Sharing the Sexy #22

• Hey, remember when women were seen as more sex-crazed than men? What the hell happened? Damn you, cultural paradigm…

• This zine about sex with trans women is pretty fantastic. And it taught me a sexual term I’d never heard of before: muffing!

• This teacher taught her high school class about consent. We need more of this in schools, folks.

• Here’s a call for submissions for self-produced artistic renderings of the sexyparts of trans, genderqueer, intersex and gender-fluid people.

• How to teach consent to your kids. See, it’s not that hard – and everyone should be doing it!

• A sex worker weighs in: is it always rape if there’s no enthusiastic consent?

• Carlyle Jansen discusses sexual risktaking in long-term relationships.

• These “Queer Porn Star” harnesses are very limited edition and very sexy.

Let’s Get Christmasy!

Sometimes I have silly ideas for blog articles, which nonetheless get put into action. This is one of those.

Here are some fun red-and-green sex toy combinations for you to indulge in this Christmas!

SpareParts Tomboi harness + VixSkin Mustang

It’s hard to say whether someone wearing this toy combo would appear masculine, feminine, or just alien-like. Either way, it’s hot.

Tenga Flip Hole + Ripple Triple Silicone Stimulator

Admittedly, the Ripple Triple is supposed to be for G-spots, clits, and female asses… but I’m thinking you could slip the “vaginal” part into your (male) butt, and the so-called clit stimulator would put pleasurable pressure and vibration on the perineum. Combine that with a Tenga masturbator and any gentleman’ll be good to go!

Duncan Charles Pleasure + 10-Speed Vibrating Egg

It’s hard to beat the classic combination of dildo and vibrator. So much the better if you can color-co-ordinate like a BAMF.

Rosebuds Crop + Sex and Mischief rope flogger

Kinky Christmas, y’all! See, impact play doesn’t have to be all about somber black leather equipment – it can be festive, too.

We-Vibe Salsa + Fleshlight Freaks Frankenstein dildo

Here’s a pairing for someone who needs a lot of stimulation. The Salsa is super rumbly, and the Frankenstein has a freakish (literally) amount of texture. Sensory overload!

Do you have any toys that remind you of Christmas?

Cheap Orgasms, Anyone?

I usually believe that a more expensive sex toy has got to be better than a cheap one. After all, my all-time favorite toy costs $140 plus a $40 attachment; runners-up cost anywhere from $79 to $139. These toys are pricey for a reason, and that reason is: they’re good.

However, some quality sex toys are, indeed, cheap. Here’s a few solid and inexpensive options…

1. California Exotics’ Turbo Glider is a popular, classic, traditional vibrator. It’s made of hard plastic, the only sex toy material I’m aware of which manages to be non-porous, body-safe, and cheap. It’s waterproof, has some very pleasing texture, and is also the strongest battery-operated vibe I’ve ever come across. At $16, you can hardly call it an investment, but if it was, it’d be a worthwhile one!

2. Don Wands’ Bent Graduate is a wonderful glass dildo that goes straight for the G-spot. It’s double-ended, easy to get clean, and comes in cute colors. What’s not to like?

3. Tantus makes a dildo called Acute which is tiny but hits my G-spot like a mofo. Seriously, I’ve switched over to this toy many times mid-wank because the dildo I was previously using just wasn’t cutting it in terms of G-spot stimulation. It would also be fabulous for pegging, though I don’t currently have a willing partner for that one! At only $32, it’s an absolute steal for a toy I use as often as I do.

4. Another California Exotics toy! (See, they’re not all bad.) The Eclipse vaginal balls are one of the best kegel toys I’ve found – lots of delicious bouncing, sturdy retrieval cord, cute design – and they also happen to be made of body-safe materials. Plus they cost $23. I recommend these all the time to people who are looking for balls to put in their vag, because I’ve tried several and these remain my favorites.

5. The RodeoH briefs harness is arguably not that cheap on the whole, but as far as harnesses go, you’re not going to find a better one for any cheaper. It retails for $45, looks foxy on just about anyone, holds dildos in place for sexytimes, and doesn’t have a million straps you have to snap and adjust and fiddle with. This is the only harness I own and I don’t have any desire for another, because this one does its job so damn well.

What are your favorite toys for under $50?

Review: RodeoH briefs harness

The first time I was ever penetrated by a partner, it was with a strap-on. My girlfriend at the time had recently bought a harness-and-dildo kit, a pink and grey beaut that looked mad cute on her. It wasn’t good sex at all – in fact, it was pretty horrible, since this was a first for both of us – but it left me with a feeling of determination: I wanted to have good strap-on sex someday. Not with that same girl (we broke up before we had the chance to get any better at fucking each other), but someone, eventually.

So I was really excited when Conscious Contraceptives offered to send me a RodeoH harness. I’m in a straight relationship now, and my boyfriend has no interest in pegging, but I still felt I needed to have a harness in my collection. Even if it’s not for years, I know I’ll have awesome strap-on sex someday.

RodeoH makes really, really nice harnesses. Compared to the one my girlfriend had way back when, which was super strappy and took a minute or two to get into, my RodeoH is a dream. Imagine a wonderfully comfortable pair of cotton/spandex men’s briefs, except with an O-ring and a little dildo pocket in the front.

The briefs are obscenely cute, in a Shane McCutcheon-y kind of way. The wide, supportive waistband bears the company name and looks hot as fuck sticking out of low-slung jeans. It’s rare that I’m willing to use the phrase “super fly,” but that’s how these briefs make me feel.

The O-ring is sewn into the harness, unlike some other designs which have swappable O-rings. This means that you’re stuck with the one that’s there, but fortunately, it’s got some stretch to it. At rest, it’s 1 ½" in diameter; with some jimmying, I can get my slightly wider Tsunami to fit into it, and it also works just fine with smaller dildos like the Acute (see?), though you’re obviously going to get a bit more flopping around if the dildo you choose is smaller than the O-ring’s diameter. Lengthwise, I’ve had the best success with dildos in the 5" – 5 ½" range; toys longer than that, like my VixSkin Mustang, tend to flop a lot and are difficult to control with this harness. I’m utterly vexed as to how to get this harness to fit toys with big balls, like the Tantus Raptor; I bet it would be possible to squish ‘em through, but I love the RodeoH too much to risk breaking its O-ring. (I don’t even like the Raptor that much, anyway…)

A note on sizing: I ordered my RodeoH based on my waist measurement, stupidly not realizing until later that you really should do it by your hip measurement. So I got a size large when I probably should’ve gone for an XXL. However, amazingly, the harness actually fits me comfortably! The cotton/spandex blend is so stretchy that I can easily wear these briefs all day and only experience very minor muffin-top. RodeoH also recommends sizing down in general because a tighter fit ensures more control when thrusting.

One potential issue some buyers might have with the RodeoH is that it doesn’t allow any access to your pussy (or whatever) underneath the harness. This might be a positive feature for female-bodied genderqueer or trans folks with body dysphoria, who want to fully conceal their junk so only the dildo is visible or feelable – but the average harness user probably wants their genitals to be accessible, at least some of the time. This also means you can’t use double-ended dildos with the RodeoH briefs, though this issue was remedied with their boxer-briefs.

If you want some clit lovin’ while wearing a RodeoH, I recommend slipping a bullet vibe behind your dildo of choice – the pocket holds it nicely, and it stays in place reasonably well on my clit while thrusting.

Speaking of my clit… When I’m wearing the RodeoH, the base of the dildo rests on my pubic mound, not my clit. Again, the stimulation issue is easily resolved by wearing a bullet vibe inside the briefs, but if you want to get clit stim from the dildo and thrusting motion alone, it’s probably not going to happen unless your anatomy is very different from mine.

Overall, though, I love love LOVE this harness. I can’t imagine a better one to be my first. It’s comfy, sexy, low-maintenance, works with all my favorite dildos, and gives me the utmost confidence that I’ll have truly epic strap-on sex one day. It’s also blessedly inexpensive for a harness: only $45! Pick up a RodeoH for your strap-on adventures; it’ll do ya good.

Thanks so much to Conscious Contraceptives for sending me this marvellous harness to try out! Did you know that they donate some of the proceeds of every purchase toward sending contraceptives to underprivileged communities? As if you needed more reasons to buy sex toys!

Review: Happy Valley Fuze Harmony

The Harmony, sent to me by the lovely folks at SheVibe, is from Happy Valley’s new-ish Fuze line. You may remember that I gave away some Fuze butt plugs a few months ago; well, this is my first time trying a toy from this range, and I… well, I feel pretty ambivalent about it.

The Fuze toys all come in black 100% silicone. It’s a very dark, glossy, sexy black, but it shows every single piece of lint it collects (many). The silicone is firmer than Tantus’ blend but squishier than Lelo’s blend. It’s this firmness that led to me having a hellish experience with another Happy Valley product, the Joe Rock butt plug – but vaginally, it works better. I’ve learned that my G-spot responds more favorably to harder toys.

Speaking of my G-spot… The Harmony is supposed to target it, and sadly, it doesn’t really. The shaft’s curve is so minimal that it brushes right past my G-spot without taking the time to stimulate it. The very slight ripples on the top side of the dildo feel nice going in and out of my vag, but this is certainly no Acute or Tsunami – it does little or nothing to my G-spot.

Both the Harmony and its thicker counterpart the Wilde have a unique feature I’ve never seen anywhere else: a harness-friendly base that has ridges on the bottom. It’s meant to stimulate the clit of the person wearing the dildo in their harness, and I applaud Happy Valley for being innovative and taking risks in this arena. Do the ridges do anything for me when I rub them on my vulva? Not really. Not much more than a regular flat base does, even with lube. But I’m not an experienced harness user at all. I know plenty of people who would probably appreciate this feature a lot. (And it helps that there’s a hole for a bullet vibe at the base.)

With an insertable length of about 5 ½” and a girth of 1 ¼”, the Harmony is a good size for a warm-up dildo. And that’s primarily what I use it for: warm-up. It satisfies my vag easily for the first few minutes of jerking off, while my G-spot is starting up and I’m easing into penetration – but as soon as I start to get really aroused, I need something better. Try as I might, I can’t have blended orgasms with the Harmony, because what it does to my vagina is more like “passing through” than “rubbing and stroking.” It makes me wonder if I might prefer the Wilde after all, even though it’s larger than the toys I usually use, because the girth would please my love-starved G-spot better. Who knows?

I can recommend the Harmony to someone who wants a smallish dildo, ideally for harness use. I have a feeling I’d like it a lot more if it were strapped onto someone I love, but on its own, it just doesn’t satisfy.

Thanks very much, SheVibe!