you exchanged were a sham, which (again) is mighty embarrassing for you, and makes it hard for the other person to feel that their connection with you is genuine.

You’re putting them in an awkward position, too, since they might have their suspicions about A.I. involvement but likely don’t want to sound accusatory or insane by bringing it up. However, they’ll probably wonder about it distractingly for the entire duration of the date, which brings me to my fifth and final point…

5. You can’t outsource intimacy and vulnerability.

This is really the big one, huh?

When I say ‘intimacy,’ I mean the emotional kind (I don’t use it as a euphemism for sex). This type of intimacy is impossible to build without some measure of mutual vulnerability. And if all (or even some) of your messages are written by ChatGPT, you are sidestepping vulnerability, and you are therefore sidestepping intimacy itself.

I can’t let someone in unless I feel that they are letting me in, too. I can’t trust someone with my softness, my heart, or my body if they hold me at arm’s length emotionally. And if ChatGPT is writing their texts for them, well, they might as well show up to a date wearing a printed jpeg of someone else’s face pasted over their own – it’d be just as connective, just as sexy, and would get them just as laid.

 

What do you think about all this, dear readers? Feel free to sound off in the comments…

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Review: Sohimi Viele dual-stimulation vibrator

Kate Sloan

Imagine, if you will, going to bed with a cute person, who kisses you deeply, grinds against you slowly, and – whips out a deck of cards and starts doing magic tricks.

“Pick a card, any card,” they patter away, brandishing the spread deck at you – as they kiss their way down your body, toward your junk.

Now, surely this is some people’s fantasy… and seeing as I married an erstwhile magician myself, I might even sometimes count myself among those people… but the point still stands: attempting to multi-task in bed is not always the wisest move. It can very well lead to confusion, disappointment, and accidentally getting jizz all over your pricey trick cards from the local magic shop.

All this to say: I admire the ambition behind Sohimi’s Viele dual-stimulation toy, which licks and sucks and vibrates and flaps – but I think the toy would’ve been better if it’d had fewer tricks up its sleeve. Let me tell you about it.

Things I like about the Sohimi Viele:

  • I’ve tried a lot of oral sex simulators over the years, and this one is pretty closely aligned with my own cunnilingual preferences – rare! The Viele’s “mouth” is quite top-heavy, with a thick upper lip that moves up and down in a not-quite-sucking motion (it’s more like kissing, since there’s never enough of a seal formed for it to generate suction). This works well for me; when receiving head I tend to favor a soft sucking technique over direct licking, because the tip of my clit is too damn sensitive for that – and the design and motion of the Viele’s mouth make it one of the closest things I’ve found to that sensation in a sex toy. Don’t forget to apply water-based lube generously to any oral-esque sex toy before using it! (Incidentally, Sohimi might be the best online sex toy shop for cunnilingus enthusiasts – they have more “suck vibrators” and licking toys than you can shake a clit at, many of which I have reviewed here before!)
  • While each function of the toy has 5-7 presets, you can vary their settings much more precisely by connecting your toy to the Joyhub app via Bluetooth. This was easy and quick to set up on my iPhone. Navigate to “DIY” mode and you’ll be able to individually control each of the toy’s functions using a slider. The app also lets you invite a far-away partner to control your toy, and to sync up your toy with games or videos. I’m glad to see more toy companies offering Bluetooth-controllability via app, especially toys at a lower price point like this one ($39!), especially since long-distance play has soared in popularity these last few years.
  • The low price is worth its own bullet point, because it’s rare to find a rechargeable dual-stim (or triple-stim) vibe as inexpensive as this. There’s a reason for that, though, as the next section will illustrate…

Things I don’t like about the Sohimi Viele:

  • Like many other mechanical mouths I have tried, the Viele’s mouth slows down significantly when it encounters any pressure – and I do tend to want to apply pressure with it, because it applies almost none on its own: it’s more like gentle kissing than sucking. As such, it’s an enjoyable tease at best, and when I do manage to come from it, the orgasms are underwhelming and unsatisfying.
  • The movement of the mouth is also inexorably paired with buzzyish vibration. It’s not terrible, but it dims my clitoral sensitivity over the course of a session, which – again – makes for some mediocre orgasms.
  • The shaft of the toy contains a hollow cut-out, in which there is a long noodle-shaped piece of silicone that flaps back and forth at high speeds when the “flapping” function is engaged. At low-to-medium settings, this feels a bit like some G-spot vibrators I have enjoyed, albeit much weaker… but the sensation is so subtle that it’s immediately drowned out when I turn on any of the toy’s other functions. It also seems to slow down significantly with pressure, like, y’know, my vag muscles squeezing as I become aroused…
  • I also find that the flapping function sometimes produces a queefy, trapped-air feeling in my vag when used at high speeds, which is not a turn-on for me, to say the least… and the hollow cut-out in the toy is difficult to clean.
  • The shaft also vibrates, but the vibration is so buzzy and “blah” that I rarely used it, since it generally just made my vag feel a bit tingly/itchy and then slightly numb, as tends to happen with buzzy vibration.
  • This is quite a loud toy, especially when all three functions (mouth + flapping + vibration) are engaged at once. It can definitely be heard through a closed door.
  • There’s no good way to use the toy’s “mouth” on its own, as “foreplay” for using the toy penetratively. This annoys me on principle.
  • It’s not waterproof – and even if it were, I’d probably never use it in the bath anyway because the very presence of water would probably provide enough resistance to slow the toy down substantially.

Final thoughts

It’s rare that a sex toy feels like a downgrade from jerking off by hand, like in olden times – but the Sohimi Viele falls into that category for me, unfortunately! Its mechanics are too weak to stand up to pressure, and so the orgasms it produces are weak, too.

I wrote in my testing notes, “Sure, I came, but at what cost?” – which, to be fair, is also probably what I’d say if that magician got me off and then pulled a Queen of Hearts out of my cunt and said “Is this your card?!” Sadly, with the Viele, I’m just not feelin’ the magic.

 

This post was sponsored, meaning I was paid to write a fair and honest review of this product. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

6 hot ways to use the Hole Punch Fluke (which is on sale right now!!)

Kate Sloan

The Hole Punch Fluke is one of my all-time favorite sex toys. In fact, if you told me I was being banished to a desert island and could only take 5 toys with me (you sadistic monster!), here’s what I’d bring, assuming said island had power outlets…

  1. The Eroscillator Top Deluxe, for the best and most consistent clitoral orgasms.
  2. The Magic Wand Rechargeable, for pleasuring all kinds of genitals and massaging sore muscles (actually, maybe the Waterproof would be better for the desert island lifestyle…).
  3. The Fucking Sculptures Double Trouble, because if I have to be marooned at sea then I might as well be able to fuck the shit out of my A-spot and come really hard.
  4. The Njoy Pure Wand, because it’s a G-spot whisperer and reliably induces squirting, which would make it useful for tension relief while I’m stressed out of my mind, foraging to survive on an island. (Am I taking this question too literally?!)
  5. …and finally, the almighty Hole Punch Fluke. Nothing else in my collection is quite like it.

I noticed recently that the Fluke is on clearance sale at SheVibe, currently marked down from $67 to $54 – so it felt like a good time to tell you about some of the many ways you can use this wonderful toy, since I want to tempt as many people as possible to add one to their collection! It really is that good. This deal won’t last, so I highly suggest picking one up while you can! Here are some things you can do with it…

1. Wear it vaginally during masturbation. I often joke that the Fluke is a great toy for lazy masturbators, which is true – once inserted, it presses firmly against my G-spot with zero effort on my part, so there’s no need to bother with thrusting. That being said, laziness isn’t the only reason someone might want a toy like this – folks with disabilities or chronic pain, like myself, might also find the Fluke useful. On a bad flare-up day, I hate having to decide between honoring my body’s limits and stroking the fuck outta my G-spot – and with the Fluke, I don’t have to choose. It significantly intensifies my solo orgasms without me having to do much of anything.

2. Wear it anally during masturbation. Yep, you can do that too! I don’t use my Fluke anally because its 2″ diameter exceeds my current anal ambitions, but its flared head is so perf for G-spot stimulation that I have to assume it’d hit the prostate equally well – or, less directly, the G-spot through the vaginal wall.

3. Wear it while receiving oral sex. Quite possibly my favorite usage! Coordinating oral sex with fingerbanging can be tricky for even the deftest casanovas, but when the Fluke is inserted, it handles the internal stimulation so my partner can focus fully on external stimulation. This makes it a lot easier for me to reach orgasm from oral, which can otherwise be elusive for me – and the orgasms are extra intense because the Fluke presses so firmly against my G-spot. Once in a while, it even makes me squirt, hands-free!

4. Wear it for a while as warm-up. Sometimes my partner will have me insert a plug like the Fluke, either vaginally or anally, an hour or so before sex. It’s not the most comfortable choice for long-term wear, so I wouldn’t recommend it for public play, especially if you’ll be walking around – but it can be fun to slip it in before watching some porn together or somesuch, and it may help relax your hole enough to make any subsequent penetration easier/comfier.

5. Wear it during a spanking or other sadomasochistic scene. Due to subspace and other factors, I’m not always consciously aware of how turned on I’m getting during a spanking unless someone points it out to me – and similarly, the Fluke’s presence makes me achingly aware of each time my cunt clenches in arousal, which helps build more arousal, like a horny feedback loop. Plus it probably looks hot from my partner’s perspective…

6. Wear it as part of a chastity or denial roleplay. While this isn’t necessarily my jam (at least not as a bottom/sub), I can see how it could be fun to use the Fluke as a sort of barricade to your vag or butt – preventing you from getting fucked there and/or denying someone else the ability to fuck you there. The toy itself is still plenty stimulating though, as we’ve discussed, so it’s not like you’re being denied that much – it’s more about the psychological experience of it. Actually, I bet some people could even come hands-free just from squeezing around the Fluke, if they really put their mind to it!

Well, I know what toy I’ll be using tonight… If I’ve piqued your interest, here’s the link to go get a Fluke of your own at a deliciously discounted price! I’ve recommended this fantastic toy to countless people over the years, and that’s no fluke. 😉

What Counts as “Real Sex,” & Why?

Kate Sloan
Photo by mb

“What is sex?”

I’ve been a sex nerd for decades, have done deep dives into sexual subcultures for books and podcasts, have philosophized with friends about sexuality for countless hours – and this is a question I still come back to, time and time again. Like a koan, it seems less answerable the more that I ponder it.

I think the definition probably seemed more clear-cut to me before my current relationship. Seven years of long-distance taught me that activities like phone sex and sexting can absolutely feel like sex, and can be just as intimate, connective, exciting, arousing, and orgasmic. Occasionally I’ve had phone sex with my partner on the same day as having in-person sex with someone else (what can I say, I’m booked ‘n’ busy) and there were times when the phone sex felt more like “real sex” to me than the IRL sex – because I got more turned on, or stayed in the moment more easily, or felt closer to my partner, or all of the above. These qualities aren’t inherent to everyone‘s definition of sex, but they certainly make sex feel more engaging to me, and thus more “real.”

To that end, a lot of different things can be sex, if you choose to see them that way. A study of over 10,000 cam-show viewers, for instance, found that 19% of them see those cam encounters as “real sex.” I wondered, upon reading this, how many webcam performers think of their shows as being “real sex.” Certainly, the babes of BongaCams.com and other such sites are doing sex work, but I imagine performers’ opinions differ widely on this, and my own dalliances into cam work mostly felt like work, and not like sex.

The asexual community, too, has taught me a lot about the definition of sex – mainly, that it might not matter as much as I used to think it did. We put so much emphasis on sex as a society that it’s easy to forget how fun (and even hot) it can be to connect with people, including lovers/partners, through non-sexual (or not-directly-sexual) activities. That can be anything from taking a bath together, to going on a hike together, to reading poetry to each other, to feeding each other grapes, to mud-wrestling, to hypnosis, to silently meditating in the same room together… all of which might be defined as sex by somebody, and that’s okay too!

So, what is sex? I think ultimately, the answer depends on who you’re talking to, and your definition may need to evolve throughout your life (or throughout your day!) to accommodate for the different spaces you find yourself in. When I tell my doctor I had sex with someone, I mean that bodily fluids were potentially exchanged. When I tell my straight friends I had sex with someone, I probably mean some clothes came off and somebody’s genitals were stimulated; when I tell my queer friends I had sex with someone, I might also mean we did something like dry-humping or spanking. When my wife says to me, “I liked fucking you last night,” or “You fucked me so well last night,” or “We haven’t fucked in a while and I miss it,” I know that she’s including phone sex and IRL sex in her definition – and that an intense and connective kink scene might well scratch that itch, too.

So when you find yourself wondering whether a particular experience “counted as” sex, first ask yourself why it matters – and then ask yourself how it made you feel. Sex can be so much more than “insert tab A into slot B,” and I find that my sex life – and my life in general – feel more vibrant when I broaden my definitions of sex, pleasure, connection, and joy.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Getting Nerdy About Notebooks!

Kate Sloan

I love notebooks so damn much. This became extra apparent to me recently when I packed up all my stuff to move to New York. Not only were there dozens of notebooks – both empty and filled – that needed to be transported to our new place, but also I have a bunch of them in current rotation that I needed to bring with me in my carry-on! Oh, the life of a notebook nerd…

I know there are other such nerds who read this site (hi!), so today I thought I’d tell you a bit about my current “system” of notebooks (if it can even be called that): which ones I’m using, and what I’m using them for, along with a nosy little peek into each. Let’s geek out together!

The notebook: Large ruled hardcover Moleskine
What it’s for: Journaling, emotional processing, word-vomiting about crushes, etc.

I’ve been using these specific Moleskine notebooks as my everyday journals since 2007 (!!!) and have filled a few dozen of them in that time. It’s so satisfying to see them all lined up on a shelf, their dates noted in silver Sharpie on their spines.

My journals are where I process unfiltered thoughts and feelings about everything from dating to sex to health to friendships to geopolitics. I don’t usually publish journal entries as-is, but I often refer back to them when writing more polished pieces later on, since they contain raw notes on my immediate emotional reactions to pretty much everything that happens to me.

I always decorate the covers of my journals so each one has its own unique look, theoretically reflective of what I was thinking/feeling/doing during the era documented therein. My current journal has a rainbow heart sticker (happy belated Pride!), an Oliver Hibert skull sticker (I’m obsessed with his art right now, especially his tarot deck), and a “Never Post” sticker that I got at XOXO Fest, which serves as a reminder that it’s usually better to journal your personal thoughts, rather than tweet them. (Do as I say, not as I do…) There’s also an Njoy Eleven sticker on the back of this one, which I probably picked up at the Njoy booth at Woodhull years ago.

The notebook: Large ruled softcover Moleskine volant
What it’s for: Work notes

Moleskine’s “volant” notebooks are skinny little softcovers that I first started using when I was in journalism school. They could ride around at the bottom of my tote bag, get bent and scuffed, etc. and still hold all my class notes just fine. I like that they come in cute limited-edition colors; I think this kelly-green one was a gift from my brother, who knows me well.

These days, I use volants for work-related process notes, like my detailed thoughts about a sex toy while I’m testing it for a review. I also take notes in here while recording podcasts; it helps me listen better and hold onto the fleeting thoughts/questions that are apt to fly out of my brain if I don’t jot them down immediately. (Above are some of the notes I took during my conversation with masculinities scholar Dr. Kris Taylor about porn addiction and NoFap last year, incase you were wondering why the hell it says phrases like “Chad behavior” and “sex is devoid of pleasure”…)

The notebooks: Midori cotton notepad + Field Notes memo book
What they’re for: Romance novel plotting + random ideas

This elegant white Midori notebook was a gift from my wife; it has gorgeously smooth paper which owes its signature softness to the cotton fiber in its formulation. I normally prefer lined pages over blank ones (that’s how you know I’m a writer and not a visual artist, I guess!), but the blankness is helpful when you’re brainstorming something big – like a romance novel, for instance! I’m a little over 50,000 words into my first (very rough) draft of my first (very rough) novel, and the planning I’ve been doing in this notebook has been instrumental in getting me that far.

Relatedly, I keep a little Field Notes book in my bag when I’m out and about, in which I mostly jot down novel-related ideas that come to me on the subway or whatever – but occasionally I also use it for other random notes as needed, like when I attended a musical improv workshop recently. This particular notebook is limited-edition, made special for attendees of XOXO Fest 2024; its cover is a cyanotype of sunlight peeking through the trees at Washington High in Portland, where the festival took place. Cute!

The notebook: Blackwing x George Harrison notebook
What it’s for: Songwriting

Another gift from my wonderful and thoughtful wife! I was intrigued by this notebook as soon as I read Blackwing’s announcement about it; they had collaborated with George Harrison’s family to design this songwriting notebook in tribute to him. It’s decorated with a striking image of his signature guitar. The pages are blank, and the notebook comes with a clear plastic insert that acts as a guide if you want to draw a music staff or guitar chord charts, etc. There’s even a pencil loop on the spine of the book so you’ll never lose your writing implement. It’s all quite thoughtful!

Throughout most of my SongAWeek project (I’m on year 3 now!), I would work on songs wherever I could: in my journal, in the Notes app on my phone, on a napkin at my local pub, etc. Still to this day, if I get a good song idea, I have to write it down somewhere immediately, no matter where I am, because of the unforgivingly breakneck pace of SongAWeek – so, songs don’t always start in this notebook, but I tend to do heavy-duty lyric editing in here as I’m finishing a song (or, as Diane Warren puts it, “wrestling that song to the ground”). And by the way, if you’re curious about the lyrics in the above image, they’re from a country song I wrote about period sex!

I also keep a big long list in here of ideas for songs, or potential song titles/taglines/etc. Previously they were all scattered across multiple mediums, and I can’t even tell you how helpful it is to have them all in one place instead – it means I have something to start from every week, instead of just a blank page staring back at me. This is the exact kind of thing I mean when I say that writing tools (like notebooks) aren’t magic, and won’t make you a better writer in and of themselves, but they can inspire you to write more often, and can help you organize your thoughts better, which often leads to better writing. Or at least more writing… some of which will be good, surely!

The notebook: Leuchtturm1917 reporter-style notepad
What it’s for: Notes on movies, TV shows, & conversations

Possibly my favorite notebook at the moment. It has super-smooth paper, comes in fun colors, and fits easily into most purses and pockets. I love the versatility of a reporter-style notebook, too: their hard cover and vertical orientation makes it easy to write in them whether you’re sitting at a desk, reclining in a movie theatre, or walking down the street.

I take notes in here on many of the movies and TV shows I watch these days. It helps me pay attention better, and is useful if I want to remember my impressions of a certain piece of media while writing about it later on, or talking to a friend about it, etc. The notes pictured in the image above, for instance, were taken while watching the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral (adorable; love Hugh Grant!) and then some episodes of Kevin Can F**k Himself (low-key a modern feminist masterpiece). Invariably, my notes aren’t just about the media itself, but about my reactions to the media – so this notebook arguably contains just as many personal insights as my journal, albeit expressed differently!

I also sometimes take notes in here while on phone calls/Zoom calls/etc. with friends or partners, because (as mentioned) the reporter-style form factor lends itself well to impromptu note-taking regardless of where I am. Notes on conversations can be useful to refer to when I’m journaling later, among other things. And these notepads conveniently have a built-in table of contents near the front, so when I need to find a specific thing, I always can. Gosh, aren’t notebooks a great technology?

 

What’s your current notebook configuration? Feel free to share in the comments! 🤓