12 Days of Girly Juice

12 Days of Girly Juice: 3 Fave Encounters

Kate Sloan

When I was mapping out the different categories I wanted to cover for the 12 Days of Girly Juice, I wondered, “How can I possibly narrow down my sexual encounters to just 3 favorites?”

And then I thought about it for a few seconds and realized I knew exactly which 3 encounters I wanted to write about.

 

1. Confidence Fuck

When my 3.5-year-long relationship ended in 2014, we already hadn’t had sex in a few months. And then I went another year without dating or having sex with anyone. So that was rough.

Part of the problem was that my confidence was decimated. I had body anxiety and social anxiety and basically wondered if I was doomed to a life of hermitdom and celibacy.

But then in August, I went on a couple dates with an internet crush of mine, and we hooked up. In the grand scheme of things, it was nothing major, but it felt major. It ended a rut of self-loathing and self-pity that had kept me out of the game for a while, and kind of kickstarted a chain of sexy events.

It was also, y’know, fun and hot and great in its own right. And it definitely stands out as one of my strongest sexual memories of 2015, for reasons both emotional and sexual.

 

2. Dapper Dom Dude

I’ve long suppressed or backburner’ed my kinks, because most of my past partners were either pretty vanilla or even more submissive than me. Nonetheless, I undeniably wanted to be held down and hurt and called names and overpowered.

I had the good fortune of sleeping with a few different dom-y people in 2015; however, the first one has really stuck with me because that experience just felt so new and exciting. We only hooked up a couple times and barely scraped the surface of our kinks, but it was enough to give me a deeper sense of what I was looking for.

I learned I like having my tits slapped. Being called “good girl.” Having my hair pulled. Dark, filthy whispers in between kisses. Being held down while getting fucked hard. Commands like “Come for me.” All of it within a consent-conscious framework, with check-ins before, during, and after.

Well, fuck. How can your sex-brain not undergo a massive shift when all of that happens to you for the first time?

 

3. Emergency Threesome

I had a threesome with a close friend and a guy I’ve had a crush on for years.

In a big, beautiful, empty house that another close friend let us borrow for that express purpose.

It involved cunnilingus, blowjobs, handjobs, nipple play, boobs in faces, scruffy makeouts, smiling, giggling, a Pure Wand, and a voyeuristic cat named Seamus.

I mean. That’s pretty hard to top.

 

What were your favorite sexual adventures in 2015?

12 Days of Girly Juice: 4 Fun Events

Kate Sloan

events

I’m so, so lucky to get invited to cool sex-positive events on the regular. One of the key ingredients of happiness is having something to look forward to, and I always do, thanks to these events.

It was hard to choose the 4 that I loved most in 2015, but these were really the ones that transformed my life the most, gave me the most fun and laughter, and brought me together with incredible people.

Tell Me Something Good

I attended my first TMSG in December 2014, as a guest judge – and immediately, I was hooked. It’s a sexy storytelling event; there’s a different theme each month, and attendees can volunteer to tell their best (TRUE) sex story related to the theme. Judges appraise the stories and the best ones win prizes at the end of the night.

Despite there being judges and scores, there is no sense of competition at TMSG. It’s all about community, commonalities and commiseration. Stories can be funny, or sweet, or sad, or strange – or all of the above. The only rules: stick to the theme, stay under 5 minutes (unless you’re really interesting), and keep oppressive -isms and -phobias out of your stories.

I’ve never once had a bad experience at TMSG. Never has someone told a story that made me uncomfortable, or reacted to my stories in a gross way. Getting sexual sagas off my chest at TMSG has become a monthly ritual, a joy I avidly look forward to. The community there is like this cool little club that comes together monthly just to reassure each other: “Yeah, sex is weird. But that’s okay.”

Drunk Feminist Films

I first attended DFF when they screened Fifty Shades of Grey back in April. It’s an idea so simple and yet so genius: a bunch of feminists get together in a movie theatre, feminist drinking game rules are distributed, and everyone (optionally) drinks their way through a gender-problematic movie.

Here are some samples of DFF rules. Drink every time Anastasia Steele tells Christian Grey what to do and he does the exact opposite. Drink every time one of the characters in Bridesmaids does something that would get them arrested (or worse) if they weren’t white. Drink every time a woman in Love Actually sacrifices her happiness to take care of someone else.

But DFF doesn’t just tear down troubling shit; it also celebrates what’s good in the movies it highlights. We were encouraged to twirl tampons in the air and shout “AGENCY!” every time Ana Steele made her own decisions, and we chorused “BFFs!” each time female characters supported one another in Clueless. Even though most of the movies shown at DFF are dumb comedies or dry dramas, I’ve found tears welling up in my eyes at almost every screening, because the feeling of feminist solidarity packed into that cinema is palpable.

A common criticism of the feminist movement is that we’re “too angry.” And yeah, it’s perfectly reasonable to get angry – nay, furious – with the state of gender equality in the world today. But anger is exhausting. Sometimes I just want to laugh and drink and relax in the company of other feminists. That doesn’t make me less of a fighter for the cause; it just makes me human. DFF understands that, which makes it one of my favorite events and most valued spaces of 2015.

DildoHoliday

Seven sex bloggers walk into a beach house…

Nope, that’s not the beginning of a joke. That’s what happened at DildoHoliday. It was a bloggers’ retreat organized by Piph, Bex and Aerie, and it was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my 2015.

I finally got to meet all these people I had only known through the internet, and they became much more real to me. Those friendships deepened and became some of the most solid and supportive alliances in my life.

For days on end, we laughed, watched porn, posed for nude photos, masturbated, skill-shared, live-tweeted, and lounged around. We made our own dildos, snapped endless sex toy photos, and pranked each other with a stone cherub.

Being around like-minded people is relaxing in its own right, so combine that with an idyllic environment like an Oregon beach house and you’ve got a recipe for a super rejuvenating vacation. I truly feel like these memories and friendships will stick with me for life.

Playground Conference

It’s an oft-repeated piece of wisdom amongst my friend group that sex conferences are usually fun because of the people and the after-hours events, not so much the actual conference sessions. Playground did what few conferences can do: both the sessions and the “extracurriculars” were fun, informative, and enlightening.

It was one of the best weekends of my year. I got to spend time with friends visiting from afar, have big delicious meals at brunch restaurants, and ogle steel dildos in the expo room. I had an impromptu threesome, a sex-tinged hotel-room cuddle pile, and a quiet late night getting sleepily fingered by a dom gentleman. I learned about sex and depression, sex and self-care, sex and gender identity.

At the end of the weekend, I was exhausted, but I also felt pumped up with new knowledge and new experiences. It was, in short, exactly what a sex conference should be.

 

What events rocked your world in 2015?

12 Days of Girly Juice: 5 Sex-Positive Superheroes

Kate Sloan

I’ve been avoiding writing this post, because… it feels weird to single out just five people who affected my life in the sex-positive realm this year. There are so many of you, and all of you affect me in different and important ways. The world is full of badass sex educators, brilliant sex bloggers, and magnificent sex mentors. It was so, so hard to choose just five!

That said, it also wasn’t hard, once I sat down to really think about it. These are the five people whose contributions to my sex-positive endeavors meant the most to me this year. I’d love to know who your sex heroes were in 2015!

 

Sophie Delancey

Sophie had a really tough year. She had a series of strokes early in 2015 that affected her mobility, eyesight, voice, sensation, and – yes – sexuality.

I haven’t known Sophie that long, but for the entire time I’ve known her, what I’ve admired most about her is her tenacity and how hard she works – all while managing to stay sweet and positive. She held onto those qualities even in the face of extreme adversity, and that is absolutely astonishing to me.

When I did the Miracle Worker course earlier this year, one of the exercises was to reflect on whose career makes you jealous, and why. Sophie was one of the names I wrote down (along with Piph – see below), because her work spans multiple mediums in sexuality and seems fascinating and fulfilling. She’s always busy and always hustlin’, and I admire the hell out of that.

Here’s sincerely hoping for a better 2016 for Sophie – she deserves it!

 

Samantha Fraser

Samantha is the brains, brawn and beauty behind the Playground Conference. If you were there and (like me) had a fantastic time socializing, learning, and laughing, you owe all of that to Samantha. She worked tirelessly to make the conference happen and has done so for the past five years – and it’s paid off, in the form of an event that everyone loves.

Along with Sophie, Samantha also runs Tell Me Something Good, a local sexy storytelling event (more on that in my next post, which is all about events!). Obviously, she is a master community-builder, and that is a remarkable and rare skill.

I recently started reading Samantha’s book on ethical non-monogamy, Not Your Mother’s Playground, and it’s made me reflect on how much I owe to the polyamorous role models in my life, Samantha included. I can’t imagine viewing poly life as a viable choice for myself without the influence of those people, telling and showing me it’s okay if monogamy doesn’t feel right for me. Samantha’s contributions to Toronto’s vibrant sex-positive community are huge and shouldn’t be underestimated!

 

Stoya

I don’t have a lot to say about this situation, because it pretty much speaks for itself. Stoya spoke out publicly about James Deen raping her, and this admission triggered an avalanche of similar revelations in the industry. She is singlehandedly responsible for toppling an insidious industry giant, and she should be revered for her bravery forever.

 

Epiphora

2015 was the year when Epiphora transformed from my far-away hero into my real-life friend – but, let’s face it: she’s still a hero of mine.

It was Piph’s blog that made me first want to start this one, way back in 2012. She widened my purview of what a blog could be, what sex toys could do, and what women are “allowed” to say about our own masturbation and sexuality. She’s one of my favorite writers in the whole world and certainly the funniest and most thorough sex toy reviewer on the entire internet.

Piph also deserves props for helping – by which I mean, forcing – me to move my blog from Tumblr to self-hosted WordPress this year. “Your blog is too good for Tumblr,” she said to me the very first night I met her, over mac and cheese and red wine. “You need to buy hosting. Like, now.” I had always been apprehensive about doing this because of my lack of back-end blog knowledge, but Piph saved the day: she got me a terrific deal on hosting, set everything up for me, and helped me with countless coding quandaries in the months to come. This blog would be nothing without her.

Piph is amazingly strong and outspoken, and she taught me a number of lessons along those lines in 2015: “Never apologize.” “Always get paid before you do the work.” “Believe in your vagina.” She’s like the cool, tech-savvy older sister I never had – who just happens to own more than 500 sex toys.

 

Bex

Welp. Let’s see if I can write this without crying…

I met Bex at the sex bloggers’ retreat she helped plan in Oregon this past June. Prior to that trip, she and I weren’t all that familiar with each other’s blogs – but as we got to know each other in Oregon and in the months that followed, it became abundantly clear that we are #SexBrainTwins. Seriously, I can’t even count the number of times that we’ve stumbled upon a similarity in our kinks, desires, or experiences, and shouted at each other, “TWINS!!”  or “WE’RE THE SAME!!”

We get anxious about a lot of the same things, but we each have a nurturing, supportive streak that means we’re able to talk each other down in times of anxiety. I owe a lot of my sexual and romantic success this year to Bex, because whenever I wonder “Does [boy] really like me?!” or “Should I ask him out?!” or “Am I actually worthy of desire?!” my friend Bex is always there to remind me of my inherent value, and to calm my nerves.

We even had a threesome together with a cute boy we both like, and it wasn’t weird at all. Our relationship is platonic, but also not. “We have sex near each other, not with each other,” I remarked to her recently, while staying at her house, where I masturbated in front of her, spanked her, and told her what a babe she is, without any of that feeling strange.

Bex is one of the most organized, prepared, patient people I know. I never tire of talking about sex with her, but let’s be real: we could probably talk about anything and make each other giggle hysterically. She understands me and she also punderstands me. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful friend.

 

Thanks so much to all the sex-positive people I communed with in 2015, not just these five. I love you all and you add so much value and joy to my life on a daily basis. ♥

12 Days of Girly Juice: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

It was a big year for self-reflection and forward motion! Here’s some of the sexual and romantic events of my year, summed up in journal entries…

 

January 31st, 2015

I have a bad habit of blaming my relative lack of suitors on the way I look, when deeply and truly I know that the main reason for it is that I’m shy and don’t go out very often. I know plenty of women who are chubby or otherwise less than conventionally perfect-looking but who nonetheless capture the attention of men regularly, and without exception these women are outgoing, socially active, warm and friendly. I think in some ways I cling to weight loss as a magic pill for loneliness because I believe it would actually be easier to lose 40 pounds than to ditch my shyness. How silly.

 

April 8th, 2015

When _______ and I were in Montreal, at one point we talked about how I wish I had a fuckbuddy who I actually trusted and liked, and she asked me if there was anyone in my life who I would want to have sex with. I said ____ and ___. It’s not so much that I’m intensely attracted to either of them but more that I know them, feel safe with them, feel respected by them, and find them cute. It’s weird that when I said it, I thought there was literally zero chance of anything happening with either of them, but now one of them is actively flirting with me. It feels like the universe heard what I said and got the wheels turning for me.

 

April 20th, 2015

It has been literal YEARS since I have had a CRUSH on someone in the way that I would now consider a baseline prerequisite for entering into a relationship. The kind of crush that hits you without any effort on your part to cultivate it – just, BAM, DAMN, that person is cute, and you get blushy and giggly whenever you see them, and you find yourself going out of your way and making excuses to be around them, and you notice and fixate on all their many good qualities, and you are absolutely lit up by their presence or even the briefest of online correspondence with them.

I haven’t really felt that way about anybody in the past 5 years, and I don’t know why. Am I not getting out enough or meeting enough people? Am I suppressing any romantic feelings out of self-protection, insecurity, or fear of rejection? Have I internalized conventional attractiveness standards to an unhealthy degree? Am I on the asexuality spectrum? Who the hell knows?!

 

August 31st, 2015

I have been thinking a lot lately about my view of men/boys and how radically it has changed over the past few years. I used to be so distrustful of them, concerned that all they wanted from women was sex, that they were cold and calculating and unemotional and unloving. I was scared of their aggression and forwardness, their ability and willingness to identify a desire and then just pursue it. And penises made me nervous, those hard, unyielding outcroppings of flesh that seemed to demand attention and respect and reverence, wanting just to plough into a vagina with no attention paid to that vagina’s readiness or the feelings of its owner.

Obviously not all of those qualities are forgivable, but certainly not all men behave or think that way, and some of those qualities that scared me are now things I treasure in men. I admire their forwardness, how they’ll often cut straight to the chase when there’s something they want. I love that they’re easier to read than women. I love that they appreciate skills and competence and intelligence and humor; the stereotype that men only care about women’s looks is so not true.

And for all my teenage fretting about how men would be sexually selfish, that hasn’t been my experience AT ALL. ______ and my current trio of beaux have ALL been (or at least claimed to be) very concerned with their partners’ pleasure, to the point that getting a partner off makes up a significant portion of their enjoyment of sex. And I have met many men on the internet who say they feel this way too.

 

September 21st, 2015

I want to remember always how _____ looked at me and said, “I think you’re nervous, and you have no reason to be,” and I agreed that yeah I was nervous, because he’s cooler and more famous than me (“More famous? Maybe. Cooler? Not so much… You’re way cooler than I was at your age”) and I said, “I’m fond of you,” and he said, “I’m fond of you too!”

I want to remember always that I am worthy of having, and capable of capturing, the attention of men who I not only LIKE but who I initially perceive as being “out of my league” in one way or another: too cute, too cool, too mature, too internet-famous, too conventionally attractive, too sexually experienced to want someone like me.

This year I’ve been pursued by ___, ____, ______ & _____, all of whom are highly “cool” and desirable in their respective social spheres – even though they’re all total fucking nerds. Aww.

 

November 11th, 2015

If I have sex with one more new person before the year is out – and it seems likely that I will – then I will have tripled my previous number of sexual partners in 2015. It feels a bit like a dam has burst; finally, a torrential downpour of people who want to fuck me. I’m still not having nearly as much sex as a lot of people in my communities seem to be, or as I would like to be, but it feels like a lot. Although, I wish that I had had a repeat encounter with at least one of the people I fucked this year. (____ barely counts; that threesome was, by _______’s own admission, mostly about her and me.) I like when you’ve banged a person a few times and you get to know each other’s bodies and tastes. I like that better than firsts.

12 Days of Girly Juice: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

Earlier this year, I had Piph edit one of my posts. There was a part in it where I said, “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t very coherent, but…”

Piph was absolutely adamant when she gave me feedback. “NEVER APOLOGIZE,” she wrote. And since she’s a badass, irreverent blogger who knows what she’s talking about, I’ve tried to take her advice.

So I’m going to present to you my 7 favorite selfies I took this year – without spouting excuses about why my face is all over the damn internet. It’s my story to tell the way I want to tell it. So here we go.

imageI took this on the night of the Feminist Porn Awards, which, incidentally, was also the first night I ever showed my face on the internet in connection with my Girly Juice identity. I just felt soooo damn pretty that night that I wanted to show myself off. I commanded my Twitter followers to tell me how “fucking foxy” I looked if they spotted me at the awards, and someone actually did! Aww.

This night also marked the birth of the phrase “femme queen mode,” which is what I call it when I put tonnnns of effort into my makeup and feel like a Head Beauty in Charge. Seriously, look at dat fancy eyeshadow…

imageThis was taken in Portland, outside Voodoo Doughnut. I had bought this ridiculous cotton candy-flavored donut mostly because it was turquoise and pink – which, as you may have noticed if you’ve ever looked at this freakin’ website, are my favorite colors. I was rocking pink tinted lip balm and my blue glasses, prompting Piph to announce, “Your donut matches your face!” So, a selfie seemed necessary, of course.

imageI took this first thing in the morning, the day I was gonna get my tattoo. The light was soft and pretty outside my room, and I felt like commemorating my lower belly’s last day as unmarked flesh. I love this photo because it reminds me that I can look and feel sexy even though I have love handles and a Buddha belly.

It also makes me smile that I chose to wear a red T-shirt specifically because I knew I was getting a red tattoo. Sartorial geekery forever!

image

I took this with Bex and Penny just moments after we reunited at JFK airport in September. Our smiles really say it all: I adore these dorks. Friendship was a central theme of 2015 for me, and I’m so glad that lots of those happy moments were photographically documented.

image

 

 

Speaking of friendship… Here’s me and Georgia eating a pizza that we tempted a boy to buy for us by sending him nude pictures and a short video of us making out. Industrious femmes 2015! We had been naked most of the evening; she only put her shirt back on so as to answer the door for the pizza delivery guy. We’re ridiculous.

 

imageYEESH, my makeup was on point this night. I got all dolled up for the Twilight edition of Drunk Feminist Films. Trying to lean into the vampire theme, I did a goth-y grey and black smoky eye and a blood-red lip.

Something I noticed this year was that I’m more inclined to get babed up for other women than I am for men. I adore men and there are lots of them who I want to impress, but let’s be real: most of them don’t appreciate great eyeshadow blending or a flawlessly crisp lipstick application. Femme beauty rituals are often cut down as being heteronormative attention-seeking behaviors, but the truth is, I do makeup to impress myself and other ladies, not dudes!

imageFunny how you can have good body image days and bad body image days, even as your body stays exactly the same. This was definitely a “loving my body” day. One of the main benefits of my weight gain over the last year is that my tits are way more glorious now than they used to be. Yay!

Also, can we talk about my phone case?! It’s from Redbubble and I love it unimaginable amounts. I used the heart-eyes emoji so much in 2015 that it grew to be like a positive mantra, and a symbol of the kind of attitude I want to cultivate toward everything in my life. It’s also lovely to have a little heart-eyed dude staring back at you in every mirror, as if to say: “What a BABE you are!!”

What were your fave selfies you took in 2015, my loves?