anxiety

Your Partner is Allowed to Watch Porn

Kate Sloan
A frame from the movie Infinity Baby, which is not a porn film but does have a premature ejaculation scene starring Kieran Culkin, so there’s that

Every single day on the /r/sex subreddit, people post about their porno woes. Sometimes these relate to their own porn tastes or habits, but often they relate instead to a partner’s viewership of porn.

A common manifestation of this might be something like:

A while ago, I walked in on my partner masturbating to porn. I got really upset, and told them I have a personal boundary that my partners aren’t allowed to watch porn because I find it so upsetting. Then, later, I snooped in their phone and found out they’re still watching porn, even after I told them to stop! Clearly they’re a porn addict who doesn’t love me or respect me. How do I get them to stop?

Even setting aside some of the more glaring issues (like, for the love of all things holy and good, do NOT look through someone’s phone without their permission!), I have a few issues with this type of thinking, and I want to break those down today.

 

1. Your partner is allowed to masturbate.

Period. Full stop.

If you’d prefer a relationship style where your partner is not allowed to masturbate – and, crucially, if that is also what your partner would prefer – then I’d suggest looking into the consensual chastity community, and carefully negotiating the limits of your dynamic, including safewords. Exploring sexual fantasies together can be super fun!

However, outside the realm of consensually-negotiated orgasm-control dynamics, your partner is allowed to masturbate, regardless of how you may feel about it. They have the right to bodily autonomy, as do you, and relationship status has no effect on that inalienable right. If this makes you uncomfortable, point #4 on this list may be especially useful to you.

 

2. Porn is part of masturbation for many people, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Porn boosts arousal, helps engage our brains so we can focus more on pleasure (which can be extra useful when life/the world is stressful), expands our erotic imaginations, and is just simply fun to watch. People who jerk off to porn are no different from people who jerk off to erotica, fantasies, memories, photos of partners/hot celebrities/etc., steamy TV shows like Bridgerton, spicy romance novels, or any other arousal-boosting mental stimulation of any kind. And there are porn categories that stretch far beyond how porn is often depicted and thought about: it’s not all horrific, chauvinistic or unrealistic (besides which, it’s totally possible for a kinky porn scene to embody some or all of these qualities and to have been made with the full, informed consent of everyone involved – Tristan Taormino’s Rough Sex series is a good example).

Plus, porn is a really wonderful thing for a lot of people, both on the viewing side of things and on the production side of things. It’s how many kinky people first mentally explore their burgeoning desires; it’s how some trans and non-binary people first see themselves represented as sexy and desirable; it’s a source of income and a creative outlet for many marginalized creators.

As for “porn addiction,” it’s a moralizing, pathologizing term that’s been applied to a wide range of behaviors, ranging from totally normal levels of porn usage to more extreme/compulsive usage. In any case, it’s not really a useful label and also not a true addiction in the clinical sense. I’m not an expert on this side of things, but would recommend you check out Kris Taylor’s work on this subject if you’re curious about it. There are definitely plenty of people who use porn to a compulsive or unhealthy extent – in which case it might be seriously affecting their employment, relationships, mental health, and so on – but I think most accusations of “porn addiction” (even self-inflicted accusations) are largely based on puritanical moralization, not reality.

 

3. Boundaries are rules you set for yourself, not for other people.

You’re the only one whose behavior you can control, so you’re the only one you get to set boundaries for.

Here’s an example of a boundary:

I find it triggering when I find out that a partner of mine has watched porn, so until I’m able to work through that issue, I choose not to date people who watch porn because I find it too destabilizing at the moment. When I find out that someone I am dating watches porn, I respectfully end the relationship.

Here’s an example of something that is not a valid boundary, because it focuses on controlling someone else’s behavior instead of your own:

I find it triggering when I find out that a partner of mine has watched porn, so anyone who is partnered with me is not allowed to watch porn. When I find out my partner has watched porn, I won’t necessarily end the relationship, but I will get angry or upset with them for having violated this rule I set, even if they didn’t agree to it or didn’t even know about it.

Own your boundaries. Understand that boundaries are about you and your actions.

 

4. You will be happier when you work through this shit

This is really the most important point I always try to convey to people who are uncomfortable with their partners’ porn usage. While it’s never made me uncomfortable for my partners to watch porn, there have been some other, totally normal-and-fine things that have sometimes triggered jealousy, anxiety, or insecurity in me when partners do them – and the healing work I’ve done in therapy, in order to work through these issues, has revolutionized not just my romantic relationships, but my entire life. I am a much, much happier and more stable person for it, and my relationships have improved as a result.

I’m definitely not saying that therapy is easy, or that everyone can access it. I really wish everyone could, or everyone who wanted to, anyway. There are methods of self-reflection that may be useful even if therapy is inaccessible for you, like journaling about the roots of your anxieties or even using therapeutic techniques from Internal Family Systems (Jay Earley has a book called Self-Therapy about this).

I’m also not saying that therapy is the solution to all ills in a relationship. If your partner is abusing you, mistreating you, ignoring you, deprioritizing you, etc., you’re allowed to be upset about that, you’re allowed to communicate about it, and you’re always allowed to end the relationship. When I have trouble discerning between a thing I actually should be mad about, and a thing that’s actually totally fine but that I’m mad about because of my own issues, sometimes I’ll ask a friend or another outside observer what they think.

As ever, these are all just my opinions; you can take ’em or leave ’em, ’cause it’s your life. But when I see someone fretting over their partner’s totally normal porn-viewing habits, I see someone who has the potential to be happier someday, if they view that anxiety as a thread to pull, a road to follow to its fraught source. It’s not easy, it’s not fun, but it is freeing as hell. And it means you can watch porn together, which is hot. Seems like a win-win to me.

 

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

So I Gave My First Footjob…

Kate Sloan
Sneakers by Converse, clogs by Lotta From Stockholm.

For reasons unknown, I’ve dated an above-average number of foot fetishists. I guess it makes sense if you consider that I mostly date other kinksters, and feet are one of the most common kinks. But when I think about the kind of person who would date multiple foot fetishists, I think about someone who has beautiful, soft, elegant feet, and I’ve never really thought of myself as that kind of person.

I think a lot of us grow up with feet-related insecurities, which may be part of why feet are fetishized so often. We worry about sweat, smells, dirtiness. We hide our feet away under socks and shoes much of the time, so that displaying them openly can feel almost as vulnerable as nudity. Still to this day, I feel weird in sandals, like I’m cosplaying as a type of girl I’ve never really been.

I’ve certainly never felt confident enough about my feet to want to model for fetish sites like Love Her Feet. But over the course of a few relationships with foot fetishists, I eventually got a little more comfortable taking foot pics when requested. (If you’re interested, I have an all-feet photo set available for purchase. That link is the only place on the internet where you can get sexy pictures of my feet!)

That being said, confidence in photos is a bit different from confidence in real life. When partners would want to do things like sniff my feet, massage them, or suck on my toes, I’d freeze up. Sometimes I’d enjoy these things when they would happen, but only if I was able to get over my near-paralyzing anxiety about it, which was rare.

Recently, my partner requested a footjob. They’ve requested one several times before but I’ve always felt too nervous to do it. I was worried not only about my feet but also about the contorted position I’d probably have to get into; I don’t have a lot of flexibility in my hips, knees or ankles due to my fibromyalgia, and a lot of the footjobs I’d seen in porn had involved someone’s legs being splayed wide open with their knees deeply bent to stroke a dick between their soles, a shape I knew my body just wouldn’t be able to get into. Hell, I can barely sit cross-legged on the floor for more than a few minutes before every joint below my waist starts throbbing with pain. On that note, I was also nervous about how I’d look while trying to bend myself into the right shape.

However, one of the skills I’ve picked up from therapy is being able to break down an anxiety-provoking situation to look more closely at the specific anxiety triggers it contains, in order to figure out if I can do anything about them. When I thought about each of the individual pieces of the puzzle that were fueling my footjob fears, I saw a few potential solutions, which could be used alone or in tandem:

  1. Get a pedicure prior to the footjob.
  2. Find a comfortable position that works for my body.
  3. Blindfold my partner so they can’t see what I’m doing.

I ended up doing the latter 2 things from this list. One night I had my partner lie on their back in bed and put a blindfold on. I laid on my side next to them and lubed up their dick and the sole of one of my feet. Then I bent my knee enough that my sole could rest on the underside of their dick and had just enough range of movement to slide up and down the length of it in a teasing manner.

And yes, my hip and knee joints started to ache after a few minutes, but I knew that wasn’t the end of the world. I kept up some low dirty talk in their ear while holding onto my leg with my arms, so that my arm muscles could take on some of the strain and give my leg a break. As the action crescendoed, at certain points I had to use my arms to physically move my leg up and down because my leg muscles and joints were just done. But, as often happens, the yummy neurochemicals of being in a sexy situation with a hot person were enough to make the pain mostly feel like part of the experience, rather than antithetical to it.

Eventually they came, and it was hot. I think I had them lick some of their own cum off my foot, possibly while still blindfolded. Overall, a positive experience – and one I definitely didn’t think I’d ever have, prior to being in this relationship.

The moral of the story is: In the realm of sex, as in other realms of life, you will encounter things that scare you but that seem worth doing anyway. Self-knowledge can be even more important than courage in these cases, because it is your knowledge of yourself, your body, and your brain that will enable you to approach the situation in a way that works for you. And when you do it your way, courage comes much more easily. Dip your toe in and see what happens.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Safety: A Secret Ingredient of Arousal

Kate Sloan

I’ve been in this situation many times, and maybe you have too:

I’m ostensibly about to hook up with a person I find very attractive, both physically and emotionally. We’re kissing, groping, grinding, etc., and while I feel like I should be aroused, I’m just… not. It feels like staring at an equation that says “1 + 1 = 0” and trying to figure out how that can possibly be true.

More often than not, there’s a secret ingredient that’s missing. And that ingredient is a sense of safety.

 

As the sexologist Emily Nagoski has pointed out in much of her work, stress has a real, measurable impact on our libidos. It actually alters your ability to get aroused, both psychologically and physiologically.

This makes sense if you think about how evolution works. If pre-civilization humans could just keep on fuckin’, even while the threat of an imminent tiger attack loomed in their peripheral vision, they never would have survived long enough to make babies and carry on their genetic line. So, naturally, we evolved to treat cues of danger as more important inputs than just about anything else, including sexual desire.

 

However, in modern times, even in places where tiger attacks are rare-bordering-on-unheard-of, our stress responses can still get in the way of arousal. These responses can occur due to a vast number of stressful inputs, including stuff like:

  • Worrying about whether it’s safe to be naked in the bed of a person you just recently met
  • Worrying about whether you might accidentally get pregnant or contract an STI
  • Worrying that your sex noises or sex faces are unattractive
  • Having been sexually assaulted or harassed in the past and worrying it’ll happen again
  • Wondering whether your date thinks you’re a slut for hopping into bed with them
  • Not yet knowing whether your date cares about your pleasure and comfort

A lot of these types of worries fall disproportionately on the shoulders of women, especially women who date men, due to the rates of sexual assault and other forms of abuse being heavily skewed along gender lines. In my view, this is a huge part of why so many guys struggle with knowing how to make a girl wet; they may be modeling their understanding of her arousal on the way they view their own arousal, and so they may not realize how important these mental and emotional components of sex are to the people they sleep with, if those aspects are not as much of a make-or-break factor for their own arousal.

I find it interesting, though disheartening, that this circumstantial difference is often written off as “Women are just more emotional in general, and their libidos are fundamentally different from men’s!” I don’t think this is inherently true, but I think a lot of systemic factors have made it seem that way, and people have simplified it in order to understand it better.

 

In any case, regardless of the gender(s) of the people you have sex with, it’s worth keeping in mind that a sense of safety is probably a component of what helps them get aroused. You can cultivate a safer-feeling environment by doing things like:

  • Asking them about their day and making them feel listened to
  • Always respecting their sexual boundaries, no matter what
  • Being proactive about determining what their boundaries are, so you can respect them
  • Setting the scene with calming music, dim lighting, etc.
  • Holding space for them to discuss their sexual anxieties openly so you can assuage their fears and avoid their triggers
  • Helping with housework and other tasks that may be weighing on their mind before sex
  • Asking them what helps them relax and feel able to get aroused – it may be different than what you’d have guessed!

You can keep these strategies in mind when you’re struggling with arousal while you’re alone, too. What stressors are present, and how can you address them, at least enough to feel comfortable setting them aside for a while?

It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where so many people feel unsafe so much of the time, largely for structural reasons that would be lessened or nonexistent in a more just society. But we’ve gotta work within the system we’re stuck inside, for the most part – and sometimes that means giving your partner a backrub while telling them you’re there for them, so that they can feel safe enough to open up to you, sexually and otherwise.

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

What My Objectification Kink Taught Me About Relationships

Kate Sloan

There are many forms of “objectification play” that I’ve experimented with, and the older I get, the more I seem to enjoy this kink.

There’s the version where I’m a literal object, usually a piece of furniture like a footstool or drink-holder, performing a functional service that may not appear outwardly sexual but can feel very sexual on the inside.

There’s the version where I pretend to be a doll – either a literal, porcelain doll, or a full-grown adult who’s been transformed via hypnosis or drugs into a “human sex doll” – and then get to be “used” by my “owner.”

There’s the form of objectification that most non-kinky people are familiar with, the kind that shows up in fashion magazines and in plenty of porn, wherein I’m viewed as a sexual object without agency or personhood, just a series of willing and fuckable holes.

And there are lots more ways this kink can play out that I haven’t even tried yet.

 

As with many kinks of mine, a lot of what appeals to me about objectification is the way it helps me reclaim and subvert shitty nonconsensual experiences I’ve had in the past. All the Tinder bros who text shit like “u up?” and “ready to be my fuk machine tonight?” All the hookups who cared more about getting off than giving pleasure. All the times I thought I meant something to my date on an emotional level – even one as simple as “I like her and like having conversations with her” – but it turns out that apparently I didn’t.

The sting of these mistreatments has eased a bit after several years, but I can still bring those feelings vibrantly to mind if I focus on those memories. Because I’ve paired that type of objectification with consent and pleasure in roleplays with trusted partners, the idea of being sexually objectified in this way is no longer quite as abhorrent to me – because I know it can be done in consensual ways.

Granted, none of the people with whom I’ve play-acted objectification actually saw me as objects; that was what allowed the play-acting to indeed feel like play and not like senseless cruelty.

 

As someone who writes about sex toys professionally (including, occasionally, sex dolls), I find it oddly gratifying to pretend to be a sex toy of sorts from time to time. There’s something subversive and relaxing to me about setting aside the sexual machines I’ve been writing about all day and then getting to morph into a sexual machine myself.

See, when I’m being objectified in a deeply consensual and intentional way, my mind gets to shut off. And I value that a lot, as someone whose mind is always racing with anxiety and deadlines.

But also, in my career as a sex scribe, I’ve encountered countless people who thought that my career choice was an invitation for harassment and nonconsensual sexualization. They thought that my creative interest in topics like sexual psychology and the history of the porn industry was reason enough to see me as a walking, talking sex doll who exists to spice up their boring lives.

I understand the desire to have your life overtaken by someone interesting and magical – it’s the reason “manic pixie dream girl” stories continue to get cranked out year after year. It’s also something I’ve felt myself, during long hours of swiping on Tinder late into the night, always hoping that the next swipe would conjure a life-altering force, someone so cute and charming and kind and loving that my entire daily existence would take on a different tenor just from having them around.

But as I’ve been learning in therapy, viewing other people as potential “redeemers” or “saviors” gives your power away. It strips you of the knowledge that you have the ability to make yourself happy more readily and more profoundly than any external person can. It makes you feel dependent on people you never actually needed and maybe never even really wanted.

 

So I’ve been on both sides of the objectification equation: I’ve been objectified (a lot), and in some ways I’ve objectified other people too, seen them as heroes or saviors or props in my life story.

This is no doubt why it feels so good to me now when I play with objectification, from either side of the D/s slash. Because it shows me the difference between the consensual and nonconsensual versions of these dynamics – and even equips me with the communication tools I need to say, “No. Stop. You’re putting me in a role I didn’t consent to, and I will not stand for that.”

 

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

A Vibrator for Meditation?! Well, Sort Of…

Kate Sloan

It’s not often that I’m offered a vibrating object which isn’t designed to be put on your genitals – so I was intrigued when I received a press release about the Sensate.

 

What is the Sensate and what does it do?

The Sensate is a “wearable stress relief and anti-anxiety device.” It’s a small vibrating object that reminds me of the Je Joue MiMi. It comes with a lanyard, which you can attach to it and then wear like a necklace, to keep the Sensate in the right spot on your sternum while you’re using it.

Okay, but what does the Sensate actually do? It connects via Bluetooth to an iOS/Android app, which contains a selection of ambient audio tracks for meditation. Each one of those tracks has its own corresponding vibration patterns, so that the vibrations you feel on your chest are perfectly in sync with the music or sounds you’re hearing.

This could be plenty relaxing on its own, but the Sensate’s vibration actually serves a specific purpose beyond just feeling good (which it does): to “tone the vagus nerve.” If you’re unfamiliar, the vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the human autonomic nervous system. It plays a role in many critical aspects of health, including heart rate, breathing rate, and digestion. It also helps us cope with stress, by regulating our fight-or-flight responses and helping us soothe ourselves back into a relaxed state when we get stressed out.

Supposedly, the vibrations meted out by the Sensate help the vagus nerve to relax, evoking a feeling of safety and calm. The makers of the Sensate say that over time, this process gets easier and easier as your vagus nerve gets more toned, so that you develop greater resilience in the face of stress.

(I should note here that while I minored in psychology in school, and have done extensive self-education on trauma and the nervous system, I’m not a medical expert at all and don’t have the knowledge or experience to directly confirm whether this science is legit. But everything I’ve written here is, to the best of my knowledge, true.)

 

How well does it work?

I’ve recently been learning about mindfulness and meditation for pain reduction, through a program offered by my local chronic pain clinic, so I was excited to get to test a device that’s specifically for meditation. I have to say, usually I struggle to make time for meditation because it just seems so boring compared to, I dunno, doomscrolling Twitter or playing Pokémon games… but since getting the Sensate, I’ve been much more enthused about it. There’s something about having a cool little device that makes the whole practice feel more fun and special to me, and if that’s what it takes to motivate myself into meditating, then so be it.

I like to cocoon myself in bed, plug my headphones into my phone, slip the Sensate’s lanyard over my head, get it positioned properly, and put a blindfold on before beginning my meditation. (The blindfold helps me a lot, because otherwise I would tend to look around idly and get distracted.) There are currently 13 different tracks in the app – I hope they add more eventually – and each has a duration of either 10, 20, or 30 minutes; I like that I can choose whichever duration I’m in the mood for, but do wish there were a few 5-minute meditations too, for those really busy days.

Like most beginner meditators (and maybe most meditators in general tbh), my mind wanders a lot while I’m trying to “empty” it during a meditation session. But I find that the vibrations of the Sensate are grounding and serve as a frequent reminder that I am indeed meditating, and that I should gently return my focus to my breath (or whatever else I’ve chosen to focus on).

I gotta say, I was skeptical about the Sensate, but I always notice a significant reduction in stress and agitation after I use it. My body and brain typically feel calm, quiet, and relaxed, in a way that reminds me of the soft peace I feel after a good hard cry or a good hard spanking scene. When I try to meditate without the Sensate, often I just end up worrying about work projects I have to finish or social interactions I think I fucked up, so I often don’t feel very relaxed by the time a meditation ends; however, with the Sensate, even if I do experience anxiety or worrying during the meditation, I always feel calmer when I’m done.

The battery life is pretty good; Sensate’s website says you’ll probably need to charge it once a week if you’re using it every day. It comes with a cute little travel case, which I love, because I genuinely would bring this with me on trips, especially if I was en route to an anxiety-provoking event.

I can’t really tell you whether the Sensate has had any kind of long-term effect on my overall mood or stress level, because I’m also going through a lot of stuff right now that is affecting those things too: trauma therapy, learning about Internal Family Systems, a fucking global pandemic, and so on. But I can say that it helps me relax in the moment, helps me fall asleep, and motivates me to meditate more often.

 

But is it sexy?!?

Look, this is a sex blog, and I wrote a book about kink. Of course I gotta talk about whether this thing is sexy and/or kinky.

There is a spot on my chest, right between my boobs, that feels good to touch, in a borderline-sexual way. I always adjust the Sensate so it is placed directly on that spot, even though the instructions recommend placing it a little higher. (They also say placing it lower is fine, FYI.) This makes it a more sensual experience for me and is probably a big part of why I feel more motivated to meditate since getting this device 😂

If you’re into erotic hypnosis, or have another kink that involves fetishizing relaxation, sleepiness, or spaceyness, I’m sure you could find some inventive ways to use the Sensate in scenes. For instance, I think it would be hot if my partner put me in trance, put my Sensate + headphones + blindfold on me, started a 30-minute track, and performed cunnilingus on my sleepy, spacey body. (Um, they’re gonna read this post aloud to me later like they always do, and I just know they’re gonna make some kind of pervy comment right here that’ll make me blush…)

I have considered the idea of placing the Sensate on my genitals during a meditation, but I just don’t know that it’d be all that fun. The vibrations aren’t toooo buzzy but they certainly aren’t optimized for genital pleasure. I think you’d be better off just using a regular vibrator on yourself during a Sensate session if you wanted to combine meditation with masturbation (or sex).

I tried using the Sensate during a shrooms trip once, and wished I had pre-vetted the track I chose, because it was kind of creepy and put me into a negative headspace in that state, so I abandoned ship after just a couple of minutes. I’d like to try it again with a different track sometime soon, because I’m sure it would be wild to use this thing on psychedelics.

 

Does it have any drawbacks?

The main one is that this thing costs $249. I imagine that a lot of the reason for that steep price tag is the research and development that went into creating it, which I absolutely respect; I just think it’s way out of most people’s price range for something they’ll probably use a few times a week, tops. If you’re a serious meditator, have a lot of cash to throw around, and/or have “tried everything” to relieve your stress symptoms and want to try something else, I think it’d be a decent purchase. But the average person definitely does not need this, especially since you can get the app for free and just listen to the audio tracks, sans vibration.

There’s no way to experience the relaxing vibrations of the Sensate without the usage of the accompanying app. This means that you’re shit outta luck if you don’t have an iOS or Android phone. It also means that you can’t sync up the Sensate with other audio, like your favorite songs or a voice memo of your partner saying filthy shit to you. You can use it without headphones on, thereby experiencing only the vibrations and being able to listen to whatever you want, but the inventors say (and I believe) that the relaxation effects won’t be as pronounced if you use it that way. Of course, if you’re using it for hypnokink perviness or somesuch, maybe you don’t care about that.

 

Final thoughts

If you can spare $249 and you want an inventive product that’ll help you chill out, I think you’d dig the Sensate. I’m honestly really glad I own one.

But also, you don’t need it. Maybe just try holding your vibrator against your chest while you meditate sometimes? 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

Thanks to Sensate for sending me their product to try! They didn’t pay me for this review or anything, I just think it’s a cool product and wanted to write about it.