Announcing… My Book Deal!!!

Kate Sloan
Signing my book contract at the Library Bar. Photo by my sweetheart Matt.

Yes, friends, I have good news: after many months of preparation and negotiation, I have signed a book deal with Laurence King Publishing! One of my long-time dreams as a writer is finally going to come true. Here’s a brief FAQ:

Q. What’s the book called?

A. The working title at the moment is 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do.

Q. What’s it about?

A. It’s an accessible, consent-focused, safety-forward introduction to kink and BDSM for vanilla people and/or beginners. It covers 101 different kinky activities, from aftercare to wrestling. Each chapter explains the kink in question, theorizes about why people find it hot, and offers concrete suggestions for incorporating it into your sex life, both solo and partnered.

Q. When will it be out?

A. March 2021, so I’m told! Yes, that is a long time from now. Wow. I will have lots more details for you (where to get it, etc.) as the launch date approaches.

Q. How much of it have you written?

A. Currently a little over half. It’s due in January, so I’m making good time!

Q. How did you get the book deal?

A. Read on, my friend – here’s that timeline of events!

December 4th, 2015: I go to a local sex shop to interview one of the owners for a story I’m writing about the sex toy industry. At the end of our exhaustive, hour-long interview, he says, “I think this topic could be a book, and I think you’re the person to write it.” My face immediately morphs into the human embodiment of the thinking emoji 🤔 as I say out loud, “Hmmmm!” I take the streetcar home thinking about whether I’ll ever write a book, whether I even want to, and what it would be about.

February 7th, 2018: I get a PR email from an editor promoting a sex-related book she worked on. Her email signature says she’s also a literary agent. I take a chance and mention casually that I’ve wanted to write a sex book for a while. She replies, “If you ever do write that book, please feel free to reach out to me about it, as I definitely am seeking clients in the sex and sexuality realm.”

March 28th of this year: I get an email through my contact form from a commissioning editor for Laurence King, a publishing house in London, England. “I’ve been thinking we should consider a fresh approach to sex in book form and I wondered if you would be interested in talking about it,” she writes. “Please contact me if that sounds interesting.” I stare at my inbox in awed disbelief.

April 2nd: I “hop on a call” with the editor to toss around some potential book ideas. The two pitches I’ve prepared for her, it turns out, are more conceptual, cerebral, and wordy than is really appropriate – Laurence King publishes beautifully-designed books, often on art or photography or design, loaded with illustrations and diagrams, not usually densely-packed paragraphs of storytelling. So I think on my feet, and pitch this: “101 Unusual Kinks & Fetishes.” I explain that I’ve always been fascinated by the most eccentric sexual interests, from balloon fetishism to sneezing fetishism to knife play, and that I’d love to highlight those for a curious audience. The editor gets audibly excited about this idea and asks me to put together a proposal.

April 7th: I send over my proposal, including sample sections on topics like collars, hypnosis, and masochism.

April 18th: My editor gets back to me and says that after discussing my proposal with her team, she now thinks there would be more of a market for a book on kinks anyone might reasonably get involved in, rather than being focused on hyper-specific fetish subcultures. The working title “101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do” is suggested.

May 4th: After multiple thoughtful and helpful conversations with kink-savvy friends, I submit a reworked version of my proposal, this time including only kinks that the average vanilla-identifying beginner might be curious about actually trying in their own sex life.

May 24th: My editor emails to say that she just pitched my book at an “Ideas Meeting,” and while she was nervous about how people would react to the topic, “it was a resounding success.” She tells me she needs some time to calculate the costs of the book and such, before the company can make me an offer.

June 1st: I email that literary agent from long ago to tell her about my current book situation and to ask if she’ll represent me.

June 7th: The agent calls me and we chat about what agents actually do and how she and her agency can support me through this process.

July 12th: My editor tells me that she recently overheard someone at the company saying the funniest sentence ever devised (according to me, anyway), “Kink is the new houseplant.” This doesn’t make sense unless you know that Laurence King had a very successful book about houseplants. 🤷🏻‍♀️

July 22nd: I sign my agency agreement with the Carol Mann Agency. I officially have an agent, yay!

August 13th: I receive my official offer from Laurence King – a proposed advance and royalty rates, the size of the book and quantity of first print, the word count and deadline. I forward it to my agent and we put together lists of follow-up questions and points to negotiate.

October 17th: Amidst weeks upon weeks of back-and-forth negotiations between my agent and publisher, I’m getting increasingly anxious – I haven’t started writing yet, thinking I can’t or shouldn’t until the contract is signed, but my deadline isn’t budging nonetheless. My agent writes to me, “There’s no reason you can’t start working now. We are nearly there, so if you have the bandwidth, you don’t have to wait until the ink is dry to commence!” I open Scrivener, set up my word count goals and due date, and start. It’s nervewracking but so so good.

November 16th: At long last after months of negotiations, I sign the final contract, over good cocktails and oysters at the Library Bar. We toast to my book and the hard work that got me here.

November 27th: My agent gives me the go-ahead to announce the book, and I publish this blog post!

On a personal note, I want to say thank you to each and every one of my readers. Y’all are the reason I got noticed by a publisher and an agent to begin with, and you’ve also given me the space and feedback that has enabled me to develop my writing voice and niche(s) over the ~7.5 years I’ve been writing this blog. Your encouragement has kept me going at tough times, and I think about you every time I write anything. I really look forward to hearing what you think of the book when it comes out!

6 Porn Games You Can Play Right Now

Kate Sloan
Communally watching fisting porn at Kate Sinclaire’s Airbnb before the Playground Conference in 2015.

Do you ever watch porn like it was a cinematic adventure, rather than a perfunctory wank tool? While I’ve consumed my fair share of porn solo for its intended purpose (ahem), I’ve also enjoyed many a social porn-watching session – giggling and marveling at the best porn sites with close friends and partners. Whether we end up commentating on a particular porn star’s stellar blowjob skills, perfect eyeliner, or sociocultural impact, this practice always leads to great conversations.

With that in mind, I have 6 ideas for you today of “games” you could play while watching porn with a loved one. Provided you know some cool people, these could be really fun!

“What Are You Into?”

This is the most basic of porn games, and also one of the most illuminating. Simply take turns loading up and showing each other porn clips you’ve enjoyed, and discussing what you find hot about each one. This is like the X-rated equivalent of those parties that devolve into people forcing each other to watch YouTube videos – except you’re going to do this version with the enthusiastic consent of all participants, right?!

Learning about the porn tastes of your partners can help inform the fantasies and scenes you might explore with them moving forward – while learning this shit about your friends is just fun. Plus you get to exclaim things like “Can you BELIEVE how big that dick is?!” and “Is he really going to come inside a watermelon?!”

Drinking Game

Okay, you don’t actually have to drink, because not everybody does. So replace “take a shot” in the following description with “swig some water” or “munch a snack” or “do a victory dance” or really whatever you please. In this type of porn game, you take a shot every time “x” happens in the porn you’re watching, and you get to decide as a group what “x” will be.

This works best if you customize the “drinking trigger” to the particular clip or genre you’re watching. For example, take a shot every time a mouthy porn star says “fuck,” every time you hear a choking sound in a blowjob scene, or every time a cheesy music cue overpowers the sounds of the performers. The (porn) world is your oyster!

Humiliation Kink

Dominant types, here’s a suggestion just for you: if your submissive watches porn as part of their masturbation routine, have them keep a list for a while of all the porn clips they watch. Then, whenever you feel like it, sit them down and “make” them show you clips from the list. You can mildly humiliate them by quizzing them about what they find hot in the scene, what made them come, and so on. This is a great way to extract useful information while also making your sub blush a whole lot!

Orgasm Race

This one’s pretty straightforward… Provided everyone in the room consents to this dynamic, get out your sex toys, lube, and whatever else you’ll need, and start jerking off to the porn on screen. Whoever reaches orgasm first wins some kind of prize… like getting to pick the next porn clip you watch!

It could be fun to “stack the deck” in this game by selecting clips you think are unlikely to turn people on – wacky fetishes, awkward dirty talk, or what have you – but remember that someone in the room might very well have the kink you’re ostensibly making fun of! As with any sexual experience you share with others, try to be as conscientious and open-minded as possible. You can delight in the silliness of a porn clip without mocking its content, but that’s a fine line to walk.

Dramatic Reading

Ever checked out the comments below your favorite porn clip? It’s almost guaranteed to be a hoot. After you enjoy a porn video with a partner or pal, scroll down and read some of the comments aloud. There’s usually weirdly a lot of vitriol in there (after all, it is a comment section on the internet), but you’ll likely also see a lot of enthusiasm and genuine joy. Plus a plethora of exclamation marks.

Shadow Cast

You know those Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings where enthusiastic nerds act out the story in front of the screen, casting shadows and making the movie into a much more real and immediate experience for everyone present? You can do that with porn, too!

Any time you see something happening on the screen that you want to do yourself, just grab a (consenting) partner and go do it. This works best at a sexy party full of people who are comfortable with each other; that way, you can switch off as necessary, because someone replicating a cinematic blowjob won’t necessarily want to copycat the anal fisting happening in the following scene. Just make sure to compliment each other’s technique and cheer each other on, so this game becomes less of a cutthroat competition and more of a shared celebration of sexuality!

 

Do you like to play games while watching porn? What are your faves?

 

This post was sponsored by The Porn Dude. As always, all writing and opinions are my own. Please note: A third-party producer for a porn production company associated with ThePornDude, PornDudeCasting, was recently accused of assaulting sex workers, including Aliya Brynn. However, I am assured by ThePornDude et al. that this producer (Sammy Mohamed) has been terminated from his position.

How to Last Longer in Bed

Kate Sloan

Ah yes, the perennial question sex educators get asked every day. It’s almost as ubiquitous as “Is my fetish normal?” and “Does penis size matter?” It’s that men’s-magazine staple, that heteropatriarchal battle cry, that insecurity-driven inquiry: “How can I last longer in bed?”

While I have issues with the premise of the question itself – which will become clear in the post to follow – I understand the reasons for it. People possessing penises are constantly told by our culture that those penises are the centerpiece of sex, and that a dick which fails to “perform” adequately is an unloveable, unwantable dick. This is bullshit, of course, but is understandably highly motivating for people who care about their partners’ pleasure (which we all should).

So here are some of my best tips for delaying ejaculation – keeping in mind that I don’t have a penis and these suggestions are mostly ones I’ve heard from friends and partners who do. It’s worth noting that some of these tips apply specifically to penetrative (vaginal or anal) sex, while some do not. That’s not the only valid type of sex, of course, but it is the type most often associated with the quest to “last longer.”

Practice. Kegel exercises (i.e. squeezing and releasing your pelvic muscles) and edging (i.e. approaching orgasm, backing off, approaching again, repeat ad infinitum) are both oft-recommended remedy regimens for coming too soon, because they help you learn to control some of the components of your ejaculation reflex. Self-control is a skill, and skills can be sharpened!

Masturbate beforehand. Many people report that this helps slow them down the second time around. Hell, I don’t even have a penis and it nonetheless takes me longer to come if I already came within the past few hours. Give it a shot and see how it affects you.

Change the order of events. You know you don’t have to give your partner an orgasm during penetrative sex, right? Make like Ian Kerner (wow, what a nerdy joke) and get your partner off first. Granted, this might not fly if their very favorite way to come is all over your dick, but it’s at least worth considering.

Think about something else. Not necessarily baseball, but… you get the idea. When my friend Brent and I interviewed the rapper Mega Ran on our podcast Question Box, for example, he told us he sometimes recites song lyrics in his head when trying to last longer. You could try focusing on deep breathing, or counting in your head, or recalling your favorite monologue from a Tarantino movie. Whatever works!

Use a delay spray. I recently had a chance to try out Promescent Climax Control Spray with my partner, and we’re agreed that we’re glad it exists. It uses a numbing agent called lidocaine to temporarily desensitize your dick. This has the disadvantage of potentially weakening your orgasm when you do finally have one, but that might be a small price to pay for getting to satisfy your partner in the way that you want to.

Wear a thick condom. Even if you don’t “need” condoms for contraception or STI prevention in your relationship, they’re still worth a shot for their desensitizing effects. Some companies even make condoms containing benzocaine to further numb you out, if that’s what you’re after.

Use hypnosis?? This is an odd one, but hear me out… My partner and I have experimented with planting the hypnotic suggestion that they’re not allowed – or in some cases, not able – to come before I do. Depending on your receptivity to, and experience with, hypnosis, this might be worth trying!

Slow down. Jackhammer sex is overrated – not to mention, in many cases, overstimulating. As long as it doesn’t bother your partner, try slowing down your thrusts and see how that changes your ability to last.

Switch positions. The time it takes to do this will allow your arousal to cool off a bit, plus some positions are anecdotally reported to slow down the onset of orgasm in the penetrating partner – mostly “cowgirl” (receptive partner on top) and the spooning position. Experiment to see which positions have this effect on you.

Change your definition of sex. Sex doesn’t have to end when ejaculation happens – and frankly, in many cases, it would be better if it didn’t! If you come “too soon,” just pull out some treasured toys, put your mouth to use, or get your fingers in the game. This is also a choice moment for not-strictly-sexual-but-still-enjoyable kinky activities like impact play or electrostimulation. Hell, after a few minutes spent on a “side quest,” you might even get hard again for round two.

Talk about it! In the vast majority of cases, the thing you’re so sexually insecure about isn’t actually that big of a deal – or at least, wouldn’t be if you talked it out with your partner(s). Find out whether their expectations of your boner are actually as high as you think they are. If not, take a load off and stop trying to manifest a superpowered dick!

What techniques have worked for you or your partner(s) in this regard?

 

This post was sponsored by the lovely folks at Promescent, who make that rad delay spray I was telling you about!

I Have Psoriasis… and I’m Still Hot

Kate Sloan

When my dermatologist diagnosed me with psoriasis, she stared sadly into my eyes and intoned, “There is no cure. This is a lifelong condition.”

Her grave demeanor made this skin condition seem like a death sentence – and indeed, for many psoriasis sufferers, managing symptoms is a daily struggle, as is managing people’s feelings about those symptoms, as well as your own. But my own case was relatively mild. I had a flaky scalp, some red and irritated spots on my face, and a handful of other unsightly zones scattered around my body. I wasn’t sad to receive my diagnosis – I was glad I finally had an answer, and some potential treatment routes to take.

In the years since, my psoriasis has gotten a bit worse but mostly stayed the same. My scalp still plaques and flakes; there’s a seemingly permanent red spot between my eyebrows that I cover with concealer when I can be bothered; my ears and butt and nose and hands all occasionally flare up with flaky bits. I use medicated shampoo and prescription ointments and they help, a little, sometimes. I’m doing okay.

For me, the worst thing about having psoriasis is the way it makes me feel like people are judging me and think my flakes are gross. I have no idea if they actually are thinking that, and no sexual partners have ever even said anything to me about it, except to occasionally point out an errant piece of dead skin I needed to pull out of my hair. But even the idea that they might think it’s gross is enough to make me want to stay clothed and celibate forever, sometimes.

For years, I’ve stopped partners from kissing or otherwise touching my ears, one of my grossest zones. Having my scalp scratched or massaged is a no-go for me, even though I like the way it feels, because I get too self-conscious about cascading flakes. I sometimes decline spankings (I love being spanked!) because I don’t want a partner to look at my butt. It’s sad, all the various ways this condition has impacted my sense of my own desirability.

It’s only really in my current relationship that I’ve begun to loosen that shame’s stranglehold on my sex life. I once asked Matt if they still think I’m cute when I’m flaky, and they said, “Of course! You know what else is flaky? Croissants. And everyone loves those.” It was a funny joke, but nonetheless, I cried when I heard it, because no one had ever said anything positive to me about my psoriasis before. I stopped instinctively tensing up when they would kiss close to my ears or hairline; I stopped needing to keep my underwear on during spankings. I just… let them see my body. Let them see me.

Around this time, I also began reading the writer Clementine Morrigan’s musings on her own psoriasis. She wrote about her own feelings of shame and worthlessness, and the ways to chose to combat them, including by incorporating her psoriasis into sex. She describes watching a partner kiss her reddened skin, and hearing another partner gasp, “Your psoriasis! It’s beautiful!” I was, and am, grateful as ever to people who share the stories of their struggles in an effort to make others feel less alone. That’s what I’m trying to do right here, right now.

I haven’t yet figured out how to make my psoriasis sexy for myself, the way Clementine has. But I’m luxuriating in the love I feel from my partner whether I’m flaring up or fleetingly flakeless. While I don’t believe in the concept of “unconditional love” – you are allowed to have conditions, to set boundaries, to maintain standards! – this is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling that from a romantic partner. I know now that when they flip me over and see my scaly skin, they’re not going to leave me – they’re just going to love me harder.

Remotely Helpful, Part 3: Buddies & Boundaries

Kate Sloan

I’m back with more tips for working from home! These final 3 are crucial (but, frankly, all of them have been)…

#7: Find ways to combat loneliness.

Working from home is lonely as hell sometimes! Mostly I am okay with this, since I am super introverted and work best with minimal distractions (I still have nightmarish flashbacks to the office I once worked in that was filled with women in their early twenties constantly arguing about sex and dating). However, sometimes all that solitude is bad for morale! This is typically when I head out to a café (as discussed in my last post), text a friend for a mid-day chat, or schedule a co-working date with a pal if possible.

The most common way I deal with loneliness on the job, though, is social media. Twitter, Slack, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit: these services are often decried by productivity nerds for sucking up precious time and energy throughout the day, but used judiciously, I think they can be a godsend for lonesome freelancers. Where else could I gather on-the-fly opinions from my readers on stuff I’m working on, advice from fellow writers on methods and word choice, and terrible puns from sex-blogger pals across the globe?!

#8: Protect your time fiercely.

In my experience, if someone knows you work from home/are a freelancer, they’ll often assume that means you can do whatever you want whenever you want, deadlines be damned. I don’t know why they think this. It is annoying as fuck. Like, yes, I could step away from my computer for 2 hours on a Thursday afternoon to go see a movie with my mom or go shopping with a friend, and I appreciate offers to do so, but I don’t appreciate when those offers turn into pressure! This is even more aggravating when friends or family members see that you’re working but behave as though you’re playing a computer game or something – like they can interrupt you and distract you willy-nilly, because what you’re doing couldn’t possibly be real work, right?!

Now that I’ve gotten that rant off my chest… Being able to protect your time is really important as a freelancer. When a friend would ask me to hang out or do something for them, I used to say, “Sure, I’m free all day!” because that was technically true – my entire day was theoretically flexible and each item on my schedule was moveable. But nowadays, I’m more comfortable saying, “I’m free between [this time] and [that time],” or “I actually can’t, I have a deadline coming up, but maybe next week?” I’ve also gotten better at saying to people when they’ve interrupted me – in the politest way I can – “I have to get back to work now,” which elicits a surprised expression more often than you might expect. (Do these people… not know freelancing is work?!) This type of boundary-setting is mandatory for me if I’m going to get anything done ever.

#9: …but don’t forget to take breaks!

Trust me, your brainpower will eventually fizzle if you don’t give yourself enough downtime, and that type of burnout is really inconvenient when there’s a deadline around the corner! I understand the productivity-frenzied frustration of taking a break when you feel like you “have to” keep working – even if you’ve been working all day – but the “rest” part of the work cycle is truly just as important as the “work” part. Don’t lose sight of that!

I sometimes schedule things for myself specifically to force myself to take breaks – like buying a theatre ticket for a Friday night at the end of a busy week, or making plans to chat with a friend at a certain time so I have to get everything done by then and set aside my work for the day. I also like to use mid-day errands as a reminder to “switch off”: trips to the bank or the grocery store are restful compared to being hunched over a laptop, and I always listen to podcasts or music on my way to and from these places so my brain gets a little shake-up.

 

What are your top tips for working from home?