Review: Sportsheets Doggie Style Strap

Kate Sloan

At their best, sex toys enhance your sex life (whether solo, partnered, or both) and improve your pleasure. At their worst, they can injure you. And at their most mediocre, they make no discernable changes to your experience. That last option is the best one to describe the Sportsheets Doggie Style Strap.

It’s a pink and black fuzzy strap with rough handles that remind me of the adjusters that hung down from your second-grade backpack. The strap goes around the front of the midsection of whoever’s getting fucked, and then the person doing the fucking takes ahold of the handles and this arrangement is supposed to make doggie-style fucking a whole lot more “comfortable” and “intense.”

As doggie-style is maybe my favorite position, I thought I should at least try a product like this. I’m glad I did, because now I know my boyfriend doesn’t need any extra crap to help him fuck me like a champ.

We switched back and forth several times between using and not using the strap, and I really couldn’t feel a difference at all. He wasn’t able to go deeper, harder, or faster when using it. He also said it was no easier than when he just holds my hips with his hands.

Additionally, maybe because I’ve got big hips, the rough handles rubbed on my sides, which started to feel like carpet burn after a short while.

It’s possible that this strap would have something to offer for people with mobility issues, but for regular able-bodied joes like me and my boyfriend, it gets in the way more than it helps.

Does My Partner Get a Say in My Masturbatory Habits?

Kate Sloan

Sex-positivity is a relatively new movement, so there are still some conflicts floating around inside it. One of them is the fundamental discord between two ideas widely accepted as truths by the sex-poz crowd: “Your body is your own and no one can tell you what to do with it,” and “You and your sexual partner(s) need to discuss and establish boundaries that you’re both comfortable with.”

Here’s the conflict: if I have the right to masturbate, does my partner have the right to stop me?

I’m not talking about my partner specifically, mind you. My boyfriend is awesome and doesn’t care that I masturbate, even though I do it frequently and sometimes with toys that are bigger than him. But, being someone who’s often called upon to give advice to other people, I encounter this issue indirectly from time to time.

My belief is that your solo sex life is entirely your business and that your partner shouldn’t have control over it, nor should anyone else.

There are a few exceptions, though – as there always are in an issue as complicated as this.

First off, your masturbation can’t get in the way of your partnered sex life. If it does, it’s obviously fair game for your partner to criticize it. For example, if you jerk off so hard that you have death grip syndrome and it’s led to erectile dysfunction, I think your partner can request that you tone down your technique, or maybe even take a break from wanking.

Likewise, if you consistently choose masturbation over sex, to the point that your partner feels neglected, that’s probably a no-no. As is any non-necessary element of your life that leads to your partner being neglected.

I also think your partner has the right to get upset about you masturbating if the two of you have previously agreed to define masturbation as cheating in your relationship. I believe strongly that each couple gets to establish the parameters of “cheating” for themselves, and that you should stick to whatever you’ve agreed to. (Of course, you shouldn’t agree to anything you don’t actually agree with, and you shouldn’t stay in a relationship where your partner’s definition of cheating is drastically different from yours.)

And obviously, there are some activities associated with masturbation that your partner may or may not have a problem with – like watching porn, reading erotica, or engaging in voyeurism or exhibitionism online. Again, it’s up to you and your partner to establish what is and isn’t okay, and you need to agree on those limits for them to work.

But aside from those exceptions, I see no reason why anyone’s partner should get to dictate how and when they jerk off. Your body, your choice. It’s as simple as that.

You should never invalidate your partner’s feelings, but if anyone ever tells you they’re uncomfortable with you having a private solo sex life, you might need to find a gentle way to tell them to mind their own damn business.

What do you think? Do you, or should you, have control over your partner’s masturbation? What would you do if your partner wanted you to stop masturbating, or to masturbate in a different way?

Sharing the Sexy #20

Kate Sloan

• Here’s a great essay about being intersex.

• How to be an ally to your fat lover!

• This typography series by Sophia Wallace, Cliteracy, is fucking spot-on!

• Ever wondered how to recycle old sex toys? Now you know!

• Jenna from silicone sex toy maker Tantus did an AMA on Reddit. Goooood readin’.

• Lilly’s review of the Jimmyjane Hello Touch is way better than mine and contains lots of information that might be of interest to you.

• This asshole wants to start “Have Sex with an Ugly Person Day.”

• Metis Black explains how to spank. I’m reviewing one of Tantus’ new paddles soon and I’m so excited!

• Toronto-dwellers: have you got your Feminist Porn Awards ticket yet? (I’ll be at the conference. Let me know if you’re going and want to say hi!)

• Hugo Schwyzer says being pegged makes men better lovers and better feminists.

Pocket-Sized Porn Reviews: Matriarchy, Twins, and Dylan Ryan

Kate Sloan

I made a decision a while ago that I wasn’t going to review porn on my blog anymore, because I just don’t feel I’m very good at it. I also think I have pretty specific tastes in pornography, and it’s hard to review something that every single person is going to react differently to.

However, now that I no longer have the stress of feeling obligated to review porn by the companies who used to send it to me for free, I feel like it’s okay for me to talk about porn here from time to time, maybe just a little. You don’t mind, right?

Here are some porn flicks I’ve seen recently that I thought you might want to know about…

Women On Top has a really silly but interesting premise: it’s a story set in a female-dominated world, where women are expected to be promiscuous and brash, and where men are expected to do the housework and please their women.

I thought it would be empowering from a feminist perspective, but it actually just showed the mirror image of a lot of gross stereotypes about both men and women (e.g. that women shame men for their sexual desires, that women only have sex to please their men, etc).

There was also far less cunnilingus and far more blowjobs than I would expect in an actual matriarchal world, though I guess I should’ve seen that coming – it is mainstream porn, after all.

Joined at the Hip is a goofy, badly-acted porn about two ditzy blonde twins trying to get to Vegas.

I was totally prepared to hate this one, but just couldn’t as soon as I realized that James Deen was in it.

He’s only in one scene, but it’s great. He plays a chef and (of course) makes a terrible joke about a “bun on a stick” which is actually his cock wrapped in a hot dog bun. (Ugh. So bad it’s good.)

Additionally, he starts off the scene dressed in full chef’s garb, and the chef’s hat stays on for the whole scene. It falls off at one point, but he puts it back on. Because that’s the kind of sense of humor James Deen has. Dear god, I love him.

This porno surprisingly proved to be a goldmine for threesome inspiration. Since the twins in the movie are actual, real-life sisters, they don’t have sex with each other, but have all sorts of sex with various third parties – so there’s some inventive fucking, sucking, flicking, etc.

Fifty Shades of Dylan Ryan is a kind of meta response to the poorly-written BDSM novel we’re all too familiar with. It’s basically Christian and Ana all over again, but with lesbian sex. Really, really hot lesbian sex.

Dylan Ryan is a stunner as always – she’s like the slightly androgynous girl-next-door – but I was most blown away by Sadie Lune, who plays “Ms. Grey,” the wealthy, dominant lady tycoon. I’d never seen her in anything before and she’s absolutely captivating. Girl knows how to dom the shit out of people.

I actually haven’t watched the whole thing yet (what can I say – I came hard sometime during the third sex scene and fell asleep), but I feel confident in saying that anyone who likes lesbian porn, especially of the feminist variety, and can handle BDSM, will dig this movie. And damn, I really need to see more stuff Madison Young has directed.

What sights and sounds are getting your rocks off lately?

Review: Tantus Splish

Kate Sloan

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It makes me sad to have to write a negative review about a Tantus toy, since they’re usually so fantastic – but the Splish has been a total letdown for me.

It’s a good-lookin’ dual-color dildo, a smaller version of the formidable Splash. I waffled a lot about which toy to get, because the Splash is too wide for me at 1 ¾", and the Splish is too narrow for me at 1".

I went for the smaller one. I don’t know why.

The Splish feels good for about three minutes, assuming I haven’t been penetrated by anything else recently. But after that, my vagina widens with arousal and I practically can’t feel the damn thing anymore.

It’s not even long enough to reach my A-spot. And if a toy is too narrow to stroke my G-spot, it better be able to work some magic on my A-spot. The Splish can do neither.

While I might recommend the Splish for a beginner to anal play, or for someone suffering from vaginismus, I think just about everyone else would be happier with the larger Splash.