How Audio Porn Helps Me When I’m Depressed, Insecure, or Sexually Apathetic

Kate Sloan

I think I liked audio porn before I ever liked visual porn. And I don’t think this is an uncommon experience, particularly for women.

It makes sense. Much like some people prefer novels over their movie adaptations, sometimes you want to be able to visualize and fantasize inside your own head while consuming a piece of media, rather than having the visuals spelled out very literally for you.

But there are other reasons I still, to this day, often prefer audio porn over the traditional, cinematic variety. Namely:

1. Words are hot. There is not nearly enough dirty talk in most mainstream porn for my personal tastes, especially from men and masculine people, who are often nearly silent, I guess to keep from grossing out their cis-het male viewers?! As someone whose sex life has been 70%+ phone sex for the past few years, and who has spent her life writing about sex, I’m perhaps more attuned to the eroticism of words than the average porn consumer. Generally I’d rather listen to someone describing cunnilingus than watch them perform it, for example – in part because it’s a sex act where, if you’re doing it right, often nothing all that interesting will be visually apparent from the outside.

2. Sounds are hot. Moans, quickening breaths, the animalistic sound of someone desperately stroking their cock – these things are often the most exciting parts of porn to me, to the point that if a clip has been muted, or has poor sound quality, I tend to close that tab and move on to the next. In audio porn, obviously the auditory elements of eroticism are played up and focused upon, plus they tend to be rendered in higher quality because of the performers’ proximity to their (often) fancy, ASMR-quality mics.

3. It makes me less insecure and self-critical. While I reject the notion that female porn stars aren’t “real women,” because obviously they are, they tend to be a lot more conventionally gorgeous than me, which can bring up uncomfortable feelings while I’m just trying to turn myself on and get off. Some audio porn describes the characters therein, but much of it is created to be intentionally vague, so that the listener can slot themselves into any fantasy they want without having to compare themselves to the preexisting people in that fantasy.

4. It’s physically easier to consume. I didn’t always care about this, but now that I’m chronically ill, there are some days when the effort of holding up my iPad to watch porn – or orienting myself in bed so that I can comfortably see the screen – is just too much, especially if I want to have energy left over afterward for masturbation or sex. I like that with audio porn, I can put my headphones on, hit “play,” and stay perfectly still in whatever position feels comfy while I listen.

5. It’s often in the second person. I know some people hate this about audio erotica, and would be comfier if it only ever described third-person scenarios (“She took his cock into her mouth,” etc.) rather than being in the second person (“You’re going to take my cock into your mouth now, pretty girl”). But I like the second-person ones, and especially enjoyed them when I was in my early 20s and had only just admitted to myself that I might be kinky. (LOL. What an understatement.) Hearing kinky dirty talk that was from a stranger, but that still felt like it was aimed directly at me, helped me become comfortable taking on a submissive role before I ever actually acted out those fantasies with real-life partners.

6. It’s comforting. I don’t know if I’m quite an “ASMR person,” in that I don’t often experience the characteristic “brain tingles” reported by those folks upon hearing certain sounds or encountering situations that trigger them. But I do find it oddly calming to be talked through a sexy scenario by a kind-hearted stranger who requires absolutely nothing from me, in terms of participation or prettiness. It’s like the grown-up version of when you stay home sick from school and a loving parent reads aloud to you from a fantasy novel.

 

Have you listened to much audio porn? What are your thoughts on it?

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at Sofia Sins, the cool new audio-porn platform from Sofia Gray. Check ’em out if sexy audio turns you on! As always, all writing and opinions here are my own.

Disability Impostor Syndrome Fucking Sucks

Kate Sloan
I don’t know what’s going on in this picture, but I’m holding a spoon, so it seemed relevant.

This has been one of those chronic-illness weeks when I felt legitimately sick, legitimately disabled. It’s nice, in a way, to be able to banish the voices of impostor syndrome from my brain, if just because the rest of me is throbbing with pain. (Hey, that rhymed.)

I powered through that impostor syndrome in so many ways this week. I made accommodations and adjustments for my illness. I took Wednesday off work – a “Weekend Wednesday,” as CGP Grey would say – and mostly just laid in bed trying to breathe through the pain, distracting myself (sometimes well, sometimes not-so-well) with books and video games. I got as much sleep as I could, drank as much water as I could. I laid out my schedule for the week in such a way that I only ever had a maximum of two commitments per day, two “things” involving interacting with other humans, because this involves suppressing the visible signs of my pain and fatigue and is thus, in itself, exhausting.

I bought a cane.

There is a scene in the 1993 TV movie To Dance with the White Dog, a movie my mom and I have inexplicably watched together at least a dozen times, where the protagonist – an old man named Sam – finds that his physical condition has worsened to the point where he needs a mobility aid. One of his sons brings him a walker, and at first he refuses to use it, remarking petulantly that it’ll make him look like “a poor old man.”

I thought about this scene this week when I was limping around my apartment, needing to rest every few steps because of the reasonless pain stabbing through my knee. I’d considered buying a cane in the past for days like these, but I knew it would make me “look disabled,” and somehow I felt like I wasn’t “disabled enough” to deserve or warrant “looking disabled.” It was all too similar to how, when I was 15 and had just realized I was sometimes attracted to women (though still mostly attracted to men), I felt weird about wearing rainbows and bi pride flags on my person, because I worried I’d be misleading people somehow. By what? Flagging as queer when I am literally queer? How ridiculous.

It’s the same principle. If a cane would make it even 10% easier or more comfortable for me to get around, why not use one? Why not see if it could help more than 10%, even?

Would people see me on the subway or streetcar and ask me why I need a cane when I’m young and my body has no visible, structural issues? Would I then have to explain that I have a chronic pain disorder with no symptoms that are actually observable or provable from the outside, and that I don’t even have an official diagnosis? Or would I be filled with such rage and indignation that I’d have to limp off the vehicle to catch my breath and angry-cry in a subway station?

I started reading about disabled femmes-and-femme-adjacent-people who use canes. Gorgeous movie star Selma Blair has multiple sclerosis and walks with a cane. Canadian sex educator Kaleigh Trace was injured as a child and uses two canes. Local legend Claire AH, whose storytelling and matchmaking skills are unparalleled, walks with a cane after having some strokes a few years back. Witchy zinester Maranda Elizabeth uses (and writes thoughtfully about) using a cane. There is plenty of inspiration out there to be found.

As I flipped through FashionableCanes.com – what a website! – I found myself, again, wondering if I was just being dramatic, exaggerating my own symptoms to myself, even as a heating pad encased my throbbing knee and I popped yet another naproxen for the grinding pain in my hipbones, ankles, and elbows. I considered a cane of clear lucite, but determined its near-invisibility could be a drawback for a disability that’s already so frustratingly invisible. I contemplated stately wooden canes, the likes of which might’ve been carried by a well-to-do gentleman in Victorian England, but just didn’t think I could pull off something so sophisticated. Eventually I settled on a blue wood one with an ornate chrome-plated handle. It’s classic but a little flashy. It felt like “me,” or at least like the closest thing to “me” I could find while shopping for a product I still wasn’t convinced I really needed or deserved.

I had a phone call with my doctor booked for Friday morning, during which I planned to ask her to refer me to a local chronic pain clinic. My doctor, notoriously, is not great about my pain; she never seems to take it very seriously, and the sheer fact that I’ve been complaining to her about it fairly regularly for over 6 years and have not even received a definitive diagnosis speaks volumes. The night before the appointment, my partner Matt said, haltingly, “I have a proposal for you… and please feel free to say no if you want to… but I think we should do some medical roleplay so you can practice what you’re going to say to your doctor tomorrow.” A tear immediately slid down my cheek. My wonderful spouse knew that advocating for myself is not my strong suit, especially in medical situations, in large part because of the very impostor syndrome this entire post is about. It’s difficult to make the case that you deserve a diagnosis and a treatment plan when you don’t actually, 100% believe that you do.

So we roleplayed. Matt pretended to be my doctor and asked, “Are you sure you need to be referred to this clinic?” and “Why now?” and “Is your pain really that bad?” I struggled through my deep self-doubt and self-loathing to answer: “Yes.” “My condition is worse than ever and I need help.” “My entire body hurts, at a minimum 4-out-of-10 intensity (and usually higher), every single day of my life, so yes, it is really that bad.”

I found myself responding to these questions almost as if I was answering on behalf of someone else, someone whose pain I had no doubts about, whose struggle I knew for a fact was real, whose quality of life I felt should be better. I was able to tap into a rare sense of authenticity and deservingness. It was almost as if placing the order for the cane had cleared some cobwebs in my mind, enabled me for the first time to truly, deeply understand that I am actually disabled – however invisibly – and I deserve to have that acknowledged and addressed by the people whose literal job it is to acknowledge and address it.

So the next morning, when my doctor predictably said, “Are you sure you need to be referred to this clinic?” and “How bad is your pain, really?” I was prepared.

“I have done the research and I believe this clinic is the best option,” I replied, calmly, coolly. “It is not acceptable to me that I’ve lived with daily chronic pain for the past 6 years, and I’d like to seek a diagnosis and treatment.”

She filled out the referral form while I stayed on the phone. “Where is the pain located?” she asked, when that question came up on the form, and I replied, with total confidence (because it was true), “All over my entire body.” She did not argue with me. She did not dismiss me. She just filled out the damn form.

In every area of my life where I have experienced impostor syndrome – my queerness, my kinkiness, my success as a writer, and my disability – I have found that believing fully in my own legitimacy is often the first step to getting other people to see me as legitimate. It is unfortunate that this is the case, but it is useful to know. As soon as I firm up my convictions and declare to the world that I really am the thing that I really am (what a concept!), they tend to believe me. I know I’m blessed and privileged in this way, and that this unfortunately isn’t the case for everyone: racial healthcare disparities, trans healthcare gatekeeping, and other injustices still run rampant. But if my confidence in my own labels can convince even the occasional person that they are legitimate, that confidence is worth cultivating.

I have a feeling that the day I show up for my first appointment at the new chronic pain clinic, my new cane gleaming in my hand, I will feel like an utterly new woman – a woman who is unapologetically, unreservedly, and undoubtedly herself, disability and all.

10 Places I’d Gladly Wear Vibrating Underwear

Kate Sloan

1. The train ride from Toronto to Montreal takes about 5 hours. Sunny and fast, it’s certainly preferable to crowding onto a musty bus or (god forbid) driving there myself – but entertainment options are limited. I get carsick if I read anything while in a moving vehicle, so books and magazines are out. Normally I just load a bunch of podcast episodes and audiobooks onto my iPad and let the voices in my headphones entertain me for the duration of the trip. But it would be sooo much more amusing if I was also wearing a vibrator, even if I was the one operating the controls. Some vulva-possessing people already report that the steady vibrations of a bus or train can stimulate their bits if they angle themselves correctly in their seat, sometimes even to the point of orgasm – and it’s the same principle, really!

2. Assuming I had the consent of the artist, I think getting a tattoo would be an interesting activity to combine with panty vibrators. Big and intricate tattoos, especially, tend to be a long slog of painful pokes and periodic waves of endorphins; the addition of sexual pleasure could balance and recontextualize the pain, making the overall sensation more bearable and more enjoyable. However, now that I think about it, I’m not sure vibrations in my underwear would be the best idea for an activity where remaining perfectly still is paramount…

3. While I love the idea of going to the opera – partly because of how fancy you’re allowed to dress when you go – in reality I’ve literally fallen asleep during every opera performance I’ve ever been to. I think my brain is far too easily lulled into slumber by the cognitive effort of trying to discern what someone is communicating when they’re singing in a language I don’t speak, even if it sounds beautiful regardless. I feel bad for being an inattentive audience member; maybe a (quiet) panty vibe would help keep me alert enough to actually see an entire opera show for once!

4. I often go to my local coffee shop when I need to get some writing done (or at least, I did pre-pandemic). While a vibrator might not be the most useful accessory if I was working on something serious and research-heavy, I do find that writing erotica benefits enormously from me being actively turned on while I write it. It helps me get out of my brain (“What would these characters theoretically say and do in this situation?”) and into my body (“How would I want to get totally railed right now if I was one of these characters?!”). Provided the café was bustling enough that some buzzing noises wouldn’t be an issue, I think a panty vibe would be a great way to induce that mood, and thus improve my writing.

5. My former sugar daddy had a thing for remote-controlled vibrators; he disclosed to me his fantasy that sometime I would wear one in a café bathroom while he got me off from miles away. With that in mind, I think it would be fun to wear a panty vibe during a shopping spree, whether I was in a submissive/sugar baby type of role in relation to my libidinous chaperone, or a more dominant/findomme-esque one. Of course, most stores probably (reasonably) have an unspoken “you have an orgasm while wearing it, you buy it” policy…

6. If the pandemic situation ever resolves to a point where I feel comfortable going to a rock concert again (here’s hoping), I’d love to wear a vibe under my skirt while moshing and sloshing around with other rambunctious attendees. There is something genuinely erotic about going to see live music – the way the bass vibrates through your flesh, the close contact with strangers’ sweaty bodies, the (often alcohol-fuelled) feeling of blissful rapture during a great guitar solo or well-earned encore – and a vibrator would just up the ante on all of those sensations. I wonder how many people have had orgasms in mosh pits… More than zero, I am quite certain.

7. I’ve already worn panty vibes on the occasional cocktail bar date, but it’s a situation worth revisiting. Dates and drinks already make me feel flirty, flustered, and off-kilter – adding vibration takes that to the next level!

8. Can you imagine wearing a panty vibe as part of a game show? I’m not talking about Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, et al., although I do wonder if Bluetooth-controlled vibrators have ever graced those hallowed stages… No, this fantasy of mine is closer to a “Hysterical Literature” type of thing. Perhaps a trivia game or spelling bee where all participants are being distracted by sexual sensations while trying to answer questions as quickly and accurately as they can. I like to think I’d do well, but who the hell knows!

9. There are lots of places in a fancy hotel where a panty vibe might come in handy, but to name just one… Sometimes when we stay in hotels, my partner sends me out with a bucket to find the nearest ice machine, so they can mix us little cocktails from the contents of our minibar stash. I often feel pretty submissive while doing this, because I’m walking around an unfamiliar place, clutching an unfamiliar prop, on a mission assigned to me by my dominant. Trotting up and down endless staircases in search of the word “ICE” on a wall or a door would be so much more entertaining if there was a vibe involved.

10. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention a park picnic as an ideal destination for a vibrator-enhanced outing. Just imagine it: the summer sun is out, you’re sated on yummy cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwiches (or whatever else sounds delectable and refreshing to you), and your favorite person is smiling wickedly at you as they give you pleasure with a flick of their fingers on their phone screen. I can imagine few better endeavors to be the centerpiece of a relaxed summer day.

 

What are your favorite places to wear remote-controlled vibrators?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

What is “Ethical Porn,” Anyway?

Kate Sloan

People have been debating the concepts of “ethical porn,” “feminist porn,” and “authentic porn” the entire time I’ve been in this industry. It’s a constant push-and-pull within the queer, sex-positive, and feminist communities. Is porn an oppressive force, or an avenue for change and exploration? (Depends.) Is “male-gaze” porn hot, or problematic? (Depends.) Is what happens on porn sets always fully consensual? (Sadly, no.)

The concept of “ethical porn” is somewhat elastic and subjective, but it’s always interesting to see how individual people and companies choose to define this term for themselves. Sex toy brand Bellesa recently launched Bellesa Plus, their new porn subscription service which they’re calling “the Netflix of porn.” It features not only sexy videos but also interactive sex education and 600+ written erotica stories. Since ethics is a major focus of the work they’re doing, I thought it would be cool to expand on this concept a bit, and ponder the morality of smut.

 

Here are some basic benchmarks for what I would consider ethical porn:

• Performers are treated well. I mean, of course! They should be provided with snacks and water on set, able to take breaks when they need to, and valued and respected by everyone involved in the production. To me, this also includes implementing health and safety measures that help keep performers safe, like STI screening requirements (which Bellesa Plus, like most porn studios I’ve heard of, enforces), and having lots of lube available on set.

• Performers are paid well. As a feminist, I believe in pay equity, pay transparency, and fair payment for services rendered. Porn performers work incredibly hard and deserve compensation that reflects that, for each and every scene they do.

• Performers have agency. When I’ve performed in porn for indie companies, I’ve always been encouraged to choose scene partners who I genuinely like, trust, and want to have sex with on camera – which made the experience much more comfortable for me. Bellesa Plus is doing the same thing: their performers all choose who they want to work with, so the chemistry you see on-screen is based in real desire. Their performers also have veto power vis-a-vis what kinds of storylines they will or won’t perform in, and what kinds of sex they will have, and they can call an immediate end to the scene whenever they want, should something go awry.

• Everything depicted is consensual, and anything that appears non-consensual is properly contextualized. Unfortunately, some porn producers and performers are unscrupulous, and various forms of sexual assault do sometimes happen on porn sets. Truly ethical pornographers would immediately fire and blacklist anyone known to do shit like this, and would encourage (or require) a pre-scene negotiation between performers to establish ground rules for the scene. Bellesa assures me that 100% of the sex you’ll see on Bellesa Plus is consensual, and was filmed consensually. That said, many, many people have fantasies that involve some degree of non-consent – “rape” fantasies and other kinky power-exchange scenarios remain very popular in polls about such things – and those people should be able to access that type of material if they want to, although I think it should always be paired with some indication that the performers are actually consenting to what they’re doing. I’ve mostly seen that done via pre-scene and post-scene interviews with the performers about their fantasies, expectations, and limits.

• Content warnings are provided for each scene. We have them for mainstream movies in the form of MPAA rating descriptors; why not have them for porn, too? As a porn viewer who has certain triggers and squicks (which almost everyone does, to some extent), I often get frustrated when I put on what I think is going to be a hot scene, only to find that it contains some of the things I can’t handle or just don’t want to watch. A brief list of content warnings would help enormously, especially if timecodes were provided so I could skip past the stuff I didn’t want to see.

• Diversity of performers and filmmakers is prioritized. There is, frankly, more than enough porn made by straight cis able-bodied white guys out there already. They can and will keep doing their thing, but I’m much more interested in porn made by people from marginalized groups: people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, etc. etc. etc. Much of the porn on Bellesa Plus is directed by Jacky St. James, a legendary female pornographer, whose gaze and approach differ substantially from those of typical mainstream porn.

 

Bellesa Plus is doing some other things I think are awesome, too:

• They offer sliding-scale pricing, so that people who want to watch porn can access it for as little as $1/month. Paying more gets you cool perks like free sex toys, but if you just want cheap smut, they’ve got you covered. This is terrific news for people who care about supporting pornographers financially but don’t have much spare cash with which to do so.

• Director Jacky St. James has a “no fake orgasms” policy. I actually think fake orgasms can sometimes be hot, in the same way that I’m not mad when Meryl Streep cries in a movie despite not really being sad because she’s so damn good that it’s affecting regardless – but the prevalence of fake female orgasms in mainstream porn does contribute to culture-wide misinformation about sex and pleasure, so it’s cool to see some companies deviating from that norm.

• Their porn focuses on storyline and chemistry, rather than being all about closeups of tits and pussy and cock and ass. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good genitalia shot, but I also hear from readers/followers of mine pretty regularly that they wish porn had more of a story arc, relationship development, real chemistry, and so on. As a demisexual person, I totally get that for some people, it can be hotter to watch sex that’s been put in context emotionally, rather than just depicting a detached fuck in an unexplained location.

 

What about you? How would you define “ethical porn”? How do your tastes in porn relate to your values and ethics, if at all?

 

This post was graciously sponsored by the folks at Bellesa Plus. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

What Would Be in Your Dream Kink Dungeon?

Kate Sloan
Photo taken by Taylor J Mace at the Ritual Chamber

One of my favorite activities for stress relief – right alongside playing Pokémon games, listening to comedy podcasts, and (yes) masturbating – is perusing real estate listings.

I know this wouldn’t work for everyone, since housing and finances are, themselves, stressful areas of life for many of us. But if I’m able to fully divorce my realistic expectations for my own life from the properties I’m looking at, I can enjoy four-story floorplans and massive mansions to my heart’s content. Seriously, have you ever gone to Zillow, typed in the name of your city/town, sorted by “price: high to low,” and ogled the abodes therein? Sheer heaven for your eyes. (Not so much for your wallet, though.)

A treasured real estate-related fantasy of mine is to have enough rooms in my home that I could dedicate an entire room to kink. It would have blackout curtains, mood lighting, and a lot of jewel tones… but it would also have to have, of course, lots of kink equipment.

In this fantasy timeline, I would drop by the local BDSM store and basically fill my cart, and then some. I’d line the walls with elegant hooks and racks for all my various impact implements, giant dildos, and fetishwear. It would be a perverted smorgasboard.

Furniture-wise, of course I’d need a spanking bench. I like the kind that looks vaguely vintage, like it was hand-crafted out of wood and leather for disciplinary purposes. I’ve also always dreamed of having some furniture that would integrate well into my age-play fantasies, like a wide oak desk the likes of which you’d see in a principal’s office, or a row of metal lockers a bully could slam me against in a moment of lascivious aggression. A queening chair (i.e. a seat with an open hole in the middle where your partner can lay their head while you sit on their face) would also be a must-have for my dommier moments, and would likely be easier on my pain-wracked knees than normal kneeling.

There would also have to be a bed, because – as much as I’d like to be the kind of kinkster who can fuck standing up, or draped over a spanking bench, or bent over a desk, my body just aches too much most of the time for athletic shenanigans. I’d want to be able to flop onto a soft surface while recovering from subspace. Plus, one of my all-time favorite bondage toys is my set of under-the-bed restraints, and they need a bed to go under!

Although it would be hot and exciting to have a kink-specific space in my home, I think really one of the key reasons to have one is the way in which it could help me relax into a kink session. I could literally leave my stressors at the door (at least in theory), knowing as I entered that I was about to leave the “real world” and step into a space dedicated to pleasure and play. For a person who gets stressed out easily, that would be a massive improvement over trying to do kink in a space containing stress triggers like dirty laundry, unpaid bills, and a visibly inundated email inbox on a computer screen.

That said, while I might never have a home dungeon of my very own, I can at least try to bring some dungeon-esque vibes into my own room for the time being. I can turn off my computer, hide away my clutter, dim the lights, display some sexy toys, and put on some chillaxing music. It may not be Christian Grey-level glamorous, but it shows commitment to myself, my partner(s), and our shared pleasure – and that’s a commitment worth making, if you ask me.

 

How about you? What would you put in the dungeon (or other kink-focused space) of your dreams?

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.