“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 1 of 12

At the beginning of 2022, I became acutely aware of how out of touch I’d been with a previous favorite hobby of mine, making music. I’ve always covered other people’s songs a lot but haven’t done nearly as much songwriting in adulthood as I did during my teen years and early twenties, when I would sometimes write multiple songs a month. So I challenged myself to write one song a week in 2022. They don’t have to be great, or even good; they just have to be songs.

As part of the challenge, I’ve been keeping a “songwriting diary” in which I reflect on the process involved in writing each song. Here are January’s songs, including videos, lyrics, and the diary entries I wrote about how they were created. Enjoy!


Song 1/52: “January 1st”

 

Lyrics:

There’s always a sense, on January 1st
That things will get better or things will get worse
A twist in the plot, a fulcrum for change
If you don’t get better, then you’ll only age
At least that’s what they say

Chorus:
Will I ever chill and be content?
Will I live in the moment, as if I knew what that meant?
Wish I knew what that meant

A list of my goals, as long as my arm
Debatable whether they help or they harm
The future is bleak and scary to ponder
I’d solve all its troubles if my mind wouldn’t wander

(repeat chorus)

It’d be easier to breathe
If dread and doubt stopped hounding me
It’d be easier to live
If something finally had to give

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

Hey bitch, some things to remember about this songwriting process:

  1. You wrote the whole thing in less than 30 minutes, after listening to part of an interview with Paul McCartney about songwriting.
  2. The melody and words of the first part came to you organically and you built from there.
  3. There were 2-3 moments when you considered stopping/scrapping it because it wasn’t working, but you pushed through and deliberately finished it anyway.
  4. You’d set out thinking it was a song in E, but you listened to the melodies your voice naturally sang and realized it was in B.
  5. You used Rhymezone.com, Thesaurus.com, and your voice memo app, but otherwise ignored your phone throughout the process.

(Maybe I should do a little postmortem journal entry like this for all this year’s songs…)


Song 2/52: “Bi Enough”

 

Lyrics:

Chorus:
Am I bi enough?
What would it mean to be bi enough?
Do I wear enough rainbows? Did I buy enough?
How else can I prove that I’m bi enough?

I met this cute guy
We were hitting it off – he was good in bed
I said, “Hey, I’m bi”
And watched his eyes pop right out of his head

I’m sick of the stereotypes
I’m sick of the biphobic jokes
Don’t you know that jokes are supposed to be funny, folks?

(repeat chorus)

I met this cute gal
We were hitting it off, til it went awry
I told her “I’m bisexual”
She broke my heart, she thought I’d leave her for a guy

I’m sick of the stigma and shame
I’m so sick of being erased
Being a bigot to bi folks is a fucking waste

(repeat chorus)

There might never come a day
When impostor syndrome goes away
So I guess it’s up to me
To be the best bi I can be

Am I bi enough?
Maybe we don’t ask about the “why” enough
Like why I even wonder if I’m bi enough
By the way, if you are bi, you’re bi enough

 

Songwriting diary:

Had been chatting with my therapist about bisexual impostor syndrome and later had the thought that I should stop doubting my queerness because I am clearly “a gay-ass grown woman,” a phrase that I wrote into a line that actually didn’t even make it into the final song because the different components felt too separate so I wrote a different prechorus instead. (It originally went, “Never cared much about your sex chromosome/ I’m a gay-ass grown woman with impostor syndrome.”)

The melody of the chorus came naturally, like I was hearing it in my head, as these things often do. Verses were similar. I returned to it the day after writing most of it to write the new prechoruses and bridge, which made it much better, I think.


Song 3/52: “Old Friend”

 

Lyrics:

I still love you, my old friend
I know we said we’d call it quits
Said I’d gotten over you again
I guess my heart is on the fritz

Do you miss my kisses?
And being so much closer?
Do I know what this is?
I’m sorry to say no, sir

If we gave it one more shot
I wonder what we’d find
I still think you’re smart and hot
You haven’t changed my mind

Do you ever think of me
When you’re in bed beside your lady?
Or am I not your cup of tea?
Not a yes, but maybe

I wish I had a magic spell
I wish I had a wand of gold
You warm me up, I wish you well
I always left you cold

 

Songwriting diary:

Was thinking about how I used to feel, when I was about 23 and in hopeless unrequited love with a friend of mine, which was awful. (Conjuring up old emotional memories is helpful for songwriting when one’s current emotional situation isn’t quite as dramatic.)

I didn’t really like this song that much when I wrote the first draft of it on December 23rd. Set it aside and worked on other stuff instead.

But then on January 13th I had it stuck in my head, listened to it several times, and decided all it needed was for me to 1) rewrite a couple lines of lyrics and 2) nail down the weird-ass melody. I could hear how I wanted it to sound in my head but hadn’t nailed the singing of it. So I practiced the odd interval jumps until I more-or-less had it, and it sounded much better.

Once again, this challenge is teaching me that a big part of writing songs is FINISHING songs – I’ve always been okay at generating initial ideas, but the more difficult and sophisticated process of pushing through doubt, uncertainty, etc. to finish the song is the part I’ve always been less good at, and this challenge is helping me hone that skill especially.


Song 4/52: “Spin the Bottle”

 

Lyrics:

Spin the bottle, going ’round the circle
Shyness is my burden and my hurdle
When it lands on me
I look around and see who I see:
A boy who sparkles, dressed in royal purple

And he’s got a friendly face
He smells like beer and leather
And I’m feeling out of place
We put our lips together
The voice inside my head
Goes quiet as a whisper
And my only thought instead
Is “Wow, what a good kisser”

Spin the Bottle captures my attention
Its magic can defy my comprehension
When it lands on me
I kiss the first lady I see
Her lips are from a lovelier dimension

And I kiss her through a grin
My senses are elated
And I try to take her in
I’m so intoxicated
Am I doing what I’m s’posed to?
I guess it doesn’t matter
‘Cause this goddess I’m so close to
Her kiss can kill the chatter

Spin the Bottle parties make me nervous
But nervousness is nice when it’s on purpose

 

Songwriting diary:

A glance through my Facebook “memories” reminded me about these parties I used to go to in my early twenties, where people would play Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare. It was one of the only instances I’ve ever experienced of “icebreaker games” actually breaking the ice, i.e. functioning as a way for shy wallflowers like me to actually integrate themselves into the social groups present at the party even if we knew absolutely no one when we arrived.

I truly don’t remember how this song was written because I went into a fugue-y flow state as soon as I started. But I came back to it a day or two later to fix up some of the lyrics (“she’s strong, with velvet skin” is on the cutting room floor, among other things, because it sounded awkward in my mouth). Spent a while contemplating whether it needed a bridge, a departure into a totally different mood or style somewhere in the middle, but ultimately I like how it has this plodding rhythm that feels like my hardened heartbeat when my turn is coming up soon in a game of Spin the Bottle.


Song 5/52: “Brave Little Girl”

 

Lyrics:

Everything is scary now – the streets, the heat, the news
We’re all feeling wary now – the fright is like a bruise

When will our cortisol calm back down?
Will we see peace and accord?
When will we stop feeling broken-down?
Don’t we deserve a reward?

Chorus:
Where’s my treat? I have been a brave little girl!
Strong and sweet – aren’t I a peach? Aren’t I a pearl?
Nose to the grindstone, pedal to the metal
I have got a backbone, I will never settle
Where’s my treat? I have been a brave, brave little girl!

Sorry I ignored your text – it’s next, I swear
It’s just that I’m distracted – it’s not that I don’t care

All my excuses are nothing new
I’m not in the mood for flirtation
We’re getting tired of just getting through
Don’t we deserve compensation?

(repeat chorus)

Imagine a sunny day
I know it seems far away
But hold the thought in your head
Without hope, we’re basically dead

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

Wrote this based on the prompt “Where’s my treat? I have been a brave little girl!” which was given to me by one of my Instagram followers (not sure if they want to be identified so I have redacted their username here). I had no idea when I wrote this that the phrase is apparently a TikTok meme, but the song definitely fits the vibe that many TikTokers are giving the phrase so I think it works.

I was looking for the natural musicality of the phrase, listening for its natural rhythm, which is an idea I picked up from Jeff Tweedy’s book How to Write One Song. I made a recording of the very first thing I sang, and it was kind of an ideal melody so I built from there.

Took me about 45 minutes to write the rest of it. I listened very hard to the song in my head, which suggested to me the rhythms before I even wrote words for them, as sometimes happens. The key change in the bridge involved listening to the chords in my mind and just figuring out what they were, which was the most time-consuming part of the process.

I never really consciously decided to write about COVID, the current state of the world, etc.  but a lot of these songs at least allude to it, because how could they not?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2021: 10 Perfect Songs

Music was, as ever, a huge part of my life this year – and, as ever, I’m gathering 10 of my favorite songs into a blog post here, and writing little essays about how they made me feel as I listened to them on repeat all year long.

Originally this list was titled “10 Perfect Sex Songs,” but this year I’ve changed it to simply “10 Perfect Songs,” because the way I feel about music is just so much bigger than its applications for sex. But plenty of these are very, very sexy nonetheless.

The best way to read this post is to hit “play” on the embedded player above each song before you read about it, so you can get a sense for the vibe of the track while you read. (Trust me, these songs are gooooood.)

As always, I’ve collected these songs, along with all the previous years’ selections, into a Spotify playlist which you are welcome to check out. I hope you enjoy this year’s picks!

Daniel Bedingfield – “All Your Attention” (buy it on iTunes)

Don’t want to share you with the stars in the night / I only want you to only want me / Now, then and forever / Even jealous of the sun in your eyes / I want you looking at me, only me / I want all your attention

When I got my very first cellphone at age 13 or so – a petite silver Audiovox flip phone – one of the first things I did with it was figure out how to create custom ringtones. I remember spending hours after school painstakingly editing music files into ringtone-friendly lengths and formats, so that familiarly bright musical stings could punctuate my days. One of the very first songs I set as my ringtone was this one.

I’d been enamored with Daniel and his music for quite some time, but particularly with this song. At that age, it struck me as one of the most romantic things I’d ever heard: the narrator of the song (or, in poetry parlance, the “speaker”) is beseeching his partner/crush to let everything else in her life fall by the wayside so as to focus her entire attention on him. This spoke to me deeply at that age; I was struggling with the same desperate adolescent longing to be someone’s central focus in a romantic way, particularly since boys were not exactly flocking to date me, with my blue-bracketed braces, zitty skin, and total lack of self-confidence. I dreamed of someone being as obsessed with me one day as Bedingfield seems to be with his mystery lady in this song.

That said, like many things I enjoyed at age 13, this one barely holds up. To a modern, progressive ear, it lands as selfish, whiny, manipulative, possessive, even abusive – but under the veneer of sexy sentimentality and melodious romance. I still think it’s hot and sweet in its own way, but only when I’m able to envision it as depicting a consensual kinky relationship, rather than real-life scary obsessiveness. Love can make us want to behave in inappropriate ways at times, but that doesn’t mean we have to let those impulses move beyond the realm of thought and into the land of reality.

Bo Burnham – “Sexting” (buy it on ITunes)

I’m getting hot at just the thought of what I’d do to you / ‘Cause in my head, I’m in your bed and getting through to you / They made the internet for nights like these / I love you, baby; send a picture of your tits, please

I didn’t know what to expect when my spouse and I loaded up Bo Burnham’s then-brand-new special, Inside, on Netflix and pressed play. Bo is traditionally the king of snarky silliness in song form, as his previous specials can attest, and I figured this would be more of the same. But Inside is so much more than that, as I wrote when I called it a masterpiece on this very blog.

As you know if you’ve seen it, the first half of Inside is rife with classic Bo goofiness that nonetheless hints constantly at the depressed, anxious mess beneath the surface, which we get to experience more directly in the darker, more existential second half. One of the first-act bangers is “Sexting,” a song that makes me scream with laughter every time I watch the video. In his razor-sharp way, Bo lampoons staples of millennials’ textual intercourse, like communicating in emojis (“you send me a peach / I send a carrot back / you send a Ferris wheel / that’s pretty abstract”), wanting nudes from a partner while being too insecure to send any oneself (“you send the pic and say it’s now my turn / Jesus fucking Christ, I guess I never learn”), and worrying about whether the asynchronous medium is breeding misunderstandings (it usually is).

However, then, as only Bo could do, he pivots easily from texty sexytimes into the crushing loneliness that can set in when the technology fails you, or when digital sex feels too starkly different from in-person sex to generate a meaningful oxytocin high, or when you put your phone down and wipe up the cum, only to notice with shocking intensity just how alone you actually are. “Another night on my own / stuck in my home / sitting alone / one hand on my dick and one hand on my phone,” Burnham laments, and to that, all I can say is: been there, Bo. Been there.

Lizzo – “Juice” (buy it on iTunes)

No, I’m not a snack at all / Look, baby, I’m the whole damn meal

I was late to the party with regards to Lizzo, because I just don’t listen to that much mainstream/top-40 music these days, but I’m so glad I finally checked her out. It must have been the third or fourth time I heard this song, and found myself physically compelled to dance, that I finally whipped out my phone to figure out what the hell I was listening to.

It’s since become my favorite medicine for low-energy days, for bad-body-image days, for everything-is-terrible days. I’ll put it on, start moving my body, and feel the greyness start to lift. In particular, I think it’s the all-time best song for dancing to while nude in front of a mirror; every time I do this, it feels like someone just injected me with liquid confidence. Sincerely, Lizzo, thank you for the gift that is this song.

My enjoyment of sex, or indeed my very ability to be mentally present during sex, can be strongly affected by my body image du jour. Intrusive thoughts about my thighs and ass and belly frequently interrupt otherwise sexy interludes, frustrating me and worrying my partners. Listening to this song feels like saying a prayer for body-positivity, accepting (and adoring) the things I cannot change, embracing all the parts of me because they’re me and thus inherently worthy. It’s worth putting on every sex playlist I make from here on out, if just because hearing even its opening chords makes my whole body relax, like it finally knows it’s beautiful.

Violents – “After You” (buy it on iTunes)

Life after you / Life overdue / My girl, you know that I had dreamed of you

What a lot of the songs on this year’s list have in common is that they seem to send a shot of dopamine directly to my brain. This one is no different.

Violents is a project by my all-time favorite singer/songwriter, Jeremy Larson. Normally he writes songs and a smooth-voiced collaborator sings them, but the EP this song is from, June, is about being a new adoptive father and all the feelings associated with that, so it made sense for him to sing this one himself. And it’s stunning.

“After You” is an open-hearted, revelatory, no-holds-barred love song for Jeremy’s first daughter. It marks a clear delineation between life before her and life after her. I have thought a lot about parenthood this year – mostly because I am reaching the age at which people start insisting women think about this topic, as if it would be a crime if we chose to stay childless – and, while I’m not at all convinced I ever want kids, pieces of art like this song make me wonder if I’d be missing out.

Brotherkenzie – “Wasted” (buy it on Bandcamp)

It’s not enough / Keeping up / When my chin is dripping with you / One hell of a view / Hopefully, I can make these legs move if I try

I don’t know what this song is about, but I know that when I first heard Nathan of Brotherkenzie sing these particular lyrics, I blushed. If indeed this section is about cunnilingus, which I believe it is, then it’s one of the gentlest, most anti-bravado and anti-machismo references to cunnilingus I’ve ever heard in a song. In context it sounds gentle, slow, gradual, sweet. The lyrics signal genuine enjoyment of the act and genuine interest in the pleasure it can produce. It’s just… nice.

This isn’t at all a conventional pick for a “sexy song,” and yet there’s something about it that feels to me like slow, familiar sex with someone who knows your body. The dependable rhythm of it. The prodding, plodding sweetness. The way your favorite face fills with rapture as it peers up at you from between your legs. One hell of a view.

Ben Hopkins – “IDK” (buy it on iTunes)

I don’t know how to pay for therapy / I imagine if I did, I’d have some clarity / I don’t know how to weather ignorance / Makes me wanna drink wine and eat some cigarettes

I don’t know how to even convey how much Ben Hopkins’s music meant to me this year. But this is a song about not knowing how to do things, so maybe that’s okay.

There’s a certain freneticism to my interactions with other millennials in recent years, a constant low hum of existential anxiety and manic dread. You can’t ask a clued-in millennial a question about their future, or the future of humanity, without them going into a bit of a tailspin.

This is gonna sound douchey but the current state of the world makes me really grateful I got to take some classes on existential philosophy in university, because I don’t know how I would make sense of our current world without existentialist thought to fall back on. One of the biggest revelations I picked up from those classes was this: When the existentialists realized there was probably no God, no “true path” for any of them, no “meaning of life,” initially they were distraught – but then, after a “dark night of the soul,” often there would come a point when the lack of any inherent meaning began to feel less like a burden and more like freedom. The freedom to create your own meaning, your own path, your own purpose.

So much of Ben Hopkins’s music, but especially this song, makes me feel that way. It’s music that commiserates with the listener about the pointlessness and absurdity of [gestures broadly] all this, but at the same time, finds some raucous joy and connection in all that madness. Ben and their collaborator Tsebiyah shout back and forth at one another in this song about all the things they don’t know how to do, and then come together in the chorus to chant, “I don’t know what I’m doing / I don’t know if it’s right / I don’t know what I’m doing / I don’t know if it’s right,” like a tragic, silly, sad, excited, terrified, brave millennial mantra.

John Legend – “Love Me Now” (buy it on iTunes)

Something inside us / Knows there’s nothing guaranteed / Girl, I don’t need you / To tell me that you’ll never leave / When we’ve done all that we could / To turn darkness into light, turn evil to good / Even when we try so hard / For that perfect kind of love / It could all fall apart

I’ve loved watching John Legend’s evolution as an artist over the past several years. A lot of his early music made him sound like a bit of a cad, even if those songs were fictional (I’m not sure if they were or not); he seemed to churn out endless songs about cheating on a partner, wanting to cheat on a partner, thinking about cheating on a partner, avoiding (or giving in to) the temptation to cheat on a partner, etc. But those albums all came out when he was in his 20s; modern-day John Legend is a mature man with a big heart and a beautiful way with words, and his songs land just as sexy for me now as they always have, but much more romantic.

“Love Me Now” is a type of love song I’ve never heard before, a love song arising from non-toxic masculinity and compassionate realism. It acknowledges the fact that even relationships we think will last forever might not, and that life goes on after those relationships end. Most notably, it states: “I don’t know who’s gonna kiss you when I’m gone, so I’m gonna love you now, like it’s all I have.”

You could interpret this to mean that John doesn’t want anyone else to kiss his lady-love when and if he’s out of her life, but I have a different read on it. To me, it sounds like he wants her to always have someone to kiss, because he wants her to be happy. But he knows he can’t guarantee that, so he’s going to do his best to make up for that future uncertainty in the present. This reminds me of every partner of mine who’s taken non-monogamy as an invitation to love me harder, not a challenge to love me “better than” my other partner(s). We all deserve someone in our life who wants nothing but happiness for us. We all deserve a partner who wonders, with hope and in earnest, who’s gonna kiss us when they’re gone.

Cruisr – “Wild Babe” (buy it on iTunes)

You make me pace / Make me chase / Make my heart race / I dig you when you ditch me cold / ‘Cause I’m a sheep / I’m a creep / And I’m losing sleep / No, I don’t know what’s right for you, baby / Wild babe / I just wanna be your prey

Cruisr has showed up on this list previously for their up-tempo kinky bop “Kidnap Me,” and I still listen to that one on a regular basis. But “Wild Babe” may have eclipsed it as my fave Cruisr tune, simply because it makes me want to be the wild babe it eponymizes. And when I dance to it, I feel like I’m becoming her.

To me, this is a song about that sunny feeling when a new crush bursts into your life and is instantly all you can think about. That feeling was in short supply for many of us during the pandemic; this song feels like it’d be the right thing to listen to on the walk to your first post-COVID date with your first post-COVID crush, heart pounding in rhythm with the drums.

Alina Baraz – “Change My Mind” (buy it on iTunes)

At the end of the day / Would you do what it takes? / If I fall, am I safe? / Validation hit different when you don’t gotta ask for it / Would you push your pride to the side? / Prove me wrong by doing it right

I’ve included an Alina Baraz song on this list literally every year since I started doing this, because almost every year she puts out stunningly sexy new songs. She’s an absolute queen of the slowjam genre.

This song sticks out to me most on her latest EP because it’s about stating your boundaries, holding your ground, lifting your head high and maintaining your standards. Some of Alina’s past songs have been about melting under a man’s touch, getting lost in the reverie of a new flirtation, bending her life and her self to accommodate a powerful infatuation. But this one is different. “Say you wanna keep up,” she dares him; “If you stay the night, you could change my mind.” It’s the ultimate fuck-you to a fuckboy – and a dare for him to do better, to be better, so he can be with her.

I’ll channel Alina Baraz in this song if ever I need to tell someone, in the future, that they’re not currently meeting my standards but that they’re always welcome to change my mind.

Silk Sonic – “Leave the Door Open” (buy it on iTunes)

You’re so sweet, so tight / I won’t bite, unless you like / If you smoke, I got the haze / And if you’re hungry, girl, I got filets

My brother Max tipped me off to this one. When he gives me a music recommendation, I listen, because 99% of the time, if he thinks I’ll like a song, I end up loving it.

You know that feeling when you get a “booty call” text from the person you’ve been secretly hoping would send you that exact text for hours, if not days or weeks? That feeling of jubilation, excitement, and promise? That feeling that makes you want to spring out of bed, shed your pajamas in favor of a flashier ensemble, slick on some lip gloss and head out to face the thrills of the night to come? This song is that feeling, distilled into a 4-minute-long radio-ready slowjam. It’s perfection.

The lines I quoted above are my favorites, because to me there’s something genuinely healing about a man expressing desire for a woman in a way that acknowledges that she eats – that her hunger is potentially not just sexual but literal, too. Sounds silly, maybe, but we’ve all heard (or experienced firsthand) those tropes about how women only order salad on dates. I’ve always appreciated beaux who showed zero evidence of fat-shaming or food-shaming, and in fact actively encouraged me to stay nourished enough to have good sex – by making me a protein-packed pre-sex steak for energy, handing me a bottle of Gatorade to refuel my electrolytes mid-session, or (in one case) bringing me a selection of refrigerated chocolate bars on a midsummer night to help pump me up for a round 2.

I have no doubts, after listening to this song as many times as I have, that Bruno Mars is a great person to receive a booty call from. He’s passionate. He’s polite. He’s gonna leave the door open for you. Dreamy.

 

What songs did you love most this year?

5 Unexpected Ways Music Can Improve Your Sex Life

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!

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

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.