coronavirus

I Miss Going to Sex Shops

Kate Sloan
A selfie taken with Taylor J Mace at one of our local sex shops.

It’s a scary time for almost every type of business, but I’m especially worried about sex shops.

Right now, adult shops in Sydney and New York and Toronto and other metropolises with thriving sex-positive communities are faced with difficult daily questions, like: Should we stay open, offer only curbside pickup and delivery, or shut down completely? Are our sanitization procedures sufficient for the global health crisis we’re facing? Are we supporting our employees as best we can? Is all of this struggling even worth it?

I think it is, and I think most sex shop owners probably think that too. Many of the best sex shops in Melbourne, Los Angeles, Portland, etc. were founded by people who are passionate about sex toys, sure, but also about sex education. Sex shops function as hubs for community learning on topics like pleasure, anatomy, and even consent. I did more direct sex education work in my few months working at sex shops than I’ve done in entire years elsewhere in the sexuality field. I saw people’s eyes light up when they happened upon a new-to-them erotic possibility. I saw people’s excitement radiate off them as they sauntered out of the shop with a fresh sexy treat in a brown paper bag. I saw that this work transforms sex lives and also sometimes saves lives.

I miss sex shops not just as an employee but as a customer. I miss strolling into my local women-owned erotic boutique and being offered a cup of tea to sip as I shop – it reminds me of the very first time I went into that very sex store, when I was 16, and they sold me my first vibrator, no questions asked. I miss trying on lingerie in a fitting room while an attentive salesperson swans around outside, available for insight and advice as needed. I miss picking up a dildo I’ve had my eye on and getting an embodied sense of its size and weight that product pictures online just couldn’t convey. I miss smart salespeople offering tips and tricks for the vibrator I’m buying, life hacks I could take home to a partner for some revelatory fucking. Every sex shop is a treasure, and so are many of their employees.

What can you do to support your favorite adult stores in Sydney or Vancouver or Paris or wherever you live right now? You can order products from them online if they offer that – or if not, try calling them to see if they can arrange a curbside pickup or any other appropriately safe hand-off method. You can buy tickets for online classes or workshops they might be offering. You can refer friends to them, should you happen to know anyone who’s just run out of lube in quarantine or wants to use their lockdown period to try out a neat new sex toy. Hell, you can even buy a gift card to use once restrictions have eased up.

This pandemic is perilous for so many institutions, from New York’s healthcare system to Montreal’s restaurant business to, yes, Brisbane’s adult shops. I deeply hope these de facto sexual community centers can pull through, if just so that more people can discover and take charge of their sexualities, the way I started to when my first sex shop sold me my very first vibrator all those years ago.

 

This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own. For more info on this topic, read my friend Epiphora’s post!

Handbags in the Age of Coronavirus

Kate Sloan

Ever since the pandemic news got bad, I’ve lost almost all of my usual verve for fashion and beauty. Where once I would spend hours per month trawling the websites of beloved clothing and accessories makers, now I can barely bring myself to window-shop for new socks online even though mine are riddled with holes. I trudge through most days in stretched-out T-shirts and comfy lounge pants, my hair pulled back in a cursory nub of a bun, lipstickless and lethargic.

Part of the reason for all this is the obvious: no one is seeing my outfits (no one except my partner, my roommate, and her two cats, that is), so I feel less motivated to put them together. There is no one to infer things about me from what I have on, and in losing the motivation to perform my selfhood in this way, I’m also losing some of that selfhood itself.

Another component of my sartorial disinterest is due to plain ol’ depression and grief. What we’re going through right now, as a species, is traumatic on scales we have yet to fully comprehend. I know from past experience that immense, bone-deep sadness causes my materialistic impulses to either ramp up significantly as a distraction tactic, or to drop off completely in a blaze of nihilism. Lately I’m oscillating between both extremes, but mostly landing on the latter.

However, there is still one category of fashion item that tugs at my femme heartstrings and makes my world feel a little brighter, and that’s handbags. Purses. Satchels. Totes. I ogle the Kate Spade and Coach websites in spare moments. I comb through eBay listings with keen-yet-weary eyes. I take great pleasure in ogling my extant handbag collection – though I rarely touch any of them these days.

That’s the root cause of this, I have to imagine: the lack of need for a bag at this time in history. I can throw on cute outfits galore in the confines of my apartment, and even clomp around in heels I’d never or rarely wear out into the world, but carrying a bag in those instances feels totally unnecessary and impractical. What, am I gonna tuck a petite clutch under my arm for the journey from the bedroom to the kitchen? Slide a crossbody strap over one shoulder for a jaunt to the garbage chute down the hall? I think not.

Even when I go out, I don’t have much use for bags now. More often than not, I’m just going on a quick errand or a meandering walk. I’ll cram my phone into the back pocket of my jeans (I rarely have the emotional energy for skirts and dresses these days), slip my keys into the front one, and maybe bring along a credit card or some cash if I plan on wandering to the shops. With a fabric mask on, I find it’s hard to do anything detail-oriented that lies below my sightline, so rummaging through a bag like I might normally do is impractical and sometimes even painful. (Anyone else find themselves constantly getting poked in the eye by their masks, through some strange contortion of facial muscles and eyeballs?!)

The increasing pointlessness of handbags, the frivolity and complexity of lifestyle that they hearken back to and that contrasts so sharply with my current involuntarily pared-down life, somehow makes them more appealing to me rather than less. They’re a useless luxury object at the moment, sure. But they’re also a window into my future, a future of normalcy regained, a future of getting dressed up and having somewhere to go.

The ritual of packing my pretty purse before an outing is often ceremonious and always important. Solo dates, especially, require preparation in this arena: I’ll fill a piece of lovely leather with my journal and pen so I can reflect on my feelings in a café window, or a loaded-up Kindle so I can spend time with beloved fictional characters at a cocktail bar, or a pair of glasses so I can see a theatrical cast’s every facial expression from the nosebleed seats. I’ll check to make sure I have my ID incase of booze, and my earbuds incase of boredom. I’ll throw in some gum or mints if there’s romance on the horizon. I’ll check the contents of my wallet to see how much merriment I can afford to make. It’s a femme ritual that feels like writing the blueprint of my outing before it even begins. The contents of my bag guide me on my journeys; the bag itself may as well be cute.

I haven’t actually purchased any new bags during this time period, for reasons you can probably guess: it feels unnecessary, I’m trying to keep an eye on my finances, and there are so many better ways I could and should direct my cash during this crisis. But I doubt I’ll stop staring at the kelly-green Marc Jacobs totes and lemon-yellow Coach satchels any time soon. They give me solace, and glee, and something to look forward to: a life that’s once again worth packing a bag for.

Things I Hope to Do When This is All Over

Kate Sloan

Here’s a fun and dreamy exercise for the coronavirus era. Open up a new document in your notes app of choice, or turn to a blank page in your journal. Make a list titled “things to do when this is all over.” Then let your imagination transport you to a happier place and time in the future.

“This” being “all over” is sort of a nebulous concept at this point, but in my case, I’m choosing to imagine that daydreamy future as one in which a safe and effective vaccine has been developed and distributed around the world, and we can once again walk around outside and gather in groups and go to places (remember places?!) without needing to worry that we’re endangering others or ourselves. What will you do when things go “back to normal” – or when we move into a hopefully new-and-improved definition of normalcy? Here’s what I’m excited to do once we kick COVID to the curb…

  • Hug my friends and family for as long as they consent to be hugged.
  • Go to a cocktail bar alone, with just my Kindle to keep me company. Sip excellent drinks, make small-talk with the bartenders from time to time, and revel in the cheery din of my fellow bar-goers.
  • Curl up on the couch in my parents’ basement and watch a movie with my family – probably a Billy Wilder classic.
  • Go to La Banane (one of my favorite restaurants here in Toronto) and eat an extravagant platter of oysters and shrimp cocktail while swilling martinis and laughing with my love.
  • Sit in the front row at the Bad Dog Theatre and see an improv show.
  • Go on a long, meandering walk through the city while listening to podcasts. Stop into any stores that seem cool and take a look around.
  • Have group sex again, in some configuration, or just sex in front of a modest crowd at a sex club. In the meantime, there’s always VR porn and Zoom orgies. (It cracks me up that one of the most popular VR porn sites is called BaDoinkVR. Can I just start shouting “BaDoink!” every time I touch a partner’s genitals, like some kind of pornographic slapstick foley artist?!)
  • Visit the art gallery, the Royal Ontario Museum, the aquarium.
  • Show up an hour or so before the curtain at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, dressed to the nines for a solo date. Order a sandwich and a pint at the lobby café, and sit there quietly reading until they open the house. Take a program from the usher, find my seat amongst polite older couples and rowdy art-school teenagers, and read about the cast, crew, and creative vision of the production.
  • Walk around a big grocery store buying excessively fancy ingredients, which I will later assemble into an extravagant meal.
  • Sit on a patio sipping a beer and writing.
  • Walk around a Sephora, testing various lipsticks on the back of my hand until I find one I absolutely must own.
  • Get on a plane to New York. Stare out the little window at the big city as it unfolds below me. Walk off the plane half-dazed into the wonderful mediocrity of LaGuardia, and get into a yellow taxi.
  • Swim in a pool or a lake or an ocean or even just a hot tub.
  • Decide, on a whim, to ask someone who seems to want to kiss me, “Do you want to kiss me?” and, if so, let them.
  • Go to a burlesque show; hoot and holler when the dancers cast off their clothes.
  • Get a pedicure or a Brazilian wax or a massage or some other treatment where a careful, skilled person helps me feel better in my body. Tip them well!
  • Walk into a darkened movie theatre with a bag of popcorn and a box of peanut M&Ms. Settle into some good seats and watch something silly.
  • Attend a standing-room-only concert – maybe Andy Shauf or Carly Rae Jepsen or Tegan and Sara – and let the crowd throw me around a little as we all dance in place.
  • Sit in Trinity Bellwoods Park with some friends, smoking joints and telling stories.
  • Attend an industry tradeshow and marvel at the latest sex toys to hit the market. Leave with armfuls of lube samples and product pamphlets.
  • Visit my book editors in London or my literary agent in New York or both. Break bread (metaphorically or literally) with these strong, creative women I am proud to be working with.
  • Walk around a mall for hours, shopping for a dress to wear to some special occasion.
  • Eventually, tell my kids (?!) – or somebody’s kids, anyway – about what happened in 2020.

What are you looking forward to doing, once we’re able to do things again?

 

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

Monthly Faves: Sketches, Netflix, & Swizzle Sticks

Kate Sloan

Hello! This month I’m going to stray from my usual Monthly Faves format, because – honestly, y’all? – sex toys and sexual fantasies have not exactly topped my list of priorities since the whole COVID thing started. (I’m sure many of you can relate.) So without further ado, here are some of the things that got me through April…

Media

• I randomly remembered that the movie Oceans 8 existed and that I’d wanted to see it since it came out, so my partner and I watched it together. If you don’t know, it’s a heist movie starring a shocking number of powerful and beautiful Hollywood women: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, et al. Also Rihanna plays a brilliant stoner/hacker. Basically it’s a must-watch, especially if (like me) you love movies about con artists, thieves, and scammers.

• Queer Canadian comedian Mae Martin (whew, try saying that 5 times fast!) created and starred in a new Netflix series called Feel Good, which is both very funny and very devastating. It’s about queerness, drug addiction, love addiction, coming out of the closet (or not), figuring out your gender (or not), and repairing broken relationships (or not). I adored it, though if you struggle with addiction, it might be a tough watch for you.

• Reading pandemic-related fiction is a bit of an emotional gamble these days, to say the least, but I gave it a shot anyway and really enjoyed Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where survivors are trying to pick up the pieces after a swine flu mutation suddenly kills 99.99% of the earth’s population and society as we know it completely crumbles. While that sounds pretty horrific – and at times, it is – the ending, and the conclusions to be drawn from the story, are (I think) ultimately hopeful and encouraging. Along similar lines, Severance by Ling Ma is also about a civilization-destroying pandemic, but deals more with the racism, classism, and capitalist bullshit that can be exacerbated by disasters like this.

• I celebrated my 28th birthday this month, and it was one of the strangest birthdays I’ve ever had, for obvious reasons! However, I put together a little Zoom party with a bunch of friends and we played Use Your Words, my friend Brent’s party game “for funny people and their unfunny friends.” I’ve been playing it for years and it still always makes me laugh!

• One of my fave local comedy troupes, the Sketchersons, have been continuing their weekly sketch show Sunday Night Live from the comfort of their own individual homes. They’re performing topical humor LIVE every week over Zoom (or some Zoom-like service). It is one of the most innovative and creative things I’ve seen during all of this, and I would highly recommend you tune in sometime!

• Another fave livestreamed event of mine this month was Broadway.com’s tribute to Stephen Sondheim for his 90th birthday. It got off to a rocky start due to technical problems – I still feel so bad for host Raúl Esparza that we didn’t get to see as much of him as planned – but the musical performances were top-notch. Someone please cast Beanie Feldstein as the Baker’s Wife in a new production of Into the Woods ASAP when this is all over!

Products

• Fed up with my constantly overcrowded nightstand, I ordered a felt storage pocket that attaches to the side of your bed, and have been stashing all my various devices and must-haves in there (Kindle, Switch, 3DS, notebook and pen, earbuds). It has weirdly made me feel much more sane and calm in these trying times. Hey, whatever works!

• I also bought a pink organizer for all my sex toy charging cables. They formerly were just shoved into a small drawer willy-nilly, which obviously wasn’t working, so it was nice to finally get to organize them. Ahh, I love orderliness!

• I am still living in my MeUndies lounge pants. My partner and I each ordered a new pair this month – a quarantine-appropriate splurge, if you will – and they are a godsend. Comfy! Cute! Pockets!

• In the past month I have bought reusable fabric face masks from four different shops: Pacha Indigenous Art Collection, Peace Collective, FickleFaerie and DinkyBums. Really appreciating all these independent creators making beautiful masks, and often also donating masks or money to frontline workers as part of their operations. (Side note: I’m definitely also lusting after a sequinned mask like Rachel Syme has.)

• My partner and I have been beefing up my home bar situation since they arrived here last month, because good-quality cocktails sure make staying at home more bearable. Some of my favorite acquisitions: pre-batched tiki cocktails from the Shameful Tiki Room, olive brine from the Cocktail Emporium (I love me a dirty martini), ornate martini glasses my mom gave me for my birthday, and an assortment of weird liquors and liqueurs from Civil Liberties.

Work & Appearances

• PinkCherry asked me to write a piece about sexual empowerment for them, so I wrote this essay about breaking the habit of apologizing during sex. This problem is so real!

• Wanna hear me wax poetic about kink, power, and systemic oppression? Good thing I discussed those very topics with Leela Sinha on zir podcast Power Pivot this month!

• We’ve been doing lots of great stuff on my podcasts The Dildorks and Question Box lately, but I particularly want to draw your attention to our recent 4/20 episodes. In both of them, we got super high and answered strange questions. They’re a hoot!

• In my newsletter this month, I wrote about libido in the time of coronavirus, merciful silence toward the men in my DMs, what Animal Crossing taught me about my gender presentation, and why you should wear your nicest underwear now.

Good Causes

• The Glad Day Emergency Survival Fund is putting money into the pockets of LGBTQ+ artists, performers, and tip-based workers, as well as keeping the Glad Day Bookshop (an institution in Toronto’s queer scene) from going under.

• Here’s a mutual aid fund for “trans and queer Black and Indigenous people and other trans and queer people of color, ESPECIALLY those who are sex workers, undocumented, disabled, and/or incarcerated.” These groups are especially struggling right now.

• Tuck Woodstock, who hosts the incredible Gender Reveal podcast, is raising money for trans and non-binary people who need it in this unprecedented time.

• If you’ve been reading a lot lately, like me, I would strongly recommend shopping for new books through Bookshop.org. Purchases help financially support local, independent bookstores, which could really use the boost, especially right now.

• From what I’ve been reading, a lot of food banks need money more than they need food donations right now, for various reasons. If you’re able, Google around for your local food bank and send them some cash so the folks who rely on them can keep food on the table. I gave some to FoodShare this month, in memory of my grandmother Jean, who believed in feeding someone as a way of taking care of them. 💙

 

What’s been getting you through these difficult times? Let me know in the comments!

5 Excellent Excuses to Dress Up In Your Own Home

Kate Sloan

I’m sure that, like me, you’ve been reading a lot of conflicting advice online about how to stay stuck at home without totally drowning in despair. Some people say, “Put on lipstick and real clothes every day so you feel put-together and normal!” while others say, “Wear pajamas and skip shaving for as long as you want – shit’s hard right now and you should be gentle with yourself!”

The thing is, both of these perspectives are correct. Lounging around in sweatpants is necessary and uplifting, at some times and for some people. So is dressing to the nines.

With that in mind, here are 5 excuses to put on a fancy/cute/weird outfit, even if you don’t plan on leaving your house for the foreseeable future – because I know that some of you, like me, are of a persuasion that enables fashion and beauty to lift your mood and bolster your confidence. You don’t need an excuse to get dressed, but if you want one, I’ve got some for you!

Attend an online event

A few friends of mine have been loving the nightly opera streams currently offered by the Met, and I can’t imagine an online event better suited to be dressed up for, especially given how fancy people usually get to attend the opera. You could wear a sequinned gown, a velvet suit, a long and flowing skirt, a giant fascinator in your hair… Whatever feels elegant and dressy to you!

That said, there are lots of other online events worth dressing up for, albeit not necessarily as formally as you would for the opera. I recently enjoyed attending a Risk livestream; there are online queer dance parties, literary panels, film festivals, and much more. These are relatively easy to dress for because you can just ask yourself, “What would I wear if I was attending this event IRL?” and then wear that.

Host a gathering

We’re entering the era of the Zoom party! May as well have a good time if we have to be stuck at home. Invite several of your favorite people to an online event. This, blessedly, usually takes less planning and preparation than an in-person rendezvous, and also enables you to invite people you don’t normally get to see because they live in different cities/countries/continents than you.

You could hold a get-together to mark your birthday or some other significant occasion. You could also just pick a theme (which often makes it easier to choose an outfit) and have a party for the heck of it. Toast to your shared circumstances and have a good time!

Do a photoshoot

If you’ve got extra time on your hands, as many of us do right now, you may as well spend it feeling sexy and documenting your cuteness! (Check out my post on at-home exhibitionism for more tips along these lines.) Put on something you don’t often get to wear, but that you feel amazing in – like a set of fancy lingerie or a hot leather jacket – and set up your phone or camera to take some self-portraits. Post ’em or don’t – it’s up to you.

Should you happen to be self-isolating with someone else who also wants to participate, you could take some snaps of each other. Hell, if you want, you could even schedule a time to video-call a similarly dolled-up friend and the two of you could take screenshots of one another while you strike various poses. Anything to distract you from the constant barrage of bad news, right?

Roleplay a sexy scenario

This is, of course, easiest if you happen to be holed up with a partner – but you don’t have to be. You could make plans to Skype your sweetie for a costumed teacher/student roleplay, for example, or tell your polycule to dress as various different superheroes for a fanciful group FaceTime call designed to devolve into an exhibitionistic touchless orgy.

You could even incorporate your medium of communication into the roleplay itself; for instance, sometimes my partner and I talk on the phone pretending I’m a hysteria patient who’s called in to a medical hotline for advice and guidance. You don’t have to let our current era’s limitations hamper your erotic imagination!

Put on a performance

There are a lot of jokes going around right now about the proliferation of Instagram Live broadcasts, but frankly, if reading the Twilight novels aloud to an online audience or casually painting while chatting with your followers is what gets you through this tough time, I say go right ahead! It’s probably a nice escape for the people tuning in as well.

Slither into a satin dress to play some ukulele tunes on Facebook. Don your best goth ensemble to perform some of the Stephen King oeuvre on YouTube. Bust out your tutu for an impromptu ballet show on Instagram. Fuck the haters; dressing up and performing are fun, and may well be helpful to the folks watching.

And hey, if you want to put on a sexy show, there are plenty of ways to do that, as you probably know… This Cirillas Fleshlight review and my review of the Vixen Bandit are great places to start if you’re looking for sex toys that help with a wee bit of exhibitionism!

Have you been getting dressed much lately? Any good outfits/stories/pieces of wisdom to share on the subject?

 

Heads up: this post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.