freelancing

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 2 Fears Defeated

Kate Sloan

Every year I write about 2 fears that I’ve faced head-on over the course of the year. It’s a way of re-teaching myself a lesson that I (and many others) need to re-learn periodically: that pushing through fear helps you grow, makes good shit happen in your life, and feels fucking great!

Both the fears I faced this year were work-related, but for workaholic freelancers like me, work can play a big role in one’s identity so these feel huger and more holistic than they might seem. Let’s jump in…

 

Going fully self-employed

Early in the year, I began to feel a bit hemmed in at my “dayjob,” a part-time social media writing gig I’d had for 4 years. The people I worked with there were always fantastic and kind, but I had to wake up every weekday at 9 a.m. to write time-sensitive tweets, which was becoming less and less achievable with my chronic pain and fatigue from fibromyalgia ramping up.

I also was fortunate enough to not really need the job anymore – it was only bringing in about 7% of my income but was accounting for at least 40% of my work hours and stress, so I figured it was time to make a change.

I had a lot of fears about doing this, many of which I unpacked with my therapist. I worried that my sleep schedule would get fucked up if I was no longer tethered to the 9-to-5, that all my other “jobs” would fall apart, that I’d regret this decision somehow. But it’s been about 6 months since I stopped working there and none of that has happened.

Instead, I feel much calmer, freer, and (most days) happier. I can sleep as late as my body needs (usually to 10:30–11:30) and work on a schedule that makes more sense for my natural rhythms and energy levels. And a far higher proportion of the work I do now is stuff that I deeply care about. It was a scary choice, but I’m profoundly glad I made it.

 

Photo by Rose Glass Photography

Launching a book

Yep, I did it! I really did it. With the help of my publisher/editors, my agent, my spouse, and my friends, I was able to get 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do out into the world, and celebrate it in style at a little launch party in an East Village bar.

It’s been such a thrill to see the book making its way around the world, landing in the hands of curious kinksters everywhere. I had so much anxiety in the weeks and months leading up to the launch – that no one would buy it, that no one would like it, that no one would come to the party, etc. – but it was all bullshit from the “fearful liar” part of my brain. The launch went better than I could have ever expected and I’m so grateful. ❤️

 

What fears did you face this year?

What Are Your Professional Boundaries?

Kate Sloan

Some spiritual traditions posit that souls are reincarnated, and that some souls spend entire lifetimes trying to make amends for, or improve upon, things they did in previous lifetimes. If this is true, it seems clear to me that I must have been sent to this earth to work on my boundary-setting. It is a theme that has haunted my life.

For one thing, I’m a woman, and that’s a gender group our society explicitly encourages to be bad at boundary-setting. Women are supposed to juggle a career, housework, caretaking of their partner and/or children, and their own self-care, all while somehow being “chill” about the amount of physical, emotional, and logistical work thrust upon them. Women are also routinely encouraged to ignore or suspend our own boundaries in the realm of the romantic and sexual, chiefly because it often benefits shitty men when we do so. (Yuck.)

I’m also a freelancer and a person who works from home, two oft-overlapping identities that make a person even more vulnerable to having their boundaries bent or overstepped. Freelancers may experience bosses and editors expecting quick responses to any and all communiqué, work overflowing past the hours allotted for it (often without additional pay), and friends and family assuming we’re available at all times simply because we set our own schedules. It’s a nightmarish career for anyone who struggles with boundary-setting!

…Except that it doesn’t have to be. Whether you see it as a spiritual lesson or a purely practical one, there is much to be learned from having your boundaries repeatedly steamrolled in settings both personal and professional. The better I get at protecting my own energy and time through ruthless boundary-setting, the stronger and happier I feel overall. It’s a fantastic skillset to develop, for so many reasons. I’m not always as good at it as I’d like to be, but it feels great when I am.

One of the reasons I’ve been obsessed with boundary-setting in recent years is that my chronic illness has gotten worse and worse. My flare-ups are triggered by stress, among other things, so stress reduction is a top-level priority for me at this point. One of my new year’s resolutions for 2021 was to eliminate as many unnecessary stressors as humanly possible from my life this year, and setting better boundaries in my work life is a key way I’ve been doing that.

 

Here are some of my current professional boundaries:

  • I only work between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., and only on weekdays. This includes work-related writing, answering business emails/DMs/etc., doing research for articles, and so on. Past 5 p.m., and on weekends, I am unavailable for business interactions. There are 2 exceptions to this rule: 1) If I’m genuinely excited to work on something – such as if inspiration for a fun blog post suddenly strikes on a Saturday – then it’s okay to work on it at any time, so long as I’m not pushing myself too hard. 2) I sometimes have to do podcast recordings outside of work hours due to guests’ scheduling needs, which is fine. I’ll just try to rest for an equivalent amount of time during the next work day to make up for it.
  • I do not accept writing assignments that pay less than $0.20 per word. (If the assignment in question offers a flat rate or an hourly rate instead of a per-word rate, I’ll try to convert it to per-word to figure out whether it meets this standard.) In the early days of my career, it made some sense to take on low-paying (and even unpaid) assignments much more often, to build my portfolio, skillset, brand, and professional network – but with two book deals and countless bylines under my belt, I deserve and expect better payment these days. I sometimes consider lower-paying gigs if they offer some combination of creative freedom, a topic I find fascinating, a prestigious byline, fun perks (e.g. free travel), and/or cool collaborators, but for the most part, I’d rather have fewer projects (even if that means making less money overall) than feel resentful of the low-paying work I’ve allowed into my life.
  • I don’t generally accept feedback on my writing from people who have not actually read the piece(s) they are criticizing. I used to think theirs was a valid form of critique in some ways, but there have just been too many baffling instances of people becoming angry or upset because of what they assume I’ve written, having not even read what I’ve actually written. Almost all of the time, the points they’re making are already addressed in the piece, and sometimes we even agree with each other. You cannot reason with someone who is arguing from a place of presumption and bad faith. Reading someone’s work is the lowest possible bar you have to clear before you’re able to critique it in a coherent, accurate, and good-faith manner.
  • I don’t write things I don’t really believe, ever. That means, among other things, that I don’t accept sponsored post assignments from clients who demand fraudulently positive reviews of their products/services. Everything on this blog (except for a handful of guest posts written by people I personally invited to contribute) is written by me and reflects an opinion I actually hold (or, at least, an opinion I held at the time that I wrote it).

 

Despite how clearly necessary these boundaries are, it can be surprisingly hard sometimes to hold firm when they are pushed. This is why I have certain stock phrases/messages I can send to firmly but kindly express my boundaries, such as:

  • “That rate is too low for me, but best of luck!”
  • “For your future reference, I work Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET and am otherwise out of office.”
  • “From your suggested rate, it sounds like you’re looking for an entry-level writer. As you know from my portfolio, that isn’t me, so it sounds like we’re not a fit at this time.”

 

Some such sentences sound embarrassingly self-aggrandizing (particularly when you have impostor syndrome!), such that I sometimes have to give myself a little pep talk before I can hit “send.” I often have to remind myself to avoid language that softens my boundary (e.g. “Just a reminder that I mostly only work on weekdays…” or “Usually my rate is at least double that, but…”) and to remain firm in my tone. Sometimes I’ll have an assertive, communication-savvy friend or partner read over my message before I send it, to make sure I’m expressing myself clearly and kindly. Or sometimes I just trust myself and click “send” easily, knowing I’m doing the right thing for myself and that any client worth having will respect my boundaries wholeheartedly.

Standing up for myself is simultaneously one of the scariest things I ever do and one of the most empowering. It doesn’t always feel comfortable – or even possible – but whenever I manage to do it, my life gets easier, calmer, and happier. My achy body appreciates the reduction in stress immensely – and my nervous brain appreciates the reminder that my needs and wants are just as important as everybody else’s.

How I Became a Full-Time Sex Writer

Kate Sloan

Friends, this blog is SEVEN YEARS OLD today, and that feels absolutely wild to me. I was not always the delightfully busy, proverbial-phone-ringing-off-the-hook sex writer you see before you. Even people who seem like they sorta “have their lives together” had to start somewhere. I’ve read my hero Alexandra Franzen’s post “A chronology of my life as a professional writer” many times seeking answers and comfort, at times when it seemed like the writer thing just wasn’t going to work out… and so it feels like good scribe karma for me to explain, in a similar fashion, how I got to where I am now. As the youths are saying on Twitter nowadays: Buckle up.

2000 or thereabouts. I am a voracious bookworm, a semi-closeted nerd, a precocious weirdo at age 8. I spend hours chronicling my days in my Little Mermaid journal – and, secretly, penning erotica in my ornate Anne of Green Gables journal. Later, I will rip all the filthiest pages out in a bout of shame – but for now, the anatomically ill-informed trysts on those pages fill me with joy.

2006. I’m knee-deep in a musical theatre obsession, and believe, genuinely believe, I will be a Broadway performer someday. I devour all the books I can find on the subject – Audition, Making It on Broadway – and go to voice lessons and memorize monologues and make lists of my dream roles. One night, at a family party, during a discussion of all the kids’ various ambitions, my wise older cousin turns to me and says, “I think Kate will grow up to be a writer.” I laugh, because she’s wrong: clearly I’m going to be singing and dancing on Manhattan stages instead. Right?

2009. My (hot, British) English teacher pulls me out of science class to tell me my recent essay for him was exemplary and that he wants to use it in future lessons. My glee cannot be quantified. That same year, I win first prize in a student poetry contest, and I get to read my extremely gay poem onstage in front of a bunch of literary types. They give me a $100 bookstore gift card which I promptly spend on a lot of Bukowski.

2010. I take a Writer’s Craft class where I get to explore various different forms, ranging from Shakespearian verse to sitcom scripts. Later, one of my favorite teachers lets me take a one-on-one literature/creative writing class with her, tailored to my tastes and goals as a reader and a writer. She assigns me twisted fairytales, feminist essays, Angels in America. I write a play about romance, non-monogamy, and gender confusion, and they do a staged reading of it at my school’s Fringe Festival. I cry a lot in the aftermath, having heard my words in other people’s voices and been utterly lit up by it.

2011. That same teacher recommends me to Shameless magazine as someone they should profile, and they do. It’s my first appearance in a magazine, albeit not a byline. The article captures my frazzled artistic life at the time: improv, painting, poetry. I’m still not settled on the “writer” identity, though I’m getting there.

Early 2012. I take a year off between high school and university, trying to figure out what the hell I want to study. One night, at my commencement, I’m mesmerized by the ASL interpreter onstage, and ponder whether I should go to school for ASL translation, something I’ve often idly thought I might enjoy. But then I realize it would probably be best if I studied something I already know I enjoy and am good at… like… writing. Something clicks. I race home that night and write in my notebook: “MAYBE I SHOULD GO TO JOURNALISM SCHOOL??”

March 2012. I apply to a shitty retail job at a sex shop. I do some Googling about sex toys to make sure I know my shit incase they call me in for an interview – but they don’t. However, in the process, I discover sex toy reviewers like Epiphora and Lilly, and I think, “Hey, I could do that.” I start a Tumblr-hosted blog. I name it Girly Juice. “Could be a fun summer project,” I note in my journal.

April 2012. The owner of a website called Sex Toys Canada reaches out to inquire about a partnership. I’m still new to the sex toy reviewing game, so I eagerly negotiate a deal whereby I will get $140 in store credit each month in exchange for writing 2 articles for the company blog. I acquire my first “free” toys, including an Eroscillator, and feel like a business genius. (Over a year later, I will renegotiate and get them to start paying me in actual money. Only $50 an article, but still.)

September 2012. I start classes at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. It’s hard – especially “streeters,” where you have to interview random people on the street for a story, the bane of my socially anxious existence – but I feel invigorated and inspired by the smart writers who surround me and the wonderful work I get to read every day.

2013. I get an unpaid internship writing and editing articles for a dating newsletter aimed at middle-aged women. A recommendation letter from my supervisor at the end of the summer says that I have “excellent written and verbal communication skills, [am] extremely organized, can work independently, and [am] able to effectively multi-task to ensure that all projects are completed in a timely manner.” I try to parlay the internship into a paying position, but they don’t go for it – probably, in retrospect, because their economic model hinged on not needing to pay people like me.

2014. I’m invited to write some pieces for on-campus publications, the Eyeopener and the Ryerson Folio; far from limiting me, my sex “beat” just makes people think of me first when they need a sex story written. A J-school colleague of mine interviews me for a story she’s writing for Herizons magazine about labiaplasty. In seeking out the mag so I can read the story, I realize they’d be a great fit for lots of the stuff I like to write about. I pitch the editor a feature story about toxic sex toys, and she loves it. My friends and family rejoice supportively about my magazine debut, a heavily-reported story called “The Greening of Sex Toys.”

2015. I attend a sex bloggers’ retreat called #DildoHoliday, and teach a workshop on generating content ideas and staying on task, since I am, according to one of the retreat organizers, “the queen of productivity.” Throughout the year, I’m interviewed for the University of Toronto campus newspaper, the Offleash podcast, Kinkly’s Sex Blogger of the Month feature, and Sex City Radio. Everyone seems suddenly interested in this weird sex writer girl.

Early 2016. I do my final-semester internship at the Plaid Zebra, where they let me write about sexual health, social psychology, and dick tuxedos. It gives me a taste of what it might be like to be a full-time staffer at a publication – and I discover that I think I’d rather freelance. I take a gig writing monthly articles for a sex toy shop’s blog, to supplement my growing income from blogging and journalism.

July 2016. I pitch an essay to the Establishment about dating faux-feminist men. They accept it, I write it, and… it goes viral. For several days, I basically cower in my bed, overwhelmed by the onslaught of tweets and trolls and threats. I wonder, many times, if the sex-writer life is really for me. I conclude that it is.

Early 2017. I work a sex toy retail job, briefly, before they fire me for no real reason. At first I panic about how I’m going to make ends meet, but then somehow the sponsored post requests and freelance story assignments pour in at exactly the right moment. The sex and relationships editor of Glamour reaches out via DM to say she loves my blog and would welcome any story pitches from me. I write for her – and Teen Vogue, and the Establishment, and Daily Xtra. I dutifully update my portfolio every time a new piece goes up. The Daily Mail writes about what a slut I am, and I’m terrified it’ll incite the trolls again, but it doesn’t, not really.

June 2017. I start my new dayjob as a social media writer for a firm that works with adult-industry clients. It’s 10-15 hours of solitary, largely self-directed work per week. The steady work allows me to relax and not worry so much about whether my more creative work will be able to support me. I stop shopping for button-downs and pencil skirts in a gesture of supplication to some future office-job self; I accept that maybe I am just A Person Who Works From Home Now, and that therefore it’s okay for me to buy star-print leggings and sparkly T-shirts instead.

Early 2018. A Spanish newspaper calls me “the Canadian Bridget Jones.” At my boyfriend’s urging, I pitch a story to a dream publication of mine, Cosmo, and they say yes. When it goes up, my perfect brother tweets, “My sister is now a Cosmopolitan-featured writer!” and I don’t quite believe it until I see his words.

Late 2018. I win an award from the Association of LGBT Journalists. I get nominated for Best Blogger in NOW magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards. I write big meaty reported pieces for The Walrus and an op-ed for Herizons. I sell several sponsored posts a month, and do odd jobs copywriting and ghostwriting for various sex shops, dating sites, porn sites, and adult content creators. I do my best to follow Alex Franzen’s advice: underpromise and overdeliver. Then I’m invited to teach a sex writing class at the Naked Heart Festival and it validates me, affirms me. This is really my career. Wow.

2019. Herizons offers me a column; I accept. I do more copywriting and ghostwriting and social media writing. I pitch, and write, and network, and brainstorm. The sex writer life, to my delight, goes on.

 

Big takeaways, if I had to choose a few:

  1. Even if your heart is in a particular genre of writing, consider branching out into other areas. I wouldn’t be able to do my fun, creative blogging and essay-writing if it wasn’t supported at least some of the time by social media work, promotional copywriting, etc. – not to mention, going outside your comfort zone helps stretch your creative muscles.
  2. Pitch, pitch, pitch, and pitch some more. Pitch publications you would love to write for, not just ones you think would “let you” write for them. Aim high!
  3. Getting paid for your writing – particularly blogging – can be a slow, long haul. Don’t expect anything to happen overnight. It is more than okay to supplement your income with a dayjob along the way, and even once you become more established. We all gotta eat.
  4. Trolls, h8erz, and rejection letters from editors can all feel much bigger and more important than compliments, fan letters, accolades, and achievements – but they’re not. Do your best to let setbacks fade into your history; they don’t have to define you, as a writer or as a person.

Thanks for being here! It’s been a pleasure spending seven years with you – or however long you’ve been around. ❤️

Freelance Friday: Structure & Secret Readers

Kate Sloan

Freelance Friday is my recurring feature where I answer your questions about the odd blend of blogging, journalism, and copywriting that is my career. You can read more writing-related content in my Blogging & Writing section!

Q. How do you structure your day so that you stay productive? I feel like if I worked from home, I would sleep until noon, procrastinate on my work constantly, and take terrible care of myself.

A. This is usually one of the first things people ask me about when they find out I work from home. Most people have some experience with aimless, unscheduled days – whether during a bout of unemployment, a gap year, or just a holiday – so they know it can be a mind-numbing and even despairing reality. So, they wonder, how do I, and others in my position, manage to do it every day?

It’s a fair question. When I first eased into the telecommuting lifestyle, I did exactly the type of shit you’re describing here. I slept too late, stayed up too late, skipped meals or overate, left work til the last minute or did too much all at once. I was like a teenager whose parents have gone away for a week in Bermuda. It was, shall we say, not ideal.

What I’ve found helpful isn’t glamorous or sexy: it’s just rituals and routines. I’m a Taurus through and through, so it takes me a while to warm up to changes in my daily habits, but once I do, they tend to stick. While I love the freedom and flexibility of the freelance life, I also recognize that I need to impose some rules on myself if I’m going to get anything done.

My dayjob, blessedly, requires me to get up around 9AM every weekday. I am a sleepy person and I have seasonal depression; if I didn’t have a reason to get up in the morning, I likely wouldn’t until late in the afternoon – so thanks, dayjob! I usually do an hour or two of that work before getting dressed and heading out to a nearby café to work on blog stuff, podcast stuff, journalism stuff, or more dayjob stuff – whatever needs doing that day.

Cafés are a crucial part of my workflow, and I’m certainly not the first freelancer to feel that way. Whether it’s the caffeine, the noise level, or just the impetus to put pants on and join the real world, there is something about cafés that helps me power through work that might’ve felt impossible if I was sitting at home in my pajamas.

Over the past year or so, I’ve become more methodical about taking a proper lunch break, rather than just working through it like a fiend. I’ll buy or make something filling, and settle in with a book/podcast/TV show/YouTube video while I eat. I found I was more prone to burnout back when I would half-work through my lunch, so now I force myself to get out of “work mode” for a while when mid-day hits.

My major not-so-secret secret weapon for productivity is a to-do list. I make one in my Notes app every day, and cross things off as they get done. My partner has access to the list, and his supervision makes this tool even more potent. It’s simple as hell, but keeping a to-do list religiously has boosted my productivity a lot.

Lastly, while it’s important to build structures that help me do my best work, it’s also important to build structures that let me relax at the end of the day. Freelancers and other self-employed types – especially those prone to hypomania! – are notorious for never really “clocking out,” and as necessary as that sometimes seems, it’s not healthy. When I’m done my work for the day, I close all my work-related tabs and apps, shut my laptop, and physically walk away from it. Often I’ll unwind by smoking some weed, reading a book, listening to a funny podcast, and/or writing in my journal. Then I’ll typically eat a late dinner and call my partner around 10–10:30PM. Our end-of-day phone conversations provide a grounding conclusion to my day, keeping me focused on something that isn’t my inbox or my Twitter timeline, which always feels so needed after a full day of work.

Q. Has anyone you weren’t “out” to as a sex writer ever found your blog and confronted you? How did you handle that?

A. While I wasn’t always “out” as a sex writer, I’ve never really been embarrassed when someone read my writing who “wasn’t supposed to.” I always figure that if they’re offended by it, that’s on them, not me.

Of course, that isn’t true in every case. If I was writing cruelly or nonconsensually about someone, it would be reasonable for them to get upset about that. I’ve definitely done this in the past, but I’ve learned from my mistakes. Nowadays, usually the only people I roast on my blog without their express knowledge are people who’ve deeply hurt me – people who genuinely fucked up in some way. Anne Lamott says, “You own everything that happened to you… If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better,” and I believe that, to some extent. Someone who dumps me in a coldhearted way, or ghosts me, or leaks nudes of people I love, knows they’re being a dick when they do that, so I have few qualms about lampooning these people on my site – which they probably don’t even read, anyway.

The caveat is that I’m never unnecessarily cruel and I never identify people who don’t want to be identified. I wouldn’t write mean shit about a Tinder hookup’s dick size for no reason; I wouldn’t publicize an ex’s name, or describe their appearance in overly specific detail; I wouldn’t spill other people’s secrets or their deepest shames. It’s just not nice. I’m not saying I was always perfect on this front, but these are the standards I hold myself to now.

That said – yes, there have been times when I’ve discovered someone was reading my blog who I wish wouldn’t. For example: a dude who had, months earlier, lied and told me he was poly when he was actually monogamous, thereby making me unknowingly complicit in him cheating on his girlfriend. Or an ex who’d broken up with me in an especially explosive and scary way. Or a guy I’d stopped talking to after he crossed numerous boundaries. While I don’t necessarily begrudge these people reading my site, it is weird when they tell me they read it, especially if they do so as part of a half-assed apology or an unwarranted desire to “reconnect.” It feels like a boundary violation. If you are reading this post knowing full well that I probably wouldn’t want you to be here… perhaps think a little about why you’re doing that, what you’re getting out of it, and how it might make me feel if I knew.

I’ve been much better about getting partners’ consent to write about them and running relevant details by them before publishing, ever since a boyfriend told me, during a breakup, that I’d made him feel used for material. Those consent practices are important, but it’s also important for me to be able to write about shitty behavior when people are shitty to me. It grinds my gears when a partner or a hookup does something reprehensible and then says, “Don’t write about that on your blog” – because the implication is that they want to appear good and sweet to my readers, without actually being good and sweet to me. Fuck that. If they wanted me to write warmly about them, they indeed should have behaved better.

If you have questions for this series, you can leave them in a comment below, or email them to me!

Links & Hijinks: Soaking, Rimming, & Writing

Kate Sloan

• Here’s why people have more sex in summer.

• Interesting: sex researchers have less sex than everyone else.

• Paying for porn is the feminist way to get off. Hear hear!

• “There are two things I love eating: steak, and ass.” This piece on rimjobs is a delight.

• This as-told-to on the Mormon sex act of “soaking” (“No thrusting, no grinding, no climax. Just pop it in, and hold the fuck still”) is hilarious and fascinating. “There was always squirming on both of our parts but never any real thrusts. I guess squirming is technically moving, but it’s not like her preacher was reffing the event.”

• Useful tips for freelancers who work at home. (I am feeling this struggle harrrd lately!)

• On that note: freelancing can take a toll on your mental health.

• I’m a little tired of reading about sex robots, because I just don’t think they’re going to be the futuristic epidemic everyone claims they will be. But here’s an interesting piece about RealDolls.

• You know, I rarely link to erotica in these round-ups, but this brief tale about orgasm denial made me all tingly, so there you go.

• Maria Yagoda wonders: is period sex okay for a first-time hook-up? “As punishment for not menstruating, people who don’t should occasionally have to deal with some of the inconveniences of blood, blood everywhere. For this reason, period sex can seem like a feminist act, as it defies the societal expectation of women to hide, or be ashamed of, this awful fucking thing.”

• Sugarcunt has some great advice on writing sex toy reviews.

• Here’s a beginner’s guide to keeping a journal.

• “Unusual” sexual desires are more common than we previously thought. Hmm!

• Emmeline reviewed an inflatable swan phallus we tried at Woodhull and it’s the funniest sex toy review I’ve read in ages.

• Dating while depressed is difficult but doable.

• Mired in writer’s block? Alex Franzen has some topic suggestions for you.

• Brandon Taylor is such a beautiful writer. “There is a way in which people talk about domestic writing or personal writing that does not set itself on fire—they call it quiet. They call it still. They call it muted. As if there were anything quiet about relationships that go awry.”

• Date ideas for stoners. The OkCupid blog has gotten weird and I’m into it.

• “Porny sex” is still valid sex. You’re not a “bad feminist” if you enjoy things like pussy-slapping, “degrading” D/s, and messy blowjobs.

• Gosh, I adore the way Girl on the Net writes about sex. Her Ambit dildo review is wonderful: “I don’t want him to fuck me with this in a playful way or a quick way. I want to catch him when he’s in this focused mode: when he’ll not just use it to warm me up for a fuck, but really settle into the act of fucking me with it. Laying it out on the bed like he’s a surgeon aligning his equipment, then ordering me to strip off my knickers and lie still.”

• We need to stop supporting and protecting abusive men.

• Taryn busted some myths about asexuality.

• We don’t talk about dental dams enough, and it’s emblematic of a bigger problem.

• [Content warning for ableism.] Some people have a fetish for becoming disabled and go to great lengths to fulfill that fantasy. Apparently it may even have a legitimate neurological cause. Uh, wow…