coronavirus

Behind the Seams: Vaccine Queen

Kate Sloan

May 16, 2021

A while ago, I read an article about people getting dressed up for their vaccinations. This idea immediately resonated with me: I love dressing up for things and find that it helps imbue events with extra significance for me. The ritual of assembling my femme ensemble helps me feel more put-together, centered, and prepared.

Shortly after reading that article, I wrote a poem about why it would feel emotionally impactful to wear something cute to a vax appointment. I won’t share it here because I’m waiting to hear back about potential publication, but one of the things I wrote in the poem was that I wanted to wear a leopard-print dress to show I was still wild after a year+ of captivity. On the day of my actual first dose, I hovered in front of my closet, trying to decide which dress would be best, and then I remembered that poem as my eyes alit on this leopard-print dress. Of course! It was the natural choice.

I got a lot of compliments on my look as I waited in line outside the clinic. I hadn’t realized, until people started commenting on it, that I’d inadvertently adorned myself with multiple rainbow hearts. The nurse who gave me my shot complimented my pen and pencil tattoo. Overall, a wonderful day.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Leopard-print skater dress – American Apparel, via eBay
• Black KN95 mask layered under a Pride heart mask from Threadless
• Red sparkly heart necklace – Tarina Tarantino
• Rainbow heart prescription sunglasses – Zenni
• Pink leather Cashin Carry tote – Coach (a findom gift from my love)
• Black leather harness boots – Frye

May 27, 2021

My psychiatrist told me recently (as he’s told me many times before) that I should try to go on more walks. “I always tell my patients to do that,” he said, “but recently I took some time off and started going on daily walks myself, and wow, it really makes a difference!” Unfortunately for my lazy ass, he’s right.

My dominant asked me what they could do to incentivize me to take more walks, and after pondering it a bit, I replied that I thought they should put “take a walk” on my to-do list on days when my workload seemed lighter, and provide a small assignment to do on the walk, something specific to photograph. I felt that would give me motivation, momentum, a goal.

It’s been working out well so far. I wore this outfit on a nice springtime walk with the intention of photographing a statue, for example.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Pink ribbed tank top – the Gap
• High-waisted skinny jeans – Madewell
• Pink cowboy boots – Jeffrey Campbell
• Pink leather Cashin Carry tote – Coach
• Turquoise Toy Story-print mask – an Etsy shop
• Hair in pigtails because it’s long enough to do that now!

May 31, 2021

This was my last day at my social media dayjob (which I call a dayjob purely out of habit; at the point that I decided to leave, it was only taking up 3-5 hours a week and bringing in ~7% of my income). In the pandemic age, I find it’s extra difficult to celebrate successes. You can’t invite your friends to go for a pint and clink your glasses together over what you’ve achieved, or take a mini-vacation as a reward for a job well done. So I asked my partner what they thought I should do to commemorate entering the land of the fully self-employed, and they suggested I order a bottled cocktail from Civil Liberties, my favorite bar.

I went online and ordered a double serving of the Call Me Maybe, a yummy drink involving grapefruit juice, fennel, fino sherry, and tequila. Then I decided to walk all the way to the bar – about 45 minutes – because it was a beautiful day. I think this was the first time I’d worn a crop top outdoors in nearly a year. Yay, spring!

 

What I’m wearing:

• Royal blue crop top – Forever 21, I think?
• Black A-line jersey skirt – ASOS
• Black bike shorts (worn underneath to help with chub rub) – American Apparel
• Red socks – the Gap
• Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 37 sneakers in teal – a findom gift from my love
• Pink leather Cashin Carry tote – Coach
• Black KN95 mask

June 2, 2021

Feeling in touch with my femmeness has been challenging this past year. I think that as much as my inner angry feminist often wants to snarl “I don’t dress up FOR YOU!!” there is nonetheless an element of my aesthetic that doesn’t feel worth performing if there’s no audience for it. Gender and style are both concepts that have an inward component as well as an outward component, and that outward one is hard to reckon with during a pandemic.

I put on this sweet floral dress to go buy some limes and mint so I could make a fave summer cocktail, the Southside, when having drinks with my friend/roommate Sarah later that night. We may not have been able to go sit on a pub patio or hang out at a cocktail bar, but I was determined to make our indoor lives feel summery and celebratory nonetheless, dammit.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Black/white/pink floral dress – CowCow
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Pink leather Cashin Carry tote – Coach
• Black KN95 mask

June 3, 2021

Comfiest “outfit” ever. Sometimes I attempt to make my loungewear ensembles look aesthetically pleasing and intentional (as opposed to the times when I just throw on an oversized T-shirt from some rock concert of yore, pair it with underwear and fuzzy slippers, and call it a day).

I had recently reorganized my T-shirt drawer and resultingly rediscovered a bunch of shirts I forgot I owned, like this black cropped tank top, which is an essential item for when I want to feel summery but also goth.

 

What I’m wearing:

• Black ribbed cropped tank top – Forever 21? H&M? Not sure
• Black modal lounge pants – the Gap
• Tie-dye Bombas ankle socks – a gift from Matt’s mom

Camshows in Cramped Apartments: Online Sex Work During the Pandemic

Kate Sloan

Online sex work has become even more of a booming business since the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. Some sites, like OnlyFans and www.panamecorte.com, have experienced boosts in new memberships as high as 75%. More people than ever are turning to online sex work to supplement their income – and likewise, more people than ever are stuck at home with no access to partnered sexual experiences outside of their interactions with online sex workers. It’s no wonder this industry has seen a massive uptick.

But it’s important to note, too, that the past few years have been some of the hardest ever for sex workers, including those who work predominantly or exclusively online. Laws like SESTA/FOSTA, signed in by Trump in 2018, have severely limited sex workers’ ability to advertise their wares, recruit and vet clients, and get paid for what they do, among other things. There’s also still huge stigma surrounding sex work, despite its proliferation being such that you probably know at least one person who does it, even if you think you don’t. It may be the “oldest profession” but it’s nowhere near the easiest or most fun.

I’ve never been a full-time sex worker, but I’ve done cam shows, made porn videos, and sold nudes occasionally over the past several years – and I have to say, the pandemic has been an interesting time to be in that biz. I’ve gotten more unusual fetish requests than I ever had before, including some that were so extreme I didn’t feel comfortable fulfilling them. It makes me wonder if some people have been exploring their sexualities more deeply over the past year, since “normal life” is on pause and many of us have more time for self-reflection. (Kudos and congrats to those folks for their discoveries!) I think there’s also an element of touch-starvation here – sometimes when you’ve gone a long time without sexual contact, your fantasies can become more “out-there” to make up for the lack of physical stimulation with some additional mental stimulation.

My clients’ communiqué has been different, too – some of them are unusually polite and sweet, presumably because we’re all living through a difficult time so kindness is paramount, while some have been surprisingly brusque and rude, presumably because the conditions of this pandemic are stressful AF and have also atrophied many of our social skills. You would think people would be nicer to sex workers, given what the folks in that industry have been put through these past few years, but nah…

I’ve also had to be more careful about the ways I take payments than ever before, having been burned by whorephobic payment processors and the puritanical laws that try to keep sex workers off all such platforms. It’s gotten so bad that many times I’ve considered giving up sex work completely, and focusing only on my more “respectable” writing work. If you care about sex workers’ livelihoods (which you should), please reach out to your local lawmakers to make that clear, and to demand that they work to repeal laws like SESTA/FOSTA that make sex work much more dangerous and precarious than it needs to be.

Despite all these roadblocks, I’ve still found comfort and solace in doing online sex work (sparingly) over the past year. When a client pays me to put on a cam show or make a sexy custom video, I have to put some effort into my appearance, something I’ve often let slide during this depressing hell-year despite how good it tends to make me feel. I also have to cultivate sexual energy in myself, because it’ll be super obvious if I’m not turned on at all – so sometimes I’ll take the time to do that by using sex toys in a hot bath, or spritzing on a perfume that makes me feel like a bombshell, or just giving myself a sensual mini-massage before filming. Most of my life over the past year has existed inside a computer or a TV, so my connection to my body feels somewhat weakened – and these little preparations help.

It’s a difficult, interesting, painful, yet uplifting time to be a sex worker. If your favorite sexy service provider helped you get through this past year, I hope you’ve been tipping them accordingly, treating them well, and writing to your congresspeople to express your concerns about how sex workers are being treated in the legal system. Shit’s tough out there, and anyone who brings more pleasure into this world – sexual pleasure included – deserves to be praised and rewarded for that tenacious effort.

 

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

5 Things That Are Basically Porn For Me Now

Kate Sloan

It’s no secret that the coronavirus era has massively changed the way many people relate to their own sexualities. Some people are coming out as gay, bi, or pan; some are realizing they’re further toward the asexual end of the spectrum than they realized; some are trying new sex toys, kinks, or positions; some have forgotten what sexual desire in non-stressful times even feels like.

I find all of this deeply relatable and understandable. My own desire levels have waxed and waned countless times during the past year, but mostly they have waned. I’m still having sex regularly, due to the genius ministrations of my lovely spouse, who has read Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are cover to cover and thus understands how to turn on someone whose sexual brakes are engaged and whose desire is responsive, not spontaneous. But there are also non-sexual things I find nearly as exciting as sex these days, that help me relax and experience simple pleasures in much the same way as sex can.

I abhor those books and articles that joke “porn for women” can be pictures of men doing housework or childcare, as if 1) women have no inherent sexuality and 2) men being functional adults constitutes sexiness all on its own. So that’s not what I’m doing here (and if your domestic partner’s been doing all the dishes or scrubbing all the toilets lately, maybe go do some of that right now). But here are 5 non-sexual things that have consistently given me rushes of near-pornographic pleasure, relaxation, and satisfaction over the past year. They may not be as racy (or as stigmatized) as the most-viewed clips on the top porn sites, but they help me nonetheless.

 

1. Building Sims houses

I had resisted getting into The Sims 4 for ages, despite having adored the original games as a kid/teen, because The Sims 3 didn’t impress me all that much (I thought the open-world-ness of it all was weirdly out of step with the game I’d fallen in love with). But then the pandemic hit, and what was I gonna do, not buy a life simulation game that allows me to travel and socialize and go to work at a time when I couldn’t do any of those things IRL?!

There are a lot of things I love about this latest iteration of the game, most notably that they have better options for your Sims’ gender identity/expression and that there are several super inventive expansion packs, including one called Eco Lifestyle so your Sims can reduce their carbon footprint now (amazing). But the building part of the game is more versatile and fun than ever, so much so that entire communities have sprung up on YouTube, Instagram, etc. focusing on beautiful houses people have built in their games.

I think I find it relaxing and satisfying to build houses in The Sims because it gives me a huge amount of control, at a time when I feel very out of control in the rest of my life. It’s also really neat to watch Sims living their lives in a space I built from the ground up – kind of like how it can be gratifying to build a kink scene for a partner and then usher them through it.

 

2. Loungewear shops

I’ve written about loungewear a lot here over the past year, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but suffice it to say… most days I would rather slither into a crimson modal slip than slide into some Tinder beefcake’s arms (or DMs).

 

3. Flirty fanfiction

Something I learned about myself, in my earliest forays into non-monogamy nearly a decade ago, is that when I’m not allowed to date/kiss/fuck people other than my partner, it’s not the sex I miss most – it’s the flirting.

In fact, many times, I’d rather skip the sex entirely, which I know is not exactly a common stance in the non-monogamy community. But the sex I have with an established partner is so much better than the sex I have with randoms, in part because of my complex web of anxieties, fantasies, kinks, and physical limitations. It’s the flirty banter, the innuendo-laced double-entendres, the rising heat of my own blushing face that I miss most about dating other people.

But since I have neither the energy nor the vaccination status to do that stuff right now, fanfiction is one area where I’m able to live out those flirty fantasies and feel transported into a romantically intriguing life other than my own. Romance novels work great for this too, of course, but sometimes I just don’t have the mental wherewithal to spend time getting to know new characters; I just want to read about characters I already know and love, making each other giggle. Is that so much to ask?

 

4. Comedy, in all its many forms

The three things that got me through this pandemic, above all else: my spouse, my family, and comedy. It’s as simple as that.

Matt and I have torn through multiple comedy TV shows this past year; we’ve (re-)watched practically every comedy movie I’ve ever loved (most recently: School of Rock, an absolute masterpiece of poignant goofiness); we’ve laughed our asses off at weekly live improv shows over Zoom (PLEASE subscribe to the Bad Dog Comedy TV channel on YouTube if you’re into this!). My days and weeks have often felt structured around comedy, oriented towards it. Some people are “workin’ for the weekend”; I’m working to get through the day until I can watch Stephen Colbert or Maya Rudolph or Tom Hearn or Catherine O’Hara at night.

Matt sometimes semi-jokes that watching comedy together is the best foreplay for me, and I think they’re right on the money with that theory. It helps distract me from the troubles of the day, ease my physical and mental tension, and flood my body with endorphins. It made this year bearable for me, which is no small thing at all.

 

5. Poetry in the bath

Modern poets like Rachel Rabbit White, Shane Koyczan, and Zoe Whittall have inspired me deeply over the course of this pandemic. I’ve devoured their books, and various other poetry tomes, at lightning speed. I’ve even started writing poetry myself, something I hadn’t done with any degree of seriousness in many years, despite it being a favorite hobby in high school (I even won some contests and got published in some anthologies back then). It feels like a way to rediscover beauty in a world currently so stripped of it.

Reading poetry in the bath is particularly hedonistic. I’ll usually load up the tub with some scented bath salts, light a candle, and lay down in the hot water with my waterproof Kindle in hand. I take my time with each poem, trying to absorb its artful words and its layers of meaning. I build a little world for myself in the tub, glittering and beguiling, in a way that everyday life once was and might be again someday. It makes me feel like a normal human again, despite everything that’s going on.

Poetry “frees us from the tyranny of the sentence,” says Rachel Rabbit White; “poetry is play.” We could all use some freedom from tyranny after the year we’ve had. We could all use some play.

 

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

Behind the Seams: Stuck at Home

Kate Sloan

February 5th, 2021

Cozy cashmere sweaters are one of the best things about winter, IMO. (Truth be told, sometimes I wear them in the summer too, because – I suspect – one of the symptoms of my chronic illness is temperature regulation issues.) They make me feel simultaneously cute and warm, which can be a surprisingly hard bar to clear sometimes (I’m lookin’ at you, goosedown puffer coats), so I end up getting at least one or two new ones every year.

Matt bought this sweater for me a few months ago as a findom present and I really cannot overstate how bright it is IRL. I also have a pink one and they are both so bright that you could probably vividly see me coming down the street from several blocks away. Perfection.

We have to talk about this bag, though… I went back and forth on it for a few weeks, because its blue/grey/black color scheme is very “grown-up” and “professional,” two words I would not use to describe my typical aesthetic. But it kept calling to me, somehow. Buying handbags still feels like a weird thing to do during the pandemic because of how few opportunities I have to actually use them, but I’m dreaming of a post-COVID era when I’ll be able to fill up this beautiful bag with books, journals, pens, pencils, and lipsticks for solo dates to bars or cafés. It’s roomier than it looks, and has tons of fun little pockets – very Mary Poppins.

 

What I’m wearing:
• Blue cashmere sweater – J. Crew
• Black skater dress – H&M
• Black leggings – the Gap (I wear black leggings almost every single day now and am glad I invested in several pairs toward the start of the pandemic – fuck jeans forever, tbh)
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Black/grey/blue colorblock Coach Willis bag
• Navy polka-dotted mask – SartorMasks on Etsy
• Lock & key necklace – chain from Roma Designer Jewelry, lock engraved with “Daddy’s” custom-made by L’Amour-Propre, key from my beloved’s chastity cage

February 14th, 2021

Baby’s first Valentine’s Day during a pandemic, wooo!

We celebrated by getting a very elaborate takeout dinner from BLT Prime, a New York steakhouse. It included steak (of course), brussels sprouts cooked to perfection, truffle mashed potatoes, dessert, and a bottle of excellent champagne.

Then later that night we had sex involving the Bandit and the Eroscillator. If using classic sex toys that work well for your partner’s body on them isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is.

Isn’t Matt so cute in this matching Valentiney jacket-and-tie combo? I love when they wear pink. One of my Valentine’s gifts to them was a glittery pink Marc Jacobs lip gloss, and it looks great on them. For someone who works in the tech world, they have a pretty flashy sense of style sometimes. I love being married to someone who inspires me to dress more brightly and flamboyantly!

 

What I’m wearing:
• Pink fit-and-flare dress – H&M
• Agent Provocateur Cupid lingerie set (underneath)
• Pink rhinestoned heart necklace – Tarina Tarantino
• Pat McGrath MatteTrance lipstick in “Elson” (a Valentine’s gift from my love)
• Pretty much nothing else because we didn’t leave the house!

March 3rd, 2021

I saw this sexy asymmetrical dark green velvet faux-wrap dress on the Betsey Johnson website about 2 years ago, and by the time I’d spotted it, they had already sold out of my size (12). I could’ve scouted one out elsewhere, but I figured I already had enough velvet dresses (and truth be told, I do – it’s kind of a problem!) and didn’t need to buy another one.

However, a week or two ago, I happened to spot one on eBay in my size. I had an IOU from Matt for a findom gift because of a scene we’d recently done where I’d very generously allowed them to come even though they were supposed to be locked up in chastity (😈) so I asked them to buy me this dress + a bottle of Paradise Edition perfume. (Hey, if I have to live through a pandemic, I’m gonna do it glamorously, dammit.) A perfect date-night combo!

 

What I’m wearing:
• Dark green velvet dress – vintage Betsey Johnson via eBay
• Pink lacy bra underneath – Agent Provocateur (this dress is a bit droopy/drapey in the front, so as much as I prefer to go braless nowadays, I felt this look called for some boob support)
• Black leather Frye harness boots (black heels would’ve been the “proper” choice with this ensemble, but I don’t have any with me since I’m staying in New York, and the boots make the look more powerful tbh!)
• Black leather clutch with gold chain strap – Coach
• The same Pat McGrath red lipstick as above

 

What outfits have you worn lately that’ve made you happy?

P.S. Want more posts like this? Check out the “outfit” tag!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2020: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

Ages ago, I read an article which mentioned that donating personal journals to historical archives can be really helpful to historians of the future, because it gives them a sense of what daily life was like for average people during a given timeframe. I thought about that almost every time I put pen to paper this year, because 2020 will certainly be written about in history books (to the extent that history books are still a thing in the future!).

Here are 6 entries I pulled from my journals this year. Hopefully next year we’ll have many more cheerful things to write about!

Jan. 31

Matt asked me recently to what degree I want to be surprised with a proposal. I said, “I don’t want to know exactly when it’s going to happen, but I do want to know when we are entering a period of life in which a proposal might occur.” They said, “So you want to know when I have a ring,” and I said yes. I love that we have, and have always had, these meta-conversations about important relationship milestones – it’s so different from the traditional Cosmopolitan model of relationships where you never talk about anything and always have to guess what your partner is thinking and feeling.

March 3rd

Everything is really scary right now because a pandemic called the coronavirus is spreading globally and there’s no vaccine for it yet. That sounds so dramatic and crazy but that is what’s happening. People are stockpiling flu meds and face masks and hand sanitizer, and some affected people are self-quarantining for weeks at a time. My immune system sucks so I feel like I will probably get it, but who knows. Currently I am coping by leaving the house as little as possible, washing my hands a lot, distracting myself with podcasts and movies, and drinking homemade martinis.

March 15

Existing in a pandemic reminds me of a feeling I get in the days and weeks following a really brutal breakup. You walk through the world in this daze, unable yet to process that your entire reality has shifted on its axis. Periodically you find minutes or hours of respite in the form of distraction, or perspective, or positive social connection, or just a random feeling of unusual optimism and shrugging resignation – but always, at some point, your mind skids squeakily like a record being scratched as the remembrance of your true situation hits you afresh. Being alive through COVID-19 is like that, except everyone is going through it now, all the time.

It’s fucking surreal how fast everything has changed. No aspect of life can be the same now. Nine days ago I saw fit to go to a crowded karaoke bar. Today I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. We are staying home and moving all our appointments online, or canceling them. We are afraid even to walk around the block or pick up groceries. We don’t know how long it’ll be until we can safely gather in crowds again.

May 13

I’m having a lot of episodes of… feeling triggered/having a trauma response/having an extreme nervous system response/not sure what else to call it… lately. Mostly triggered by stressful things in my relationship (we worked some things out yesterday so it’s okay now) but sometimes basically random. I’ve noticed that I often go into a shut-down dissociative mode when I feel like I’ve disappointed or upset someone I care about – the world slows down like I’ve done a lot of drugs, and the inside of my mind and body feel helplessly, scarily sluggish – and I think this must be related to all the many times my dad yelled at me until I cried, for both justifiable and unjustifiable reasons, when I was a kid/teen/young adult. I remember feeling so frustrated and sad that I could never seem to articulate myself well enough to provide a decent rebuttal to whatever he was bellowing at me – but of course I couldn’t; my nervous system was under attack and I was essentially paralyzed, with nothing to do but stand there and take it. Often I wouldn’t even be allowed to go to my room and cry in private to feel safe and calm again, because that would be perceived by him as “sulking” and he hated that. I think he mostly just hated the guilt of knowing he had upset me that much, after his obvious glee in hurting me had faded.

I asked Matt why they think all these trauma feelings and emotional flashbacks have been coming up so much for me lately – mostly ex-boyfriend stuff and dad stuff, I think – and they said it’s likely due to the stress of living through a global pandemic. Which, yes, that is true. I reached out to several therapists who specialize in trauma/PTSD as well as non-monogamy, because that is really what I’ve needed for years, I just haven’t been able to afford it. But now I finally can, and I want to work on myself and my dumb brain.

May 29th

Increasingly I feel like human civilization as I know it will end within my lifetime. Increasingly I find that tuning out the news and the world for periods of time is the only way I can even function. Increasingly I worry that dismantling capitalism is both the only solution to our major problems as a species and one of the only things we will never do.

July 17th

Matt went back home a couple days ago after living with me for 4 months of coronavirus lockdown. It was really hard for both of us. I cried a lot and they told me that my deep emotionality is a catch-22 because it makes the hard things extra hard but it also makes the good things extra good.

My days now are much more quiet, still, and unstructured without them here. I guess this is what quarantining alone would have been like. I’m not sure it’s all that great for my mental health but it’s also an opportunity to pursue any projects I feel like, read a lot of books, and play a lot of video games. I miss Matt but I like being alone, too. And I’m very very privileged and lucky to be able to do so safely, in such a hellish year.