It’s that time again, folks! Just like last year, we’re celebrating Bex‘s birthday with a spanking party – and best of all, we’re livestreaming it over the internet!
Here’s what you need to know:
If you support our Dildorks Patreon at the $5/episode level or higher, you’ll get access automatically! The spanking party livestream will be our September #DildorksLive event, which your patronage gets you access to.
If you don’t support our Patreon at that level, you can still get access to the livestream by sending $10 USD to Bex via this Paypal link. In the “notes” field of the payment, make sure to specify the email address where you’d like us to send your invite!
During the livestream, you’ll also have the opportunity to buy extra hits. They cost $5 for 10 smacks or $10 for 26. You get to specify which partygoer provides the hits you purchased (if they consent, of course) and which implement they use. Fun!
If you’re wondering where your money’s going: it’s paying for Bex’s travel and accommodations expenses so they can come to Toronto and be with me for their birthday!
The livestream is happening on Monday, September 11th at 8PM Eastern, and will be broadcast via Google Hangouts to all attendees. Make sure to get your ticket if you’d like to watch!
Additionally, if you have any questions about #BirthdayBruises, feel free to ask them in the comments of this post or to tweet them at us (@BexTalksSex and @Girly_Juice).
This year I was officially diagnosed with social anxiety disorder – a pronouncement so obvious to me and anyone who knows me that it was hardly necessary at all. My friends have seen me hyperventilate on the stoop outside a party, walk around the block six times before feeling ready to enter a gallery opening, smoke weed on my way to a networking event to make my presence possible, and break down crying in a busy Starbucks because I physically couldn’t walk into the newsroom at my school. Suffice it to say, events can be hard for me.
While social anxiety is moreso a curse than a blessing, it does make me extra grateful for events where I actually feel comfortable. It helps to have friends accompanying me who understand the anxieties I deal with, and I’m fortunate that wonderful friends accompany me to events more often than not these days. All my favorite events this year were favorites because of the fun, kind, welcoming people I got to hang out with – some of whom may not even know how much I appreciated having them there. Here are those events…
#HaveDildosWillTravel is the official name and hashtag Taylor, Caitlin, Bex and I gave to our cross-country road trip in the springtime, after rejecting other options like #CarOfQueers, #RoadTripOfBabes, and #HitTheRoadJackOff.
Planned meticulously in Google Drive documents (mostly by Bex, my hero) over the course of several weeks, our trip began in New York, then meandered through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, until we reached our destination, Minneapolis. Along the way, we attended a sex conference, bought kink implements at a toy store, oohed and aahed at the Leather Archives, introverted at queer cafés, ate artisanal donuts for breakfast every day, shopped at the Mall of America, ogled Colin‘s sex toy studio, and visited multiple queer-owned sex shops. On the morning of my 24th birthday, I woke up in Bex’s sister’s femme-as-hell bed in a Pennsylvania farmhouse; that night, I went to bed in a swanky hotel in Chicago.
Although I’m 24 and have therefore theoretically been an “adult” for quite some time, it’s only within the past year and a half that traveling without my parents has become a frequent and normal thing for me. This feels like a rite of passage, a bastion of grownupdom, a milestone in my journey toward self-sufficiency. But though it makes me feel independent, I don’t have to do it all alone. Traveling with friends is so damn much fun. We laughed practically all day every day during #HaveDildosWillTravel, about everything from sex to scenery to selfies, and it’s a trip I will always remember fondly.
Smut in the 6ix sounded like a literal dream come true when I first heard of it. A collaboration between Playground and Spit, Smut was a day-long celebration of the burgeoning indie porn scene in my hometown of Toronto. During the day, porn nerds gathered for panel discussions about the technical, social, artistic, and political facets of porn creation. At night, there was a big gala with live performances, porn scene screenings, and lotsa dancing. Told you: a dream come true.
I was lucky enough to be asked to moderate a panel at Smut, and was also invited to perform some music at the gala. It was a terrific honor to be involved. I’m so grateful to Caitlin K. Roberts, Samantha Fraser, and Claire AH for organizing the whole shebang; as always, it was a delight to convene with my fellow sex-positive weirdos and get nerdy together!
In 2015, it made me super sad to see my favorite sex bloggers social-media’ing about all the fun they were having at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit. I resolved to do my very best to make it to the Summit in 2016 – and I managed to save enough money to make it happen. Hooray!
I flew to Washington by myself without having an anxiety meltdown (success!) and checked into the hotel, where I was sharing a room with Sarah and Artemisia. I hadn’t met either of them in person before, but they were so delightful, and totally ideal roomies for me!
Sex-positive events are where I feel most able to be myself. My anxiety mostly melts away and I throw caution to the wind: I dress weird, speak my mind, laugh loudly, and go on adventures. It helps that people actually know who I am at these events, making me feel like a powerful little starlet! Woodhull had also thoughtfully set up a “bloggers’ lounge,” perfectly appointed with coffee galore and sex toys to fondle. I felt truly in my element.
I wish I could’ve gotten to know everyone at Woodhull, but like many bloggers, I’m an anxious introverted weirdo and could only do what I could do. Luckily, though, I did make several new friends. April offered to let me borrow her lipstick for blowjob purposes; Mandi‘s laugh lit up my life; Lorax‘s dark sass slayed me; Sarah was so adorable and clever I wanted to high-five her constantly; I quaffed wine with Mary and Harry; I cooed over Crista‘s killer eye makeup and bought an Ethical Misandrist sticker from her; Polly‘s sex stories kept me on the edge of my seat; I finally got to ogle (part of) Lunabelle‘s epic dildo collection in person; I delighted in Girl on the Net‘s hilarious sexy poems; and Sugarcunt frequently made me laugh so hard I thought I might choke to death. Plus I got to spend time with several treasured blogger friends I’d met before: Suz, Piph, Lilly, Caitlin, Hedonish, JoEllen, and of course, my bestie Bex.
Bex wanted a spanking party for their 25th birthday, and so, #BirthdayBruises was born. It was lovely to celebrate this milestone with sex-savvy friends both local and far-away. I put on a ridiculous outfit and pranced around our cozy Airbnb playing hostess – a role which involved everything from serving drinks to administrating the livestream to spanking the birthday bean. When Bex had taken all they could take, they were accosted by cuddles on the couch and I brought them some refrigerated mint-chocolate truffles. Sex bloggers really know how to party, y’all.
I’m so glad that this experience was affirming and uplifting for Bex. It was for me, too, even though I barely got hit at all. It’s always comforting to marry my sex blogger life with my IRL/offline life, to blend those two friend groups together, to embody all my favorite parts of myself without needing to compromise or hide any of them. This party also demonstrated my friends’ immense generosity: guests helped us with tech troubles, took over hosting duties when Bex and I were otherwise occupied, and (of course) harnessed their brawn to make Bex’s birthday-spanking fantasies come true. Gosh, I love my friends.
What were your favorite sex-positive or sex-adjacent events in 2016?
I enjoy hosting parties, and I enjoy spanking people. Before this, I’ve never had the opportunity to do both at the same time. I’m excited!
We combed Airbnb for an apartment to rent, and found a cute one with a great location, ample space for party guests, and plentiful surfaces to bend Bex over. We’ve invited a small group of sex-positive babes, including Taylor, Suz, and Rosaline. Each guest may give Bex 25 smacks (one for each year Bex has been alive) with an implement of their choice. Those who don’t want to participate can just hang out and chill – it’s a birthday party as much as it’s a spanking party!
I think it’ll be an interesting opportunity to observe the different spanking styles of my various friends. You can learn a lot about a person by how they smack an ass!
Here’s the really exciting part: you can join in on the fun, even if you live far far away. We’re going to livestream the spanking portion of the party via Google Hangouts On Air. The broadcast will get started on Saturday, September 17th at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time. You can buy your ticket by sending $8 (U.S. dollars, please) to Bex through this link. (Make sure to write your email address in the “notes” field, so we know where to send the link to the broadcast.)
The money will largely go toward Bex’s travel and accommodations expenses, enabling them to be with some of their best pals for their birthday. So it’s a double-whammy of deliciousness: you get to watch a cute babe get spanked, and you get to do a good thing for the aforementioned cute babe!
For bonus fun, you’ll be able to “virtually spank” Bex. During the broadcast, you can pay an additional $5 for 10 smacks, or $10 for 25. You’ll get to choose which party guest does the hitting (as long as they consent, obviously), and which implement they use. Fun, right?!
We’re all about social media, so if you want to live-tweet while you watch, you are more than welcome to! The hashtag for the event is #BirthdayBruises. If you feel like hyping us up and cheering us on, before or during the event, Twitter’s a lovely way to do that. You can also tweet the image above, if you want to invite your followers to join the party.
I’ve already started packing my bag of spanking implements and accessories. Here’s what I’ve got up my sleeve:
• The Tantus Pelt and Wham Bam. These silicone paddles are stingy as hell and pack some snappy momentum into each stroke. I’m a bit sentimental about the Pelt because it’s the first implement I ever spanked Bex with, back in the early days of our friendship. Aww.
• A stone crop I bought at kink-themed café Leather & Latte on our road trip to Minneapolis. It’s very stingy, very mean, and very bruisey.
• A leather paddle made by by Peri Plunders. This is a cool multi-use tool: the flat leather surface is really stingy, but turn the paddle sideways and its thick edge becomes a thuddy bludgeon. I wonder what kind of marks it’ll leave.
• A Lexan paddle from KinkMachineWorks. It’s gorgeously thuddy and has quickly become one of my all-time favorite spanking implements. And it’s clear, so you can see the recipient’s butt smoosh as the paddle hits it. Swoon.
• A wooden spoon and a small bamboo rice paddle. I ordered these from Amazon in preparation for this party. The rice paddle is wide and thin, so it’s very surface-stingy, while the spoon has a bit more of a thud to it.
• Arnica cream! Bex’s poor butt will be pretty sore by the end of the evening. I want some pain-management solutions on hand incase they start to get genuinely uncomfortable – although, let’s be real, they’re a trooper and a pain-slut and I bet they’ll be fine.
I look forward to seeing you in our Google Hangouts chat when the party gets started! Don’t forget to buy your ticket for $8. See you there, friends!
