Review: Laid D2

Kate Sloan

I was on the phone with a friend when the Laid D2 dildo arrived on my doorstep. “Should I open it now?” I asked him.

“Yes!” my friend said, so I did. I gasped. I oohed and aahed. I held it up to the light and said, “It’s so smooth and heavy and shiny!!” I could not contain my delight, even knowing that the person on the other end of the phone line had not asked for a play-by-play. Luckily, he was just amused.

I’ve eyed this dildo from afar for years, but was never quite intrigued enough to request it from a sex toy retailer before. Although it is made of smooth black granite (SWOON), its shape is very similar to those of the We-Vibe Rave and Lelo Ella, so I kinda felt like… been there, fucked that. But I shouldn’t have written it off, because in use it’s actually pretty different from those toys.

The main difference, of course, is the material. I cannot overstate how sexy this toy feels in my hand. It’s hefty and weighty – not quite so much as steel, but certainly more than silicone – and it feels naturally cold to the touch, like metal. The smoothness also makes it feel altogether different from a silicone toy; it can glide against your G-spot rather than roughly rubbing past it (which silicone sometimes seems to do even when adequately lubricated), and it doesn’t require as much lube as some other toys do because of the frictionlessness of the surface.

It’s also just beautiful. It retails for less than a lot of other “luxury” dildos – on KissKiss.ch, it goes for 98.90 Swiss francs, which is about $106 American or $143 Canadian – but still definitely feels luxurious. In fact, I’m sort of gobsmacked you can get a hand-crafted dildo of this quality for that price. I think this would make a great gift for a sweetheart you’re trying to impress, provided they’ve expressed interest in owning a dildo for vaginal penetration (the D2 is not anal-safe). You can tell them it’s a toy made of 500-million-year-old granite, because apparently it is.

The D2 has two ends, both of which are insertable – but the flattened head on one side is really the star of the show. It’s optimized for G-spot stimulation. Just like the Lelo Ella, the D2 makes it easy to hone in on your spot and rock against it – but unlike the Ella, its neck has no give whatsoever, so you don’t even have to push that hard to elicit intense sensations. I like a flattened head better for my G-spot than a smaller or pointier tip; stimulation that’s too intense or direct on that spot can overwhelm me and may even be painful, especially when I’m not warmed up. The D2’s wide head (a little over 1.5″ in diameter at its widest) lets you spread out the pressure over a bigger area, so your whole G-spot gets massaged, rather than just one area getting poked. That said, the bigness of the head also means some people may have trouble getting it past their pubic bone comfortably, or inserting it at all.

The most astonishing thing to me about this toy is the extent to which it makes me squirt. The first time I used it, I was squirting so continuously that I almost didn’t notice it at first; it was a constant, low-level gushing, rather than a big, climactic ejaculation. It’s also remarkable that this toy makes me squirt so much without often creating that painful/uncomfortable “need to pee” feeling that more pinpointed G-spot toys often do. All I have to do is ride the gentle wave of pleasure, and before I know it, I’ll have soaked through my sheets. (Lay a towel down before using this toy!)

The D2 has an asymmetrical shape that’s supposed to enable you to gently rotate/rock it against your G-spot rather than thrusting in and out, but I don’t find this terribly effectual once I get past a certain level of arousal. Teasing my spot is fine for early in a session, but as I get more and more turned on, I tend to want more pressure and speed. The D2 can be thrust in and out, but it’s awkward: the handle gets slippery easily and is tricky to grip and angle right (especially for my sore hands). I end up changing my hand position several times throughout any given session with this toy, because its handle just isn’t very comfortable or useful.

However, that same handle can also be inserted. “Won’t that be pokey/stabby?” a friend asked when I mentioned this, because the straight side of the D2 does indeed taper pretty sharply at its very end. In use, though, it doesn’t bother me at all, and can actually reach my A-spot very effectively. The combination of the slim tip, hard material, and easy angleability (that’s a word, right?) of this end of the toy makes it feel like I’m really getting fucked when I use it this way. It feels almost as impactful as heftier A-spot-friendly toys like the Njoy Eleven. Blessedly, this side is easier to thrust with, because holding onto the flattened G-spot end gives you a lot of leverage and a secure grip.

This toy, I have to say, is pretty blissful. It’s a gentle G-spot jubilator, an awesome A-spot annihilator, and a gorgeous granite gift. If there’s someone in your life who likes firm stimulation of either or both of those spots, and deserves to have their vagina totally spoiled with pleasure and beauty, get them a Laid D2 – even if that person is you!

 

Thanks so much to KissKiss.ch for sending me this product to review – they’re a Switzerland-based sex shop with a killer section of luxury sex toys! This post was sponsored, which means I was paid to write a fair and honest review of the toy. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Guest Review: CB-6000 Chastity Cage

mb

My partner and I have been getting into chastity play over the past couple months. As one of their assignments for me, I recently asked them to write a guest review of their first cock cage. Here’s what they had to say!

I’ve long lusted after the CB-6000 from CB-X. It’s the latest iteration of the most popular chastity cage for penises on the market; you see it in chastity porn, posts on Reddit, and hanging on the wall of just about every sex shop you walk into. When it was on sale online recently for $100 USD, I asked Kate if I should order one, and she seemed almost as curious about what playing with “enforced chastity” in our dynamic would be like as I was. So I decided to pick one up. But first, I had to make two more choices: size and color.

CB-X makes their cages in 3 sizes: standard (6000), small (6000-S), and large (“The Curve”). Be careful when measuring your flaccid penis to decide on a size, because if the idea of locking up your cock appeals to you enough to buy one, you’ll probably get a little worked up like I did and accidentally order up a size. If you do, you can always purchase just the cage portion in the future for less than the cost of the entire set.

Prevailing wisdom suggests that almost everyone should order the 6000-S. It’s the best-selling size, and it fits many flaccid cocks – even if, just looking at it, you might think it won’t. In a cock cage like the CB models, you want a tight fit to make urination easier and to suppress and contain erections more effectively.

The cages also come in a variety of colors and finishes: classic clear, pink (especially popular among kinksters into sissification and feminization), red, polished chrome, gold, wood (?!), and (most bizarre of all) camouflage. I chose clear because there’s something even more erotic to me about the idea that I can “look, but not touch.” It also seems prudent to get a clear cage if you’re trying chastity for the first time and want to be sure you’re cleaning and drying your cage properly and avoiding any potential penile injuries.

The CB-6000 arrives in a black zip-up carrying case containing the polycarbonate cage, 2 bases, 5 U-rings, and 4 locking pins and spacers to control the width of the gap between the ring and the cage where your balls hang down. The kit also includes a brass Master lock (not that kind of Master), two keys (one for emergencies and one for your keyholder), 5 numbered plastic locks so you can wear it through a TSA screening, and a sample of silicone-based lube, which helps to get the cage on correctly and keep it from chafing day-to day. To use the tamper-evident travel locks: put one on, send a verification photo to your keyholder if they’d like one, toss your unlocked brass lock in your luggage, and go through security as normal. Once you’re through, you can switch back to the real lock and re-verify in the airport bathroom or your destination.

Unboxing and figuring out how to put on this device is… a process. With everything spread out on my bed, I watched this YouTube video from the company and thought I had the hang of it. The first step involves selecting the right ring size to fit around your cock and balls. You want something snug but not constricting, so you should be able to fit about one finger between it and your scrotum. Then you lube up the head of your cock (or use something called the stocking method) to slide into the cage. The problem, again, is rubbing lube all over your dick and thinking about chastity very well might make you hard, and the cage won’t be able to close correctly when you have an erection. So you’ll need to wait until you can keep your arousal under control for just long enough to slide a locking pin and spacer through the base and secure the lock. Getting the cage on is also much easier if you’re clean-shaven, but even if you are, there are still lots of spots where it can pinch your sensitive skin if you’re not extremely careful.

I initially wore it with the second-largest ring and largest spacer, but I quickly realized how important sizing is and adjusted to smaller sizes. If you pick too large a ring, the cage will slide down your shaft and be too easy to slip out of; too tight and you’ll constrict blood flow to your balls and they’ll end up feeling cold and turning purple (fine for a few minutes, not safe if it persists). After a few days of experimentation, most people will be able to find a combination that works for them. This ability to customize the size of the ring and gap is one of the best things about the CB series of cages and why I picked it as my foray into this kink. Rather than spending $300-$500 on a custom-manufactured steel cage, you can use this kit to figure out exactly how you want chastity to fit into your life – and onto your cock – before dropping that kind of dough.

The CB-6000 is a classic for a reason: it’s incredibly good at what it’s designed to do. It’s very difficult (but not impossible) to escape from if worn correctly, it makes touching your penis for the purpose of pleasure impractical via hard plastic and small slits that most fingers can’t penetrate, and it’s nearly undetectable under clothes, even my tightest jeans. Plus, it allows for easy cleaning and urination. While you can wash with a showerhead or under a bath faucet, I opted for a squirt bottle with an angled tip, and while some users can pee standing up while wearing it, I nearly always sit down and wipe after to avoid making a mess.

But it’s not without its flaws: there are two major downsides to this cage. First, it’s very difficult to sleep in, compared to other cages on the market. The circular shape of the ring causes tight compression of the scrotum during nocturnal erections which will wake you up a few times a night feeling like you’re getting (gently) kicked in the balls and stumbling out of bed to pee and walk off the pain. Second, there are tiny vents on the side of the cage that cause unsightly bulging when you get hard in this device, with thin strips of sensitive skin poking through the holes whenever your cock fills the cage. The latter is mostly an aesthetic issue for me, and some wearers tape over the holes to avoid this. But, those vents can also leave visible imprints on your shaft when you take the cage off that can last an hour or so at the very moment when you probably want to show off your cock to a partner who has just unlocked you. Not ideal unless you’re into seeing yourself pinched by plastic in a masochistic or CBT way.

Wearing the CB-6000 for 9 days straight last month was one of my favorite kinky things I’ve done all year, leaving me hypersensitive, attentive to my partner, and leading to an orgasm after I was unlocked that felt 5 times stronger than usual. Despite its flaws, it’s clear why it’s so many people’s introduction to chastity play. It’s the only sex toy I’ve ever purchased that’s guaranteed me fewer orgasms, and I’m certainly not complaining… or if I am, it’s all consensual.

How to Write 1,000 Blog Posts

Kate Sloan

I literally cannot believe this, but… this is the 1,000th blog post to be published on girlyjuice dot net. WOW.

This somehow feels like a more momentous milestone to me than more time-based ones, because just saying “I’ve been blogging for eight and a half years” doesn’t give you a whole lot of info about what that has actually entailed. But it’s a whole different ballgame when I say it this way: I’ve been blogging here for 3,114 days, and have written 1,000 blog posts in that time, which averages out to 2.25 blog posts per week EVERY WEEK for nearly a decade. Yeesh. I’m so proud of myself that I’m not even trying to rein in the congratulatory self-indulgence in this paragraph!

With that in mind, I know a lot of bloggers and other types of writers follow me here, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned about creating massive amounts of blog content over multiple years. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve always found my way back to it whenever I strayed or slacked for a while. Here are some tips that I hope help you if your goal is to make it to 1,000 blog posts or beyond!

 

Pick a subject you’re enthralled by. Maybe don’t start a blog about, like, 18th-century Viennese architecture, unless you’re actually so captivated by it that you think you have several dozen blog posts’ worth of thoughts to share on the topic. The vast majority of blogs burn out – and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that (I know not everyone is aiming to make their blog their job, as I have), if you’re in it for the long haul then it’s best to set yourself up for success. I chose to center this blog around sexuality because I could think of literally zero other subjects that I genuinely felt I could keep writing about forever, and it turns out I was right: the landscape of human sexuality is always changing, and so is my own sexuality specifically, making it a rich vein of blog post ideas.

…but also, don’t limit yourself to one subject. If this blog was only a sex blog, I don’t think it would be boring, exactly – there are infinite subtopics within the field of sexuality – but it certainly would be less fun for me at times. I’m only human; I’m not always horny. Sometimes I’m too depressed or ill or heartbroken to contemplate sex, and that’s typically when I dive into writing about relationships, fashion, feminism, or mental health. Thanks very much to the ladies of the Blogcademy for introducing me to the idea that your blog can be like a magazine: geared toward a particular type of reader, and the topics (yes, plural) that they’d be interested in.

Develop a storage system for ideas. Frustrating but true: far too often, when you have a fantastic idea for a blog post but are too busy to jot it down, you’ll end up totally forgetting about it. Either it’ll languish forever in the back of your mind – “I really should write that one of these days!” – or you will actually forget you even had the idea in the first place. It’s crucial that you develop a way to collect all your random blog post ideas somewhere so you can use ’em later. I try to always jot down not only the title/main idea of the post, but also a few notes about its contents; for example, for this post, I wrote down “how to write 1,000 blog posts” followed by a few bullet points about the kinds of tips I was hoping to give. This helped jog my memory later when I sat down to actually write this post.

Develop regular features. I do a “Monthly Faves” at the end of each month, “12 Days of Girly Juice” at the end of each year, and have experimented with various other recurring features in the past. These are especially helpful when you’re going through a period of being extra stressed/busy/sapped of all creativity (hello, 2020!) because they give you structure and some kind of prompt. You don’t have to come up with 1,000 completely unique and different ideas to write 1,000 blog posts (although kudos if you can)!

Read social media, forums, and the news. Not all the news, certainly (god, I think my brain would explode from sadness oversaturation), but at least enough to know what’s going on in your field at any given time. You never know when a random news story might thrill/incense/sadden/alarm you into writing something brilliant. Keeping an eye on social media and relevant forums also helps you keep your finger on the pulse of what people actually do/feel/think, not just what mainstream news says people are doing/feeling/thinking – so you can answer questions a lot of people are wondering about, provide guidance on issues that confuse most folks, or unpack your own feelings on the hot-button issue of the day.

Talk to friends, family, partners – and people you disagree with. Conversations have been some of my best catalysts for good blog posts over the years. Sometimes all it takes is a simple statement like “I’ve been thinking about writing a piece on [insert vague topic here]…” and before you know it, you’ll be in a profound dialogue or heated debate with someone about the issue at hand. Often, conversations with smart people – whether or not they know much of anything about my chosen topic – can help me figure out a unique angle, an offbeat consideration, or a hot take. It’s most useful to converse not only with people you like, but also people who rub you the wrong way, because they may offer you a perspective you’d never considered before, or present a perfect ideological springboard for your argument. (Just don’t get sucked into debating alt-right trolls as if their arguments have any merit… Been there, done that; it’s never worth it.)

Pay attention to readers’ search terms. Certain services, like Google Analytics, allow you to see what search-engine queries lead people to your website. These are always illuminating; they tell you not only what you’re already helping people with, but also what you could be helping people with. Obviously, not all blog content needs to be helpful to the reader in order to be valid and good, but informational and “how-to” articles are often the most “shareable,” so it makes sense to focus on them at least some of the time. If you notice that a lot of your readers seem to be fruitlessly searching for answers to the same questions, maybe that’s a cue that you should answer those questions for them in a blog post.

Take the money (if you want to). It’s simply a fact of life in a capitalist society that you will be more able to devote time and energy to an activity if that activity pays. Not everyone gets to a point with their blog where it starts attracting hopeful advertisers – and sometimes that’s due to entire industries or genres of writing being chronically undervalued, which sucks – but if you do start getting that type of offer in your inbox, at least consider it. Some people are very hesitant to “sell out,” especially within a vocation that they adore, because they think money will drain the joy out of the whole endeavor – which indeed can and sometimes does happen. But for me, getting paid to blog has almost always just been a motivator. The more income I’ve earned through this site, the more I’ve been able to set aside other jobs and projects to focus on what I’m doing here – and (for me at least) that results in better, deeper, more interesting work.

Allow yourself to grow and change. While it can be tempting to stick with a successful formula once you’ve found one, your best writing will happen when you step outside the box you’ve inevitably created for yourself. Any reader who’s actually invested in you as a person will happily follow you into new territory (so long as you haven’t, like, taken the red pill or joined a pyramid scheme), and to the extent that you lose old readers when you switch things up, you’ll also gain new ones who are more in line with your present-day vision. I certainly would not have been able to write 1,000 blog posts solely from the limited perspective of the 19-year-old sex nerd I was when I started this blog – but writing 1,000 blog posts from my ever-shifting perspectives from ages 19 to 28? That was no problem at all.

 

What strategies have you found helpful in long-term blogging?

Monthly Faves: Sparkles, Silk, & Cinnamon

Kate Sloan

 

Media

• Some sexual misconduct scandals broke at my old high school recently (more on that soon, I think), so I’ve definitely been Processing Some Difficult Feelings. When that’s the case, sometimes it helps me to consume media where characters experience problems similar to my own – so this month I enjoyed watching Notes on a Scandal, a 2006 thriller where Cate Blanchett plays a teacher who gets caught having an affair with a student, and reading Being Lolita, Alisson Wood’s striking memoir about a predatory creative writing teacher who viewed Lolita as a blueprint for life rather than as a shocking character study about a pedophile.

• My old friend Kathleen Gros wrote a graphic novel loosely based on Little Women, updated for a modern (and queer!) audience. I flew through it soon after it arrived in my mailbox, and loved its depiction of a positive queer coming-of-age.

• My long-time guitarist crush Nathan Stocker (of my favorite band, Hippo Campus) has a new album out under his solo project name, Brotherkenzie. It’s called Big What and it’s been haunting my days lately with its moody/contemplative lyrics and its sweetly sad instrumentations. If the idea of a bluesier Phoebe Bridgers or Elliott Smith sounds divine to you, I think you’d dig this album.

• Watching speed-builds of houses in The Sims 4 has been oddly soothing to me lately. It’s just so satisfying to watch someone build an entire home from scratch. I particularly like LukeyDean’s videos.

• It’s been a few years since my last New Girl re-watch, but this month I revisited season 2 and was struck anew by the sense that it’s probably one of the funniest TV shows that’s ever been made (at least, for my weird sense of humor!). The writing, the acting, the ad-libbing… These chaotic thirtysomethings are always a delight to watch.

 

Products

• As I’ve mentioned, the Magic Wand Plus is rocking my world lately – and my internal clitoral network!

• A few weeks ago I tried to go to Northwood to sit on their patio and sip a cocktail, because I was craving one particular item from their house menu, a rum-based sour called the Black Walnut – but when I got there, they were closed, even though they said they’d be open! Disappointed, I later made it my mission to learn to make a passable substitute for this drink at home – and with the help of my cocktail-genius partner, I learned how to do it. It involved infusing a bottle of white rum with walnut tea and making cinnamon demerara syrup in a sauce pan, so it was definitely the most labor-intensive cocktail I’ve ever made, but damn, it is delicious.

• I don’t often paint my nails, but when I do, I want ’em colorful and glittery as fuck. To that end, I firmly believe that Essie’s “Set in Stones” is the best thing to layer over just about any base color. Seeing silver sparkles splashed across my nails every day is almost enough to make me want to stop biting them forever…!

• As part of a financial domination scene recently, my partner sent me some royal blue lingerie from Agent Provocateur. It is incredibly sexy and pairs very well with my beloved pink silk robe.

• My brother recently started a clothing line called Pop Star Dress-Up, and I have to say that their hoodie (coming soon to the shop) is one of the coziest I’ve ever owned. I’m definitely gonna need something like that as the colder months start creeping up on us!

 

Work & Appearances

• This month on the Dildorks, Bex and I talked about subspace and topspace, crying as kinky catharsis, and vetting potential partners. We also interviewed psychotherapist Jessica Fern about her new polyamory book Polysecure, and I interviewed my partner mb about our recent forays into chastity play.

• In my newsletter, I wrote about the quiet desperation of long-distance relationships, answered some questions from the AskWomen subreddit, recounted some of my relationship rituals and routines, and explored some feelings about nail polish, gender, sexuality, and identity.

 

Good Causes

• The news this month about the lack of accountability for Breonna Taylor’s murderers was heartbreaking and disheartening. You can donate to her family’s GoFundMe if you like; the money is now being routed to the Breonna Taylor Foundation, which is working to empower women, encourage more people to get their EMT training, and advocate for police reform. This “Justice for Breonna” T-shirt is also donating its proceeds to the foundation.

• On that note, donating to the Louisville Community Bail Fund would be a great move right now, as protests continue (and police continue to crack down on them) where Breonna lived.

• Since this is such an especially hard time for Black women and girls, you could donate to the Loveland Foundation’s therapy fund, which provides financial assistance to Black women seeking therapy services.