Femme Resolutions For Age 25

Kate Sloan

I turn 25 tomorrow! Aaahh!

Birthdays, much like New Year’s Eve or the start of a new school year, always feel to me like a time of renewal and overhaul. I often make lists of goals and intentions for the coming year when one of these milestones rolls around, and this time is no different.

However, a lot of the intentions that came to mind for me around this birthday have been fashion- or beauty-related. It makes sense: I’m noticing lately, even more than usual, how massively my presentation can affect my mood and demeanor. So I’m setting myself the following style objectives for the year to come – all in the service of feeling good moreso even than looking good.

Fuck pants forever. Look. You wear pants if you want to. I’m sure they look great on you. But I just don’t think I can do it anymore.

Oh, I own a couple pairs of jeans, for those once-in-a-blue-moon spells where I want to dress like Shane from The L Word or a male British underwear model on his day off. And I certainly own plenty of leggings, which I layer over and lounge in. But by and large, I am a skirts-and-dresses girl, and pants can fuck right off.

I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve sacrificed questing for the pair of pants that would change my mind on this matter. The closest I’ve ever come were some vintage skinny black slacks that made me feel like a chic German schoolboy, or some near-perfect skinny jeans from my local thrift shop. But pants never quite feel like me. They always feel like I’m playing a character. I find them uncomfortable both physically and mentally.

So this year, I will not shop for pants. I will not try to figure out how to shoehorn pants into my style. I will not wear pants, except on days when the notion of doing so actually excites me (a rare thing). I will rock my skirts and my dresses and I will not try to be somefemme I am not.

Big hair, don’t care. Now, admittedly, my hair is not “big” by everyone’s standards. Bigness of hair is a spectrum! But in recent years, I have mastered the art of making my hair as wide and wild as it can get. My routine involves curl-enhancing conditioners, DevaCurl gel, vigorous scrunching, and a Turbie Twist microfibre towel. When I do it right, it results in a fucking lioness mane.

I’ve noticed that big hair gives me confidence like almost nothing else. It doesn’t eliminate my social anxiety, but it overshadows it a little. Tossing my curls around feels flirty and babely in a movie-star kind of way, and I want more of it. So I resolve to wear my hair big and curly as much as possible this year!

Shiny boots, shiny heart. Black leather boots are a signature part of my look; I wear them almost every day. The ones in heaviest rotation over the past couple years are my Frye harness boots, Frye engineer boots, and L.L. Bean winter boots. They make my heart sing, the way their severe stompiness balances out my airy-fairy femme ensembles.

But keeping leather boots looking good requires care and upkeep. They need to be regularly cleaned, conditioned, waterproofed, and shined. With proper maintenance, a good pair of leather boots can last for decades – and I intend for that to be the fate of mine!

Every couple months, I give my precious boots a thorough cleaning with saddle soap, and then shine ’em up with mink oil. I also just got my harness boots resoled because four years of wear had ground the soles flat. They are looking so lovely, and I will keep ’em that way!

Lipstick love. Gahhhd, I feel so foxy in lipstick. Hot pink. Bright red. Deep cranberry. Intense violet. Whatever. I want it on my face.

But despite my love for lipstick, I often skip it, because I worry it’ll draw too much attention to me, or it just seems like too much work. So for the coming year, I want to make an effort to wear it more often. Like so many other things on this list, lipstick makes me feel better about myself – but only when I make it a priority in my getting-ready routine.

It helps a lot to wear formulas I know are gonna stick around with minimal reapplication necessary. Some current faves in that category: Giorgio Armani Rouge d’Armani, Maybelline mattes, and anything by Bite.

One new tattoo. I’ve had a couple tattoo ideas floating around in my brain for months now, and I wanna get ’em done. It’s just a matter of deciding to go ahead with it, sending some reference materials to an artist, and booking a consultation appointment. Aaahh, the very thought is giving me joyful heart palpitations!

I think I want to go back to Laura Blaney, who did my “good girl” bows. She made me feel super comfortable, and her work is stunning. I have a feeling she’ll be able to give me exactly what I want.

Do you have any fashion-and-beauty goals or intentions currently?

Submissive ‘n’ Stoned: Reflections on Weed & Kink

Kate Sloan

Marijuana is magic. I have known this for quite some time, and then a summer romance drives the point home for me.

But I’m not fully committed to this boy, emotionally; my mind is elsewhere, and that’s reflected in the way I talk about him. Tweeting on my way to see him one afternoon in July, I call him my “pothead fuckpal.” He’s normally thrilled when I tweet about him, but this time, he’s irate. I think it’s “fuckpal” he objects to moreso than “pothead.” Because, while it’s irredeemably true he is a pothead, he wants to be more than just my fuckpal. I’m not sure I can give him that, and we’re not talking about it yet.

But I am a bad girl who writes bad things on Twitter, so I deserve a punishment.

We smoke up when I arrive at his house, like we always do – me from my little glass pipe and him from his enormous DIY bong. He’s smoked for years longer than I have, and has years’ more sexual experience under his belt, so I guess he knows what sweet havoc weed can wreak. I always get way too high at his place, nervously smoking more than I should because I’m uncomfortable and don’t know what else to do with my hands. I sit there glued to the couch, and he begins to touch my thighs.

Weed makes every touch significant, every movement a story. He traces circles and lines on my skin and they spin off into wild visions, all radiating sensation back to my clit. My arousal builds slowly but steadily, like a ski-lift gliding up a mountain. He works his way toward my clit in maddening circles, and I want his touch there but it’s an unhurried want: we will get to that when we get to it, and that’s fine.

Stoned sex is a magnificent blur. Journaling about it in days that follow, I always have to tell the story in point form, free of narrative or coherence. So one moment he’s touching my clit, and the next I’m draped over his knee getting pummelled by a wooden hairbrush, and the next I’m kneeling between his legs with his cock down my throat. Oh, hello.

I love stoned blowjobs and submissive blowjobs for many of the same reasons: they absorb me, anxieties and all, in a way that sober vanilla sex rarely can; they free me from inhibitions and scripts so I can enjoy what my mouth is feeling instead of suffer what my mind is whispering; and they allow me to focus wholly on the task at hand (or… at mouth). I am a good girl, an orally talented girl, a very very high girl, and I love it.

I shouldn’t have called him my pothead fuckpal. I shouldn’t have agreed to date him when I knew I could never love him. But all those shouldn’ts don’t matter now because there is weed smog in my head and a cock in my mouth.

The first time I discovered weed makes pain feel near-orgasmic to me, I was doing yoga at a party, but I’m a perv so of course it didn’t take me long to figure out how to apply that to kink.

In September of last year, I had a near-weekly tradition. I would go to a boy friend’s house (a boy-space-friend, not a boyfriend, you understand), we would smoke weed, he would catch me up on his various Adventure Zone headcanons, and then he would spank me.

The weed served two purposes. First of all, it helped us two awkward anxious bunnies relax around each other. And secondly, it made his spankings feel like molten-hot fireworks exploding in my skin.

“Do you wanna go to my room?” he’d ask when we’d been chilling on the living-room couch for an hour or two, and that was code for: “Do you want me to beat your ass raw with a paperback novel?” Every time, I’d quirk a grin at him and say, “Yeah.” And we would go.

Though I’ve loved being spanked for years, it wasn’t until I met this boy that I thought I might be able to come from it. It always seemed nearly-mine, like an apple on a swaying branch beyond my grasp – but I could never quite get at it. The trying was fun, though.

What I loved most about our arrangement was that sex was never assumed, never a foregone conclusion. The spanking was the main course. The weed was the garnish. The good conversation was the appetizer. And when the meal was done, I could shimmy back into my skirt, say goodnight, and go home, wetness dripping down the inside of my thigh in a guilty ribbon. “Text me when you get home safe,” he’d tell me sternly at the door. He wasn’t my dom but he was a good snack to tide me over in between feasts. A good friend to have. A good warm hand on my ass.

Marijuana extends time in my brain. I can get lost in a moment of sensation and have no idea afterwards if it lasted eight seconds or forty minutes. This is all well and good if my partner is also high, or if they’re someone I know I can take my time with. Less so if I’m nervous.

“How long have you been doing that?” I ask you while you’re two knuckles deep inside me. “I have no sense of time right now. I need you to tell me if you want to stop.” Because I never want you to stop. I want your fingers pressing stripes into my most sensitive spots ad infinitum. I want to live in this hotel room with you and your devilish fingers forevermore. I want to come and come until I’m a husk of a human.

You sigh, with the careful, caring discontent of someone who sympathizes with my sexual anxieties but thinks they’re silly nonetheless. “You just lie back and relax. This is not strenuous for me. I’ll stop if I want to. Right now I just want you to feel good.”

Though our dynamic isn’t kinky, I hear this as a command. I lie back. I relax. And you must’ve said the magic words, because within minutes, I am coming, loud and unrestrained.

You slip your fingers out of me and let me catch my breath before suggesting a mid-sesh intermission to top up our intoxication levels. This entails sneakily smoking in the bathroom of this no-smoking hotel room, because we don’t have a balcony and fuck if we’re gonna throw clothes on and brave the current January windstorm in this state.

I stand in front of you in the yellowish fluorescent bathroom light, and we’re both poetically, unselfconsciously naked. I watch, rapt, as you grind some weed and load your one-hitter. You hand it to me along with your lighter, but I can’t get it lit, so you have to help me. I am a quivering little girl making doe eyes at you as you flick the sparkwheel and make a flame for me. I inhale deeply and feel so sexy, so safe.

The trick, you explain, is to exhale through a damp washcloth toward the exhaust vent in the ceiling; that way we’re least likely to set off the smoke alarm. You’ve pre-moistened a cloth for this purpose, and after watching me inhale, you grab it and lay it flat over my mouth, pressing the edges down tight. I breathe out and make a rusty stain on the white rag. “That was maybe the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done to me,” I joke.

I take another hit, and you wink at me – the big, broad, unexpected wink of someone who knows about my thing for winks – and I can’t laugh because my lungs are full of precious smoke. I grab the washcloth and push my breath through it, along with a rush of pent-up giggles. “Oh, you were trying not to laugh out the weed,” you realize. “I thought it seemed strange that you didn’t react to my winking. That never happens.” My whole body, my whole brain, wants to hug you and kiss you and suck your dick. C’mere, loverboy.

Minutes later, in our big hotel bed, I’m on my back with my legs spread wide and you’re sitting cross-legged between them, like my vulva is a movie you’ve been dying to see. You slide the S-Curve into me while I snuggle my Tango up against my clit. Despite having come twice already today and being, traditionally, a one-and-done kind of girl (a one-hitter, you might say!), I feel an orgasm building almost immediately. Be it the comfortable environment, the familiar partner, the excellent toys, or the weed, I don’t know. And I don’t really care to analyze it.

You push the toy’s rounded glass tip against my A-spot hard and I fall apart completely, an orgasm bursting through me and extinguishing all thoughts. The combo of climactic incoherence and marijuana incoherence is a funny one. I want you to keep fucking me, harder and faster, all the way through my orgasm, but instead I’m just shouting, “Aaaahhh, I want, I want,” and “M-m-please-m-m-moooore.”

You indeed keep fucking me, but also, you bark, “English!” The frustration in your tone seems to extend my orgasm, to stretch it out like taffy. But this command also jolts me just enough that I can collect my wits. “Harder, please,” I clarify, in perfect English, and you give me what I want.

Sometimes, when I’m in my head and struggling to come, you tell me to fantasize about whatever I want.

It’s a remarkably generous offer. Most people want you to focus on them, and them alone, while they’re fucking you. They want your eyes open and affixed on theirs. They want to do you so right, they blow your other thoughts away.

But this ignores, for many of us, how our sex-brains work. I can think you’re gorgeous and still need to picture someone else to get me over the edge. I can love what we’re doing, but get even more turned on when I think of us doing something else. I can adore you the way you are, but still envision a different version of you when I’m on the brink and I need something extra to get me there.

Tonight, in my bed, we are high, and you are fucking me, and I am close, and you say it. “You just relax and think about whatever you need to think about.” Your voice, as always, is steady and calm. And generous. So generous.

My mind moves in hazy kaleidoscopic shapes, searching for that one image or phrase that will get the job done. I see spirals of light, blinding sunsets, scenes from another dimension. But beyond all that, what I come back to is you. A different type of you, an alternate-reality version of you, but you, nonetheless.

“Be a good girl and come for me, princess,” the you of my fantasies mutters as you never will. And I come so hard, it clears the smoke from the rafters of my brain.

Diary of a Ghosted Girl

Kate Sloan

Sunday night. I am depressed. I have been depressed for a solid week, with no hypomanic reprieve. Shit is dire.

I have guzzled more wine than I ought to’ve, and smoked more weed than is probably reasonable. There are one or two crusted tears on my cheeks, but mostly I’m numb. Aching to feel something; aching to ache.

A new OkCupid message lands in my inbox, and I open it with the characteristic slowness of a person weighed down by depression. “Fuck. This profile was an intensely enjoyable read that had me grinning like a total idiot,” it reads. “I don’t even know where to start except HEY (for now).” Then he asks me something about toxic jelly dildos, which I mention in my profile. My ears perk up, and so do I, a little.

I flick through his profile – pictures, paragraphs, compatibility question responses – and it achieves the rare thing of making him seem more interesting rather than less. (Most men are atrocious at writing online-dating profiles.) I message him back.

Our conversation kicks into high gear almost immediately. Jokes. Stories. Questions. All-caps shouts of “ME TOO!” and sparks of recognition. He likes my puns. I care if he likes my puns. I talk about my work and he doesn’t take it as an invitation to ask invasive questions about my sex life, as so many OkSuitors before him have. I am absurdly, miraculously, hastily hooked.

He tells me his full name – “incase you’d like to move this over to Facebook/creep me for mutual friends/affirm I am in fact a real person and not an elaborate cat-fishing account” – and, to my shock, it’s almost exactly the name of a person I used to be in love with. Their first names are as close as Lee and Leo, and they have the same surname. Intellectually, I understand that this doesn’t mean anything. Emotionally, it seems to mean quite a lot. It feels like the universe is shining a spotlight on this boy and shouting in my ear: Notice this person. Pay attention. He could be important.

We move things over to text. We talk about sex in a way that is flirty but not explicit – my favorite, when I don’t know someone well yet. He’s such a good flirt that I’m screaming and cackling at my phone – indeed so good that a friend christens him “Mr. Goodflirtz” when I relay the key points of our conversation later.

I send him a picture of me. Not a nude – just a cute selfie, where I’m pleased with how I look, and I look like the kind of girl that a man like him might be interested in. “Fuck,” he writes back. “…Fuuuuck. I mean you are just so fucking good-looking.” More cackling at my phone. More blushing, sweating, and covering my eyes. My heart is thudding.

But it’s late, and I have to get some sleep – which I laughingly tell him even as he’s still blowing up my phone with compliments in little green text bubbles. “Yes yes sorry,” he writes. “Good night.”

I do a thing I have done too many times, and have promised myself not to do again: I get over-invested. I turn his name and face over in my mind. I lie awake thinking about the dress I’ll wear on our first date, and what we’ll do after he tugs it off of me. Eventually, somehow, I fall asleep – and dream about his pretty mouth all night.

On Monday morning I am pinged awake by my phone’s text tone. “That picture was the first thing I saw this morning as it was still open on my phone,” I blink sleep out of my eyes to read. This is followed by some gratuitous information about how his dick is reacting to said photo and what he is doing about it – information I find charming, not alarming, because at this point I feel like I know him. He is a wizard with words. His words alone have made me want to kiss his face, suck his dick, build some kind of future. It’s ridiculous.

“I’d gladly take any other pictures you’d like to share,” he adds – politely, I think. But I have a boundary around this, which I explain to him: I don’t like to sext with people before I meet them in person. It often makes me lose interest in them, or feel weird, so I tend to avoid it, especially if I suspect I might actually like the person. “Fair enough,” he writes back. “Let’s hang soon, then.”

“I am free tonight or Thursday,” I tell him, and he replies, “Thursday is probably best, but mayyybe tonight.” We talk logistics – locations, times – and lapse once again into giggly half-sexts laced with wordplay. I’m still barely awake; I tell him I’m going back to sleep, and I’ll be in touch later.

That afternoon, I send him a selfie of me looking put-upon and adorable. “This is my ‘You should have drinks with me tonight’ face,” I caption it.

No answer. I try to keep myself occupied with other diversions. Four hours pass. I complain to my best friend, stare at my phone for far too long, then decide to take a nap, hoping I’ll wake up to a text notification.

I wake up a few hours later. “I’m dying of anxiety,” I tell Bex. “Why hasn’t he texted me back?!” Bex, the greatest friend anyone could hope for, replies: “You don’t know much about him. Maybe work got out of hand, maybe he has food poisoning, maybe something came up with his family, maybe a friend just went through a breakup, maybe he was up all night last night and fell asleep, maybe he got hit by a bus, maybe he’s secretly a superhero and is fighting his arch nemesis, maybe he burned all of his fingers making tacos and can’t use a phone, maybe his phone broke and he’s at the store trying to get it fixed, maybe Pennywise lured him into the sewers with the promise of all the pussy he could eat, maybe he is volunteering at an animal shelter and got distracted by all the puppies, maybe he got lost in that weird circus store y’all have and has no phone service and is wondering if he’s going to starve and should start eating his own arm… I could keep going.” I laugh, but I’m still sick with anxiety.

“Or maybe he’s a dick who decided to ghost after 12 hours,” Bex continues, “in which case, you dodged a bullet, because you don’t want to hang out with him, because he’s a dick.”

I do want to hang out with him, is the thing.

My anxiety disorder has decided this is the most important thing in the world. I barely sleep, barely eat. I feel nauseous over the idea that not only does “Mr. Goodflirtz” not want me, but no one wants me, no one has ever wanted me, no one will want me ever again. I wonder if he was only ever looking for a sexting partner. I wonder if he Googled me and got scared off. I wonder if he was using fake pictures and fake information to solicit nudes from me. I wonder if he was an undercover creep from 4Chan or the Red Pill. I can’t stop wondering. My sleepless night is a whirlpool of uncontrollable wondering.

On Tuesday morning, I resolve that I will not text him.

On Tuesday afternoon, I text him. “Hey, would Thursday still be a good night to get drinks?” I hate myself immediately after pressing “send.”

By Tuesday night, he still hasn’t answered. I log onto OkCupid to stare longingly at our messages – and I see that he’s online. After fighting the urge to anxiety-puke, I fight the not-altogether-different urge to message him some variation of “Yo, what the fuck, bro?!” I have to physically close my computer and walk away from it to keep myself from doing this. It feels like the most difficult thing I’ve done in a very long time.

On Wednesday I go to a therapy appointment. I sniffle and sob while telling my endlessly compassionate therapist about this dumb boy and all the dumb feelings I’m feeling about him. It’s a double-whammy: I’m hurting because he disappeared, and because I’m embarrassed by how much this has hurt me. He didn’t owe me anything. I know that. And yet I can’t help feeling wronged. Dropped. Ghosted.

“You just lost your job, you’re still dealing with the fallout of unrequited love, and then this happened,” my therapist points out, reasonably. “You’ve been rejected a lot lately. Rejection hurts. But it’s not a reflection on you. It doesn’t mean you’re unloveable.”

Tears stream down my face. I know she’s right. But I don’t believe she’s right. They are two different things.

My phone’s been on Do Not Disturb mode for the duration of our appointment, like it always is – and as I walk out my therapist’s office door, I press the home button, blindly hoping. But nope. Still nothing. The ghost is still dead, and so, it seems, is my heart.

A fuckbuddy I was supposed to see on Wednesday night texts to say that he’s sick, and to ask if we can reschedule for next week. I know him well enough to know he isn’t lying, but my anxiety suspects he might be – because I distrust all men right now. If someone could be so enthusiastic about me and then disappear off the goddamn face of the earth, then everyone could be lying about everything. I ignore the anxious voices in my head and choose to accept that a request to reschedule is indeed a request to reschedule – not another rejection, perched upon my already precarious heap of recent rejections.

On Wednesday night, I spend hours in bed just numbly staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what I did wrong, what I can do differently going forward. I grab my phone and open Tinder. I know it’s bad. I know. It’s like an alcoholic trying to nix their “one last” hangover with “one last” hair of the dog.

But it makes me feel a bit better. I flirt with a few boys, until I find one I actually connect with on some level. We talk, and joke, and learn about each other, in the formulaic dance that early online-dating interactions all tend to follow. It’s not fiery with white-hot excitement like it was with Mr. Goodflirtz, but it’s something.

We schedule a date, and I go to sleep, dreaming of someone new.

I don’t think about my ghost much on Thursday. But late that evening, my phone’s text tone beeps, and my heart leaps into my throat. I claw the thing out of my purse at lightning speed.

“How are you feeling today?” a friend has texted to ask – and I’m so goddamn angry at myself for being disappointed.

Links & Hijinks: Tinder Troubles & Fisting Femmes

Kate Sloan

• I love this comic about how toxic masculinity fucks up your sex life. “Sex is not something you do to somebody, it’s something you do with somebody.” Amen!

• This article is about femme fisting covens and you don’t need any other reason why you should run-don’t-walk to read it.

• Apparently T-rexes may have engaged in foreplay. This article says that the T-rex was therefore “a sensitive lover,” but I don’t think prioritizing foreplay is necessarily something you do only for your partner’s sake: it makes sex better for you, too!

• After the above article came out, Tracy Moore wrote about how to fuck like a T-rex. Amazing.

• This article about bionic penises is fascinating. C. Brian Smith is one of my favorite sex journalists, and he shows why here: he went above and beyond reporting on the scientific/mechanical story of penis reconstruction and found, in addition, some conflict between his two main subjects (apparently they hate each other). What a story!

• Here’s an interesting article on why rapists rape, and how our cultural ideas about rapists’ motivations have shifted over time.

• Consistently good sex with a partner takes consistent work, practice, and conflict resolution, according to a new study. So next time you have bad sex with a new partner, don’t think of it as proof you’re not meant to be with them – maybe view it as an opportunity for growth and improvement instead!

• I found it cathartic to read women’s responses to straight-dude Tinder clichés. God, why are most straight men on dating apps so dreadfully boring?!

• Is Tinder the new meet-cute?

• And while we’re talking about Tinder… Here’s why people are getting bored of it and what might come next.

• Okay, one more Tinder thing… I loved this essay about dating-app fatigue, particularly this revelation: “Just knowing that the apps exist, even if you don’t use them, creates the sense that there’s an ocean of easily-accessible singles that you can dip a ladle into whenever you want… the apps’ actual function is less important than what they signify as a totem: A pocket full of maybe that you can carry around to ward off despair.” YUUUP.

• A very sweet and smart reader of mine wrote this response to my post about the orgasm gap. It explores these issues from a (cis-het) male perspective: the frustration of not being able to get a female partner off, and some ways to center female pleasure without being overly pressure-y or goal-oriented. I wish more men had this attitude!

• The great Alana Massey wrote about how the internet never forgets anything. Here she is, mirroring my own childhood back at me: “A born adventurer and a blossoming pervert, I regularly pretended that I was a hot and bothered 19-year-old, and lured men away from group chat rooms to private chats where my digital captive and I would proceed to have cyber sex…”

• On porn sites and encryption. I’m not as savvy as I would like to be about this kind of stuff, so this article was illuminating for me.

• Many people have written about why you should watch porn with your partner; here’s the case for why you shouldn’t. This made me think long and hard (har har) about my own porn preferences and how a partner might interpret them.

• I know why men announce when they’re about to come, but this article on it was an amusing read nonetheless. “So we agree this is a very useful behavior in men and women, gay and straight. Cumming must be announced, and should be announced. Declared, even.”

• Two of my current favorite writers, Helena Fitzgerald and Alana Hope Levinson, both wrote about the “boyfriend shirt” and why we love/want/crave ’em. (I am guilty of this. And admittedly not just with boyfriends.)

• Catcalling and sexual harassment are normalized in our culture and nobody knows how to “properly” react to them. Ugh. Fuck the patriarchy!

• Nicole Cliffe wrote fanfiction about what life would be like if Benedict Cumberbatch was her lover, and it’s divinely funny. “I had decided to play Irene Adler, of course.” “Such a brave choice, considering you are not particularly attractive, and have never acted nor shown any aptitude for it.”

• Ever wonder how the concept of a fetish came into being? Here’s a psychological history of the fetish. Particularly interesting to me: sexually progressive physician Havelock Ellis was apparently an impotent virgin until the age of 60, when he saw a woman peeing and realized he had urolagnia (a urine fetish). Brains are so cool!

• What should you do with a condom after sex? “You can also tie the condom off before tossing it to work on your career as a balloon animal artist,” Tracy Moore reports. (God, I love her.)

• The science is in: what makes a relationship last is good talkin’ and good fuckin’. This does not surprise me, but it sure is affirming!

• Timely: last month I got fucked with a penis extender and this month there’s an article on MEL about them. I, for one, always celebrate there being more options in the “toys for penises” category. I can also vouch for the fact that you don’t have to be insecure or have a small penis to derive some enjoyment from using these; the partner of mine who wanted to try an extender with me is quite well-endowed as is, and just wanted to explore a fantasy and try something new. Yay, sexual freedom!

9 Impeccable Indie Impact Implements

Kate Sloan

As you may have noticed, I love impact toys. I especially love weird impact toys: implements that would make good conversation starters at kink events, and that widen the eyes of tops and bottoms alike. Indie toymakers are often the best companies to look at when you want something unusual. I am lucky enough to own several impact implements from indie artisans; here are some reviews of them…

My leather paddle by Oddo Leather is bright pink and adorable. It’s made from latigo leather and contains two metal rods which give it its structural stability. It’s got that signature delicious leather smell, and comes in a variety of colors.

As a top: The leather handle is grippy enough that it stays securely in my hand even if I get sweaty. There’s a little suede strap I use to hang the paddle for storage but that isn’t long enough for me to stick my wrist through; I’d like to replace it with a longer one so I can have a little more assurance that I won’t accidentally throw the paddle while using it. The edges of the handle are a little rough and sometimes dig into my hand if I’m holding the toy tightly, which I generally am. I like the satisfyingly loud noise this paddle makes when it hits skin. Some particularly hard hits cause the internal metal rods to bend a bit, but it’s easy to bend the paddle back into its original shape.

As a bottom: As you might expect from a leather paddle, this one is pretty stingy. If a blow lands not-exactly-flat against my skin, it can feel thuddier, but not by much. On me, this paddle doesn’t bruise, it just reddens the area. It also doesn’t get above a 5 or 6 on the pain scale, even when a lot of power is put into the hits – so while it might be a good choice for an impact beginner, or for someone who eroticizes the sound of impact moreso than the pain, for me it just leaves me wanting more.

My acrylic layered paddle by Funkit Toys was custom-made to my specifications; a lot of stuff by Funkit is highly customizable like this. I asked for it to be made in blue and green, and for it to have five layers of acrylic; you can order anywhere from two to six layers in your paddle, and the more you get, the thuddier it’ll be. This paddle is also the most affordable option in this post, with its price ranging from $10 (two layers) to $22 (six layers).

As a top: I love how smooth, heavy, and well-constructed this paddle feels in my hand. The top of the handle, where it meets the blade, is made to resemble the analogous part on a chef’s knife, because Funkit Toys’ lead fucksmith Kenton is also a chef – so my index finger fits comfortably in that spot when I hold the paddle, though the way I spank, I usually like a little more momentum and hold the toy further down its handle to allow for that. The paddle’s impact surfaces are glossy, while its edges are matte, making the handle sufficiently grippy without sacrificing the beauty of that shiny finish. I would like this one a bit more if it was shorter and wider, because that’s my preferred shape to hit people with, but as is, it’s still wonderful.

As a bottom: This paddle is so mean! When it lands flat against the skin, it’s got a sharp stingy bite with a little thud to back it up – but when it lands a little off-kilter, or when I’m purposely hit with the side of it, it feels much thuddier, like getting thunked with a big heavy metal pipe. This toy can get up very high on the pain scale, in both stinginess and thuddiness. Depending on how it’s wielded, it can leave broad bruises or more focused stripes. Thuddier hits (especially those from the rounded edge of the paddle) get so deep that they might still ache days later.

My rainbow paddle by Funkit Toys is made of wood and gets its vivid, distinctive colors from spraypaint (with a clear coat on top). Kenton makes wooden paddles in several different shapes and sizes; this one is 16 inches long, and wider than the acrylic paddle but still fairly narrow for a paddle.

As a top: This paddle is made of very light wood, so in use it barely feels like I’m hefting anything at all. However, sometimes this makes it hard for me to gauge exactly how hard I’m hitting. The handle is entirely straight and a bit slippery; I wish it had a wrist strap for added stability. The wood makes a really satisfying smacking noise when it hits.

As a bottom: I get a surface-level sting from this paddle that falls more on the “bad type of pain” side of the spectrum for me, which would make it ideal for a true punishment spanking but also means it’s never gonna be a favorite of mine. I do sort of like it as a warm-up, used fairly lightly, because the broad stingy swats get my skin all tingly and sensitive and ready for more hits – but it gets up into high pain levels really easily and I can’t take much of it after that. It reddens my skin but I have yet to obtain any lasting marks from it, partly because it hurts so much that I always stop before I get to that point.

The Billiard Banger by KinkMachineWorks is such an inventive piece of kink wizardry. It’s a literal billiard ball at the end of a metal and hard plastic rod. Mine is a black 8-ball, which I chose for its #WitchyFemme vibes, but you can get a wide variety of different colors and numbers.

As a top: I love the heaviness of this toy – it’s not so heavy as to be hard to wield, but just heavy enough to feel substantial, well-made, and powerful. My arm does get a little tired if I’m swingin’ away for a good while, though. I thought the smooth metal handle on mine would be difficult to grip (KMW also sells a ribbed-handle version, if that’s a concern of yours too), but it’s got enough grippiness to it that this usually isn’t an issue. Depending on what kind of effect I want to achieve, I can bounce the ball against skin for a series of quick hits, or follow through with my swing for big, strong, thuddy hits.

As a bottom: Getting beat with a billiard ball is a thuddy and penetrating sensation, like getting punched by a tiny fist. On me, it rarely creates bruises, but it leaves sore spots under the skin that I can still feel days later. Having the same spot get hit over and over again is always a super-painful thing for me, but particularly so with this toy; the thuddiness stacks up and creates an almost bone-deep ache that I mostly really like. The toy’s handle and the billiard ball itself both have a naturally cold temperature, so rolling those parts of the toy along my skin between hits can be a soothing and surprising sensation.

The 1″-thick rubber paddle from KinkMachineWorks is a thing to behold: thick, heavy, and intimidating. It reliably gets an “Oh, wow” or a “Yikes!” whenever I show it to a fellow kinkster.

As a top: Most of this paddle’s weight is concentrated in the business end rather than the handle, so it can sometimes feel a little weighty and difficult to aim effectively. The flex of the rubber gives it a nice bounce, so while it’s heavy, my arm doesn’t get especially tired from wielding it. Its heaviness also means you don’t have to put much effort into your swing to get a big, strong hit out of it; however, this also means you have to check in with your spankee more to make sure you’re not overdoing it. The rubber causes my hands to smell like a truckstop after I’m done using this paddle, which I don’t really mind, but I’d prefer if it didn’t.

As a bottom: Wow, ouch, this one hurts a whole goddamn lot. Hits from this paddle’s flat impact surfaces feel thuddy with a topcoat of stinginess, whereas hits from the sides or end of the paddle feel thuddy like a punch. I imagine that this toy could leave some pretty gnarly bruises, but I’ve never been hit with it hard enough to find out, because it gets so painful so easily that I always back off before the point of bruising.

My Lexan paddle from KinkMachineWorks is one of my all-time favorite impact implements. Lexan – also known as polycarbonate – is a type of plastic that’s very hard and durable, making it ideal for paddlin’ with.

As a top: This paddle strikes a good balance between being heavy enough to feel impactful but light enough to be comfortable to wield at all times. I love the shape and size of it: it gives me a lot of surface area with which to smack broad swathes of my bottom’s skin, but can also be aimed effectively and precisely when need be. And dammit, you can’t beat the view of a butt being slightly squished beneath this see-through paddle.

As a bottom: The reason I love this paddle so much is that it – for me – strikes the ideal balance between thuddy and stingy. The stinginess makes it painful enough to send me into subspace relatively quickly, but it’s not all sting, so I don’t get burned out on it too fast. Its thuddiness also enables it to bruise me easily and beautifully. I think if I could only keep one impact toy from my entire collection, this is the one I would choose.

My torquemada from Creative Kink is made of beautiful pink-glazed wood. A “torquemada,” so far as I can tell, is a wood paddle that’s inlaid with metal studs. Woof.

As a top: This paddle is very big: it’s as long as my entire arm from shoulder to wrist, and almost twice as wide as my forearm. While this makes it look extra-menacing, it’s not my favorite to wield; it feels a little clunky and hard to manoeuvre effectively (though that might be less true for a bigger/stronger person than I). In addition to the flat side, the studded side, and the thuddy rounded edges, I can also hit someone (lightly) with that pointy tip at the top; it’s not as sharp as it looks, and it’s sort of like whacking someone with a dull pickaxe. This is a highly versatile toy!

As a bottom: The flat, non-studded side of this paddle feels as stingy as wooden paddles usually do (i.e. very), though its heaviness gives it a little bit of thud that balances it out nicely. It reddens my skin real quick and hurts a whole helluva lot. The studded side is even worse: the studs are rounded, rather than sharp, so they’re probably not gonna break skin or anything, but they do add some extra oomph to the hits, making this one of the most painful products in this post. I also like that the studs feel cold while the rest of the paddle remains room-temperature; it’s a little extra sensory weirdness that adds to the overall effect, and could be an especially fun tease if I was, say, blindfolded and tied up.

I requested the Lexan cane from Creative Kink because I already owned the aforementioned Lexan paddle and knew I liked this material for impact play. It’s so swishy and cute and reminds me of a wand Ollivander would pick out for the kinkiest wizard.

As a top: The handle of this cane is made of a grippy black foam; this toy was clearly designed by actual kinksters who understand the problems faced by impact tops! The Lexan is firm enough to allow for a stern caning, but also has juuust enough flex that I can pull it back with one hand and let it spring forward onto whoever I’m spanking, in an intense but precisely aimable motion. The significant length of this cane gives me the freedom to slice it down on both of my spankee’s buttcheeks, or only one at a time, whichever I want.

As a bottom: To my surprise, I find this cane never hurts thaaat badly, no matter how hard I’m getting hit by it. It’s more thuddy than stingy, but never gets beyond a 5-out-of-10 thud for me. It leaves pleasing red stripes on my skin, and occasional mildly raised welts, but isn’t mean enough to create bruises. While this description might make it sound lacklustre, I actually love getting beat by this cane; the pain is enough to send me into subspace after a little while, without being so bad as to distress me.

The aluminum cane by Creative Kink is a formidable thing; when Suz first felt mine, her eyes went wide and she said, “Oh, this one would be mean!” She is right. It is.

As a top: The weight of this cane makes it feel a little top-heavy in use sometimes, so I can’t always aim as precisely as I would like to. I also wish it made a bit more noise; it’s almost silent as skin absorbs its impact. It has the same grippy foam handle as the aforementioned Lexan cane, so it stays put in my hand when I hold it. I feel a little apprehensive wielding this toy, because it’s so heavy and hard that I feel like I could accidentally injure a partner pretty easily; I’d need to be very careful and focused to feel comfortable using it on someone. But damn, it makes me feel powerful.

As a bottom: Canes are traditionally stingy but this is perhaps the thuddiest one that has ever existed. If I couldn’t see what I was getting hit with, I’d have no way of knowing it was a cane and not a thick metal pipe. I love that it’s naturally cold; that adds some sensory excitement to the thuddiness and can be soothing in between hits. As with many heavy thuddy implements, this one bruises quite effectively, and the bruises are gorgeous stripes. Swoon.

What are your favorite impact toys from independent toymakers? Got any Etsy treasure-troves or local artisans to enthuse about?