nina hartley

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

It’s the 21st century, so our lives are documented most vividly in hastily-snapped smartphone selfies. Flipping through the selfies folder on my phone is an emotional journey: big smiles, momentous days, fond memories. It was hard to choose just seven selfies to tell the story of my year, but I think these are the best ones to do that.

img_1329In April, I went on a road trip to Minneapolis by way of Chicago, with Bex, Taylor, and Caitlin. There were some long, long days of driving – days when we’d be on the road for 10 or 11 hours at a time. We rarely got bored, because we had each other’s company and our phones to keep us entertained (except when Bug Tussel fucked up our cell service briefly), but at one point the road became so monotonous to me that I began sexting a fuckbuddy back home out of sheer desperation. He politely requested a boob selfie from me and Bex, and we reminded him, “Subs respond better to direct orders!” The reply came back, “Okay: topless pic. Now.” In the middle of a rainstorm on a highway somewhere in Wisconsin, we whipped our tits out and snapped this silly shot (with Caitlin in the background). “That was like the boss fight of nudes!” Bex declared afterward.

imageRemember that time I met one of my lifelong heroes, Kidder Kaper, while visiting his hometown in the midwest? Remember how he drove me back to my Airbnb and then asked me if I wanted to kiss?! Remember how, immediately after that kiss, we got out of the car and took a bunch of goofy selfies together? I will treasure these shots forever, I’m sure. This one, in particular, makes me smile. Kidder looks as impassioned as ever, and my facial expression is the exact blend of delight and astonishment I was feeling about the whole situation.

img_2890My friend Brent is one of my favorite people on earth. We connected on Twitter by chance last year when I started listening to his podcast and tweeting at him. Then we met in person when he spent some time in Toronto developing Use Your Words, and instantly bonded over a shared love of showtunes, good booze, and bad puns. (Plus he understands that I am the Queen of Wands.) We took a fair number of selfies together this year, at various shindigs, but this one is my favorite. That glowy, giggly grin on my face? That is how happy this dude makes me, with his jokes, his songs, and his friendship. (Sorry-not-sorry fer gettin’ all sappy on you.)

img_1790It was pretty freakin’ momentous for me to meet Gala Darling in person this year; she’s been my hero since I was 15. She was preternaturally kind and encouraging, at a time in my life when I needed her exact brand of tough-love mentorship even more than usual. We snapped this selfie together on an East Village side street while waiting for Gala’s astrologer friend to come meet up with us. It’s cliché to say I felt like I was dreaming, but I did: how else could I possibly be in New York City with my role model/spirit mama?!

imageI was stoked as hell to meet porn legend Nina Hartley at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit. She was a total sweetheart and I now have bragging rights for the rest of time. But what I think about, when I look at this photo, is the minutes that led up to it. I’d told Bex I wanted to meet Nina but was too nervous to go and talk to her. Bex, ever an encourager of my dreams, calmly told me that I was going to go talk to Nina; there were no two ways about it. Bex grabbed my hand, led me over to Nina, and introduced me to her. I feel so blessed to have friends who care about me enough to give me tough love when my anxiety is being an idiot. If not for Bex, I never would’ve gotten to tell Nina about that time my first boyfriend quoted one of her videos when going down on me!

When I was targeted by a bunch of misogynist trolls in July, one of them wrote a blog post about me and gleefully linked to this photo of me in my Aslan Nicki harness as if it were some horrible, disgusting thing that could not ever be unseen. I had to laugh when I clicked through and saw which photo he’d linked to. It wasn’t anything I’d consider ugly or embarrassing; in fact, I look babely as hell in this picture. I felt hot that night and wanted to celebrate it, commemorate it. That’s why I took this shot; that’s why I take most of the selfies I take. Never let anyone shame you for expressing your glorious, gorgeous self in a reverential self-portrait; you deserve to be immortalized in this way.

img_3453The night this was taken, my friend Cadence had invited me over to catch up, which amounted to me basically crying at her about boys all night. We ordered sushi, drank a lot of whiskey, and I told her about the rejections, break-ups and betrayals I’d been through recently. Getting that all off my chest, and laughing with my oldest friend, made my problems seem surmountable for the first time in a long while. I ducked into her bathroom, glanced in the mirror, and saw a foxy babe staring back at me, instead of just a hollow, depressed shell of a girl. So I pulled my shirt down, fluffed up my hair, and snapped this shot. I felt powerful, defiant, and uncharacteristically capable. I felt like things were going to be okay.

What are your favorite selfies you took this year?

Porn Review: Crash Pad Series #100

Kate Sloan

Crash Pad Series is a staple of the feminist porn scene. If you ask a hip-and-happenin’ queer gal about what kind of porn she likes to watch, she’ll probably mention the Crash Pad. The website currently has well over a hundred extremely hot queer sex scenes available for members to watch, and more clips get filmed on a regular basis.

Still, though, despite all the hotties and heartthrobs to be found all over Crash Pad, the main reason I wanted a membership was so I could see Jiz Lee and Nina Hartley’s scene. I’d just finished reviewing their first fuck and I wanted more.

Crash Pad chose to feature Jiz and Nina’s scene as their special 100th episode, and with good reason: these are two titans of porn. Nina’s background is more mainstream, whereas most of Jiz’s work has been feminist and queer (i.e. not mainstream), so this is an interesting and unexpected pairing in many ways.

The scene starts with Nina admonishing Jiz for being late and wearing a hat indoors. This immediately sets up the dom/sub dynamic that will continue through the rest of the scene. Jiz will call Nina “Sir” for the entire duration of their fuck, a nice touch of strange but sexy queerness that’s lovably typical for feminist queer porn. Both performers seem very comfortable in their roles, and it makes for some very convincing domination and submission.

Whereas their encounter in Live Sex Show was frank and matter-of-fact, Jiz and Nina’s Crash Pad scene feels much more sensual and sexually charged. There’s some sweet, slow kissing, and the scene is rife with impact play – Nina squeezes, slaps, punches, spanks, and bites Jiz at different times. Not once does Jiz seem to react in pain to this treatment; instead, they make pleasure sounds every time they’re hit.

I’d never seen Nina Hartley wear a strap-on before this scene, and she’s wearing a great one – it’s the meaty Maverick. She keeps her jeans and boots on the entire time, and combined with her huge dick, this adds immensely to her aura of authority.

Nina is a fantastic pussy-eater, and Jiz’s reactions definitely reflect that. Someone must have briefed Nina on Jiz’s genderqueer identity since their last meeting, when Nina kept using female pronouns instead of Jiz’s preferred “they/them,” because this time she uses terms like “front-hole” and calls Jiz “boy” a couple of times. It’s nice to see queer identities not only being respected, but being made into something sexy and natural.

There’s fisting in this scene, of course. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Jiz Lee scene that didn’t involve them being fisted. And as usual, it’s intoxicatingly dirty. Nina must have wicked strong arm muscles.

One of the sweetest and hottest parts of this scene is when Jiz is using the Hitachi on themself while being fisted by Nina. Jiz asks permission to come, and when Nina grants it, Jiz has a thunderous orgasm and says “Thank you, sir” while they are coming. In the behind-the-scenes portion of this clip, Jiz admits that they worried about their ability to act and improvise as the sub character, but you’d never know it from watching them: they totally sell their sub-ness.

After some fucking with Maverick, this scene has maybe the best ending of any I’ve ever seen: during some additional fisting, Jiz says, “Sir, will you punch my hole?” and Nina literally punches Jiz’s junk with her fist. This causes Jiz to immediately squirt all over everything. It’s honestly one of the most epic things I’ve ever seen in porn – and best of all, it’s real, unlike a lot of the squirting in mainstream porn.

The only bad thing I can say about this scene is that the audio quality isn’t as good as it could be – there are occasional weird bumping and banging noises in the background, and sometimes I can’t understand what the performers are saying.

Aside from that, though, it is fucking sexy and I’ll definitely be watching it many more times. If you don’t have a Crash Pad membership already, this scene should be great motivation for you to get on it!

Porn Review: Live Sex Show

Kate Sloan

Live Sex Show is a film by Courtney Trouble, the mastermind behind QueerPorn.TV, among other filthy hot projects. It was shot at a Masturbate-a-Thon in front of an audience of 200 people, so it’s quite different from any other porn I’ve seen. There is crowd interaction, there is an almost theatrical dynamic sometimes, but mostly, there’s just a lot of really hot fucking.

The film opens with Kimberlee Cline performing a sensual striptease. Once her pussy’s exposed, she reclines on the big, colorful sofa that all the performers will fuck on, and gives herself a cute little clitoral orgasm with her fingers. The crowd cheers; Kimberlee giggles. It’s a good scene but it’s nothing mindblowing.

Next up is a fairly traditional girl/boy scene starring Jolene Parton and Peter Devries. They make out, exchange oral sex, and then fuck romantically in various positions. Jolene’s got a gorgeous, voluptuous body, and Peter makes noise (yay, man-moans!) while his handsome uncut cock gets sucked, but this is otherwise an unremarkable scene.

The next scene is where things start to pick up a bit. It features BBW hottie April Flores and her real-life lover, who goes by The Matador. April looks foxy in a velvet jumpsuit and pink fishnets, masturbating on the floor until her man shows up and puts his dick in her mouth.

The Matador wears a mask over his face for most of the scene. At first I thought it was to maintain his anonymity, but then I saw that he takes it off midway through the session to go down on April, so I guess privacy isn’t that important to him after all? I’m not sure what’s up with this.

Weirdness aside, it’s a good scene, made up of equal parts oral, fucking, and groping. April is her usual enthusiastic and sweet-faced self, and the pair are obviously very attracted to each other. One particularly lovely moment: the Matador rips April’s fishnets open to get a better grip on her juicy ass. Nice touch. The only major problem with this scene is that it’s not very well lit, so there are plenty of moments where I feel like I can’t see the best part of what’s going on.

Next comes the kind of genderfuckery that I’ve learned to expect from QueerPorn. Tina Horn, who I’ve written about before, acts as sub to her real-life partner (I think?), Roger Wood. In researching Roger to check on pronouns for this review, I found out that he identifies not as FTM but as “F to James Brown,” but that his porn persona is decidedly male.

I find Roger very attractive, and he certainly has a great connection with Tina, but I don’t think he makes a very convincing on-screen dom. His spanking, roughness, and domination just don’t seem wholly impassioned to me for most of the scene.

The turnaround comes when Tina and Roger take a bow, thinking their time is up. Someone tells them from off-camera that they’ve got more time if they want to continue, so they do, dropping all pretences and fabricated characters. They just fuck, and it comes off as way more authentic and pleasurable than the rest of the scene up til then.

The next scene is the crowning glory of this film, because it features two huge stars of the porno galaxy: Nina Hartley and Jiz Lee. (Don’t get confused when I use “they/them” pronouns in this part of the review; those are the ones Jiz prefers for themself.)

My boyfriend doesn’t think it’s sexy at all how Nina starts out this scene with an anatomical explanation of what she’s doing to Jiz, and I have to agree – but it is kind of endearing how Nina looks for opportunities to educate people on sex. The pair talk about their preferences, desires, and what’s off-limits (for example, Nina abhors being bitten), having never met before this performance.

This scene is fantastic because both of the performers clearly admire each other and are excited about fucking each other (and indeed, Nina liked the experience so much that she ended up working for Crash Pad Series solely for the opportunity to have sex with Jiz again). Nina fists Jiz to an orgasm with the help of a Hitachi. Nina’s a pro dirty-talker, telling Jiz that their pussy is “tight and slick and strong” while holding their throat and pumping her fist in and out like the expert she is. It’s astonishing to see two seasoned professionals clearly delighting in one another, not blasé or routine in the least.

Then they switch roles and do the exact same thing the other way: fast finger-fucking and a helpful Hitachi. When Nina finally orgasms, she grabs Jiz in a fierce kiss of gratitude and the audience goes wild.

The last scene of the film is an impromptu gangbang. Nina crows, “Let’s everybody get on Courtney!” and all the female-bodied performers proceed to pile onto the filmmaker, Courtney Trouble. Tina Horn straddles Courtney’s mouth wearing a strap-on, April blindfolds her and starts playing with one of her nipples, Roger handles the other breast, Nina puts her magic hand to work in Courtney’s pussy, and Jiz takes care of the clit stimulation. What results is an epic, if slightly repetitious scene, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere before.

Live Sex Show has its fair share of problems – it’s sometimes poorly lit, there are moments that come off as awkward and faked, and the first few scenes are unimpressive. But I still think it’s worth the price of admission, by far. The bodies are real, the orgasms are real, the attractions are real, and the second half of this film is some of the best on-screen sex I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching.