Review: BMS Factory Swan Wand

Kate Sloan

Here’s a fact about the BMS Factory Swan Wand: I once knew a super-hot sex toy salesperson who told me the Swan Wand was his favorite toy.

This piqued my interest on two levels. Firstly, when someone whose literal job it is to know about sex toys tells you their favorite toy – and indeed, he was hyper-knowledgeable about toys, moreso even than me – they probably know what they’re talking about. And secondly, when a hot person tells you about a sex toy they love, it’s hard not to imagine them using it. On themselves. On other people. On you. Whatever.

I didn’t own a Swan Wand at the time. But he kept telling me to buy it. And his very endorsement made me want to do what he said. (It certainly helped that he was pretty dommy, too.)

Here’s another fact about the Swan Wand: I once mistook it for a motor vehicle.

I had the vibe with me when I got on a streetcar one night, and must have bumped it through the side of my bag as I sat down. It jolted to life but I 100% assumed it was the streetcar’s thrumming motor I felt against my elbow. I had earbuds in, so I couldn’t hear the wand clattering against the other contents of my purse. It took me over ten minutes to realize what had happened. The Swan Wand’s vibrations are that strong and rumbly. (I cringe to imagine what the other streetcar-riders around me thought was going on in my bag.)

Though this vibe has the word “wand” in its name and often appears in the “wand vibes” section on sex toy websites, it’s not really a wand in the traditional sense; it’s more of a super-powered G-spot vibe. I can take the smaller (1.5″ diameter) end in my vag comfortably with a good water-based lube, though I wish it was a little more tapered to allow for easier insertion without warm-up. The larger end, by contrast, has a 2.5″ diameter – so, while some people could insert it, I have not attempted it and tend to use that end more like I’d use an actual wand vibe: for broad, general stimulation over my whole vulva.

Each end of the Swan Wand has its own motor, and they feel quite different from each other – so cool! While both motors are remarkably strong and rumbly, the one on the larger end is rumblier: I can feel it physically thrumming against me like a jaguar that’s swallowed a jackhammer. However, despite this, I still use the smaller end far more often, because my clit prefers its pinpointed shape.

The Swan Wand is rechargeable (with a surprisingly long-lasting charge for a dual-motor toy), fully waterproof, and has a convenient travel lock (which I foolishly forgot to turn on before the vibe clattered to life in my bag that day on the streetcar, natch). There’s a lot to love about it. But I have a couple issues with it that make it unlikely to become a go-to for me.

First: the controls. The Swan Wand has two buttons – one to control each motor – and they both work the same way: you press once to turn the motor on, press additional times to scroll through the toy’s 7 vibration functions, or press and hold to increase the vibration speed. The toy’s LED light flashes gradually faster as the vibration speed increases, and then turns solid once you’ve reached the max speed. At any point while on a higher speed, you can press the button again to bring the vibe back down to the speed you started at – a useful function for people like me who get overstimulated easily and need to dial things back multiple times in a session.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to get used to this controls scheme. I keep accidentally hitting the button instead of holding it down, so I’ll flip to a different vibration pattern at the key moment when I needed to boost the speed. Additionally, I find it hard to get to the exact speed I’m looking for, because the press-and-hold system is imprecise if you have a somewhat slow reaction time like me. I would much prefer a simple “this button increases the speed, this one decreases it” interface.

Turning the vibrator off entails pressing both its buttons at the same time – a not-entirely-intuitive move for many. (God, I can’t even tell you how many times I had to help a blushing customer shut off our demo Swan Wand at the sex shop where I used to work.)

My other major issue with the Swan Wand is that the intense vibrations travel throughout the toy’s entire body, so you feel them in your hand the whole time you’re using the toy. This isn’t as annoying as it would be if the vibe was buzzier and more numbing, but it’s still pretty annoying, and often puts me off of using this toy when I would otherwise like to.

That said, you’re probably not gonna find a stronger G-spot vibe than this one. I find it stronger and rumblier than some of the industry’s other major contenders, like the Lelo second-generation G-spot vibes, We-Vibe insertables, and Fun Factory G4 and G5 vibes. G-spots typically respond best to deep vibrations such as these, rather than more surface-level ones – so if you already know you like vibration on your G-spot and want to kick it up a notch, the Swan Wand would be a great investment.

But I use vibrators externally almost exclusively, and this one is a bit too hand-numbing and unintuitive to operate, so I’ll probably only reach for it when I need a lot of power without much finesse.

 

Thank you to Adam & Eve for providing this toy for me to review, and for sponsoring this post! The discount code “GIRLY” will get you 50% off almost any one item on their site – including this vibrator, if you choose to buy it – as well as free shipping on your entire order in the U.S. and Canada. 

The Unbearable Bliss of the Trifuckta

Kate Sloan

Author’s note: I wrote this a while ago, so the relationships here described are no longer current – but I still love this piece and wanted you to read it!

 

The word first popped into my head two summers ago. Trifuckta. A trio of people you are banging on the regular. Of course.

It was a goofy portmanteau, sure. But it was also something I desperately wanted. At the time, I didn’t even have one steady partner, let alone three – but I felt the deep desire buzzing in my bones. Yes. That.

It would be another year before I materialized a trifuckta of my very own. It fell together quickly, almost magically: a first few dates with a handsome nerd from Twitter, a tentative flirtation with a lawyer I’d met at a party, and a reunion with my on-and-off fuckbuddy – and suddenly, I found myself seeing three men in regular rotation, all of them aware of each other and A-OK with their role in my life. Every day was blissful. My heart felt full.

What I loved most about this arrangement was that each partner brought out different sides of me. This had long been a perceived benefit of #PolyLyfe for me, and I was elated to discover it was as lovely as I’d anticipated. I gave them code names – “Almost-Boyfriend,” “Lawyer Beau,” and simply “FWB” – and talked about them gleefully on Twitter (with their consent). Almost-Boyfriend treated me with tender revere, got me high in his roomy apartment, let me cuddle his cat while we talked about sci-fi and politics, and fucked me languidly in his cozy bed. Lawyer Beau took me out on drinks-dates and peered seriously at me from across the table while we discussed feminism and morality. And FWB, as always, regularly made me laugh so hard I cried and made me come so hard I entered the astral plane. It was a beautiful few weeks.

Unfortunately, it all dissolved as quickly as it had begun. In the course of one week, my entire trifuckta imploded. First, there was the bitter break-up with Almost-Boyfriend, both of us crying numbly over the phone. Then there was the revelation that Lawyer Beau had been lying to me about his poly status and was actually committed monogamously to someone else. And then – the kicker – there was the tearful conversation with my FWB after a party, where I admitted I was in love with him, he admitted he knew, and we decided to take some time off bangin’ each other. To say the least, I was crushed.

The way I remember it, I barely got out of bed for days. Hygiene and nutrition fell by the wayside. Nothing seemed worth doing anymore. Because I had lost these three men who had been so important to me, and I had also lost the parts of myself they each brought to the surface.

Now it’s many months later, and I’m thinking about this episode again, because another trifuckta is materializing in my life. It is rising from the ashes of my old trio, tentative and slow. There’s the salt-and-pepper good-natured dork I sometimes bang at a sex club and make out with in a swimming pool, the buff perv who fucks the coherence out of me late at night, and the articulate cutie who kisses me with a thoughtful slowness and makes me laugh during post-coital cuddles.

Once again, I’m struck by how they each bring out different sides of my personality. A sardonic wit, a happy-go-lucky sass, an erudite poise. But I’m also struck by how these sides aren’t that different. I feel more unified with this particular trifuckta than I did with my last one. Maybe that means I’m growing up, consolidating, gaining confidence in my whole self. That’s an important lesson too.

None of these people are romantically committed to me, nor would I necessarily want them to be. I declared on Twitter recently that I was having good compersion feelz about these relationships – enjoying the way these men congratulate me on my good dates with other dudes, or cheer me on when I get fucked well by someone else – but that this was a preview of the poly life I hope to lead someday, rather than a poly life in and of itself. “It sounds like you’re already poly,” some followers pointed out. But while it’s true that I’m non-monogamous, and that polyamory may be my romantic orientation rather than just my chosen relationship style, these connections are missing the “-amory” part of the equation. I’m fond of these men, but we’re just bangin’. I’m holding out hope for a future trifuckta that’s laced with romance, too – love, commitment, and intimacy that lasts beyond the bounds of our sexual encounters.

I’m even more aware than usual, lately, that what I’m looking for now is a romantic, primary-partnership type of thing. And there is a part of me that thinks the universe would deliver this to me more quickly if I cut off all my other sexual entanglements. “You must make room for what you want to attract before it can show up,” as some of my spiritual mentors have advised.

But another part of me believes I deserve good sex while I’m waiting for my Actual Goddamn Prince(s) Charming to drift on over. I deserve sweet slow kisses, late-night laughs, and some semblance of intimacy. I deserve a precious preview of the poly life I hope to cultivate. I deserve my trifuckta.

It may not be perfect, or exactly what I want, but few things in life ever are. So for now, I’m happy, and cozy, and nearly satisfied.

Monthly Faves: Vibrations, Vibrato, & Varvatos

Kate Sloan

Woof. I had a lot of sex this month. Like, a lot. I have a new partner and he is an insatiable perv comme moi, so, y’know, lots and lots of fucking. I hope this trend continues all summer, because frankly, my vagina deserves it. Here are some of the things I enjoyed most in May…

Sex toys

• Full review coming soon: I am loooving my new-ish Swan Wand. Two rumbly motors in an ergonomically-shaped, hot pink beauty of a toy. Très bien!

• Like I told you on Monday, I’m really digging my Sportsheets under-the-bed restraints lately. Nothin’ quite like getting securely immobilized during sex at a moment’s notice. *swoon*

• My boyf rescued an old telephone table and we repurposed it as a spanking bench, obviously. I love the resourcefulness of kinksters.

Fantasy fodder

• Here’s some exciting news: it’s been almost two years since I first realized Daddy Dom/little girl dynamics turn me on, and now I’m dating someone who is into that dynamic too, and I am FEELING SOME WAYS about it. Let’s just say that the “fantasy fodder” column of my orgasm spreadsheet is even more rife with instances of “princess” and “little one” and “good girl” than usual lately.

• In exploring kink stuff with my new boyf, I’ve noticed that a lot of the kink activities I previously thought I didn’t like, I actually just didn’t like with previous partners. Many of the doms I’ve banged before have turned out to be assholes – or, in some cases, abusive assholes – which obviously colored my perception of the things we did together. With my new darlin’, there are some things I’ve always thought I’d hate forever, like being choked, facefucked, and slapped across the face, that actually feel fine (and even hot) because I’m doing them with someone I care about and trust. Kink is fascinating!

• As I’ve told you before, getting fisted is one of my major sexual goals. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted my First Fister to be a dominant person I feel emotionally connected to, who ideally has small hands, and I finally feel like that person has actually come along. This month, me and my beau went for coffee with my friend Taylor to talk fisting logistics (lofistics?!) since Taylor is a fisting expert of sorts. We learned a lot, and now I can’t stop thinking about my bossy boyfriend wearing a black nitrile glove, three knuckles deep inside me, telling me sternly to take a little more for him…

Sexcetera

• Some of my work elsewhere this month: I tried the teddy bear vibrator for Glamour (spoiler alert: I did not like it). I detailed the best and worst parts of being a sex toy reviewer for Daily Xtra. I wrote about realistic dildos, friendships with benefits, and iconic sex toys for Ignite, and powerful vibrators for Peepshow. I had some feelings about my favorite boy band and how they relate to pleasure under patriarchy. On our podcast, Bex and I discussed the porn festival, aftercare, sexual astrology, and kissing, and we interviewed my mom.

• In May, I had 25 orgasms, an uncommonly high (for me) 64% of which were from a partner, with the other 36% being from masturbation. I wasn’t too keen on solo sex this month, in part because I’m so hyped on my new partner and in part because I’ve been intermittently depressed and have therefore lacked the libido and motivation to masturbate as often as I otherwise might.

Femme stuff

• I had so much sex this month that I didn’t spend much time wearing clothes, honestly. But MeUndies are still doin’ me right. They make a real good backdrop for spanking bruises.

• Gawd, I love Yo Sox. They have a brick-and-mortar shop here in Toronto the very sight of which fills me with glee. Ever wanted to adorn your feet with unicorns, hearts, or whales? I certainly fucking have. And now I can. Eee!

• I’ve been catching up on The Dry Down and, as always, it’s making me want to buy/try new perfume samples. Right now I’m really into dark, smoky, “masculine” scents with notes like sandalwood, balsam, and rum. (État Libre d’Orange’s “True Lust” and John Varvatos’ self-titled fragrance are two current faves.) I also like layering leather cologne over whatever I wear, for an extra kinky kick.

Little things

Nathan Stocker’s vibrato fingers and rock-star hair. The way my beau always smells like sandalwood and the scent lingers on my bed/hair/skin after he leaves. Taking friends lube-shopping. Being productivity-dommed. Cuddling with a chill-as-fuck cat. “Apparently I’m a genius!” Sunny park hangz with my darling. Talking about fisting while sipping mint tea in a crowded café. Snapbacks as a way of accessing my tomboy side. That time a barista gave me a spanking so thorough that he bruised his hand and told me he would think of me every time he tamped a shot of espresso until the bruise healed (hnnng). Receiving a “Still thinking about that BJ” text the morning after a hookup. Playing Scrabble with people who are better than me at Scrabble. Honey liqueur. Nutella donuts. Vegan mac and cheese. Tinder boys with good winks. “Dad Squad” jokes at the Victoria Day fireworks with Max. A punny dinner with porn pals. Vanilla cold brew. Good editors.

Review: Sportsheets Under-the-Bed Restraints

Kate Sloan

I am kinky, and I’m lazy.

These qualities do not conflict as often as you might think. I’m a submissive and a bottom, so as much as I love BJs and facesitting, a lot of what I do in bed basically amounts to “lie back and receive sensation.” My boyfriend is a sadistic, toppy, domly dom, so we’re a good match in that way.

But kink, in general, is not always compatible with laziness. There’s often preparation involved. You have to keep your rope detangled, your leathers shiny, your toys sanitized. This type of ritual is part of the fun for many people. But me? I’m lazy. And impatient. If setup’s gonna take more than a few minutes, I’ll probably pass.

That, my friends, is the #1 reason I adore my Sportsheets Under-the-Bed Restraint System. It takes the prep time out of bondage. Your cuffs are ready to go – literally attached to your bed – at all times. It’s fucking genius.

I first discovered these restraints when a Tinder hookup of mine cuffed me into his after a cute drinks date. What followed was probably the best one-night stand I’ve ever had – I normally hate them, but this one was a gem in the dumpster fire that is Tinder. I experienced a triple whammy of uncommonalities for me: I had an orgasm, during a first hookup, during PIV sex, without using a vibrator. Reason being: he was dominant and toppy in all the ways that turn me on the most, and I was strapped to his bed, helpless and immobile and fucking soaking wet. The dude was hot and dommy and fun, and so were those restraints. Unf.

So obviously, when Adam & Eve asked if I’d like to review something for them, these restraints topped my list.

Here’s how they work. Four cuffs (two for wrists, two for ankles) are attached to long straps that you can slide under your mattress. I am neither strong nor handy and I managed to do this myself, without injuring myself or breaking my bed (hurrah). They are then held in place by the weight of the mattress and whoever’s on top of it, so you can struggle pretty hard against them and still feel hopelessly trapped, you lucky, lucky thing.

The straps are highly adjustable, so they fit just fine on my diminutive double-size bed and supposedly on any size bed (though, if you’re tiny like my friend Sarah, the straps might not reach your limbs on a large bed). The first time my boyfriend smirked at me darkly while tightening the straps attached to my wrists, I may have blushed, giggled, and gotten ridiculously wet all at the same time…

The cuffs that come with this set are cheap black nylon ones that fasten with Velcro. They’re fine, especially for kink novices who don’t intend to struggle much, but I replaced my wrist cuffs with ones from Aslan Leather because I find them more visually appealing and also more comfortable for scenes where I’ll be moving around a lot. The single strip of Velcro on the original cuffs can dig into the skin and become irritating if you pull against them hard.

Additionally, the clips to which the cuffs attach cannot be detached from the under-the-bed straps, so if you want to replace the Velcro cuffs with better ones, you’ll need some kind of clip or connector to link the two together. I picked up some purple metal carabiners at a hardware store for about $2 apiece, and those work fine. Would’ve been nice to not have to buy anything extra, though.

The one plus side to keeping the original Velcro cuffs is that they’re super quick to remove, if need be. If someone starts to have a panic attack or a medical emergency and needs to be out of bondage immediately, Velcro’s gonna be the better choice than a leather cuff that takes multiple steps to undo.

That said, once I get a nice pair of leather ankle cuffs with which to replace the other two Velcro ones still strapped to my bed, I’ll be 100% thrilled with this restraint system. It makes bondage soooo easy and quick, eliminating the barrier of laziness that often kept me from doing kink stuff because it felt like “too much work.” Plus there is something so badass about having bondage devices strapped to your bed at all times. That shit makes me feel like the committed lifestyle kinkster I aspire to be, or maybe already am.

 

Thanks to Adam & Eve for supplying me with this product to review, and sponsoring this post! The discount code “GIRLY” will get you 50% off almost any one item – including this restraint system, if you choose to buy it – as well as free shipping on your entire order in the U.S. and Canada. Rad!

Are You My Daddy?

Kate Sloan

“If we have sex – not necessarily tonight, or ever, but if we do – what should I know about you to make sure you have a good time?”

He’s asking me this question in the fluorescently-lit, 24-hour McDonald’s near Comedy Bar, and somehow that doesn’t make it any less romantic.

“Hmm,” I begin, gnawing on a French fry. “I like toys. I like being spanked. I have a burgeoning Daddy Dom/little girl kink. Everything else, I think you’ll figure out on your own.”

He nods solemnly, taking this in. He has a mind like a computer, and he’s just created a folder entitled “How to Make Kate Come.” I see it in his thoughtful, analytic eyes. McDonald’s is heated on this chilly March night, but a shiver goes through me nonetheless.

Later, he’ll be three knuckles deep inside me, fingertips cresting along the spot that makes me come. “That’s your sweet spot, huh, babygirl?” he intones. “You’re getting so wet for Daddy…” And, yeah, that does the fucking trick. Stars explode behind my eyes and I lose sight of the world for a few moments, lost in my littleness.

But post-orgasmic doubt sets in, as it is wont to do. “I’m pretty good at knowing what people want to hear,” he tells me when I compliment his dirty-talk prowess, and poof: there goes my boner. He can’t be my Daddy if he’s only stepping into the role for my benefit. It’s like dancing with someone who’s too cool to really get into it, and keeps pulling “ironic” faces and making fun of the music. You can’t relax into goofy wild weirdness around someone who’s there reminding you how weird it all is, however implicitly. You need them to get lost in the weirdness with you, so you can get out of your head and just be deliciously in your body together.

He didn’t want to dance with me. He kept mocking the music. He kept telling me “what I wanted to hear.” He was not my Daddy.

Wading into poly for the first time, I quickly discovered: it’s smart to talk to your partners’ partners, if they’re cool with that. You learn so much.

“He’s super GGG and so kink-minded,” my metamour said, moonily. “Some guys get so weirded out when you ask them to hit you or choke you, but he always does it when I want him to.” I could practically see the hearts in her eyes. As sweet as she was on this dude, I wasn’t quite sold on him. Something felt… off.

I mentioned my DD/lg feelings mid-sext one day, and then all the right keywords started popping up in his dirty-talk, like a social media algorithm that knows what you’ve shopped for online and reminds you of your history every day thereafter. “Does my little girl need a spanking?” he queried coolly from across the couch when I was depressed one afternoon.

I nodded, but his comment activated a sad sensation I knew well: performative kink. It is categorically different from actual kink. It’s the difference between “Yeah, sure, I’ll play a submissive role for you, I guess,” and “You are utterly in control of me.” Just as you can’t choose whether you’ll fall in love with someone, you can’t choose whether you’ll feel subby to someone – and I felt neither of those things toward this boy. But I could pretend. And I did.

His filthy monologues, at least, were on-point. Midway through our second fuck of the day, he murmured to me in his darkened bedroom, “I want you to come all over Daddy’s cock like you did earlier.” My vagina responded readily, but it was almost perfunctory: yeah, you said The Thing, so I guess I’ll do The Thing. But it wasn’t quite what I had imagined that Thing would feel like. A hollowness followed that dutiful orgasm: I was someone’s little girl, surely, but not his. He was not my Daddy.

My new beau texts me from a party. A couple in his sightline has what he perceives as an overt DD/lg dynamic, and he is, as he puts it, “having some FEELINGS.”

I text back: “Like, ‘wanting me to call you Daddy’ feelings? ‘Cause, like, same.”

We’ve only talked about this in generalities so far, but his reply tells me everything I need to know. “Fuck. Yes.”

I have no idea what I’m doing. I type a sentence which feels like it should live only within the hazy universe of sexting, and can’t possibly bleed into real life – and yet, here I am, saying it to a real-life partner, albeit in a text. “Excited to come fuck your little girl this weekend?”

There is barely a pause before his response comes back: “Yes, little one, Daddy is very excited to fuck you this weekend.”

The weekend comes. We are hyper-communicative kink nerds, thank god, and lie in bed talking about our Feelings before we delve into sex. “I liked it when we were texting, but I don’t know if I’ll like it in real life,” he carefully confesses. Noticing the confusion on my face, he clarifies: “You know… That word I can’t say.”

I laugh, because I don’t think I can say it either. It feels silly, saccharine, embarrassing, vulnerable. It feels like admitting to something I am absolutely not supposed to want, even though we’ve both admitted we want it, and we both know better than to kink-shame. It’s all well and good to believe other people have a right to their safe and consensual kinks, whatever those may be; it is another thing entirely to accept that you have a right to like what you like. That you are not broken or weird or sick for wanting the things you urgently want.

He kisses me, and it’s like this word we cannot say is silently fuelling our lust; it’s the whirr in my ears, the rat-tat of my heart. I say it a thousand different ways in my mind. I beam it at him while he claws at my skin, spanks my ass red, beats me with a cane. The word resides in my grimaces and in his smirks. It’s an unspoken parenthetical in every sentence we spit.

He lifts his head from where it ended up, between my thighs, and says with the steady calm that turns me to mush: “I’m going to make you come now.” And then he slides two fingers deep inside me, and hands me my Tango, and does what he has promised.

The sounds in the room, as I’m coming down from my orgasm, are a mellow chorus of mewls and whimpers and “Mm-hmm, that’s right” and “You are such a good girl.” I scrunch my fists in the sheets to gather my strength and my resolve, and then I look down at him and say, “Come here. I want to tell you something.”

As he crawls up my body, I wonder if he thinks I’m going to say “I love you.” It’s way too early for that. And also, what I’m about to say feels even bigger, trickier, riskier.

I pull him toward me and purr in his ear, “Daddy, you made your little girl come so hard.”

I feel his cock stiffen and stir against my leg, and he groans like it’s involuntary. Like I pulled the sound from deep within his body. “You want Daddy to fuck you now?” he asks, soft, so soft. I hear how hard he works to push the word past his lips, to force it out while his self-shaming superego tries to tamp it down. I moan my approval like watering a plant I hope will grow strong. And then he fucks me until I am even less than a little girl: a puddle, a cloud, a sweetly sighing mirage.

He strokes my hair in the afterglow, and comments thoughtfully: “I think what freaks me out about that word is how much I like it.”

I laugh. Yup. That. “I know what you mean. It’s like, ‘You can’t say that! That’s The Thing!'” The Thing that catches my breath and halts my words. The Thing that darkens my panties with want. The Thing that flips some secret switch in my brain from “off” to “on.” You know. The Thing.

He smiles, and pulls me tighter against him. “You are such a sweet little girl,” he breathes contentedly, and I know that he is right – and that he is my Daddy.