Monthly Faves: Dildorks, Dresses, and Daddy

Kate Sloan

Wow, I got up to a lot of kinky shit this past month. Here were some of my favorite things in February…

Sex toys

• My partner is really into fucking me with the Njoy Eleven lately – or, more often, making me fuck myself with it while he instructs me on speed, strength, and depth over the phone. Nothing else in my collection feels quite like this toy. It’s really an astonishing piece of steel.

• Loving the purpleheart truncheon I picked up from Weal & Breech at the Playground Conference. It’s lovely and thuddy, the craftsmanship is beautiful, and I adore the included black leather wrist strap. This company’s wares are so classy and gorgeous, not to mention painful in the best way.

• I told a story at Tell Me Something Good about hypnokink (more on that next week!) and when I was selected to win a prize at the end of the night, someone suggested I choose the Ruse Hypnotize, for obvious reasons. I’ve used it a few times since then and it’s pretty good for its price point: a nice-quality silicone dildo of a satisfying shape and size, that can hit my A-spot and makes for pretty blowjobs on camera. (“Can confirm,” my boyf says.)

Fantasy fodder

• Ageplay is a new thing to my boyfriend, but he’s enjoying being my Daddy. We’ve done a few phone-sex scenes involving me being little and him teaching me a thing or two about my sexual anatomy, or his. Fuuuck, it’s so hot.

• We’ve also been talking a fair bit about bootblacking, one of those interesting kinks that came out of nowhere for me and that I can’t quite explain. I remember telling him on our first date that I liked his shiny shoes, and since then I’ve increasingly wanted to kneel in front of him, put my face/lips/tongue all over his shoes, shine ’em up, and so on. Maybe we’ll experiment with this in March when he comes to visit me.

• I’ve mentioned to my partner a couple times that I have long-time fantasies about Victorian “hysteria” treatments: having orgasms coolly administered to me by a medical professional for my own good. We did some intense in-character sexting about that this month (ain’t it nice when two improv geeks date?!) and he also mentioned wanting to strap me down and use my Zumio to extract an orgasm from me. Um, yes please.

Sexcetera

• It was neat to get to try the new Cowgirl vibrator at the Museum of Sex this month. Aside from concerns about its unnecessarily gendered name and marketing (which we discussed in-depth in a recent Dildorks episode), I enjoyed giving it a shot. My partner picked up the control panel and said “May I?” and I basically melted onto the floor. The Cowgirl is rumblier than the Sybian (at least, it’s rumblier than my 2.5-year-old memory of the Sybian) and I found it more comfortable to sit on. I think I’ll get to try it again soon at Suz’s blog relaunch party (which you should come to!).

• The Playground Conference fucking ruled. Some highlights of my time there: speaking on the opening plenary with a bunch of brilliant babes; my Sir ordering pizza and a cookie to my hotel room all the way from New York when I was too overwhelmed to figure out food for myself; Kevin Patterson shouting us out in his keynote; learning about turning fantasies into realities; recording a live Dildorks episode; spanking a couple of beauties with a bible and various other implements; seeing (and livetweeting) Bex teaching blowjobs; introverty dinners with clever cuties. So much love to the conference’s organizer Samantha Fraser, who is a total badass and deserves all the applause!

Femme stuff

• In discussing how to maintain our close but long-distance connection during the potentially distancing chaos that is a sex conference, I asked my Sir, “Would it make you feel good to choose my outfits for Playground?” He’s previously enjoyed this so I thought he’d like to do it some more, and I was right. I sent him photos of all the dresses I wanted to wear + my tentative schedule for the con, and he chose which dresses I should wear on which days. It was a cute way for me to feel connected to him even as I was hustlin’ and bustlin’ around a busy conference 500 miles from him.

• Hippo Campus is my favorite band, and their merch makes me happy. I own three of their T-shirts now, because I’m a nerd, and they’re all I want to wear on lazy, loungey days. This one, a Christmas gift from my little brother, is my fave: so soft, so snazzy!

• I have a new tattooooo! Probably gonna blog about it eventually, I’d imagine. I went back to Laura Blaney, who did my thigh tattoos; she’s fantastic. It’s colorful and punchy and lovely and I’m excited for it to heal completely so I can show it off!

Little things

Solo theatre dates, front-row centre. Drinking a “Hot Dad Bramble” with my daddy. Slow-dancing to Warm Glow. Compersion. Starburst as aftercare candy. Valentine’s flowers. Getting tied up by a sweet, funny boy who was intermittently singing me showtunes. Wearing my collar to public appearances because Sir said so. Talking to Erin at the Bed Post Podcast about hypnokink, DD/lg, etc. Seeing improv shows with friends. Exciting coffee meetings about new projects. The “Pun Slut” pin my Sir bought me (so perfect). Fancy pens. Sir listening to my radio show and live-texting me his reactions for me to read during the commercial breaks. Getting my hair done and feeling like a queen. Maple cookies. Staying hydrated. Late-night giggly phone sex.

5 Ways to Fuck Up Your Social Media Strategy As a Sex Blogger

Kate Sloan

I’ve been a sex blogger for almost six years, and here’s what I know about social media: it can make or break you, both professionally and personally. I’ve built my audience through smart usage of Twitter, Instagram, and the like, but a good social media presence has also brought many additional blessings upon me: editors at big publications have discovered me through my social feeds, I’ve been offered jobs and gigs because of my tweets, and I’ve even met several partners (past and present) on Twitter. Isn’t the internet wild?!

Here are five disastrous mistakes you can make on social media that will damage your brand and your reputation as a sex blogger, sometimes irreversibly. I have made a few of these mistakes from time to time and have learned from making them, hopefully. Do not do these things!

Treat your followers badly. One of my cardinal rules in my social media strategy is to be generally pleasant to my followers – so long as they’re not being rude, inappropriate, or wilfully ignorant (in which case I sometimes call them out on that). If someone shares your work, compliments a post you wrote, or is otherwise a good and uplifting follower, you should make them feel appreciated for that. Building a strong, supportive community on social media can be done the same way you’d do that anywhere: by being kind and welcoming.

Be sex-negative. You would think sex bloggers wouldn’t need to be schooled on the importance of sex-positivity, but some of them do. I’ve seen many bloggers shame other people’s kinks, make moral judgments about other people’s harmless sexual decisions, mock certain types of porn, or dismiss certain fantasies as “gross” even if they exist only as fantasies. There’s a debate to be had about these things, sure, but I think outright shaming people who aren’t harming anyone with their sexuality is best avoided, especially if you work in the sexual sphere. No one is going to trust you to educate them on sexuality if you’ve made them feel bad about themselves as a sexual person, even if you had no idea you were doing that when you tweeted that vaguely shamey thing.

Be body-negative. Likewise, making fun of people’s bodies is not cool, especially in the sex-positive pockets of the sex industry where such missteps are particularly frowned upon. This includes stuff like fat-shaming, ableism, penis size-shaming, and so on. If you’re making fun of a particular physical trait or condition, odds are, you’re hurting the feelings of someone who reads what you write. Don’t do it!

Buy fake likes and followers. People can tell when you buy artificial likes for your Facebook page or beef up your Instagram numbers with false followers. It’s not a good look. Building your audience is a slow process, but if you’ve done your research on blogging, you already know it isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. So take the time to do it properly. Your audience will trust you more as a result.

Be inauthentic. I honestly think the #1 thing that’s helped me in my social media strategy is being real. I put my actual insecurities, fears, and weirdnesses out into the world, and it establishes a feeling of camaraderie between my followers and I. And crucially, that camaraderie is real, not just something I “put on” to achieve certain professional goals. I treasure my troupe of Twitter weirdos, and the reason many of them are so invested in me and my writing is that I show them a lot of me – the real me. It’s freeing to be so open, and to be accepted in all your strangeness!

Bloggers and blog readers alike: what do you think is most important in a sex blogger’s social media strategy?

 

Heads up: this post was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own.

How Did You Know You Were In Love?

Kate Sloan

I’m pacing around my bedroom at a manic clip, one night in January, ranting to my new beau over the phone – because I’m falling in love and I don’t know what to do.

“I want to say it, but I don’t know if we’re ready to say it,” I explain, my heartbeat skittering as fast as my words. “How do you even know if you’re really in love? Do I even want to fall in love in a long-distance relationship? How do you know if it’s too soon? How can you be sure you really mean it?”

I’ve been in love three times before and this is the first time there’s been an open dialogue about it. We’ve read the Wikipedia page for “love” together over the phone. We’ve said “I like you so much” and “I adore you” and “I treasure you” and alluded to the painful inadequacy of those phrases. We’ve lapsed into tense silences where one of us would ask, “What? What are you thinking?” and, both of us knowing the answer, the other would sullenly respond, “I can’t tell you.” “I don’t wanna say.”

Normally when I get to this juncture in a relationship, it’s a private stewing, an internal tug-of-war, an embarrassing call to action that I might or might not rise to meet. It’s never been out on the table like this before. And even now that it is, we still can’t say the thing itself. Or rather, we won’t. Not yet.

“I would rather say it to him in person,” I read to him aloud from my scribbly journal entry on the topic, “because it’s so weighty and I just think that would be the appropriate and right way to do it.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely better to do it in person,” he agrees, “because when you say that for the first time, you wanna touch each other. Real bad.”

A silence passes wherein we both imagine what that will feel like. How we will say it, and where, and then how we will touch each other, and where. I don’t have to ask him if he’s picturing it too. I know he is. And that makes me want to say it all the more.

The first time I fell in love, I was nineteen, and I knew because I simply wanted to say it. It felt natural. The same way I might tell a close friend I loved them, so too did I want to say it to my then-boyfriend. It wasn’t a sweeping passion or a roiling lust; it was a slow warmth that had gathered and grown over the two-plus months of our nascent sweet springtime romance. At first I wasn’t sure, and then at some point, I was. When I said it, in the dark in my twin-sized bed, he hugged me tight and said, “I love you too, and you’ve made me a very happy man.”

The second time was an unrequited accident. This man didn’t want me and I knew it; I knew it for an entire year or more, just like I knew I loved him. It took months and months for me to call it “love,” even to my best friend or in the confines of my journal, because love is embarrassing, messy; there is a permanency to it that makes it so much more of an emergency alarm than just calling it a crush.

But I reached a point where I felt chemically dependent on this man, mired in depression whenever he would leave and espresso-peppy when he was within reach, and that’s when I reluctantly began calling it “love.” Never to his face, never where he could hear it, but that’s what it was to me.

The third time, it built up like water in a dammed fountain. My introverted, reserved boyfriend played me hot-and-cold so thoroughly that I wasn’t sure I was allowed to feel love, wasn’t sure he’d accept my love even though he’d accepted me as his girlfriend officially. Hanging out at his apartment after lunch at his favorite ramen restaurant, I kissed him tenderly in bed, wanting intimacy, but he just wanted to play video games. I got so frustrated by him ignoring me that I announced I was leaving and did so, forgetting my ramen leftovers in his fridge.

The next day, I came back “for the food,” wounded and contrite, and cried into his chest as I mumbled, “I wanna tell you something that’s gonna make me cry even more: I love you.” He held me tighter and said, “I love you too. I’ve known that for a while. I just didn’t know if you were ready to hear it.” It was exactly the kind of backhanded, confusing comment I had come to view as normal in that relationship. Knowing me, I probably made some kind of “ramen-tic” pun.

When my current beau first told me he might be falling in love – by invoking late-night Google searches and Wikipedia trawls – I wasn’t sure how I felt on that front. “I feel like I should have more to say about this,” I wrote after relaying the episode to my journal. “Do I want to fall in love again so soon after getting my heart broken? Do I even feel like it could happen with this boy? (…Yes.) Do I feel safe getting to that point with a long-distance person who already has other partners? (…Maybe.)”

But for all my hemming and hawing about being unsure, certainty whammed me over the head in the coming week. I’m a linguistically-minded person: I organize my thoughts and feelings by articulating them in words, as you may have noticed. So although I’d agonized about how to know love when you see it, ultimately I recognized it by what I wanted to say, and how often I wanted to say it. The words “I love you” stagnated in my throat when we talked on the phone, and buzzed in my fingers when I texted him. Maybe it’s simplistic to suggest, “I think I love you, therefore I do,” but I don’t know of a better barometer. There is no scientific test for love (well… romantic psychology researchers like Helen Fisher might disagree, actually) so for now, I know it’s true when it feels true and I want to say it. That’s good enough for me.

We finally say it on our third date. That sounds ridiculous, unless you know how many hours we spent on the phone between each in-person rendezvous. Long phone calls stretched four or six or eight hours into the night, entire emotional journeys of their own, with laughs and tears and phone sex and warm cuddly mumbles. We fast-tracked our relationship on those phone calls. We rushed toward love, exhilarating and good.

Our third date is a mottled mess of feelings: a tender kiss in the lobby of the Wythe Hotel, a collaring and sweet sex in our second-floor room, Italian food and philosophical discussions at Leuca, and hours of dancing to my favorite band at Brooklyn Steel. We cuddle in the Lyft back to our hotel late at night, and as we pull up, he says, “Can I show you the roof?” I nod, he takes my hand, and we get in the elevator to The Ides.

The bar is dim and ornate, like so many places he’s taken me, with a stunning view of the big beautiful city where I met this boy I think I love. We cuddle up in a corner booth, and he orders me a drink like he always does, and it feels so comfortable and cozy, like we do this every day. But we don’t, and that uncommonness feels cozy too.

At some point he goes silent and presses a kiss against my shoulder. “I wanna tell you something, but I’m scared,” he says. I didn’t see it coming, and also I did. I smile and hold him tighter because I want him to feel supported in this brave thing he is doing. I want him to land safely on cushions when he makes this leap. “Kate…” he says, slowly. I listen harder. “Kate, I love you.”

I say, “I know,” because I do; I can feel it radiating off him, have felt it over the phone and via text and just generally in my periphery, the sensation of being loved, the sensation of loving. I press even more of my body tight against his in that little booth and tell him, “I love you too.” We kiss and we touch and we laugh about how long this took us and how perfect it turned out to be.

The candle on our table casts a glow on his face that is as golden, precious, and ephemeral as this love I hope will last a long, long time.

My Favorite Kinds of Blowjob

Kate Sloan

The first blowjob. The phrase “knock your socks off” is too mild and clichéd for what I plan to do to you. You’ve probably read my blog posts or tweets where I profess my oral enthusiasm, but I don’t want you to mistake those for boasting; I’m no more skilled than the average cocksucker, I’m just preternaturally excited about the act. So lay back and let me figure out what you like, through minuscule experiments of tongue and lips. I want to map your tastes like a cartographer of cock. Let’s depart on this voyage together.

The drunk blowjob. Sloppy and slurring, we grin and giggle, thick as thieves. If you were a stranger, I’d be nervous, but you’re not, so I just laugh and laugh. “I kinda wanna go down on you,” I mumble in your ear. Our bottles clink together, inadvertently punctuating my sentence. “I kinda want that too,” you mutter back at me. I take another swig before replacing my beer bottle with something even more phallic.

The subby blowjob. “Come here.” Yes sir. “Lie across my lap.” Yes sir. “Are you going to take your spanking like a good girl?” Yes sir. “Does that hurt, little one?” Yes sir. “Do you want some more?” Yes sir. “Does that feel good?” Yes sir. “You’re getting wet for me, aren’t you?” Yes sir. “Do you want a bruise on your pretty little ass?” Yes sir. “Had enough yet?” Yes sir. “I think you can take a few more.” Yes sir. “There you go, baby. You took that so well for me.” Yes sir. “Think you’ve earned a reward?” Yes sir. “Do you know what that reward might be?” Yes sir. “I think you want my cock in your mouth.” Yes sir. “And I think you deserve that.” Yes sir. “So get on your knees for me, princess.” Yes sir. “Now unzip my pants and kiss my cock.” Yes sir. “You’re going to do such a good job for me, aren’t you?” Yes sir. “Okay, you can take me in your mouth now, little girl.” Yes sir. “Mmm. You like that, darling?” Yes sir.

The established-partners blowjob. I know precisely what works for you but I’m going to take my time getting there. I love those familiar noises you make, the predictable tensing of your muscles, the telltale quickening of your breath. I love knowing I’m doing a good job for you. I love that this is neither expected nor demanded but instead, freely given: an enthusiastic expression of enduring affection. I am not winning your heart, but instead, showing you how much I value it.

The stoned blowjob. I’m not even sure how I ended up here. Here between your knees. My hands skim across your thighs: the coarse wisps of hair, the familiar scent of your skin, the warmth of the blood pumping underneath. My head in your lap is a comfort to both of us. I slide your cock along my tongue and it lights up every nerve ending, one by one, stacking and unspooling. Everything tastes so good. Your salty skin, normally a fact of life, is now a cascading symphony. I sense a hint of precum at the tip of you and lap it up slow but eager, determined to make that happen again. All my senses just want this, want you.

The morning blowjob. You get so hard in the morning, you could practically cut steel. With your consent, I adore sliding down your body under the bedsheets and taking you in my mouth. A sweet and surprising wake-up call. Whether this blooms into other activities or remains a simple and singular pre-coffee treat, I am content here, with the early light streaming through the window, making these moments feel languid and full of fresh hope.

Magnet

Kate Sloan

Though I’ve had seemingly infinite crushes in my short, limerence-loaded life, few of them were magnetic in the way often described in pop songs. Usually my physical attractions are clipped onto the sides of more romantic lures; it’s rare for that sexual pull to exist loudly and fully as its own boisterous thing.

But three times in my life, I have met a magnet. I hope I meet many more.

“I wanna touch your knee, but very casually. I’m gonna get so near you, so I can hear you, silently sitting very, very close.”

The cute boy in my improv class is ruining my entire academic year.

His open face and unreserved grin, his sloping shoulders and sharp collarbones, his long fingers and strong arms, his tall stature, his dirty sneakers, his tight jeans, his barking laugh. I can’t handle any of it. I can handle exactly none of it.

He is very fucking distracting, in a molecular and neurological way I’ve never quite experienced before. One day I’m journaling before class begins and find my pen wandering off the page as my eyes drift toward him. He’s not even doing anything important, just goofing off with the other boys using props lying around in the classroom, but my gaze stays affixed to his form. I feel like a fucking creep. I am a fucking creep. I don’t know what to do about it.

Another day, I’m talking to some friends in the hallway, and suddenly he walks by. I absorb a cloud of his teenage-boy cologne through deep inhalations and lose my words completely. “Kate?” a pal asks me. “Kate, you just trailed off mid-sentence. What were you saying?” I can’t fucking remember what I was saying. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the way his shoulderblades look, pressing sharply through the lines of his sweater as he saunters down the hall. Fuck.

We perform together in an improv set, and between scenes, I sit beside him in the wings. I am infinitely, uncomfortably aware of his warm thigh alongside mine. I can feel my body singing, humming, buzzing at a frequency that aches to match his. My molecules purr meltily and moonily at his. But he doesn’t even notice. I am nothing to him. I’m just some girl he kind of knows. This pull I am feeling exists only in my body and I just can’t understand how that can be true.

“I’m a magnet. And you’re a magnet. And we are pushing each other away.”

My second magnet is someone else’s boyfriend. Nothing to be done about it but feel it, and try not to feel it.

This time, at least, I am certain he’s feeling it too. We sit close together at a party, our chairs side-by-side so our eyes don’t quite meet, because that would be Too Much. Other partygoers engage us in conversation and we laugh and talk and sip our drinks, but the inches of air between us are warm and whirring. I want to get just a little closer, feel him just a little more, but I don’t. I can’t.

Flirtatiously, tipsily, I admit to him in a low tone, “I really want to make out with you, but I don’t think that’s allowed.” He smiles like the sweetest little imp and neither confirms nor denies – which is, of course, a “no.” I figured as much. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.

Once or twice, I get up from my seat, beer in hand, to totter to the bathroom. Opening the door afterward, I half-expect to see him just outside, forehead pressed to the doorjamb, mumbling, “I just had to come kiss you.” But he doesn’t. He is good. For the most part.

Past 3AM that night, when I’ve long departed the party and am half-catatonic in bed, I get a text from him: “I really wanted to make out with you tonight too.” I know he did, is the thing. It radiated off him like waves of heat. What an awful, wonderful, terrible thing.

I start avoiding parties where I know he’ll be, because resisting that magnetic pull is possible, but not pleasurable. I’m tired of torture. One evening of aching was enough.

“What is the centre between two centres of attention? Is there a centre between two centres of attention? Or only tension between two centres of attention?”

Sometimes you don’t recognize a magnet right away when you meet them. Sometimes the magnetism has to sublimate, stagnate, before it roars to life.

I meet my Sir in a Manhattan coffee shop, before I know he’s going to be my Sir, before I know he’s going to be my anything. He’s wearing a blue button-down that sets off his cornflower eyes, and the excited-but-guarded smile you flash at your Twitter crush when you’re nervous they’re not gonna like you IRL. I suppress my swooning, because we are in public, for fuck’s sake.

We’ve been talking animatedly for almost an hour before I realize the boy across from me is, indeed, a magnetic forcefield. “Would it be too intimate,” he begins, slowly, watching my eyes widen, “if we traded phones and looked at each other’s podcasts?” And then he leans across the table, ostensibly to show me his screen, but really it’s to dial that electric current up to eleven. My eyes want to slam shut as he gets that close to me, because I feel it, I feel the pull, and it’s such a rare and marvelous thing that I want to savor it in every fizzing atom of my little body.

“Love a good table-lean,” I say to him weeks later, over the phone, making fun of him for those perfect flirtations on our first date. But I know it wasn’t so much purposeful flirting as it was his desire to get closer to me. I know this because I wanted that, too.

Our second date comes after weeks of planning, sexting, flirting, and dirty-talking over the phone. I’m so nervous, I sweat through my winter coat. I’m so nervous, I swill his peppermint tea from a paper cup I’m clutching with trembling hands. I’m so nervous, I start exhibiting actual goddamn panic attack symptoms at dinner. He talks me through it all, and holds my hand, patient and forgiving and endlessly kind.

After dinner, we wait in the restaurant’s entryway for our Lyft to arrive. It’ll take us to the hotel where we’re going to fuck each other’s bodies and minds all night – but all moments until then are torture. He steps toward me and gives me a soft kiss, quick, like he’s releasing a little air from a valve so the whole machine doesn’t fucking explode. I whimper and keen and swoon forward against him, my whole body wanting the kiss to continue, but it doesn’t. Not yet.

“I feel like a magnet,” I mumble, and it has never felt more true. The heat of my skin and the knot in my gut and the twinge in my heart are all insisting: Touch this boy. But I am good, and I wait.

“Me too,” he says, the bridge of his nose pressed into mine, and then our car arrives, and we get in, and I pray for the invention of time travel solely so I can skip this goddamn car ride and be naked in bed beside this perfect boy in an instant.

I meet his eyes in the dim backseat, and I can see my smoky desire mirrored back at me. I can feel our pulses pounding in sync. I know what’s going to happen. And I know I’m going to like it.