anxiety

5 Ways to Make Video Sex Less Nervewracking!

Kate Sloan

For the nervous among us, video sex (…or whatever we’re calling it these days) can be a bone(r)-chilling proposition – not because we don’t want to have it, necessarily, but because of all the anxieties it raises:

Will my body look appealing enough to my partner, through the lens of my low-def (or, worse, high-def) webcam? Will the glow of my laptop screen create flattering light in a dark room, or will it just make me look like a scene from The Blair Witch Project? Will my internet die at an inopportune moment, leaving a harrowing freeze-frame of me on my paramour’s screen? Will I squirt all over my very expensive computer and incur the wrath of the nerds at the Genius Bar?! (Uhh, that last one has never actually happened to me… yet…)

I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for seven years, and although phone sex is our go-to, we do occasionally have sex via video call – and, while it initially made me shake with anxiety, I’ve used the following tips to get much more comfortable with it…

 

Tip #1: You don’t have to do video the whole time (or at all!)

Obligatory note on consent: If you don’t want to have video sex, you don’t have to. Period. There are other ways to connect sexually in long-distance relationships, and if video doesn’t turn your crank, I’d encourage you to communicate that to your partner and discuss other options. (This might be a dealbreaker for them if they’re a very visually-oriented person… or it might not, because photos exist. Who knows.)

That being said, it’s possible to freely consent to video sex even if you’re not that excited about it. Maybe there are things about it that turn you on, like being able to see/hear your partner’s reactions to your body, but your anxieties get in the way eventually. This has often been the case for me, so I very much appreciate that my partner and I will sometimes switch to an audio call after a while. The visuals are like an appetizer, or an aperitif, whereas the phone call is the main dish. Going audio-only helps me relax more, so I can enjoy myself more – and maybe it would help you in the same way.

 

Tip #2: Seek salacious inspiration

Whenever I feel unsexy in a particular sexual situation, I’ll look up videos of porn performers in that same situation, and see how they do it. Now, granted, this isn’t always the best approach – (most) porn is meant as entertainment, not education, and you may want to skip this one if you know that porn triggers your insecurities – but it’s an interesting starting point, at the very least.

Pay attention to stuff like: What poses/positions/angles do they use? Which toys seem to both feel awesome and look awesome on camera? How much time are they spending flirting with the viewer versus focusing on their own pleasure? What aspects of their style/approach, if any, appeal to you or would feel fun for you to try out? If it’s within your relationship boundaries, you could even hop onto a website featuring cam performers, BDSM cams, etc. and watch a live show for inspiration (don’t forget to tip!).

 

Tip #3: Wear something you feel cute in (and leave it on, if you want to!)

While sex is commonly depicted as a naked activity, it doesn’t have to be! I often feel more confident when I’m sporting a little outfit of some kind, even if said “outfit” is just a slip dress and some thigh-high socks. Sometimes I’ll strip it all off before the night is over, but other times I’ll just pull clothing aside to access relevant body parts as needed.

If the idea of being fully naked in front of a webcam freaks you out, why not ask your partner what clothing or accessories they’d find you hottest in? You don’t have to fulfill their wishes, of course – there are very few people for whom I would willingly subject myself to an underwire at this point, for instance! – but it could help you feel a whole lot foxier without even having to take your clothes off.

 

Tip #4: Try a medium-appropriate roleplay

It can sometimes feel awkward to try to replicate analog sex in a digital medium, so to speak… which is why it might help to do a roleplay that makes sense as a video call.

For example, you could roleplay a telehealth appointment gone awry when the doctor gets the hots for their patient… or an online job interview that yields chemistry more personal than professional… or a tech-support call with a shy-but-corruptible computer nerd. The possibilities are effectively endless! (And once again – if you need inspo, roleplaying live cams sites are a good place to start.)

 

Tip #5: Wear a blindfold

It may seem counterintuitive to wear a blindfold while engaging in such a visual form of sex… and indeed, if visuals are your primary turn-on, you might wanna skip this one. But I wanted to mention it, because wearing a blindfold reduces my sexual anxiety massively. It means that I don’t have to see myself on the screen (something that can also be fixed via settings in some apps, or by sticking a Post-It note over your own face on the screen – hey, whatever w0rks!), and it also just allows me to focus more closely on things that turn me on more than visuals do, like sounds, words, and sensations.

 

What has helped you most in combating video-sex anxieties?

 

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

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.