12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 4 Fun Events

Kate Sloan
Wow. Remember crowds?

While plotting this blog series, I considered swapping out this list of my fave events of the year for something more… timely. After all, as far as in-person events go, we’ve seen better years, to say the least. But as far as virtual events go? This was very probably the best year on record.

So here are the 4 events that stuck out most in my mind this year – some in-person, some virtual. I’m immensely grateful to everyone involved in making each of these happen, because this year needed a whole lot of brightening and they managed to brighten it.

(I’m not going to write about my wedding here, by the way… not because it wasn’t one of my favorite events of the year, but because that feels like a cop-out!)

Get On Your Knees

How could I have known what comedian Jacqueline Novak‘s one-woman show Get On Your Knees would be like? All I knew about it was that she was funny and well-reviewed, and that the show was about blowjobs. There are so many different ways a person can talk about blowjobs – I should know – so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

What ensued was a meandering and deeply personal show-long monologue about Jacqueline’s formative fellatio experiences. Her fears, her insecurities, her failures – and also her triumphs, her joys, her successes. She stalked around the stage, mic in hand, ranting about scrotal skin, vulva shame, and the inability to turn off her racing thoughts while giving head. Each and every observation felt fresh, relatable, and outrageously funny.

Part of the reason I do what I do here at Girly Juice is that women have traditionally been discouraged from talking openly about their sex lives – especially if they enjoy sex, especially if they’re critical of the men they have sex with, and especially if the types of sex they prefer to have are considered non-standard. To see a successful female comedian speaking frankly about sex on stage – in a manner both vulnerable and hilarious – reinvigorated my courage and drive to do what I do. I’m so happy Jacqueline’s show got the critical acclaim it deserved, and I know she’s changed the comedy landscape for the better.

The Beaches & Goodbye Honolulu at the Danforth Music Hall

Remember February? Ahh, ignorance was truly bliss.

On February 28th, I flew home from a weeks-long stretch in New York. The reason I’d picked that day was that on February 29th, I had a ticket to go see my brother’s band open for the Beaches. All I knew about the Beaches, going into this show, was that Max’s band had toured with them before, knew them pretty well, and respected them a lot. I knew they were an all-girl group, and some internalized misogyny led me to assume that they wouldn’t rock as hard as Goodbye Honolulu does. Well, I was very wrong.

Sitting in the cushy balcony of the legendary Danforth Music Hall with my parents, I had a quasi-religious experience at that show. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least not for the bands; they played their guitars and drums and basses, sang and screamed into their mics, strutted around the stage in hot outfits. But it had been a while since I’d been to a proper rock show, and I felt high even though the only “substance” I’d consumed was a beer from the bar downstairs. I was completely captivated by these bands – first the boys, and then the girls – their talent, their drive, their intensity.

Afterward, I walked out onto the snowy street, dazed and cleansed. I didn’t know, at the time, that this would be the last music show I’d go to in-person for a very long while. But knowing what I know now, I couldn’t have picked a better last hurrah before lockdown.

Abolish Police in Canada teach-in

It had been a few years since I’d been to a political rally, so attending an No Pride in Policing teach-in/rally at Nathan Phillips Square in late June was powerful.

Black and Indigenous activists spoke, read poetry, sang, and played music – some from afar via Zoom, some right in front of us – about the harm police have caused to their communities, and the structural changes that need to be made. mb and I sat on the pavement, surrounded by hundreds of other (mostly masked and socially-distanced) rapt onlookers, and listened, clapped, and cheered.

The opposition to the event, while expected, was still disheartening. Police on bikes swarmed the perimeter; racist anti-maskers sprayed droplets with their enraged screams. But people attending the event, either as performers or onlookers, dealt with these threats in peaceful and purposeful ways, usually just blocking the opposition’s path to the stage so they couldn’t disrupt the proceedings further.

Since it happened around the same time Pride usually does, and was put on by the No Pride in Policing coalition, this was decidedly a queer community event. It felt so amazing to gather with other queers in service of a vitally important goal – defunding the police and redistributing their budget to other, more worthy causes – during Pride month, a time that’s always been political for us. The work being done by Black Lives Matter Canada (not to mention the organization’s other chapters worldwide) is absolutely phenomenal; I only hope that privileged policymakers start actually listening to them sometime soon.

Theatresports Online

The Bad Dog Theatre has been one of my favorite places for over 14 years. Unfortunately, now, it’s no longer so much a place as a community – both because the pandemic has prevented in-person gatherings, and because the pandemic has caused the Bad Dog to have to give up its physical space for the time being. They’re looking for a new one, but until then, we still have online shows to look forward to.

The programming put on by the Bad Dog this year made every week feel about 15% more bearable for me. Whether their improvisors were performing impromptu plays about love and sex, playing Dungeons & Dragons over Zoom, or interviewing fake “experts” about their fake books, they made me laugh so hard I cried every time I tuned into their YouTube channel.

Theatresports is the Bad Dog’s flagship improv show. I think the first time I ever saw an improv show in my life (that wasn’t an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway), it was a Theatresports show. It’s a competitive shortform show where two teams go head-to-head to see who can create the funniest scenes and games. In its online form this year, it was hosted every week by Tom Hearn, a vivacious beacon of brightness forever wearing elaborate drag makeup and randomly breaking into song between scenes.

Every time I had a hard week, whether related to pandemic stress, work stress, family stress, or literally anything else, I always knew I could sit down in front of the TV on Thursday night and the Bad Dog crew would keep me company and crack me up. They helped get me through this hell year, and I know I’m not the only one they helped in that way. I can never thank them enough for the laughs they served up in 2020.

 

What events made you happy this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

Kate Sloan
tfw you’re stuck inside most of the year because of COVID but you still wanna stay up-to-date on the latest sex news

Each December I write about 5 people whose teachings on sexuality were significant to me throughout the year. Since in-person workshops and conferences weren’t available to us for most of the year, sex education looked different for me in 2020 – most of it happened while reading books or blogs. However, I still feel like I learned a lot more about sexuality this year, including deepening my understanding of my own sexuality. Here are the 5 people whose expertise most impressed and uplifted me in 2020…

Angela Chen

I already wrote about Angela Chen’s brilliant book Ace in a previous 12DoGJ instalment, but it bears repeating: this is one of the best books in existence about asexuality. I know it will change many lives. In fact, I’m sure it already has.

In addition to being an outstanding author, Angela is a reporter who covers asexuality, technology, and health. Her essays on subjects like “curing” desire, discovering one’s own asexuality, and the overrepresentation of alloromanticism in fiction are full of ideas that challenge the status quo, both out in the world and within your own mind. She is consistently brave enough to question societal norms and eloquent enough to make me shout, “How can anyone write this well?!” I love everything I’ve seen from her body of work and can’t wait to see what she does next.

Velvet Veronica

2020 was the year that I discovered possibly the best handjob-giver on the planet, Velvet Veronica. Granted, I don’t have a penis so it’s hard to assess that for certain, but my partner does, and attests that Veronica’s skills are unmatched (or at least, they appear to be!).

Though she bills herself as a “soft femdom” porn creator, her style of dominance can actually be wonderfully strict and mean. Her videos show her “torturing” her submissive (whom she calls “pet”) with vibrators, chastity, edging, denial, post-orgasmic overstimulation, and much more. Though I enjoy her work very much on a purely entertainment-based level (what can I say, I appreciate a great HJ!), I also think her videos are remarkably educational for anyone looking to explore dominance. She never shows her face – or the mysterious thigh tattoo she covers up with a garter in every scene for anonymity reasons – but she doesn’t need to, because her power is all about her voice, her presence, and those magic hands.

Ana Valens

I don’t remember how I first became Twitter mutuals with Ana Valens, but I’m so glad I did. She’s the NSFW reporter for the Daily Dot, where she covers everything from gender-affirming sex toys to the healing power of BDSM to transphobia in video games. She’s also a delight to listen to on podcasts, whether she’s talking about social etiquette on my show Question Box or sex work stigma on Canadaland.

The more that internet discourse becomes a tug of war between the right and the left, between “cancel culture” and “free speech,” between “fake news” and true facts, the more I respect and admire journalists of marginalized identities who manage to do brilliant work despite all the pressures they face. Ana’s reporting is always incisive, with a side of humor and whimsy. Her writing makes me feel optimistic about sex journalism again in a way I don’t often feel anymore. She’s a must-read, in 2020 and beyond. (Oh, and she also makes porn.)

Denying Thumper

One thing my spouse mb and I have in common: when we become interested in a new kink, we research the hell out of it. That’s how they stumbled upon Denying Thumper, who’s been blogging about his adventures in long-term chastity for several years.

As a sex educator, I often tell people who want to introduce their partner to a new kink of theirs that it’s important to be specific. Just because you’ve seen 800 videos about your fetish doesn’t mean that your partner has the slightest clue how to put it into action in a way you’ll enjoy. This is why I’ve found chastity blogs like Denying Thumper so useful as mb and I have been exploring chastity together: they give me a model of what to do, what not to do, and even how to think about the kink in question. It helps enormously that Thumper is a cogent, witty writer with a clearly bottomless passion for chastity. Sex bloggers fucking rule, man.

My therapist

As I told you earlier in the year, I was lucky enough in mid-2020 to find a therapist who was not only accepting new clients (only over the phone – this is a pandemic year, after all!) but who also happened to be clued-in about kink, non-monogamy, LGBTQ+ issues, and trauma – all important puzzle pieces of my psyche. My therapist herself (who uses both she/her and they/them pronouns) has experience in these areas both personally and professionally, and they have been a total godsend for me this year.

Good therapists, who don’t stigmatize their clients’ natural and healthy inclinations but instead push them to explore their desires free from self-judgment or self-hatred, are so necessary in this world. I end every call with my therapist breathing a sigh of relief, feeling less frazzled, less broken, and less alone. I doubt they’ll ever read this (that would probably be ethically weird), but they helped me get through 2020, and I’m so grateful.

 

Who were your sex-savvy superheroes this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

Ages ago, I read an article which mentioned that donating personal journals to historical archives can be really helpful to historians of the future, because it gives them a sense of what daily life was like for average people during a given timeframe. I thought about that almost every time I put pen to paper this year, because 2020 will certainly be written about in history books (to the extent that history books are still a thing in the future!).

Here are 6 entries I pulled from my journals this year. Hopefully next year we’ll have many more cheerful things to write about!

Jan. 31

mb asked me recently to what degree I want to be surprised with a proposal. I said, “I don’t want to know exactly when it’s going to happen, but I do want to know when we are entering a period of life in which a proposal might occur.” They said, “So you want to know when I have a ring,” and I said yes. I love that we have, and have always had, these meta-conversations about important relationship milestones – it’s so different from the traditional Cosmopolitan model of relationships where you never talk about anything and always have to guess what your partner is thinking and feeling.

March 3rd

Everything is really scary right now because a pandemic called the coronavirus is spreading globally and there’s no vaccine for it yet. That sounds so dramatic and crazy but that is what’s happening. People are stockpiling flu meds and face masks and hand sanitizer, and some affected people are self-quarantining for weeks at a time. My immune system sucks so I feel like I will probably get it, but who knows. Currently I am coping by leaving the house as little as possible, washing my hands a lot, distracting myself with podcasts and movies, and drinking homemade martinis.

March 15

Existing in a pandemic reminds me of a feeling I get in the days and weeks following a really brutal breakup. You walk through the world in this daze, unable yet to process that your entire reality has shifted on its axis. Periodically you find minutes or hours of respite in the form of distraction, or perspective, or positive social connection, or just a random feeling of unusual optimism and shrugging resignation – but always, at some point, your mind skids squeakily like a record being scratched as the remembrance of your true situation hits you afresh. Being alive through COVID-19 is like that, except everyone is going through it now, all the time.

It’s fucking surreal how fast everything has changed. No aspect of life can be the same now. Nine days ago I saw fit to go to a crowded karaoke bar. Today I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. We are staying home and moving all our appointments online, or canceling them. We are afraid even to walk around the block or pick up groceries. We don’t know how long it’ll be until we can safely gather in crowds again.

May 13

I’m having a lot of episodes of… feeling triggered/having a trauma response/having an extreme nervous system response/not sure what else to call it… lately. Mostly triggered by stressful things in my relationship (we worked some things out yesterday so it’s okay now) but sometimes basically random. I’ve noticed that I often go into a shut-down dissociative mode when I feel like I’ve disappointed or upset someone I care about – the world slows down like I’ve done a lot of drugs, and the inside of my mind and body feel helplessly, scarily sluggish – and I think this must be related to all the many times my dad yelled at me until I cried, for both justifiable and unjustifiable reasons, when I was a kid/teen/young adult. I remember feeling so frustrated and sad that I could never seem to articulate myself well enough to provide a decent rebuttal to whatever he was bellowing at me – but of course I couldn’t; my nervous system was under attack and I was essentially paralyzed, with nothing to do but stand there and take it. Often I wouldn’t even be allowed to go to my room and cry in private to feel safe and calm again, because that would be perceived by him as “sulking” and he hated that. I think he mostly just hated the guilt of knowing he had upset me that much, after his obvious glee in hurting me had faded.

I asked mb why they think all these trauma feelings and emotional flashbacks have been coming up so much for me lately – mostly ex-boyfriend stuff and dad stuff, I think – and they said it’s likely due to the stress of living through a global pandemic. Which, yes, that is true. I reached out to several therapists who specialize in trauma/PTSD as well as non-monogamy, because that is really what I’ve needed for years, I just haven’t been able to afford it. But now I finally can, and I want to work on myself and my dumb brain.

May 29th

Increasingly I feel like human civilization as I know it will end within my lifetime. Increasingly I find that tuning out the news and the world for periods of time is the only way I can even function. Increasingly I worry that dismantling capitalism is both the only solution to our major problems as a species and one of the only things we will never do.

July 17th

mb went back home a couple days ago after living with me for 4 months of coronavirus lockdown. It was really hard for both of us. I cried a lot and they told me that my deep emotionality is a catch-22 because it makes the hard things extra hard but it also makes the good things extra good.

My days now are much more quiet, still, and unstructured without them here. I guess this is what quarantining alone would have been like. I’m not sure it’s all that great for my mental health but it’s also an opportunity to pursue any projects I feel like, read a lot of books, and play a lot of video games. I miss mb but I like being alone, too. And I’m very very privileged and lucky to be able to do so safely, in such a hellish year.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

Every December, I write about some of the most significant selfies I took throughout the year. Despite the fact that I spent most of 2020 sitting on my couch in my pajamas (anyone else?!), I nonetheless managed to take many photos of special moments with special people. Here are 7 of my faves!

January 13th

This was taken while Bex and I were on a work trip to Burbank, California. We had been provisionally hired to helm a sex magazine which never ended up happening (thanks, COVID) and had to spend a couple days chatting with fellow sex-industry professionals at ANME and learning about the latest innovations in the sex toy field.

They have legal weed over there, so we got a little silly. I snapped this selfie on our way back into our hotel after a smoke break in the parking lot; I had gotten wayyy too high on that legendarily strong California kush, and my childlike glee started to break through the veneer of polished adulthood we’d had to project all day at the tradeshow. Bex, sensing my over-intoxication, helped me plan my next steps, and when we got back to our room, he encouraged me to get into a hot bath and call my partner so they could take care of me over the phone.

I love this picture because it captures so much of what I love most about my friendship with Bex: our ability to make each other howl with laughter. It’s the reason our podcast has remained so fun to do all these years, and it’s one of the things I missed most about my normal, pre-pandemic social life while everything was up in the air this year.

January 17th

It’s still so wild to me that I wrote a book. It’s not coming out until September 2021, but at this point it’s been so long since I actually wrote the thing that sometimes I forget what my daily routine was like during that process. My calendar archives make it very clear, however, that I was surprisingly disciplined and productive for a chronically fatigued person, generally writing 2 short chapters every weekday for about 3 months. I’m proud of myself!

This photo was taken the night of my official book deadline. I’d submitted the completed manuscript a couple days earlier, because I have way too much anxiety to leave things like that to the last minute, but it still felt like a momentous day. My partner and my friends encouraged me to get dressed up and go out for a solo date to celebrate. I put on one of my favorite dresses and a full face of pretty makeup, and walked down to the Fairmont Royal York hotel, which contains the Library Bar, an ornate and auspicious salon filled with good books and excellent cocktails. It’s the same place mb and I went when I ceremonially signed my book contract and had some celebratory drinks, so it made sense to return there when the book was finished, albeit by myself.

I have a lot of trouble acknowledging and celebrating my own achievements, even big ones. Part of me always believes I didn’t quite earn them, or that something will go disastrously wrong and I’ll embarrass myself somehow if I actually take ownership of what I’ve achieved. But it felt good to sip a dirty martini by myself and write in my journal about how proud I was to have written a whole goddamn book.

February 22nd

Doing shrooms for the first time was one of the oddest things I did all year. I took them (in tea form) in the early afternoon, and what followed was basically a full day of laughing, crying, dancing, marching, hallucinating, joking, and singing. Fortunately my trip-sitter and friend Brent willingly put up with all of it.

I think I took this selfie when Brent had stepped out of the room for a few minutes. His presence had been an anchor to my floaty mind, and I’d gotten mildly panicky every previous time he’d tried to step out, so this time I picked up my phone (even though my phone had been unofficially off-limits to me all day because of the loopy things I might tweet) and texted my partner so I could make it through the duration until Brent got back. But in classic “me” fashion, I also needed to take a selfie.

This picture really captures the childlike giddiness I felt for much of my shrooms trip. While I didn’t necessarily have any of the “epiphanies” many people report from psychedelics, the experience did lead me to reflect on the artifice and malleability of (some aspects of) identity – and truth be told, I like the part of me that’s silly and happy-go-lucky, whether she shows up in an age-play scene or during a shrooms trip. This photo shows a side of me I sometimes ignore or repress, but I’d probably be much happier if I let her out to play more often, like I did on that day.

March 8th

This picture is important to me because it was taken at the last big event I went to before the coronavirus shut everything down.

My mom and I went for dinner at Insomnia – y’all, I miss their kale salad with grilled chicken so much that my stomach made excited anticipatory noises as I was writing this sentence – and then we walked across the street to the Bloor Cinema, where Drunk Feminist Films was holding a screening of Cats. I had thus far avoided seeing Cats even though everyone was saying it was the most outrageously goodbad movie in decades, but I knew Drunk Feminist Films would be the best possible setting in which to see it, and I was right.

As far as “last major outings before a global pandemic” go, this one was pretty excellent. I was wearing pink sequinned cat ears. I was quite tipsy. I was with my mom, who I love and who makes me laugh a lot. There were whispers about “that coronavirus thing” but I wasn’t all that concerned yet. And I got to scream at the screen, along with hundreds of other raucous feminists, about Judi Dench breaking the fourth wall and Ian McKellen drinking milk from a bowl. I have a few coronavirus-related regrets from this year, but attending that screening of Cats is not one of them.

June 20th

After months of staying at home, the case numbers finally started to decrease to a level where I felt comfortable visiting my family, who had also remained at home except for essential trips to the grocery store or pharmacy. My mom picked up mb and me and drove us to her house, where we drank martinis in the back yard with my mom and brother, told stories, and joked around.

I know I’m not alone in feeling that this year really emphasized the importance of family and togetherness (to the extent that such things are possible and enjoyable for you – I know not everyone is lucky enough to have a family they like, who likes them back). You can see in my face in this photo that this was no ordinary “sitting around drinking and chatting” kind of night – this was special, even though the tone was casual. I was so glad to finally get to see these people again who had seemed hundreds of miles away even when they were just across the city from me.

September 15th

This photo represents two of the major kinks mb and I played with together this year: chastity and financial domination. While they were locked up in chastity, we decided it would be fun to do one of our long-distance “phone dates” – wherein we each go to a restaurant or bar in our respective cities and talk on the phone throughout – but for them to foot the bill for the entire evening, because sometimes it turns them on to spoil me.

I put on the set of blue Agent Provocateur lingerie mb had bought me as an earlier financial domination task, and added (of course) the necklace on which I keep my key to their chastity cage. On top of that, I wore a blue dress and a yellow cardigan, and walked to a restaurant mb had chosen for me in swanky Yorkville called Sassafraz. (I sat outdoors, away from other guests; me and the staff had masks on whenever possible; there was ample hand sanitizer available; etc. etc.) We chatted on the phone during dinner, and they paid for my whole meal and my Uber ride back home.

I like this photo because I look powerful in it, even though you can’t see my face. Being dominant doesn’t come naturally to me, but this year I’ve enjoyed finding new ways my dominance can manifest, and how those newer routes can help me access different sides of my dominance that feel authentic and restorative. Here’s to more kinky adventures in 2021 (hopefully also in gorgeous lingerie)!

November 14th

A wedding-day selfie was a necessary inclusion in this post, of course!

As I explained on a recent Dildorks episode about weddings, although it’s common for couples to avoid seeing each other before the event so as to preserve the surprise, mb and I decided not to do it that way for our tiny COVID wedding. It just made more sense for us to both get ready at their apartment and then walk over to the wedding location together.

I had thought this might feel disappointing when we actually did it, but it was totally fine, and even kinda fun. On such a potentially nervewracking day, it was nice to be with the person who alleviates my nerves most skilfully – and also to share in our excitement together.

We took this selfie just before heading out to Madison Square Park to get married. We look happy, calm, and excited to continue our lives together. ❤️

 

In the comments, feel free to tell me about a favorite selfie you took this year, and what made it so special!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 8 Brilliant Books

Kate Sloan
This is the closest thing I have to a bookstore pic from 2020 since everything has been closed for so much of the year 😭

One minor silver lining of this hellish year: not being able to go to places I’d normally go, or do things I’d normally do, left me with a lot of extra time. Some of that time was funnelled into video games (look, Tom Nook needed my help, okay?!), and some of it went into reading books instead. I spent many an hour this year stretched out in a hot bath, candles lit and Kindle in hand.

So far in 2020, I’ve read 31 books – here’s the full list, if you’re interested – but these 8 really stand out as my faves of the year. Thanks to my Kindle’s highlights functionality, I’ve also been able to pull a favorite quote from each, to give you a little taste. Read on and read up, bookworms!

 

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks

I had heard stories of people living in rain forests so dense that their far point was only six or seven feet away. If they were taken out of the forest, it was said, they might have so little idea or perception of space and distance beyond a few feet that they would try to touch distant mountaintops with their outstretched hands.

I went through a major Oliver Sacks phase in the early part of this year. Mr. Sacks, if you don’t know, was a British neurologist who also happened to be a magnificent and evocative writer. Typically, his books are filled with eloquent case studies about actual people he’s helped, usually gathered around a particular theme. The Mind’s Eye is themed around all things visual, and profiles people with various disturbances in the visual sectors of their brain, like face-blindness and neurologically-rooted color-blindness.

In the latter sections of the book, Sacks also tells the story of his own loss of stereoscopic vision when a tumor deprived him of the use of one eye. His books are always fascinating to me as someone who is nerdy about oddities of the brain, and this was one of my favorites I’ve read.

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

“Has anyone been informed? Who do we call?” “I should call his lawyer,” the producer said. This solution was inarguable, but so depressing that the group drank for several minutes in silence before anyone could bring themselves to speak. “His lawyer,” the bartender said finally. “Christ, what a thing. You die, and they call your lawyer.”

Soon after the coronavirus became an international news story, I started looking into books about pandemics, because sometimes wading right into your fears and worries is the best way to cathartically slough them off. One of the most-recommended pandemic novels on Twitter back in March was Station Eleven, a thrilling story that starts in a Toronto theatre on the opening night of a Shakespeare play, and ends many years later, by which time the world’s population has been decimated and society entirely restructured.

This book felt healing and reassuring to read, because so much of it is about the ways that art, music, theatre, and literature create opportunities for hope, optimism, and connection, even in irrefutably terrible times. It was also just a genuinely fun read, full of unexpected twists, memorable imagery, and well-drawn characters.

 

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale

By conceptualizing the problem of policing as one of inadequate training and professionalization, reformers fail to directly address how the very nature of policing and the legal system served to maintain and exacerbate racial inequality. By calling for colorblind “law and order” they strengthen a system that puts people of color at a structural disadvantage and contributes to their deep social and legal estrangement. At root, they fail to appreciate that the basic nature of the law and the police, since its earliest origins, is to be a tool for managing inequality and maintaining the status quo.

I reviewed this book just after reading it, so I won’t restate myself too much here. I’ll just say that this book lays out argument after argument for defunding the police in a way that is clear, cogent, and persuasive. If you’re on the fence about this issue – or even if you still think the police are an upstanding institution, despite so much evidence to the contrary – I think this book would be particularly informative and helpful for you.

 

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

Reader: Wally Cat is many things, but a fool he is not. What he told me that day was a sales lesson in disguise. The quality of an answer is determined by the quality of the question. Quote that and pay me my royalties.

This brilliant debut novel follows a young Black man as he gets plucked from a low-paying job and hired as a salesman at an almost entirely white startup. It touches on racism, and confidence, and capitalism, and the scarcity of opportunity.

It’s also one of the funniest books I read all year, easy. The voice Mr. Askaripour crafted for his protagonist is sharp and witty, friendly yet dark, goofy but sincere. This was a pleasure to read from start to finish.

 

Girl on the Net: How a Bad Girl Fell in Love by Girl on the Net

It’s a bit hard to put sex to one side when I’m talking about romance: to me romance has usually been a route to sex, like a Valentine’s card with surprise dick joke inside. A love story that doesn’t involve the odd knee-trembling grope or sticky-lubed handjob feels as incomplete as breakfast without coffee.

The sex blogger known as Girl on the Net is a legend – easily one of the best writers in my genre, always smart and often hilarious. This book tells the story of one of her long-term relationships, with a man who luckily happened to be pretty chill about the whole “sex blogger” thing. (Trust me, this is a surprisingly difficult quality to find in a man.)

It’s equal parts romantic and sexy, stuffed with life lessons that’ll help you both in and out of the bedroom. And it’s all written with GotN’s signature wit. If I’d been able to take public transit this year, I’m sure I would have turned some heads by laughing too hard on the subway while reading this.

 

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

I will not lie: the work to heal our personal traumas and attachment wounds and the effort needed to build polysecure relationships are not easy. It takes courage, devotion and perseverance, but please trust me in knowing that it is worth it. As we heal our past, we open up new possibilities for our future.

This year I became increasingly aware of the ways my trauma history impacts the way I feel and behave in my present-day relationships. I took Clementine Morrigan’s online class on trauma-informed polyamory, and I read this book, and between those two things + getting a savvy new therapist, I feel that I’m firmly on the path to healing, though there is likely still a long way to go.

In this book, psychotherapist Jessica Fern (who is totally charming – she guested on a Dildorks episode) lays out the ways that attachment wounds can complicate non-monogamy, and what can be done about it. This is absolutely a must-read for anyone who wants to be non-monogamous but finds themselves continually triggered or re-traumatized by their forays into that relationship style.

 

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

I understood for the first time that it is possible to lack the experience of sexual attraction without being repulsed by sex, just like it is possible to neither physically crave nor be disgusted by a food like crackers but still enjoy eating them as part of a cherished social ritual. Being repulsed by sex is a fairly obvious indication of the lack of sexual attraction, but a lack of sexual attraction can also be hidden by social performativity or wanting (and having) sex for emotional reasons—and because the different types of desire are bound together so tightly, it can be difficult to untangle the various strands.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is a vitally important contribution to the existing body of work on asexuality. In her clear, incisive prose, Angela Chen explains asexuality and its various facets and forms, discusses some of the biggest issues facing the asexual community today, and hypothesizes on useful lessons non-asexuals can learn from their ace peers.

Even though I’ve identified as being on the ace spectrum for a while now, there’s a lot in this book that I had never really thought about before, or at least hadn’t thought about with as much clarity as Ms. Chen brings to the table. It’s really a must-read for anyone who is interested in asexuality, from any angle.

 

Sex with Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman

There appears to be little difference between the thrills of seeking public power, with crowds of adoring fans, to seeking pubic power, with an adoring audience of one. The same compulsions that send a man hurtling toward the White House can also send him into a foolhardy tryst with a woman. High political office and dangerous sex are, in fact, all about hubris and power.

I just finished this the other day, and it was an absolute delight. Ms. Herman – who has previously written books on the sex lives of queens, kings, and Vatican bigwigs – has amassed a veritable treasure trove of absurd stories about salacious presidential misadventures. I know more about Lyndon Johnson’s penis and John F. Kennedy’s favorite sexual position now than I ever dreamed I’d learn.

Although she’s not too heavy-handed about it, Ms. Herman makes it clear throughout the book that systemic sexism – and often, men being outright cruel to women they claim to love – has played a huge role in presidential sex scandals. It’s hard to even grasp the number of powerful men who have cheated on their wives, fucked over their mistresses, abandoned their children, lied to the nation, etc. etc. etc. This is mainly a book about shitty men, but it’s also a book about strong women who deserved way better treatment than they ever got.

 

What books did you love this year?