What’s In My Sex Bag? (January 2017)

Kate Sloan

There is a sick-‘n’-satisfying voyeuristic joy in peering into someone’s bag. I love finding out what someone carries around with them, whether it’s shared in blog posts or Flickr groups or Instagram hashtags.

But while the contents of my everyday purses are kinda interesting, what’s in my sex bag is really interesting, methinks. Here’s a glimpse, for all you nosy pervs out there (she wrote, lovingly)!

I left for New York on Saturday morning, and my trip itinerary includes a sex-date at a pre-booked hotel room with a fuckbuddy of mine. I’ve packed my petite House of Plume zip-up travel bag with a variety of items for all sorts of saucy eventualities.

Firstly and most importantly: vibrators. If I’m going to get off with a partner, typically vibes need to be involved. At home, I normally use my Magic Wand Rechargeable or Eroscillator, but both of those are bulky and thus not terribly travel-friendly. I’ve compromised by packing my Lelo Siri 2 and We-Vibe Tango, two delightfully rumbly and super-adjustable external vibes small enough for my jetset sexcapades.

I’ve packed my Tantus Ryder because of this wonderful text my FWB sent me while I was deciding which toys to bring: “I mean, if you wanted to do PIV with a butt plug in again, I wouldn’t say no.” This is the plug I was using the last time we did that, and he liked it because it made my vag even more preternaturally tight than it normally is. The Ryder’s fairly big, though, so I’ve also packed a smaller plug (the Lelo Bob) to help me warm up for it.

My FWB and I also share an appreciation for clit pumps, so I’ve packed mine. It pairs very well with weed, which I’m unsure if we’ll have access to… but even if not, I’m looking forward to experiencing this odd sensation with a partner for the first time.

The Funkit Signet is small, so it’s easy to travel with. As it’s made to enhance fingerbanging, I’m always excited to use it with people who have skilled fingers to begin with. Unf.

Next up: dildos. Most of my favorites – like the Double Trouble, G-Spoon, and Eleven – are too big, heavy, or valuable to bring with me when I travel. Occasionally I risk it, but I always worry that the airline will lose my bag or the TSA will take my dildos away from me, and I care too much about them to let that happen! So this time, I’m only bringing my Jopen Comet Wand. It’ll work well for any masturbation I do during my trip, and my FWB can also pound me with it if I’m in the mood for intense G-spot sensations.

I’m also lucky enough that my hostbean-with-the-mostbean, Bex, owns a fuckton of sex toys. So if I decide I need to borrow a Double Trouble or an Eleven or a Pure Wand or something, I’ll be able to. Yessss.

Condom-wise, I just threw in a few of what I had on hand: Crown and Naked condoms, sent to me by Condomania. It’s hard to travel with a bottle of lube, so I’m bringing some sample packs of Blossom Organics, Sliquid H2O, and Astroglide Natural, as well as a teensy sample-size bottle of Sutil.

What kinds of things do you pack when you go on sexy adventures? Got any toy-travel tips?

Links & Hijinks: Selfies, Scents, & a Bag of Dicks

Kate Sloan

a dildo, a vibrator, and some red panties

Need some new media with which to populate your brain this weekend? Here’s some of my favorite stuff from around the internet as of late…

• I love to read about interesting kinks. Here’s a piece on a man with a smoking fetish and what appeal the act holds for him. “I’m also into specific rituals and mannerisms. For instance, I love when a woman is dangling a cigarette from her mouth while fishing through her purse for a lighter,” he says. “I love lighting women’s cigarettes, too; it’s an intimate moment that’s all about eye contact.” (My friend Caitlin also likes this moment.)

• The folks at xoVain wrote about how they take selfies and it’s fascinating (plus useful info for rabid selfie-takers comme moi).

• If you’re looking to shake up your music collection, I can’t recommend Said the Gramophone’s annual Best Songs of the Year list highly enough. Sean writes beautifully about each and every song on his list. I’ve already discovered a few new gems to obsess over.

• My friend Sarah wrote about the unpaid work sex bloggers are asked to do, although pretty much all creative types are asked to work for free all the damn time. “Paying people for their labor shouldn’t have to be a revolutionary thing,” she writes. “If you think bloggers’ work is good enough for you to want to partner with us, pay us. It’s truly that simple.” Yes girl yes!

• Even if you’re not all that interested in perfume, you might enjoy The Dry Down, a perfume-focused newsletter written by Rachel Syme and Helena Fitzgerald. The one sent in early January was a beautifully written treatise on how perfume interacts with gender and economic privilege, and what perfume can be when it’s not about “inaccessible, monied femininity.” Fragrances, Helena writes, are “a way to invite both other people and yourself to play, to explore whatever gender or expression thereof interests you, whatever memories you want to crawl into the warm burrow of and sleep pressed against through the winter, whatever dormant stories you want to unlock from your own closed archives.”

• Caitlin wrote about the difference between a vulva and a vagina. Messing up this distinction is the quickest way to piss off a sex blogger, FYI…

• After reading my piece about feeling addicted to love, a friend sent me this article about “the shadow side of alternative sexuality,” and how kink and polyamory can “[paint you] into a corner of identity politics that nobody will be able to rescue you from because it feels too much like sex-shaming.” It’s heavy stuff, and I don’t think it’s a perfect match with my own experiences by any means, but it’s definitely some food for thought.

• Brandon Taylor – who is fantastic – wrote a Twitter thread about lessons he’s learned. Some faves of mine:  “47. If you want to suck a dick, then suck one. Don’t take your sexual frustration and confusion out on others with oppressive legislation.” ✨”52. There is no making it. There is no line. There is no point at which you’ve achieved all your goals. Always be scheming and dreaming.”✨ “27. Gay men, LOL. Yikes.”

• This piece about the origins of the phrase “eat a bag of dicks” made me cry with laughter. “They say necessity is the mother of invention; at some point, it’s obvious that we as a society simply realized that telling someone to suck or eat one dick was no longer an adequate insult,” Tracy Moore writes. “We needed to go bigger.”

• Shon Faye’s “guide to everything you need to know about your twenties” is so, so good. Read it.

• “I have a depression and I always will,” writes my pal Sarah in this poignant, painful, but ultimately hopeful blog post.

• I’ve been swoonin’ over this Paul Cook song, “A Real Thunderbolt.” It’s such a lovely crystallization of what it feels like to be suddenly, profoundly attracted to someone. 🎵Someone who makes your heart jolt. Not some “okay” girl. A real thunderbolt.🎵

• Queer femmes’ online communities are super important, flying in the face of misogyny (both the sociocultural and internalized kinds), homophobia, femmephobia, and millennial-shaming. “Having queer femme friendships is essential. It’s non-negotiable,” says one interviewee in this article, and I am wont to agree.

• This poem on “how to make love to a trans person” is gorgeous.

What were your favorite things you read/wrote/listened to this month?

Why (and How) to Keep a Sex Spreadsheet

Kate Sloan

screenshot of my sex spreadsheet

When I talked about my sex spreadsheet on The Dildorks and later posted a screenshot of it on Twitter, I got asked a few times: “Why do you keep a sex spreadsheet?!”

While at first I was taken aback by this question – who wouldn’t want all kinds of nerdy data about their sex life?! – I pondered it more and realized it’s a totally fair thing to ask. Not everyone is as geeky about sex as me and my friends, and not everyone delights in neatly organized spreadsheets like we do.

So why keep a spreadsheet of your sexcapades? Here’s a few possible reasons…

To track your sexual patterns. My sex spreadsheet was instrumental in my decision to avoid one-night stands in 2017, because, in looking at the data, I saw that none of my one-night stands this past year resulted in orgasm for me. Granted, orgasm is far from the only measure of good sex, but it’s a starting point – and that piece of data got me thinking about how one-off sex with near-strangers disappoints me in bigger ways, too.

It was also helpful for me to think back on the sexual encounters I remembered most fondly, and look at the data to try to figure out why those particular experiences were so great. Do certain toys work especially well for me in partnered sex? (Yes.) Do I have better and more consistent orgasms with partners I’ve already banged a bunch of times? (Yes.) Do certain sexual acts rev my motor more than others? (Yes and yes.) You get the picture.

For health reasons. When pregnancy and STI scares happen, it’s useful to be able to go back through your sex record to see when conception or transmission may have happened, and with whom. If you’re armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to get better and more accurate medical care if needed, and you’ll have fewer mysteries to worry about.

I also found it interesting this year to track my partnered-sex orgasms while I was (briefly) on sensitivity-stunting antidepressants. I was on sertraline (generic Zoloft) for most of the month of May, and I didn’t start having orgasms with partners again until July. Yikes.

As a self-esteem booster. When I’m in the throes of a depressive episode, I believe myself to be useless human garbage who no one could possibly find attractive or interesting. In combating this, it can be helpful for me to read compliments friends have given me in the past, mentally replay my greatest achievements, and – yes! – look at my sex spreadsheet.

Of course, the amount of sex you have is not at all a measure of your worth as a human. But when I’m feeling down, and half-believe no one will ever want to fuck me again, I can glance at my spreadsheet and see all the people who have wanted to fuck me, and all the many times we have indeed fucked. It reminds me that I’ve been a foxy hottie before and will feel like one again, someday.

For the nerdy fun of it! Having data at your fingertips is exciting for any nerd. You can do so much fun shit with it!

For example, in analyzing my 2016 sexsheet, I learned that:
• My highest-earning months were also my most sexually active months.
• I gave somewhere in the neighborhood of 47 blowjobs in 2016.
• A high orgasm ratio does not necessarily guarantee a good partner. (My fave sex partners of the year gave me orgasms about 60-70% of the times we fucked.)
• Of all the sexual acts that can potentially get me off, fingerbanging is the one most highly correlated with orgasm for me.

screenshot of my sex spreadsheet

Finally, some tips on how to make a sex spreadsheet of your own…

Make columns for anything you’re interested in tracking. I think “Date,” “Partner(s),” and “Location” are must-have columns, but beyond that, it’s up to you what you want to keep a record of. My spreadsheet measures the following: whether I had an orgasm (and how many), whether my partner(s) did, how many times I had had sex with that particular partner at that time, what toys we used, and which of my favorite sexual acts we partook in (fingerfucking, BJs, spanking, PIV, and cunnilingus). I also have a “Notes” column which is for any miscellaneous information I might want to remember about that encounter – e.g. that I was sick that day, that we were both stoned, or that we had just had a big argument about feminism…!

Add new entries ASAP, or else you’re apt to forget the details. I have a few cells in my spreadsheet that simply say “??” because I cannot remember, for example, whether I gave a BJ that particular night, or which vibe I used. I guess that speaks to the forgettability of those encounters, but it also frustrates me in retrospect, because I want my data to be complete, dammit!

Color-code, if you’re into that. I know, I know, the color-coding in my spreadsheet is hideous. I have a different color for each partner, so that I can see at a glance who I was frequently fucking at any given time. I also use green and red to denote yeses and no’s in the “Did I come?” and “Did they come?” columns – again, so that I can see patterns at a glance. I would imagine there are all sorts of creative color-coding schemes you could employ in your own spreadsheet; if you have ideas or suggestions, please share ’em in the comments!

Analyze the data regularly, like at the end of every month or every three months or every year (depending on how much sex you’re having, I guess). Look for patterns, problems, places where you could make improvements – and then set yourself some goals or challenges accordingly. Data is useless if you don’t learn anything from it!

Try not to stress yourself (or your partners) out. You absolutely do not have to keep a spreadsheet if the very idea gives you nervous sweats! This approach can feel like an overly quantitative, borderline-dehumanizing way to process your sexual experiences, and I get that. For me, it’s good nerdy fun, but for others, it could be a source of anxiety. You do you, babe!

Have you ever kept a sex spreadsheet or any other kind of sex record? What were/are your reasons? What kinds of things do you keep track of?

Farewell, American Apparel: A Love Letter

Kate Sloan

You can feel about a company the way you’d feel about a person. You can hold its flaws and its virtues in your mind simultaneously. You can love it and hate it, both together, more intensely every day. You can halfheartedly explain away its mistakes because you want, so badly, to believe in its goodness, its honor. You can, and I do.

American Apparel is shutting its doors after a years-long battle with bankruptcy, scandal, and cultural insensitivity. Let me be exceedingly clear: this post is a love letter, but there are many things about American Apparel I do not love and cannot condone. The sexual harassment, the sizeism, the snotty atmosphere that causes several of my queer, trans, plus-size, and disabled friends to feel uncomfortable in AA stores… None of this is excusable. I myself boycotted AA for years, for these reasons and more. There are those who would say I am problematic for having supported this company. That’s fair.

Setting aside the things about AA that are actually good – like its labor practices and occasional feminist collaborations – what really made me an American Apparel devotee is the products themselves. The products are what I will miss, when the last remaining dregs of AA in this world are extinguished. The clothes, and how they made me feel.

me trying on a blue dress in an AA dressing roomFor years now, when I have an upcoming occasion for which I need to look slutty and cute, American Apparel has been my one-stop shop. This was especially true during the last couple years, when I had a friend who worked as a sales assistant at the Yonge-Dundas location – I’d text him, “I need some new slutty clothes. Are you working today?” and then I’d come in and he’d bring me things to try. A black pleather bustier. A tight gold skirt. A low-cut dress and the best bandeau bra to wear under it. Whatever my slutty needs might be, AA would have ’em covered. (Or just-barely covered, as the case may be.)

I own three of their “figure skater dress,” because it makes me feel like a fucking glorious bombshell, and that feeling is well worth the price of the dress. I own their ponte pencil skirt in two different colors, and have worn them to job interviews, conferences, and presentations, because nothing else puts me in a foxy-businesslady headspace quite so quickly. I own four of their ribbed racerback dresses and two of their jersey racerback dresses, because nothing else is so easy to throw on, style up, and accessorize. Their basics are indispensable simply because they are indeed so basic, and so well-made.

When dressing for a porn shoot or a sex-positive party, I always consider my AA clothes first. My tiny booty shorts, my fetishistic thigh-high socks, my form-fitting fuck-me dresses. They always do me right.

When I need to transport large quantities of sex toys – to, say, a porn shoot, a hotel sex date, or an out-of-country threesome – my bright yellow American Apparel leather clutch is my favorite vessel. It can comfortably fit my Magic Wand, Eleven, a few more toys, and a plethora of safer-sex supplies. Whenever I take it anywhere, people ask me where I got it. It looks so cute tucked under my arm, and it looks even cuter when I open it and you realize it’s stuffed with sexual accoutrements.

me wearing a shiny gold bodysuitWhen I received an invite to the Smut in the 6ix gala and was told to dress “as smutty as possible” in a black/white/gold color scheme, I knew exactly where to shop. It took me less than fifteen minutes to find the perfect thing on the American Apparel website: a deep-V gold lamé bodysuit. At the gala, I rocked it with a black pencil skirt over top, which I then stripped off when I got up on stage and found I wanted to show more skin. On my chubby frame, the bodysuit looked quite different from how it did on the AA model’s slim body, but I still felt like a luminescent vixen in it. It stretched to skim my curves and made me feel like I could live in gold lamé.

But AA isn’t all party clothes and mega-cleavage. Their hoodies – part of the line of basics which made them famous – are among my go-to loungewear when I’m sad, sick, or depressed. Lined with cozy fleece, they keep me warm and comfortable even when my brainspace feels cold and harsh. I can zip up the zipper, pull up the hood, and tuck my hands into the kangaroo pockets, and it makes me feel snugly, safely bundled up. Insulated from the world by polyester and cotton.

The AA stores in my city – and probably yours too – are currently plastered with sale signs: “75% OFF!” “EVERYTHING MUST GO!” Inside, they’re practically barren. Everything is on sale, even the furniture. It’s a sad sight. But recently, I ventured into one with my friend Suz, determined to find some final souvenirs to take home with me.

One thing I bought is a dark red hoodie, unisex size small to fit my ladies’-size-large body. I’ve barely taken it off since I bought it; in fact, I’m swaddled in it now as I write this. Like all my AA acquisitions, it’s well-made, dependable, reliable. I feel effortlessly put-together in it; I feel at home. It’s a feeling I’ll miss, as American Apparel shuts its stores, takes down its website, and recedes into history. I will wear these clothes until they disintegrate. I will wear these clothes until I find ones I like better. Maybe I never will.

The Unladylike Project: Calling Men Out

Kate Sloan

me rolling my eyes and looking exasperated as hell

Empowerment is more easily said than done. There are so many feminist principles that I champion in theory, and that I’d gladly shout from the rooftops or text to friends in all caps, but that I find so damn hard to implement in my actual life.

One such principle is the idea that men should treat women well, listen to us, respect us. Obviously I believe this. I decry disrespectful men on the internet, point out when dudes treat my friends poorly, and criticize shitty men in TV and film. But when it comes to how I’m treated by the men in my life, I find it harder to kick up a fuss.

True, I’m lucky enough that most of the men in my close social circles are fantastic. My little brother is one of my favorite people on earth and treats me like a precious jewel; my dad is an upstanding protector and a fierce feminist; I have several male friends who perennially prove themselves feminist allies. Unfortunately, though, patriarchal conditioning is really hard to unlearn, and even the best men sometimes backslide into toxically sexist behaviors without noticing it. And sometimes I backslide right along with them.

These aberrations come in many forms. There are the family parties where the men sit comfortably in their armchairs after dinner while the women clear the table. There’s the subtle way I and my single female friends are likelier to be harangued about not having a partner than our male friends are. There’s the expectation that women are “naturally better” at emotional labor and are thus expected to nurture and support our male friends in times of need, even when we barely have the energy to take care of our own needs.

Most of the time, I am pleased as punch to help my friends – of all genders – in any way I can. But when the labor expected of me becomes too much, and operates along visible gender lines, sometimes I need to call out my dude-friends for tumbling into troubling tropes. And I’m usually too meek to speak up when I need to, due to yet another gendered trope which says women should be subservient, small, and “ladylike.” Well, fuck that. If someone’s walking all over me, I am well within my rights to point that out and insist that they stop!

Our culture encourages women to cattily compete with one another, while constantly deferring to men and seeking to impress them. This results in a psychological environment where I’m much likelier to blame a woman or get angry with her, even if a man is equally or moreso to blame for whatever slight has taken place. This is internalized misogyny through and through, and I hate that I sometimes unwittingly perpetuate it. I want to take off the rose-colored glasses through which I see men, and expect as much from them as I expect from everyone else in my life: respect, kindness, consideration, integrity. Men aren’t exempt from being decent humans just ’cause I find some of them attractive and want them to think I’m attractive too. That’s no excuse!

Some of my male friends know about my tendency to downplay my own needs and boundaries, so they’ll check in occasionally: “Please let me know if I’m talking about myself too much,” they’ll say, or, “Feel free to ignore this unsolicited advice if I’m totally mansplaining, but…” It’s great that they give me these opportunities to set boundaries when I need to. I should take them up on those offers more often. It’s important to me that I be a polite, kind, supportive person, but you start to lose your energy for supportiveness when people are constantly steamrolling over you. So maintaining better boundaries, and calling out people who mistreat me, is good not only for me but also for my friends. I am a better friend to them when I am mentally and emotionally healthy and happy.

Non-male readers: do you also have trouble speaking up when men treat you badly or carelessly? Got any tips?