music

5 Unexpected Ways Music Can Improve Your Sex Life

Kate Sloan

Music is an important part of sex for many of us. Whether we prefer to set a sultry mood with some rainy-evening piano jazz, summon our inner goddess with a Beyoncé album, or rock out to Nine Inch Nails while taking a nine-inch dick, it’s clear that music can affect the vibe of an encounter – for better or for worse.

I learned about the “for worse” side of things when a Tenacious D song came up on shuffle while I was blowing my boyfriend at age 20… and again, when I fucked a singer/songwriter and one of his own songs started playing mid-bang… and again, when I had an ill-advised one-night stand with a random Tinder guy who insisted on listening to terrible white-boy rap while we got it on, and didn’t have a Spotify Premium membership so our flow was interrupted every few songs by a cheery ad reminding us to pony up for a subscription. (I could’ve let him borrow my login for the evening, I suppose, but then I wouldn’t have gotten this weird story out of it…)

That said, beyond just establishing a sexy atmosphere, there are other potential uses for music while engaging in sexytimes. Here are a few of my faves…

Set the tone for a roleplay. You may not be a fan of chamber choir music/classic 1970s rock/Enya-esque atmospheric crooning, but maybe your character in a roleplay is. Fans of sexy roleplay use many different tricks to help them get into character, from wardrobe to fragrance to changes in vocal inflection, but I find that music can put me into the headspace of a particular persona more quickly than many other routes. Listening to the Backstreet Boys, for example, takes me right back to my wistful teenage yearnings, while my favorite EP by A Yawn Worth Yelling makes me feel like the type of pop-punk princess I’d only ever embody in fantasy.

Keep rhythm more easily. Many people struggle with maintaining a rhythm during sex, and while it doesn’t always matter, sometimes it very much does. Whether you’re trying to fuck someone at a consistent speed with your strap-on so they can get off, playing with an impact bottom who loves a rhythmic flogging, or just enjoy making cool soundscapes with the odd noises sex produces, having a song on in the background can help you maintain the steady beat you’re looking for.

Set yourself a timed challenge. When I was 15, I had a super-loud “body massager” I’d bought for $6.99 from a local discount shop, which I liked to use as a vibrator. Because it was so noisy, I’d often turn on some music before I began. For a while I had the beloved album Holiday in Rhode Island by the Softies in my CD player all the time, so its first track, “Sleep Away Your Troubles,” underscored a lot of those wank sessions. After a while, I started issuing myself little “challenges” – mostly, aiming to reach orgasm before the first song ended. It was 3 and a half minutes long, so – while I probably wouldn’t be able to do this now, with my 29-year-old body – at 15 it was no problemo. If you want to do something similar, you could see how many times you can make your partner come over the duration of a favorite album, “make” your submissive take a nasty whipping until the current song ends, or edge yourself for three whole songs and then let yourself come during the fourth one. Or make up your own strange challenge!

Process pain with aplomb. Along with methodical breathing and a hefty dose of cannabis, music is one of my favorite tools for mitigating pain during sadomasochistic scenes. Before giving me a spanking, sometimes my partner will put on an album I know well, like The Party by Andy Shauf or Landmark by Hippo Campus, and I’ll sing along (to the extent that I can) while getting beaten. I swear it reduces the intensity of the pain for me by at least 20%, without reducing the yummy side effects of that pain, like the endorphin haze and feeling of sweet submission.

Keep one foot on the ground. My friend Bex has told me before that he sometimes struggles with dissociation or wandering thoughts during sex, and that music can reliably help with this. I have found the same thing – it’s all too easy for me to float off into my own head when the room is silent during sex, while listening to music (especially music I’m very familiar with) helps me stay aware of the passage of time, and of the sexy things that are happening.

Is music an important part of your sex life? What role(s) does it play for you?

My Blog’s Turning 9 & I’m Doing an Online Concert to Celebrate!

Kate Sloan

Friends, this coming Saturday marks NINE YEARS since I created this blog and wrote my first post on it. I was nineteen years old – basically a baby – and envisioned that Girly Juice would be a fun summer project. I had no idea it would become essentially my full-time job and the source of many of my most important opportunities, projects, and relationships. Thank you so much for being with me on this journey, however long you’ve been reading – it honestly means the world to me. 💖

To celebrate 9 years in the sex blogging biz, I’m playing a livestreamed concert this weekend, Saturday, March 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern. Here are the details…

 

Q. Where can I tune into the show?

A. On my YouTube channel. Click that link and hit the “set reminder” bell if you want to make sure you won’t forget!

 

Q. What will happen during the show?

A. I’m going to play some songs on my ukulele – some relatively recent, some throwbacks unearthed from my high school singer/songwriter days. This is the first show I’ve headlined in any format for 3+ years and I’m so excited to share some tunes with you! Other things that might happen: poetry readings, sneak peeks of my upcoming book(s), conversations with my spouse about sex blogging, answering questions from viewers, sampling delicious cocktails, giggling.

 

Q. Is there a ticket fee?

A. Nope! Totally free. However, if you want to do something nice for me as a “congrats on blogging for 9 years” gift, you can buy my music on Bandcamp, buy my sexy pictures/videos here, preorder my first book, and/or make a donation in my honor to a rad organization I believe in, like the Bail Project, Trans Lifeline, SWOP Behind Bars, or the Bad Dog Theatre.

 

Q. Will it be recorded for me to watch later if I can’t make it?

A. Probably not, because I want it to feel as singularly special as the live shows I used to love playing IRL. But there’s tons of music on my YouTube channel if you want to see me play at a time that works better for you!

 

Q. What should I wear?

A. Wear whatever you like – this isn’t a conservative family Zoom call, it’s a sex blogger’s YouTube concert! – but if you feel inspired to do so, feel free to dress up for the occasion in something fancy, sparkly, kinky, and/or velvet. Tag me if you post your outfit on social media – I wanna see!

 

Hope to see you this Saturday, babes 💖

Protocol Diaries: Music to My Ears

Kate Sloan
Posing with my baritone ukulele in 2010

I have a classically millennial problem, which is that I keep monetizing all my hobbies, thereby draining a lot of the joy out of them. I’m sure many of you can relate.

Professionalizing what was once a creative diversion isn’t inherently a bad thing – I love writing and am happy almost every day that I get to make a living doing something I enjoy and am good at. I just think it’s a mistake to turn all your hobbies into income sources (keeping in mind that being able to avoid this is, of course, a function of financial privilege and is not an option for everyone). It’s much, much easier to get burned out on your work when you have very few non-work avenues for creativity, playfulness, exploration, and growth.

One way I’ve tried to combat this problem in my life is to create a protocol with my partner that “forces” me to make music more consistently. See, when I was younger, music was my life. I sang in choirs from a young age, studied violin and ukulele in school, took piano lessons, guitar lessons, voice lessons, auditioned for musicals, performed in revues, played shows at coffee shops, busked in parks, opened for local musicians, laid down tracks in recording studios, tickled the ivories at theatre festivals. There was a period of time when I very seriously planned to play music for a living. (You can watch me playing songs dating back to ~2005 on my YouTube channel if you want.)

Playing at the CanStage Youth Arts Jam in 2009

Writing my own songs and performing them, in particular, nourished my soul. In high school I would write as many as 8 new songs a month, many of which were actually pretty good. (Here’s a collection of some of my favorites if you want to take a listen.) There was something deeply satisfying about crystallizing a particular emotion or experience into a sonically appealing piece of art, and then being able to play it for people. Even on my saddest nights, after breakups or rejections or awkward parties, I could cobble together a song from my tears and wounds and failures, and it would make me feel better without fail.

However, then I went on hormonal birth control, and what followed was a period of three and a half years when I was wracked with mental health symptoms worse than any I’d previously experienced – plus, notably, a total loss of my creative drive. I wrote zero songs for years, and it hurt. I’d sit at the piano, or hold my ukulele protectively against my chest, willing new music to occur to me magically and near-effortlessly the way it once had – but my songwriting impulse was totally gone.

Upon going off the NuvaRing, I hesitantly wrote my first song in years – called “Anxiety,” since that was my main emotion at the time – and more songs started to come after that. But the writing process was slow, stilted, forced. I rarely seemed able to recapture the frenetic energy that had propelled me to write literally dozens of songs a year, way back when.

Anyway, back to the present, and the protocol. I told my spouse a while ago that I really missed playing and singing – that I felt I’d lost part of myself when I’d lost the music. I’d moved out of my parents’ big old house, with its big old piano, and into a small apartment where my roommate and neighbors could hear every note I played. I was paralyzed by self-doubt, worried that my voice was rusty and so was my musicality in general. So with my permission, Matt made a protocol dictating that every month, I would have to learn (or write) one new song, and make an audio or video recording of myself playing it.

In my room, probably writing emo songs, in 2008

It may seem counterintuitive to try to “force” yourself to do something that is “supposed” to be about joy, freedom, play. But sometimes it works. I still only play music once or twice a month, which pales in comparison to my high school days when I’d play almost every night – but that’s better than nothing.

Over the past several months, at Matt’s behest, I’ve covered a ton of songs I admire and love: “Jeremy’s Wedding” and “Where Are You, Judy?” by Andy Shauf, “Vines” by Hippo Campus, “Alone Again, Naturally” by Gilbert O’Sullivan, “Saw You in a Dream” by the Japanese House, “Brooklyn” by Brotherkenzie, “Harvey” by Her’s, and “Girlfriend” by Daniel Bedingfield. Playing other people’s songs isn’t quite the same creative rush as setting my own words to my own melodies, but it nonetheless feels like a breath of fresh air after so many years of keeping my music at a distance emotionally, like a lover you’re about to break up with. I’m tiptoeing my way back into what used to be my greatest joy, and it may not feel exactly the way it used to, but nothing really does. That’s the nature of aging.

In adulthood, sometimes we have to schedule our recreation, plan our playfulness, put our aimless meandering on a calendar – or it simply won’t happen. This protocol has taught me that prioritizing my own creative expression (OUTSIDE OF WORK, crucially) is imperative for my happiness, and is an extremely basic act of self-care. I may not be able to become that starry-eyed, ukulele-wielding teenager I once was, but when I make music, I can almost touch her again, can almost hear her. And it sounds like she’s telling me to sing louder.

Monthly Faves: Blue Leather & Deep Rest

Kate Sloan

Wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve done one of these! Here are some of my fave things from January and December…

 

Media

• Matt and I devoured all of Schitt’s Creek together in a matter of weeks, and it’s truly wonderful. Dan Levy is a national treasure, Catherine O’Hara’s costumes and diction regularly made me screech, and it’s so amazing to see queer relationships being depicted in a setting that intentionally lacks homophobia. Would recommend if you’re looking for a new feel-good show to watch and you love black leather, musical theatre, pansexual weirdos, and/or silly sitcoms.

• Some TikTok youths started collaboratively writing Ratatouille: the Musical as a joke, and then it turned into an actual show benefiting the Actors Fund. I hadn’t seen Ratatouille so we watched it the night before seeing the livestreamed musical. The songs absolutely slap; I was particularly enamored with Tituss Burgess’s impassioned portrayal of Remy the rat, and Adam Lambert singing the hell out of a bop called “Rat’s Way of Life.”

• I got to read an advance copy of Torrey Peters’ new novel Detransition, Baby, and it’s a fucking tour de force. A trans woman writing a poignant trans and queer story full of wit, wonder, and social commentary? Yes please!

• The brilliant music writer Sean Michaels makes a list every December of his favorite 100 songs of the year, and it’s always a goldmine of fantastic music recommendations and beautiful music writing. The 2020 list was especially juicy; I made a playlist of my faves and have been steadily absorbing them ever since.

• In an attempt to understand the former president’s psychology a little better (such as it is), I read his niece Mary Trump’s excellent book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Here are my highlights from the book, if you’re curious. There is some absolutely buckwild shit in there.

 

Products

• Matt’s present to me for our 3rd anniversary was a set of pale blue leather bondage restraints from Anoeses. It’s sooo luxe and stunning. I keep wanting to dress up in lingerie + heels + these restraints to do a super glamorous kinky photoshoot.

• I’ve been really enjoying the ways in which my partner and I play with consensual financial domination lately. (Should I do a blog post reviewing all the fancy presents I’ve “forced” them to buy for me?!) One of the manifestations I think we both enjoy most of this is when I “make” them buy me things when they’re super turned on, as a precondition of letting them out of chastity, or even just giving them some mild vibration with a Magic Wand through their cock cage. One such purchase that made me swoon this month was a Coach Willis bag colorblocked with black, grey, and pale blue. I’ve always loved the Willis style for its structured shape and clean lines, and already own a vintage black one, but the modernized, updated design is gorgeous in its own way and feels very grown-up. Maybe I’ll wear it to some businessy event in the future, if such a thing exists…

• Another recent findom gift: a navy-blue Extra Large Warmer scarf from Yokoo, whose knitwear I’ve always thought was sublime. She made me a cranberry-colored cowl a few years back that is definitely one of the warmest things I own (which is important to us Canadians!), and this new one is every bit as cozy and makes me feel like urban glamour personified.

• With new variants of COVID floating around, it seemed prudent to invest in some better masks than the flimsy fabric ones from Etsy I bought early last year and had been wearing ever since. I bought a trio of new ones from Sartor Masks and am very happy with them – they’re made of double- or triple-layered sturdy fabric, have a pocket for a filter, have nose wires that can actually contend with my big ol’ schnoz, and seem to fog up my glasses less egregiously than other masks have. Yay!

• Speaking of masks, albeit of a different kind… I’m an eye-mask evangelist, because wearing one every night has improved my sleep quality massively, thereby lessening a lot of my chronic illness symptoms. I decided to upgrade mine recently, and took the Wirecutter’s recommendation to buy a Nidra Deep Rest mask. It is truly next-level. Adjustable velcro strap, contoured nose gap, and deep eye cups that don’t interfere with the natural eye-fluttering that happens during sleep. Divine.

 

Work & Appearances

• The revered art-porn company Andrew Blake asked me to write some blog posts for them, so I wrote about sexy loungewear’s effect on self-esteem and the (un)importance of penis size.

• You know how some couples announce their engagement/marriage in the New York Times? Well, the first publication (other than my own) to acknowledge my marriage was Vice, in this great Chingy Nea article about making long-distance relationships work. Couldn’t have hoped for a better coronation into wifehood!

• The amazing folks at SheVibe have been making trading cards of sex educators, and I was so flattered that they asked me if I’d like to be included! My card makes me so happy. I only wish I really owned that cool blue leather jacket my illustrated avatar is sporting!

• As part of my continuing protocol where I have to learn and record at least one song per month, I recently learned how to play the song “Harvey” by Her’s, an earworm that had been haunting me. It’s a really fun track based on the play/movie Harvey – yes, the one with the giant imaginary rabbit. I love having a ukulele with me here while I’m stuck in New York – it makes it much easier to be away from home for this long.

• Recent discussion topics on the Dildorks included making marriage kinky, orgasm quandaries, our 2020 sex lives in review, household service in D/s dynamics, platonic touch and intimacy, sex and aging, and what happens when your long-distance relationship isn’t long-distance anymore.

• Some recent favorite essays from my Sub Missives newsletter: daydreams about the ideal New Year’s Eve outfit, answers to questions from the Sex subreddit, reminiscences of sneaky dildo adventures, and reflections on capitalism + card games with the cool kids.

 

Good Causes

• The Black Trans COVID-19 Fund provides the Black trans community with food, shelter, healthcare, and other necessities. They are doing important work and deserve your support!

• The Innocence Project works to exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted and jailed, using DNA evidence. Brilliant and necessary.

• Unicorn Riot is a nonprofit independent media organization that seeks to “expose root causes of dynamic social and environmental issues through amplifying stories and exploring sustainable alternatives in today’s globalized world.”

• The Emergency Release Fund helps bail out trans people who have been jailed in New York City, because pre-trial detention can be a particularly high-risk time for trans folks.

My Favorite Album is a Decade Old (& Absurdly Romantic)

Kate Sloan

It’s funny how falling down an internet rabbit hole can lead you to opportunities, people, and art that will later change your life.

That’s what happened to me with the Fort Christmas 5-song EP titled Feathers, way back in 2011. I was an occasional follower of Rock ‘n’ Roll Bride, a wedding blog for “alternative” brides. They posted an engagement photoshoot of a couple, Jeremy Larson and Elsie Flannigan (now Elsie Larson!), whose quirky, Wes Anderson-esque aesthetic I was immediately intrigued by. When I googled them to find out more, I stumbled upon this blog post by their photographer, who mentioned that Jeremy – a musician, songwriter, and music producer – had released an entire album all about his relationship with Elsie. As a diehard romantic, of course I clicked the link. And I promptly fell in love.

Feathers clangs and clamors right off the top, crashing into my headphones with instantly cheery 1960s-style instrumentals (every part performed by Jeremy, by the way). The opening song, “The Leave Behind,” tells the story of Elsie and Jeremy’s maybe-first date – hanging out with friends on New Year’s Eve, feeling a connection, but not sure yet what to do about it. (I make a point to play this song every year on December 31st, if I’m near a piano or a ukulele, because it just makes me so damn happy to do so.)

Though later in the album he’ll sing about long-term love, getting engaged to Elsie, and wanting a future with her, the first track sparkles like freshly-fallen snow as Jeremy sings about what it feels like to realize you may have just met your future spouse:

Everyone’s eyes are on the TV in the room
But my eyes are fixed on you, and they don’t stray
Because I know that this is the beginning of
The best years of my life
The first years of our life
Starting now
With you and I tonight
-Fort Christmas, “The Leave Behind“

I think the main reason this album struck me as hard as it did was that I was looking for, hoping for, wishing for that kind of love at the time. I was about to graduate from high school, and my relationships during those tumultuous years tended to be brief, surface-level, and unsatisfying. As I walked out into the wider world of adulthood, I sensed there was big big love waiting for me somewhere out there – and the lyrics and guitars and jubilant drums of Feathers felt like the musical embodiment of everything my heart ached for.

I had a relationship with this album that I’ve had occasionally with other songs and albums throughout my life, one of total and complete obsession, self-soothing by repetition. Maybe it’s a bipolar thing, or maybe my brain just latches onto certain music in a way that is slightly abnormal. In any case, before too long I had Feathers playing in my ears at almost all hours of the day. I’d slip my headphones on as I walked to school; I’d transcribe the songs’ words in my school notebooks in spare moments during math class; I’d take solo lunches, leaving my friends behind so I could wander around outdoors under the guise of “getting food” while actually just feeding my brain with gorgeous melodies. I struggled to explain to everyone in my life why these 5 songs were literally all I wanted to listen to anymore (and why I had to play them on loop on the shared family computer when my mom was trying to watch Grey’s Anatomy in the next room). These songs had come to feel like an integral part of my mental and emotional functioning. They felt like food, or water, or air.

At some point I even set Feathers as my alarm, so I could be blasted awake every day not by blaring beeps but instead by Jeremy Larson’s joy. Sometimes I put it on when I went to bed at night, too – though the album made me buzz with happiness so profoundly that I often found it hard to sleep when it was playing.

It’s useless to pretend
You’re not in love with your best friend
On nights like these, it’s fairly evident
-Fort Christmas, “Story Telling”

Two or three months into this Feathers-mania, I met my first serious boyfriend. He was a mild-mannered, good-hearted, goofy nerd from OkCupid, and although I’d had severe anxiety about dating cis men until that point, he ushered me into that world with unfathomable patience and care. (He also encouraged me to start this blog and faithfully cheered me on for years after I did, but that’s another story.) I began to fall in love for the first time.

The songs of Feathers, which are largely about NRE (New Relationship Energy), were the perfect backdrop for this era in my life. It was almost like they had been written for me to listen to at this time – or, more likely, listening to them so much had ushered circumstances into my life that could readily create the same feelings I conjured in my body and brain every time I listened. For the first couple months of our relationship, I kept accidentally calling my new boyfriend “Jeremy,” which was not his name – not because I would rather have been dating Jeremy Larson (my esteem for him has always been mostly limited to musical admiration), but because over my hours and hours of looped listening, his name had crept into my head as the one most associated with crushiness, romantic excitement, and love – and that’s how my boyfriend made me feel. (I’m sure I tried to explain this at the time, and I hope he took it as a compliment!)

I survived the worst night of my life
It went long, staggering 26 years strong
And you arrived to save me, just in time
A new light, morning light, and here we are together
-Fort Christmas, “Newbie“

I think what has stuck with me most about this album is the way it showed me what I find romantic. Or maybe it helped create my sense of what is romantic. I honestly could not fathom, at age 18, that anyone would ever love me enough to, say, write and record and produce an entire album about how much they loved me. I already had inklings that this type of creative effort impressed me, turned me on, and made me swoon (the enby ex who penned me love poems in scrappy zines; the saved voicemail of a girlfriend breathily serenading me), but this album clarified for me that those wishes weren’t just fantasies. People like that really existed somewhere out there.

That first serious boyfriend was a game developer, and during our relationship, he made games for me, like little digital interactive love notes. He also sketched portraits of me, took cute photos of me, cooked me meals, and wrote me beautifully effusive messages on special occasions. His love-borne creativity may not have manifested exactly like Jeremy Larson’s did when he wrote Feathers about Elsie, but that album had broadened my romantic psyche enough that I could see these gestures for what they were: deep, devoted love.

I still listen to Feathers a fair amount. In fact, pretty much whenever it crosses my mind for any reason, I pull it up on my phone and put it on. Even just hearing those opening drum beats makes my entire body relax – because these songs remind me of a time when I believed in and wanted love more than I believed in or wanted anything. And that’s a good feeling, even 10+ years and 5+ partners later. The contours of my heart would be different today if I hadn’t clicked that fateful link in 2011 – or if Jeremy Larson hadn’t picked up a guitar and thought, “I’m going to write some songs about the person I love.”

Here’s a promise I can keep:
I’ll never find another like you
We will stay together
Will you make a lucky man,
An honest man, a better man
For not allowing you to slowly slip away?
-Fort Christmas, “Engaged“