5 Fun Things to Do With a Prostate Massager

For many years I dated people who had a prostate but had no desire to touch it or have partners touch it. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s their butt and they can do with it as they please! – but it does make me extra appreciative that both of my current ongoing partners are very open in that regard. I’ve gotten to experiment more with prostate stimulation over the past year than I had previously done in my entire life!

With that in mind, here are 5 cool things you can do with a prostate massager, like the Lelo Hugo, if you’re so inclined…

Combine it with a blowjob. A classic. I hear that having a mouth on your dick and some vibration on your prostate can be an ecstatic sensation. If you are the person giving said BJ, remember that you don’t just have to let the vibrator do its thing while staying static; you can jostle it around, press it up into the prostate, or even move it in and out a little, depending on what your partner prefers. This can add a lot to the proceedings!

Wear it out in public. Provided your vibe is butt plug-esque in that it can stay put comfortably once it’s inside you – and provided, too, that it has a flared base, as all anal toys should – you can wear it while out and about, with the vibrations turned on or left off. This can create a sense of anticipation for some more intense play later on, once you’re in private, or it can be a delight all on its own. Remote-controlled vibrators are particularly useful for this application!

Use it externally. A well-designed prostate massager will have fairly strong, rumbly vibrations, in order to stimulate the somewhat buried prostate. So it follows that those excellent vibrations could feel good on your external bits, too. Try applying the vibe to your perineum, anal opening, or balls while your dick is being stimulated. This could make great “foreplay” for anal penetration, or if it’s just not a penetrative kind of day, you can get your rocks off without any insertion at all!

Spice up a mundane task. Wearing an anal vibrator is a pretty attention-absorbing experience, so it can be an exciting challenge to try to do something else while those vibrations are pulling your focus. Write a blog post (gulp), clean your room, do your laundry, shop for groceries… There are few pursuits that couldn’t be improved by something buzzing in your ass, if that’s a sensation you enjoy.

Play an orgasm denial game. Most people can’t come from prostate stimulation alone, but it sure can be fun to try. Set yourself the challenge of stimulating yourself only with the prostate toy inside you – no external stimulation allowed – for some pre-decided period of time. You can play with a partner or by yourself, steadily increasing the vibration strength (and the mental stimulation you’re getting from porn, erotica, or your partner) until you just can’t take it anymore.

What are your fave things to do with prostate massagers?

 

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

Review: Lelo Loki

Photos by Matt – thank you, Matt!

Being a service sub, I relish opportunities to shower my dominant in gifts – but being a freelance writer, I don’t always have the financial resources to make this happen (to say the least). So I was happy when Betty’s Toy Box sent me a Lelo Loki for my partner to try. I suspected he would love it, and he did!

Prior to acquiring the Loki, he had a Lelo Billy, which is pretty but has never been updated to have one of Lelo’s much rumblier 2nd-generation motors like some of their other toys have. The Billy’s diameter is also on the slimmer side – 1.37 inches – and he’s been preferring slightly larger penetration lately. Its minimal curve, too, leaves something to be desired.

The Loki, by comparison, boasts a 1.5-inch diameter, a more extreme curve for hitting the prostate, a better flared base, and a stronger and rumblier motor. It’s an upgrade in every way, so long as you can contend with the size.

The Loki is basically a butt-friendly version of the much-revered Lelo Mona 2, its G-spot-focused cousin. Frankly you could use either toy for either purpose, so long as you were careful not to let the Mona slip too far inside you during anal play – but it is nice to have an anal-specific toy when that’s what you’re in the mood for. The Loki’s curve also means it could hit the G-spot through the vaginal wall when used anally, if that’s the anatomy you’re working with.

My partner likes a lot of things about the Loki: the pretty blue color, the excellent motor, the many varying speeds, the prostate-targeting shape, the travel lock, the silky silicone, and the size, which he describes as “really, really perfect: don’t need a lot of warmup but feels full.”

His complaints about the toy are as follows: Some of the pulsing settings are too annoyingly unpredictable to be pleasurable. There are visible seams on both the handle and the insertable part of the toy, which are ugly and potentially hard to clean. The charging cable is too short, and is – for some reason – beige, which really doesn’t jive with the otherwise sleek aesthetic of the toy and its accoutrements. The toy rotates easily during use. It’s difficult to tell what each button does simply by feel, so he has to look at them while adjusting the toy’s speed. And button-pressing is consistently finicky on this toy: the buttons will light up when clicked but the setting won’t always change, which is an issue I’ve also experienced with the Doxy and can confirm is very annoying.

Overall, though, m’dude is very happy with his Lelo Loki. He says it’s become his favorite vibrating anal toy. He’ll frequently plug it in before we start having phone sex so it’ll be ready for him whenever he wants to use it – and I love hearing how hard he comes when it’s in his ass. Lelo certainly has their problems, from poorly-designed toys to weirdly exclusive toys to ethical abominations, but when they try to make vibrators that are simple and simply good, they often succeed. Now if only they would develop their entire product line and marketing strategy as thoughtfully and well as they developed the Loki.

 

Thanks to Betty’s Toy Box for hooking us up with a Lelo Loki to try!

We’re Not Blowjob Machines, Bro

This is my “just had an unsatisfactory hookup” face

Let’s do some sex math, shall we?

  • Number of male sexual partners I’ve given oral sex to: 23
  • Number of male sexual partners I’ve given an orgasm via oral sex: 12
  • Number of male sexual partners who’ve given oral sex to me: 17
  • Number of male sexual partners who’ve given me an orgasm via oral sex: 4
  • Percentage of men I’ve gotten off orally: 52.2%
  • Percentage of men who’ve gotten me off orally: 23.5%

In talking to my female friends who have a fair amount of sex with men – especially casual hookups – this seems to be a pretty common trend: fewer dudes try to go down on us, while implicitly or explicitly expecting us to go down on them, and even fewer dudes actually put in the time and effort necessary to bring us pleasure and orgasm.

I recently did a highly unscientific Twitter poll, because I wanted to learn more about this, and it found that 42% of folks with vulvas receive oral sex 0 or 1 time for every 4 times they have sex (versus 36% of folks with penises). This definitely isn’t a perfect poll because it doesn’t take sexual orientation into account, and because some respondents said they don’t receive oral more often because they don’t want to receive oral more often, but the fact remains: no one is a blowjob machine; we all have needs too.

These behaviors, I believe, come from a tangled ball of sexist (not to mention cissexist and heterocentric) myths our culture pushes on us, including:

  • Cunnilingus is more intimate than a blowjob
  • Vulvas are more difficult to please than penises
  • Women’s desire for sex isn’t as intense or as frequent as men’s
  • Orgasms are more important/central to men than they are to women
  • You don’t have to treat someone with respect if you’re just fucking them casually

I would like to make clear that I’m not arguing everyone wants or should want to receive oral sex, or that orgasms are the be-all and end-all of sexual satisfaction. But oral sex and orgasms are two metrics of many for measuring sexual equality in society. A 2013 study of 600 college students found that women are half as likely to orgasm in a casual hookup as they are in relationship sex. These numbers – as well as the studies supporting the existence of the orgasm gap – suggest that for as far as feminism has come, sexual satiety stats in male-female encounters still skew heavily in favor of men, especially in the realm of hooking up.

This problem got so bad for me toward the end of my sluttiest phase that now I don’t even have the energy for casual sex anymore (at least not with men!). I know it’s overwhelmingly unlikely to leave me satisfied, so even when I’m intensely craving sex, I don’t bother seeking it out on dating apps; it’s good sex I’m craving, and that’s not hookup sex for me. Do all those sexually bumbling dudes know that they’re actually hurting their chances of getting laid by putting zero effort into pleasing their partners?

There isn’t an easy way to rectify this problem, as the best way would involve widespread change in the way our culture talks and thinks about sex and gender. But here are some rules I’d like to set for myself if I ever dive back into fucking casually:

  1. Don’t have sex with people who don’t make you laugh. Seems unrelated, maybe, but if I find someone funny, I’m likelier to find them attractive (which means I’ll be more aroused and more likely to have a good time), and if they’re putting effort into cracking me up, they’ll probably also put effort into dicking me down well.
  2. Ask for more “foreplay” if needed. I don’t like the term “foreplay” because it implies that anything before PIV sex is less valuable/important, and also that PIV (or some equivalent penetrative form of sex) is the centerpiece of the session, neither of which are fair assumptions. That said, I often need more time to be spent on the acts we traditionally think of as foreplay, and I shouldn’t feel shy about asking for it.
  3. Be honest about your needs and wants. I’ve too often been asked “Did you come?” by hookups and responded, “No, but it’s okay,” when I actually wasn’t okay with it. I need to get more comfortable expecting better from my partners.
  4. Be proactive about your own arousal. True, this isn’t completely within my control, but there are some factors in my arousal that I can control, like my stress level before and during a date, my alcohol consumption on the date, the recency of my last orgasm, and whether I bring a vibrator. I can also fantasize during sex and/or do relaxation exercises to help myself get and stay aroused.
  5. If someone’s selfish in bed, don’t fuck them again. Pretty simple.

I think following these 5 rules could improve my future hookups drastically… It’s just a question of whether I’m brave enough to actually follow them, and that remains to be seen.

 

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

My Top 10 Favorite Songs About Marriage

The closest thing I have to a photo of me in a wedding dress.

I’m a romantic sap and I don’t care who knows it. I cry at Hallmark cards, I sob whenever I watch the episode of The Office where Jim and Pam get married, and I certainly weep profusely at real-life weddings. What can I say?

I once briefly dated someone who edited wedding videos for a living, and he frequently lamented how boring certain songs get after a while. (You would not believe how many millennials want Bright Eyes’ “First Day of My Life” to feature prominently in their nuptials. Or maybe you would.) That said, wedding-related songs still get me all choked up pretty much whenever I listen to them, whether they’re about beautiful brides for marriage, or offbeat vows, or an oddly-romantic desire not to get married. Here are 10 of my faves…

The Magnetic Fields – It’s Only Time

Why would I stop loving you a hundred years from now?/ It’s only time/ What could stop this beating heart once it’s made a vow?/ It’s only time

This is my #1, play-this-at-my-wedding, first-dance-contender, most romantic song ever. I once sang it and played it on the ukulele in Malta while my cousin walked down the aisle; she hadn’t heard the song before I presented it as an option, but she quickly fell in love with it, as did basically the entire wedding party. Stephin Merritt is a brilliant songwriter, blessed with the ability to write lyrics that are quirky and quixotic sometimes, and utterly classic and simple at other times. This song is of the latter type – it feels, somehow, like it has always existed, since the birth of love.

Rosie Thomas – Wedding Day

I’m gonna stop at every bar/ And flirt with the cowboys in front of their girlfriends/ It’s gonna be so great/ It’s gonna be just like my wedding day

This isn’t actually about a wedding – it’s kind of about a rejection of romance and an embracing of self-love instead, with Rosie sweetly breathing lines like “I’ve had enough of love; it feels good to give up, so good to be good to myself.” But your relationship with yourself is so deeply rooted, so permanent and important, that it may as well be a marriage, am I right?

Tegan and Sara – BWU

All the girls I loved before/ Told me they signed up for more/ Save your first and last chance for me/ ‘Cause I don’t want a white wedding

I have a long-standing theory that Tegan Quin is anxiously attached (to use the parlance of the psychological concept known as attachment theory) while her sister, Sara, is avoidantly attached. You can see the difference easily if you know which T&S songs are written and sung by each sister: Tegan’s songs tend to be desperate “I want you to love me/Why don’t you love me?!” bops, while some of Sara’s greatest hits include lines like “I’m not unfaithful but I’ll stray,” “I swear I tried to leave you at least a hundred times a day,” and – yes – “I don’t want a white wedding.” I admire her level of self-knowledge; I just suuuper don’t want to date someone who approaches relationships the way she does (or the way she seems to in her songs)!

Alvvays – Archie, Marry Me

You’ve expressed explicitly/ Your contempt for matrimony/ You’ve student loans to pay/ And will not risk the alimony

This is a song about a girl trying to convince a boy to marry her. Even though she sounds feminine and sweet, there is something remarkably brash about it. “Hey, hey,” she sings in the chorus, “marry me, Archie.” I admire that level of straightforwardness, and of clarity of desire!

Punch Brothers – Don’t Get Married Without Me

Let’s not fool ourselves/ Taking a break is dragging out a break-up too long/ Help yourself to whatever you like with whomever you like/ But don’t get married without me

The feeling expressed in this song is one I’m sure a lot of us have felt, even if we’re not proud of it: the sense that, even when you’ve broken up with someone, you still have (or want to have) some sense of ownership over them. It’s a shitty monogamy-culture knee-jerk reaction, but what can ya do. I like that this song has a sense of humor about itself; clearly Chris Thile knows how ridiculous it would be to put conditions on the romantic life of someone you’re dumping, but it’s an impulse that comes up nonetheless.

Death Cab For Cutie – Cath…

You said your vows/ And you closed the door/ On so many men/ Who would have loved you more

Ben Gibbard, for some reason, is really good at writing songs about women with romantic regrets. (See also: “Lady Adelaide,” the solo-project track of his that makes me weep for a fictional character.) I find this song relatable even though I’ve never been married; being romantically entangled with “a well-intentioned man” while your “heart is dying fast” is a tough spot to be in, and yet I think a lot of us have experienced some version of that. You want to get out, but you’re worried about what’ll happen if you do.

The Japanese House – Worms

Sharing your house/ Sharing your life/ Sharing your home/ There’s so much pressure not to be alone

I feel this song in the marrow of my bones. It feels like a post-breakup anxiety spiral: “She’s my lullaby and I can’t sleep right,” Amber Bain warbles mournfully, before deep-diving into feelings of large-scale rejection and loneliness. She’s right that our culture is overinvested in pairing people up, and in making single people feel like shit.

Company – Getting Married Today

Listen, everybody/ Look, I don’t know what you’re waiting for/ A wedding? What’s a wedding?/ It’s a prehistoric ritual/ Where everybody promises fidelity forever/ Which is maybe the most horrifying word I’ve ever heard

Just about everything Stephen Sondheim writes is gold, but this is a fave of mine. It’s a nervous breakdown in song form: Amy, a neurotic bride-to-be, has a panic attack the morning of her wedding and enumerates all the reasons she can’t possibly go through with it. I like to think that if I ever get married, I’ll listen to this on the day of, just to bring those last-minute jitters to the surface and exorcize them so I can proceed.

West Side Story – One Hand, One Heart

Make of our hands one hand/ Make of our hearts one heart/ Make of our vows one last vow/ Only death will part us now

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here is a musical theatre song about a wedding gone right. Tony and Maria – based on Romeo and Juliet – sing this beautiful love duet to bind them together. It’s so over-the-top that I think it would actually be too cheesy to be a first-dance song… and yet, I love it.

John Mayer – Home Life

I can tell you this much/ I will marry just once/ And if it doesn’t work out/ Give her half of my stuff/ It’s fine with me/ We said eternity

The J-man has a bit of a reputation as a player, so it’s rare for him to grapple with questions of domesticity and long-term love in his songs, but he does in this one. Mayer has never gotten married as of yet, but has been romantically tied to the likes of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Katy Perry. Guess he didn’t click with any of them enough to have “said eternity” with ’em.

What are your favorite songs about weddings/marriage?

 

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

Winsome in White: Wedding Dress Fetish

A strapless white Betsey Johnson dress that makes me shriek

When I attended a cakesitting party, I theorized that perhaps the spark of lust some people feel from destroying a cake materializes because we put so much time and effort and emotional energy into cakes. Not just the making of them, but also the planning for them, presenting them, eating them. They’re the centerpiece of a traditional birthday party, and to destroy something so precious and so highly celebrated is an almost unfathomable taboo. It’s why, you’ll note, many big showy “Oh no!!” moments in movies culminate in a cake being tragically (and comically) destroyed.

Around the same time, I started wondering whether this taboo of destroying highly celebrated objects could extend to other types of celebrations. So, naturally, I typed “wedding dress fetish” into Google, thinking: what could be a more celebrated object than that?

Currently, that phrase brings up 41 results. In those results, you’ve got your brides merely expressing extreme enthusiasm about their dresses, sure, but you’ve also got an Experience Project page of men professing their lust for wedding dresses, porn clips of women giving blowjobs in floofy white frocks, and a review of a mystery novel about a serial killer who dresses all his victims in wedding gowns. It’s often said that humans can and will fetishize anything and everything you can think of, and this is no exception. One fetishist writes that a wedding dress is “the ultimate in femininity and the most ultimate dress anyone can own.” I can’t argue with that, except to add that the femininity being referred to here is, of course, a capitalist and conventional form of that gender expression, tied up in many different axes of historical oppression.

More broadly, some people have a “bride fetish” or a “bridal fetish,” which might focus on the dress but also might focus on the other trappings of a woman being wed: the white lingerie under the dress, the flawless makeup, the veil, the unattainability, the supposed virginity, or any number of other things. I’m most interested in the dress as a fetish object, though, especially after having read Laurie Essig’s book Love, Inc. where she dissects the vast psychological baggage we’ve placed on the wedding dress as a symbol. It’s right up there with crosses and the human heart in terms of the importance we heap onto it.

I spent some time in a bridal shop a couple years ago when I joined my friend’s wedding party. While I was trying on bridesmaid dresses – which are pretty much designed to make the wearer look unremarkable and plain, but in a pretty way – my friend kept swanning in and out of the dressing room in one gorgeous gown after another, commanding the room. I teared up almost every time she emerged in a new dress, because the effect of seeing someone you love – or even someone you hardly know! – in a dress that culturally weighted is powerful.

I didn’t experience that feeling as sexual, but I can easily see how someone could. Swathing yourself or a loved one in white tulle and satin could be a way of accessing what’s supposed to be the best day of your life, a day when you look and feel gorgeous, a day that we all winkingly acknowledge will probably end in romantic sex. It’s a day when everyone stares at you, when you’re the center of attention but no one gets mad at you for it, when you make promises that are supposed to be binding. There’s a lot in there that overlaps psychologically with concepts like exhibitionism and voyeurism, dominance and submission, and (especially when you factor in the corsets and high heels) sadism and masochism. It’s no wonder some people fixate on weddings and their trappings in a distinctly sexual way.

Apparently sometimes bridesmaids try on wedding gowns when the bride-to-be does, because “When in Rome” and all that – but I didn’t, when I was in that bridal boutique with my pal. It would’ve felt inappropriate to steal her thunder, but also there was something powerfully sacred about these dresses in my mind. I didn’t want to try one on until I had “earned” the right by getting engaged and actually being a bride-to-be, rather than just playacting as one. I knew seeing myself in a white gown would unleash a torrent of feelings I wasn’t ready to feel. So I zipped myself into my meek blue cocktail dress and tucked that desire away for another day.

I hope someday I have sex in a wedding gown, whether or not I actually got married that day, because I imagine there’s just nothing else quite like it. What else could be as decadent – besides sitting on a beautiful chocolate cake?

 

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