5 Monogamously-Minded Mistakes to Stop Making

Kate Sloan

I’m no expert on non-monogamy. Nope. Not by a longshot. Sometimes people try to interview me about polyamory and I’m just like, “LOL, don’t ask me, I’m a baby. Go talk to Samantha or Kevin or Tristan or somebody. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

That said, I have learned a few things – mostly from doing shit wrong, and getting hurt by other people who were doing shit wrong. I’ve noticed that a lot of polyamory slip-ups happen as a result of clinging (consciously or not) to a monogamous mindset. We can’t quite inhabit a healthily polyamorous paradigm if we’re still living at least part-time in monogamy-brain, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Here are 5 of the most common manifestations I’ve seen of this problem. If any of these remind you of something you’ve done, maybe it’s time to examine that and think about whether you’d like to change this behavior or thought pattern. I’m definitely not saying my way of doing poly is the only way or the best way, but I do think eliminating these behaviors would help most non-monogamous relationships work more smoothly!

Implying you’re in competition with your metamours. (Just so we’re clear, a metamour is a partner’s partner. So if I’m dating Ben and he’s also dating Sally, then Sally is my metamour.)

I once asked a partner how he felt about another guy I was seeing, because there had been some jealousy afoot. He responded – ostensibly jokingly – “It’s okay; I think I can take him.” Pro tip: do not threaten to beat up your metamour, even as a joke!! Not only did I not find this even remotely funny, it was also hurtful to me; I care about all my partners and don’t like to hear them disparaged. I set a boundary with that person that he was not allowed to talk shit about my other partners unless he believed one of them was being genuinely toxic/harmful to me. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable boundary to set.

This problem can manifest in other ways too: self-pityingly joking that your partner probably likes your metamour better than you; trying to get your partner to admit your blowjobs are better than their other partners’; pouting when a partner opts to spend time with a metamour instead of you… It’s okay to feel your feelings, but you should process them yourself as much as possible, rather than looping your partner into a competition that probably only exists inside your own head. Their relationships with other people are not a threat to you – that’s the whole point of polyamory – and when you imply otherwise, you put your partner in a super uncomfortable position. Don’t do it!

Comparing your partners to each other. This is sort of the inverse of the previous point. If you don’t want your partners to feel like they’re in competition with each other, DON’T FUCKING COMPARE THEM TO EACH OTHER. EVER.

Sometimes there might be occasion to usefully elucidate the differences between your different dynamics, e.g. if you need to designate one partner as a primary and one as a secondary (hierarchial polyamory isn’t my fave, but it works great for some people). But putting any kind of value judgment on one partner over another – whether sexual, emotional, or in any other category – is not cool.

If you find yourself wanting to make an observation like “Partner A is more fun to have sex with” or “Partner B stresses me out less,” that might be a red flag about the overall well-being of the relationship. Or it might just be a signal that there’s an issue you need to address. Can you give Partner B some more explicit sexual instruction, or sit down with a Yes/No/Maybe list together to pep things up? Can you set some useful boundaries with Partner A so they aren’t, say, relying on you for all their emotional needs while you’re trying to spend quality time with another partner? Making unflattering comparisons is a sign that something needs rebalancing, somewhere. And it’s rude to communicate those comparisons to your partner unless absolutely necessary, because you will fill them with insecurity and doubt.

Only telling partners what you think they want to hear. Two weeks into my last relationship, my boyfriend started seeing someone else, but he told me he didn’t think it would get serious and that I would continue to be the “girlfriend” while this other person would just be his “lover.” I breathed a sigh of relief, which was, in itself, a bad sign; I was definitely still stuck in the paradigm that said anyone else entering his romantic life was a direct threat to me and our relationship. (I still feel this way sometimes, admittedly. It’s a process.)

Unsurprising spoiler alert: things did get serious with that other partner of his, and when I found out just how serious they were getting, it crushed me. I had believed I was “safe” from that kind of “intrusion” into our relationship, so I didn’t start processing that shift in our dynamic until it was already way too late. I’m not blaming my partner – I genuinely don’t think he knew things would unfold how they did – but if he had felt relationship-level feelings toward this other person right off the bat, I wish he would’ve told me that upfront, so I could have adjusted to it at my own pace and processed it in my own way.

Similarly, you shouldn’t tell your partner only bad things about their metamour (in an effort to make them feel better about themselves or more secure) or only good things (in an effort to be like, “See?! They’re not that bad!!”). Humanize your partners to each other. That means sharing the good and the bad, when relevant. (This process definitely benefits from metamours meeting each other in person, if they’re comfortable doing so!) Shielding someone from your true feelings in an effort to avoid hurting them usually just ends up hurting them more.

Using superlatives. Ohhh, this is a tough one for me! I didn’t realize this was a problem until there was a discussion about it in a poly group I’m in, and I went: Oh. Fuck.

Superlatives are words like “cutest,” “favorite,” “hottest,” “sweetest,” etc. I tend to use these a lot, in an affectionate way; I’ll call both my best friend and my brother “my favorite boy” (which is true, they are tied for the position of my favorite existing boy) or I’ll sometimes call someone “the handsomest” or “the cutest” when I’m flirting with them. I’ve been trying to be more mindful about this because it doesn’t really work once you’re in a poly situation.

A lot of language we recognize as “romantic” is rooted in a monogamous paradigm, and that includes referring to a person you’re dating as your “favorite [x]” or “the [x]-est” or whatever. This comes back to what I was saying earlier about comparing partners to each other: it’s a shitty thing to do, and also kind of misses the whole point of polyamory. My mom once asked me which of my two beaux I “liked better,” and I honestly didn’t even know how to answer that: I liked them both a lot, for different reasons, and also for some of the same reasons (their intelligence, humor, kindness, etc.) – so how the fuck could I pick a “favorite”? In poly, there should be no such thing. (Unless maybe you’re hierarchical and everyone involved knows that and is cool with that.)

Relying on your romantic partner(s) for all your social and emotional needs. Dean Spade says that polyamorists should treat our friends more like our lovers, and our lovers more like our friends. This has been an incredibly important insight for me – so much so, that I should probably write a full blog post about it sometime. It’s essentially the idea that you shouldn’t put all your emotional eggs in one basket – both because that’s hard on you, and because it’s hard on the “basket” (your partner[s]).

A monogamy paradigm teaches us that your partner is your “other half,” that they should be there for you through thick and thin, and that whatever you need, you can get it from them. This is fine for the people for whom it works, I guess (although I don’t know who those people are; even deadset monogamists often run into trouble when they over-invest in and over-rely on their partner). However, I think it’s safer and more respectful for everyone involved if you view each partner as just one piece of your support network, rather than the entire network in and of themselves.

That’s the “treat your lovers more like your friends” piece, but I’ve found the “treat your friends more like your lovers” piece to be equally important. This is not about sexualizing your friends or making them uncomfortable! It’s about valuing your friendships as much as you value your romantic relationships, putting effort into keeping those friendships healthy and mutually fulfilling, and asking for support from your friends when you need it. My close friendship with Bex, for example, is a foundation that allows my other relationships to thrive. If I didn’t have that intense, reliable, baseline intimacy with them, I would desperately seek that type of intimacy with other, potentially less trustworthy people, which might get me into unwise romantic/sexual situations.

It’s important to note here that people don’t exist to fulfill your needs. They can, but that doesn’t mean they’re obligated to. View people as people, always, and not just in terms of what they can offer you. That goes for friends as well as dates.

What monogamous-minded trope/pattern/belief have you had to unlearn?

Slow Burn

Kate Sloan

There is no sex hotter than the sex you almost had.

We almost had it. But the timing wasn’t right. Time was not on our side. Out of time. Time to go.

So we took to our phones and made up for lost time.

There is no sex hotter than sex you picture for weeks before having it. Months, even. In slow-unfolding sext-a-thons and wandering phone calls. In café daydreams and bathtub reveries. In subway imaginings too carnal for public consumption.

Do they know? Do they know I’m thinking about you?

Do you know?

I’ve considered your body. A body I don’t know well. I’ve considered its weight.

I’ve been crushed beneath you in my mind a thousand times. A myriad of melting me’s, acquiescing in sequence. I’ve looped the mental tape like a well-loved song. Your kiss is catchy. Your eyes, an earworm. Your heart, a hook. And I’m hooked, and I’m helpless.

They say a memory’s not just a memory. It’s stacked with neural residue from each time the file’s been reviewed. Date Modified: Today.

So the image of your touch isn’t really your touch; it’s the ways I’ve remembered it, the ways I’ve reshaped it by remembering it. I wish I’d made duplicates. I wish I had the pristine originals, tucked away in a lockbox deep in my limbic system. But even those, I would take out too often and muck up with dust.

A few days after our first date – that blazing conversation over coffee, and the rough kisses that unavoidably ensued – I texted you, “I wish I had paid more attention, even though I was paying very close attention. I wish I had it memorized.”

“I wish I took notes,” you wrote back. “I wish I had it recorded somehow. I wish I could rewatch it.”

So we replay it in micro-detail, a back-and-forth volley of “Remember when…?” and “Then you…” and “I thought…” We layer and re-layer memory engrams, like neuropsychological Jenga. We fill in every blank for each other until our first date becomes not just a story but a legend. Not just an anecdote but a prophecy fulfilled.

Sometimes you think you know tiredness, because bleary-eyed yawning is part of the fabric of your life – but then one day you come up against exhaustion, and it’s a different beast entirely. Its maw opens unendingly and draws you down, down, down. Habitual tiredness is not exhaustion. You know exhaustion when you feel it.

Just like you know desire when you feel it. You can go through life developing quaint crushes, flirting with people in elevators and bars, and spouting wink emoticons like an addictive currency. But those things are no more desire than a handful of potato chips is a meal. You know desire when you feel it. It knocks you over like a truck smashing through glass.

You know it because you can’t ignore it. There are so few unignorable sensations in the world, so few experiences we can’t tune out if we press our brains to the grindstone. Desire gnaws and needs and needles you. It chases you down neural pathways. It whirls pointlessly in your periphery. Stop, you say, and it laughs and says, Naaah.

I’ve considered your body. A body I don’t know well. I’ve screamed into my pillow while considering it. I’ve grasped uselessly at places where you weren’t. I’ve dragged more orgasms out of me than I thought possible, clinging to the notion of your face. And still it’s not enough. And still I desire. And still, I can’t be still.

I hope to find my mind again someday, when the smog of want has cleared. When this slow burn snuffs into smoke. But I hope – my secret, darkest hope – it stays alight a little longer.

5 Kinks I Hope to Try in 2018

Kate Sloan

It’s long been a tradition here at Girly Juice that I set myself sexual goals at the beginning of each year. Last year was a rare exception: in lieu of concrete goals, I endeavored to scale back on relentless hookups and focus on quality over quantity with regards to my sex life. I think that, for the most part, I accomplished that in 2017.

This year, though, I am feeling reinvigorated to try new things, chase fresh dick, and boldly go where I have never gone before. Here are 5 utterly new-to-me kinks I’m curious about and would like to experiment with this year…

E-stim (electrostimulation) intrigues me because it promises a different sensation from anything else I’ve ever tried. Unlike the brusque pain of a spanking or the deep pleasure of standard genital stimulation, E-stim is described variously as tickly, prickly, warm and tingly. As a sex nerd and unabashed perv, when I see new sensations available on the horizon, I say: sign me up!

I am hopeful that I can get a sex toy company to send me a Neon Wand to try soon, or that I’ll meet a new play partner who has an E-stim setup of their own and would relish subjecting me to it. We shall see!

Hypnokink (also known as erotic hypnosis) is fucking fascinating! I have a new partner who’s super into it and has been teaching me some things – including by trancing me over the phone a couple times – and I instantly want to know everything about it. I love the idea of a dominant partner being able to get inside my brain and dominate me psychologically in an even more direct way than other types of D/s allow for. Obviously you should only attempt this with people you trust and who actually know their shit!

In a couple weeks I’m going to see my hypnotic beau and we’ve negotiated some more intense hypno stuff we’re going to try. I am fiendishly excited!

Fear play is scary and hot, and hot and scary! Many moons ago, I heard Violet Blue read a chapter from an N.T. Morley erotic novel on her podcast Open Source Sex which opened my mind to the carnal appeal of knives, consensual “kidnapping,” and other fear-based sexy stimuli. In the story, a woman is abducted (consensually) and forced to lie face-down on the floor of a boat, masked and shackled, while an anonymous assailant wiggles a knife back and forth on her clit. It doesn’t cut her or hurt her, merely rubs her to orgasm, but the threat of injury is always there, igniting the pleasure with a spark of peril.

Consuming the oeuvres of fear-play aficionados like Ken Melvoin-Berg and Dick Wound this past year (the latter of whom used some knives on me in an introductory, not-especially-scary manner a few weeks ago, whetting my fear appetite further) has acclimatized me to the idea that terror can be sexy – in the right context, and with the right partners. My limited experiences with fear play have proven this to me: a partner nibbling along my jugular but not biting down, for example, or taking me to the edge of my pain limits with a thorough spanking but never quite pushing me into active distress. I’m interested to see if I can evoke even deeper trust, subspace and catharsis with a fear-savvy partner this year!

Bootblacking thrills me, in theory, but I’m unsure if it’s for sexy reasons or simply because I am a fancy femme with a penchant for beautiful, high-quality footwear. (Maybe it’s both. My femme brain and my sex brain have a lot of overlap.)

This is a rare kink where I can equally see myself enjoying being on either side of the interaction. I think I’d like to begin by getting my boots blacked by someone who knows their shit, and then maybe attempt to shine someone else’s boots. There is a taboo sort of intimacy to this kink that makes me feel all tingly inside…

Medical play has come up many times before on this here blog. It haunts my fantasy-brain but I have no idea if I’d actually like it in real life. (That’s true of many kinks, actually…)

I have a lot of feelings about the idea of a hot domly person in a lab coat putting my feet up in stirrups, slipping into some nitrile gloves, lubing up a speculum, and giving me a “routine examination.” These fantasies are often tinged with elements of the treatments doctors supposedly gave Victorian women to help abate their “female hysteria” via “hysterical paroxysm.” Just as the Daddy doms in my little-girl fantasies make me come “for my own good,” so too do the efficient and dexterous doctors in my medical-play fantasies…

What kinks or activities are you hoping to play with in 2018?

Sextistics: An End-of-Year Sexual Stats Breakdown (2017)

Kate Sloan

Look, what was the point of keeping a sex spreadsheet and an orgasm spreadsheet all year if not to eventually put together a big, ridiculous post like this?! Here’s a round-up of some relevant stats on my sex life this year. Maybe we’ll learn something from it. Maybe.

Overview

• In 2017, I had 333 orgasms. (My Sir wanted me to hit this number because he found the repeating digits satisfying. Smart man.) That works out to an average of 27.75 per month, 6.4 per week, and 0.91 per day.

• 23.1% of my orgasms (77) happened during partnered sex; the remaining 76.9% were the result of masturbation (256).

• I had partnered sex 82 times in 2017. That’s an average of 6.83 times per month, 1.58 per week, and 0.22 per day.

Compared to Last Year…

• I had 64% more sex.

• I had 148% more orgasms from partnered sex.

• I had 8% more partners.

Partners

• I had a total of 13 partners this year, 3 of which were romantic partners, 3 of which were ongoing casual bang-buddies, and 5 of which were short-term hook-ups. (The other 2 were a pair of people who gave me an erotic massage, and I’m not entirely sure whether to count them!)

• 12 of my partners this year (92.3%) were new additions to my life this year, bringing my total lifetime partners thus far up to 29 (that’s a 70.6% increase from this time last year).

• The partners who made me come the most were, predictably, romantic partners and longer-term FWBs. My sex life benefits greatly from having partners who know my body and make me feel comfortable.

• My partners this year were, on average, 5.6 years older than me, with my favorites tending to be 8–11 years older than me. The youngest person I banged was 24 and the oldest was 36.

• 76.9% of my partners were cis men, 15.4% were cis women, and 7.7% were nonbinary folks.

• The most common methods by which I met my sexual partners this year were OkCupid (3), Twitter (3), and Tinder (2). (The methods resulting in my highest-quality partners, if “amount of orgasms they gave me” is our only measure of quality, were Twitter and… meeting them at our mutual workplace. Whoops!)

Locations

• I had sex in a total of 14 different locations this year.

• The top 5 locations in which I most frequently had sex were my old bedroom at my parents’ place (26 times), my most serious 2017 boyfriend’s new apartment (19) and his old apartment (11), the Oasis Aqualounge sex club (9), and a long-distance beau’s Long Island home (4) – but I also notably had sex in a spooky Long Island City hotel, a fancy Marriott in downtown T.O., and an alley behind a restaurant in the Annex.

• The locations likeliest to result in orgasm for me were my own home (96.4%) and various hotels and apartments where I boned boyfriends and long-term bang-buddies (100%–300%) because those are places I felt comfortable and able to relax.

• The locations least likely to result in orgasm for me were Oasis (55.6%), the aforementioned alley, and the apartments of people I didn’t know well, because – hey, wouldja look at that! – it turns out I need to feel comfortable and relaxed someplace in order to reach orgasm there.

Highs and Lows

• My most sexually active month was May (24 times), because I was deep in New Relationship Energy with my first daddy dom and our mutually-unlocked perviness was off the charts.

• My least sexually active month was January (1 time), because I was trying to take a conscious break from dating/hookups at that time. I made a concession for a hotel sex-date with my long-term fuckbuddy because of course I did.

• I had the most orgasms in October (32) and the fewest in November (21). The whims of my libido are a mystery to me.

• The most orgasms I had in one day was 3, which happened on January 23rd, March 12th, March 31st, May 15th, July 21st, August 7th, August 24th, and October 1st. Whoops, I’m a horndog.

• The most orgasms I had in one partnered-sex session was 3, when me and a highly sexually skilled FWB holed up in a New York hotel room in January and fucked for several hours with excellent toys. Multiple orgasms are pretty rare for me but there were 9 other occasions throughout the year when someone managed to give me more than one in a session.

Correlations

• The partnered sexual acts most highly correlated with orgasm for me were receiving oral sex (22 times – all with the same person), a vibe on my clit + a partner’s fingers inside me (21), my own fingers on my clit + a partner’s fingers inside me (18), and my own fingers on my clit + a partner’s dick inside me (4).

• The factors likeliest to lead to me not coming were moderate-to-heavy alcohol consumption (it stunts sensitivity and, for me, often indicates I’m not comfortable), a location where I couldn’t relax, and a partner I didn’t know well enough (I have a ton of anxiety around “taking too long”!). Less of these in 2018, please.

• I notice that my most memorable encounters of the year tended to involve bondage (rope and under-the-bed restraints especially), good sex toys, extensive oral sex (giving and/or receiving), spanking, and PIV. This tells me power exchange and pain are pretty important to my enjoyment of sex (understatement of the year!) and in 2018 I should get even better at a) asking for what I want and b) bringing toys with me when I think I might be having sex.

• I noticed in years previous that sometimes my highly sexually active months would also be my highest-income months. That didn’t seem to hold true this year, with my horniest month (May) being my second-lowest income month, and my far-and-away most profitable month (November) being my least horny month. It’s almost like my brain can focus on making lots of money or having lots of sex but not both at once. Gulp.

Toys

• My most-used toys with partners were the We-Vibe Tango (19 times), S-Curve (6), and Magic Wand Rechargeable (5). Kink-wise, my Lexan paddle and Weal & Breech paddle both got a lot of love.

• My most-used vibrators overall were the We-Vibe Tango (93 times), Magic Wand Rechargeable (83), and Doxy Die Cast (30).

• My most-used dildos overall were the Standard Glass S-Curve (65 times), Fucking Sculptures Double Trouble (26), and Fucking Sculptures Corkscrew (14). Interesting that they’re all glass! I guess I know what I like.

• My most-used other toys were the Liberator Jaz (so useful!), Njoy Pure Plugs, and under-the-bed restraints.

Fantasy Fodder

• The sexual acts I most often fantasized about during masturbation were PIV (47 times), fingerbanging (42), and receiving oral sex (38). Preeetty predictable.

• The dirty-talk phrases I most often fantasized about were variations on “come all over my cock” (we discuss the whys of this in a recent Dildorks episode), being called a “little girl” or a “good girl,” “I’m not gonna stop until you come,” and thinking of partners as “Daddy.” (No surprise there.)

• The types of porn I most commonly jerked off to were blowjob porn (51 times), specifically Heather Harmon blowjob porn (25), cunnilingus porn (28), and PIV porn (16). I favored a lot of amateur stuff this year. Gloryholes and forced/”involuntary” orgasms were also big themes.

• The real-life people I fantasized about most often were people I’d been in love with or could see myself falling in love with, and local theatre actors. Whoops.

 

I hope you have an amazing New Year’s Eve and an even more amazing 2018, babes! Are you going to track your sex life in a nerdy way next year comme moi? Let me know in the comments!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 1 Fantastic Toy Company

Kate Sloan

“Wow, you really like We-Vibe, huh?” my boss asked me shortly after I started a stint working sex toy retail earlier this year.

I looked at her blankly. Of course I like We-Vibe. We-Vibe makes high-quality, body-safe vibrators with strong, rumbly motors and some of the best-honed technology on the market. What’s not to like?

Choosing a company to profile in this year-end feature has sometimes been tricky for me (previously: Fucking Sculptures, Aslan Leather), but this year it was so, so easy, because I use We-Vibe’s products more than those by almost any other company. They fit into my sex life seamlessly, whether I’m alone or with a partner. They just… do what they’re supposed to do.

The We-Vibe Tango remains the real MVP of my toybag. I own two of them now, and frequently exhaust their batteries from jerking off with them several times a week. In fact, the Tango was far-and-away my most-used vibrator of the year, facilitating a whopping 93 of the 333 orgasms I had this year (that’s 27.9% – more than any partner I had this year, certainly!). It just works well. The vibrations are rumbly and powerful, the shape jives with my clitoral preferences, and I know I’ll reliably have an orgasm with this toy. It’s also magnificent for sliding between bodies during partnered sex, whether a partner is fucking me, fingerbanging me, or using other toys on me.

I also keep a We-Vibe Touch at my parents’ house for my use when I sleep over there, and it serves me well. The shape isn’t my favorite but with dat motor, it doesn’t really matter.

Speaking of motors, We-Vibe’s made one of the only existing couples’ vibes with an actually good one: the We-Vibe Sync. This is my #1 recommendation for people looking for a couples’ vibe or a toy that can be controlled long-distance. With their We-Connect app and Bluetooth connectivity, We-Vibe has perfected this functionality in a way other companies have failed to. The toy stays connected, does what it’s supposed to do, and is controlled via an intuitive and exciting mobile interface. As someone who’s had multiple long-distance beaux this year, this toy has been an important one for me!

Some other favorites of mine from the We-Vibe catalogue: the rumbly and usefully-shaped Gala, the G-spot-targeting Rave, and the dually-stimulating Nova. To be fair, they also released a few toys this year I’m not as fond of – like the Wish, with its finicky motors, and the uncomfortably-shaped Ditto – but, for the most part, they are always pushing themselves to make better products, and seem to take customer feedback into account. When a new We-Vibe product comes out, even if I’m skeptical, I’m always at least curious.

I knew my We-Vibe love had become part of my brand when, the other night, after some thoroughly unraveling phone sex, a long-distance beau asked me, “What vibe were you using? The Tango?”

“Yep. I love it,” I said. “I have two.”

“Alright,” he countered. “No need to brag.”