Bright Desire

November was possibly the most sexually active month of my year so far, so that’s pretty rad. Here are some of the things that made that possible…

Sex toys

• I had loaned out my Pure Wand to a friend, and when she returned it to me mid-month, I sure made up for lost time. I used it on myself during a threesome, and during many a solo sexytime session thereafter. It still provides a more intense sensation than I usually find pleasurable, but when I get into the right mood for it, nothing else will do.

• I bought a Fucking Sculptures Double Trouble this month. (Yes, feel free to “ooh” and “aah” here.) Mine is blue because it was the last remaining toy from the limited-edition “Dreamy Daze” batch Fucking Sculptures made in May. Swooooon. I will review it, eventually, when I can pry myself away from it for long enough to write a review…

• It’s hard to come up with a 3rd item for this list, because I honestly didn’t use a lot of toys this month. But I did have one particularly memorable session with the Tantus Uncut #1 that reminded me how lovely it is. Unf, dat foreskin.

Fantasy fodder

• I bought a Bright Desire subscription and I’m so very glad I did. Hot female-gaze-oriented porn filled with cuties. A database easily searchable by keyword. Behind-the-scenes director’s comments available for practically every clip, incase you’re a porn nerd (which I am). Too too too good.

• Please help me: I still have fantasies about a hot guy from my past who turned out to be a total asshole. He’s just… so… attractive. Do you ever struggle with this dilemma? Does it leave you feeling guilty and depleted after you come incredibly hard? ‘Scuse me, I’ll just be over here in the corner, hanging my head in shame.

• Remember that Danny Wylde/Dylan Ryan scene I’ve been obsessed with for literal years? Yep, still in love. I pulled it out a few times when I was having trouble reaching orgasm, and it always helped. How are these two SO HOT? How is that amount of sexual chemistry even legal?!

Sexcetera

• After feeling kind of “meh” about cunnilingus for the past year, I got some incredible head from two different guys this month, and remembered how much I love it. I still haven’t come from oral in about a year and a half, but I’m confident that it will happen one of these days…

• At various times this month, I had a bite mark on my neck, a bruise on my breast, and scratches up and down my torso. Only two out of those three were actually sex-related, but, damn, still pretty neat.

• I got spanked a lot this month. Hell yes. Isn’t it fantastic when you find someone who loves to do the things you love to have done to you (or vice versa)?!

Femme stuff

• I bought my metallic blue Doc Martens when I was 18. I don’t know when or why they fell out of my regular shoe rotation, but it’s a travesty that they did. I pulled them out again for Playground Prom and now I kinda wanna wear them every day. How can you ever be sad when your feet look like laser beams?

• I’ve been really into sequins lately. As above, this was also kickstarted by Playground Prom, where the theme was “glitter Candyland masquerade.” I went shopping for New Year’s Eve clothes with a femme friend and bought a gold sequinned tube top, because I am a 16-year-old girl from 1984, apparently.

• Very, very enamored with EmMeMa’s lingerie. Also, she’s a total sweetheart. You should buy pretty things from her!

What were your November favorites?

It is kind of astonishing to me that I live in the city where Feminist Porn Week happens to take place every year.

It is truly so amazing and fantastic that it feels like a gift, a glorious coincidence, a joyful miracle. I do not take it for granted.

This year I live-tweeted the whole Feminist Porn Conference, and it made me even more hyper-aware of what was going on around me – in a good way. Reading other people’s moment-by-moment tweets, and composing my own, allowed me to process and enjoy the talks and panels even more.

I won’t write an exhaustive summary like I did last year, because frankly the #FPCon2 hashtag is full of fantastic accounts of what went on. But I will write a little about the most memorable moments and experiences that happened to me during Feminist Porn Week.

The fisting workshop. I will be honest: I bought my ticket not so much because I wanted to learn about fisting (which is still, I think, well out of my vagina’s conceivable grasp), but primarily because I wanted to see Courtney Trouble… in person… fisting someone. I mean, how amazing is that?!

The “fist-ee” was Zahra Stardust, the adorable pink-haired Australian porn princess who ended up winning Heartthrob of the Year at the FPAs two nights later. I developed an intense crush on her from the way she talked intelligently about porn laws down under and then took Courtney’s fist with seemingly no effort. She squirted on the people in the front row. Courtney fucked her powerfully and intensely and it felt so intimate that I shouldn’t be looking, and yet I couldn’t not look. It was beautiful and educational.

Dylan and Danny’s talk. Um, I may have mentioned how much I love Dylan Ryan and Danny Wylde before. They are my favorite porn stars, ever. But I love them even more now, because of the wonderful talk they gave at the conference. They spoke openly and candidly about “getting in and getting out” of the porn industry and how those transitions have affected their identities. They are both amazingly smart and thoughtful. The room was positively packed, for good reason: it was one of the best talks of the conference.

Tobi’s talk. Tobi Hill-Meyer is a trans woman who makes feminist porn, so of course, she’s no stranger to receiving criticism. Her talk was about how to deal with criticism effectively. Of all the sessions I attended, this one had the most pertinence to my real life, and I think many people there felt similarly. When you work in a controversial area like sexuality or feminism, no matter how peripherally or centrally, it is useful – nay, vital – to know how to respond gracefully to critics. I will be sure to start implementing some of the strategies I learned in Tobi’s presentation.

Aussie porn. Australia has some fucked-up porn laws. A lot of it is illegal, and they are very strict about things like fetishes, BDSM, squirting (which they classify as urination and therefore a type of fetish), and fisting. The Aussie porn session, run by the very articulate Ms. Naughty and Zahra Stardust, screened several films, many of which were political and commented directly on the injustice of the porn laws there. I also discovered that Ms. Naughty’s company, Bright Desire, makes the exact kind of porn I’ve been longing for all my life: female-gaze-oriented, female-pleasure-focused, sensual, sexy, soft, yet also hardcore. Hey, my birthday’s in about a week; I’d gladly accept a Bright Desire subscription if you’re not sure what to get me! Wink wink.

Courtney Trouble’s keynote. Oh my fucking god. Everyone was speechless. Not literally – we were all tweeting up a storm and cheering our hearts out – but figuratively, we had the wind knocked out of us by what Courtney had to say. I will embed the video below, because you MUST watch it; there’s little I could say about it that could embody just how powerful it really was. Courtney, if you read this, thank you, thank you, thank you, for saying so many things that badly needed to be said. Every single person I’ve spoken to has said that this speech was one of the main highlights, if not the highlight, of the conference.

Were you at any of the Feminist Porn Week events? What were the highlights for you?

Heads up: there’s a sponsored link in this post!