You Get to Choose How You Identify

Kate Sloan

The more I learn about queer and trans issues, the more I notice the prevalence of one particular truth in those spaces: you get to decide what labels you want to refer to yourself by.

This applies to many aspects of one’s identity. Sexual orientation is the obvious, glaring one. A woman might have sex with exclusively women, but if she identifies as primarily straight, you have to accept that. A young kid may tell you he’s gay, and you’re not allowed to say “But you don’t know yet!” because most people do know when they’re kids, even if they can’t articulate it or understand it. A person’s sexual identity may be the polar opposite of what you’d expect from them, but ultimately they are the ones who know best about who and what they are.

By that same token, I believe you get to choose whether or not you identify as a virgin.

Hear me out. Virginity is such a loaded topic. Some folks think it depends on the size and state of a membrane of skin embedded in your genitalia. Some think your virginity can be “taken” from you in nonconsensual situations, that people who are sexually assaulted, no matter their age, are no longer virginal. And still others think you can lose your virginity to a sex toy or your own fingers.

Here’s my own rough timeline of potentially lost virginities, according to various opinions that exist on the topic:
Age 6: Started touching my own genitals for pleasure.
Age 9: Reached my first orgasm, with the help of a bath faucet.
Age 12: Experimented with penetrating myself with my fingers.
Age 15: Used my first sex toys, both penetrative and not.
Age 16: Participated in oral sex with another girl.
Age 16: Was penetrated by another girl’s strapped-on silicone dildo.
Age 18: Participated in manual and oral sex with a guy.
Age 19: Was penetrated by a real, live, flesh-and-blood penis.

Here’s the thing, though… I didn’t feel that I really lost my virginity until I was 18. And that has nothing to do with the fact that it was with a dude, and everything to do with the fact that I was emotionally connected to him, unlike the girl I’d slept with who was my friend but not my passion. I still felt like a virgin when I was 17, but not when I was 19. My personal definition of my virginity is my choice to make, and I can do that by any criteria I choose.

I’ve never believed in virginity as a physical trait. Part of this came from growing up in communities and religions where there wasn’t much emphasis placed on the hymen: my parents, teachers, and doctors were more likely to lecture me about the emotional stresses of having sex than the physical changes that might occur. I was aware that I had a hymen, but I didn’t care about it. I even attempted to break it myself with hairbrush handles and shampoo bottles, because I wanted it gone. I didn’t want it to stop me from enjoying my first time having sex.

The first time I remember really pondering the concept of virginity was when I had my first kiss. I was twelve years old and we were playing Spin the Bottle in a deserted playground after our sixth-grade graduation. I was forced to kiss a boy for whom I had no romantic feelings whatsoever; we both closed our eyes and our friends shoved us toward each other, culminating in a “kiss” that lasted less than a second. I remember thinking, even then, that that was not a satisfactory event to be forever branded My First Kiss. I wanted a different one.

And so, when, four years later, I shared my next kiss with my first girlfriend, who filled me with teenage lust and wonder, that felt like my first kiss. And I decided to refer to it as such, from then on. When people ask me about my first kiss, I tell them, “My first real kiss was on my first girlfriend’s porch.” Very rarely does anyone ask for details about the kisses that came before that, the “not real” ones.

So what’s my point in all this? I believe in our freedom of choice when it comes to defining our own identities, and our own landmark moments. I believe that part of true independence is having the liberty and bravery to tell your own story from a perspective that makes sense to you. I believe in wearing rose-colored glasses if that’s a way you can fill your life with meaning and lift yourself up.

Readers: How do you choose to self-identify? Was your first kiss or first sexual experience different from the one you think of as your “real” first?

Review: Liberator Wedge

Kate Sloan

I am always looking for the next sex product that will Change My Life. It’s a silly criterion, since so few toys actually manage to significantly increase my quality of life – the Eroscillator comes to mind, and perhaps the Fling, but that’s about it. i’m glad to tell you, however, that the sexual positioning aid called the Liberator Wedge is one of these life-improving products.

When the Wedge showed up in a giant box from Sex Toys Canada, my dad saw the size of the package and asked me what it was. I nervously stammered, “It’s a fancy pillow,” which is a partial lie, partial truth. The Wedge is sort of a pillow, but as someone who’s spent a year using pillows as under-ass sex aids, I can tell you that the Wedge is far better than a pillow for most purposes.

My Wedge is blue – a deeper, navier blue than the promotional photos indicate – and it’s the “original” model, so it’s 24″ wide, 7″ tall, and covered in microfiber. What does this mean in terms of practicality? It means that the original Wedge will be a good fit for you if your hips and ass measure anywhere up to 48″ around at their widest point. I’m a hippy size 12 and I can fit my juicy booty on this thing easily, with several inches to spare. Additionally, the combined weight of my boyfriend and I is about 300 lbs, and isn’t enough to crush the Wedge – it holds its shape beautifully, no matter what we’re doing on top of it.

The Wedge’s innards are made of firm foam, and it’s wrapped in a microfiber skin that you can zip on and off for washing. The firmness of the foam is fantastic for providing support, but it’s not always the most comfortable thing in the world; I sometimes like to put a pillow on top of it to make it feel plusher. The microfiber is pleasant to the touch, like a thin velvet, but collects a lot of lint. For this reason, it’s convenient that Liberator includes a zip-off storage case, though I have to admit I can never be bothered to put it on the Wedge when I’m not using it.

The boyfriend and I both love our Wedge for oral sex. When he’s got it under his ass during a blowjob, there’s much less strain on my neck and back, and the angling makes it a hell of a lot easier for me to look up at him as I blow him – always a plus. As for cunnilingus, my man says the Wedge is like a “serving platter for the genitals” (actually, this is a phrase from a Liberator promotional video that I told him about, which he apparently found funny enough to start saying regularly). Again, it reduces neck strain for the giver, and it also frees up a ton of room for his arms and hands if he wants to use a toy on me while eating me out. Anything which improves the oral experience gets an A in my book!

The Wedge is great for intercourse, too. It holds up my hips in missionary position, which results in deeper penetration, more direct G-spot stimulation, and less strain on my ab muscles from holding my legs in the air. It works well for the “lazy dog” position, too, and lessens the back pain I sometimes encounter in that position. The Wedge is even helpful for solo penetration, because it gives me a better view of what I’m doing.

Oddly, one of my favorite applications for the Wedge is a non-sexual one: using it as a regular bed pillow. It’s way too firm to sleep on, but if I put a soft pillow on top of it, it props me up very well if I want to read or write in bed. It’s become a permanent fixture in my bed area, used in myriad ways on a daily basis. I think that’s probably the best compliment you can give a product of any kind.

It’s surprising how much a few extra inches of support can improve one’s sex life. If you find yourself using multiple pillows as sex furniture, or wishing you could get your ass just a little higher, or leaning over uncomfortably far when going down on your partner, the Liberator Wedge could be the missing piece in your sexual toolbox.

Thanks, Sex Toys Canada!

 

For more info about the Wedge, check out this review of Liberator Wedge by Furnpeak.com. This post contains a sponsored link; as always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Sex Toy Haikus

Kate Sloan

In lieu of doing individual follow-up posts, I think I’m going to start writing haikus to express how I currently feel about toys that I’ve reviewed before. Because sex toys are worthy of poetry.

Lelo Mia:
Sorry I haven’t
touched you in ages, Mia.
You’re not that special.

California Exotics Waterproof Jack Rabbit:
My first and only
jelly toy. I weep for my
burning vagina.

Eroscillator:
My clit is in love.
It’s a love that oscillates
from lust to worship.

Lelo Ella:
Warm-up toy supreme.
No one else opens me up
as sweetly as she.

Blossom Organics Natural Moisturizing Lubricant:
All lubes should be as
vag-friendly and simple as
this bedside staple.

Happy Pride!

Kate Sloan

For those of you who celebrate Pride, I hope it is/was/will be a fantastically fun time for you this year.

I wish that you get covered in rainbow glitter, that somehow rinses off easily when you want it to. (Easily rinsable glitter is a myth, but a girl can dream.)

I wish you lots of hot strangers of the gender(s) you find attractive, looking you up and down as you sashay past.

I wish you plenty of roadside booths stocked with T-shirts with silly slogans, sparkly cowboy hats, and hand-blown glass dildos in Pride colors.

I wish you epic dance parties in dark sweaty clubs, and exactly as much physical contact from strangers as you desire, whether that’s none at all or a whole lot.

I wish you a reverential experience that reminds you of why it’s so crucial to feel outrageously proud of who you are.

I wish you total self-acceptance and, in fact, self-adoration.

Happy Pride, darlings! I’ll see you tomorrow for more sex toy talk.
-G.J.

Progress Report: G-Spot Orgasms (Take Three)

Kate Sloan

When I first wrote about my G-spot here, I had figured out how to make it feel good and swell up, but that was about as far as I’d gone. When I wrote an update a couple weeks later, I had given myself a seemingly “blended” orgasm by using a very intense G-spotting dildo in conjunction with a reliably excellent clit toy.

This time, I’m checking in to let you know that, for the first time I can remember, I managed to achieve a seriously intense, blended orgasm during intercourse with my boyfriend.

It started out innocently enough. At around 4AM, we dragged ourselves to bed, wanting sleep but also wanting to fit in a little “intimate time” before nodding off. We agreed that it would have to be slow and lazy sex, because neither of us had the energy for the hard ramming that is usually my preference.

Earlier that day, I’d been reading Deborah Sundahl’s book (yes, still – I’m a slow reader, okay?!) and she mentioned that it’s sometimes helpful for a man to concentrate on rubbing his coronal ridge over the G-spot with every thrust. I told this to my boyfriend and he accepted the challenge.

I was on my period, and feeling slightly self-conscious about my ladybits, so we skipped our usual foreplay and cut right to the chase. My man condom’ed and lubed his cock, I grabbed my Eroscillator (my clit’s best friend, and a perfect choice for those times when I’m too exhausted to rub myself during sex or just can’t be bothered), and we got down to business.

Normally my G-spot needs a good amount of prep and warm-up before it becomes sensitive enough to register pleasure, but as Ms. Sundahl predicted, my spot seems to gain sensitivity the more I use it and the more I focus on its sensations. So when my man slid into me, there was vaginal pleasure almost immediately.

Using a vibrating (or oscillating) toy during sex presents an advantage over using my hand, which is this: I don’t have to think when I’m Eroscillating my clit. I just have to turn it on and hold it there, and maybe increase the speed after a while. This makes it ideal for trying to induce internal orgasms because it allows me to focus all my attention on my G-spot.

And focus, I did. As the Eroscillator trembled faithfully against my clit, I directed all my awareness onto the feeling of my man’s cock sliding over my G-spot again and again (he is very, very good at locating my spot, and seems to only get better as time goes on). I was in another world; normally I’m mentally present enough to be aware of how I’m moving, the sounds I’m making, the way my boyfriend might be experiencing the interaction, but this time, the pleasure was so great and so deep that I didn’t notice any of that stuff. I probably looked like a total lunatic, but who cares?

After less than five minutes (very uncharacteristic for me when there’s no foreplay involved, and especially when I’m tired), I was suddenly hit with a super-strong, profound, internal, indescribable tidal wave of an orgasm. I let out a cry which my boyfriend later told me was loud enough to make him worry it’d wake the neighbors.

It was a different quality of orgasm than I’ve ever experienced before. Not only was it deeper and stronger, but it left me with a feeling of utter exhaustion and satisfaction that I only very rarely get from clitoral-only orgasms (after an hour-long cunnilingus session, for example). It was so all-consuming that I felt like I could barely move afterward. It was difficult to even sit up in bed for long enough to put my menstrual cup back in. And I fell asleep seemingly within seconds after lying back down.

We’re going to experiment more with this combination of techniques to see if it’s a reliable way to give me these splendiferous blended orgasms. I’m going to attempt to lower the amount of clitoral stimulation (for example, by keeping the Eroscillator on its lowest setting) so I’ll be forced to rely more and more on the G-spot stim to get off. I think this could be a very important step toward my eventual ability to get off with my G-spot alone. (And honestly, if that never fully happens, I won’t even care. Just let me have more of those glorious orgasms!)

Readers: If you can have G-spot orgasms, how did you first learn to do so? Any tips for a n00b like me? If you haven’t yet mastered your G-spot, what methods have you tried? What methods have you yet to try?