sexual communication

5 Ways to Ask a New Partner About Your Favorite Kink(s)

Kate Sloan
Or you could do what I do and just flag your kinks/sexuality on your leather jacket… (Photo by mb)

The best advice I ever got was from my late grandmother, who used to say to me: “You don’t ask, you don’t get.”

The more time that has passed, the more useful and true I have found this to be. How could I have known, without pitching them, that the Magic Wand company would happily commission me to make a podcast miniseries about their product? How could I have known that the “Twitter admirer” I later married indeed wanted to make out with me on our first date, if I hadn’t asked her? How could I have found beautiful apartments to live in, rad new publications to write for, or new friends in improv classes, if I hadn’t had the guts to reach out and ask for what I wanted?

I think this advice applies across the board in life, but of course, as a sex-&-relationships nerd, I’m most inclined to implement it in those areas. It’s especially useful to ask for what you want in bed when you’ve just started talking to someone new – whether you met them through mutual friends, over social media, or on the best dating app for LGBTQ in USA – because it can help you quickly filter out people you’re not compatible with, thereby being able to move onto more suitable prospects sooner. No sense in dragging out a doomed connection, if you ask me!

I know asking for what you want is hard as fuck, though, so here are 5 of my favorite tried-and-true methods of raising a beloved kink with a new person:

“Have you ever tried ___?”

I like this because it’s simple, effective, and direct, without being like, “Do you want to ___ with me right now?!” which runs the risk of scaring people off, even if they might otherwise warm up to what you’re asking. When you inquire about someone’s experience level with a particular kink or dynamic, you might learn that they’re horrified by the very idea, or you might instead learn that they’ve tried it several times and have very specific thoughts on how they’d like to do it next. Again, you never know until you ask!

“Have you seen [insert media property here]? What did you think of that scene where ___?”

One of the many joys of consuming great media (and sometimes even subpar media): it can be an easy gateway into conversations we want to have about sex and relationships. Whether you’re ascertaining a new beau’s stance on spanking by citing Secretary, sleuthing out a partner’s feelings on lifestyle D/s by invoking Fifty Shades of Grey, or assessing someone’s views on polyamory through the lens of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, media references are a fabulously low-pressure way to dig into the conversations you want to be having.

“What do you think some people find hot about ___?”

This one is best utilized when talking to a sex nerd, someone who seems inclined to puzzle through the mysteries of the human sexual psyche with you. You can parlay a theoretical conversation about kink motivations into a more direct and personal conversation about your own kink motivations – if they don’t recoil at the very thought of the kink you’re pondering, which unfortunately can happen sometimes. This is also a good way to gauge someone’s general sex-positivity and empathy toward those with different sexualities from them.

“Would you ever wanna ___ with me?”

A bigger (and scarier) swing than a lot of these more indirect approaches, for sure, but sometimes the moment calls for that! I like this particular phrasing because it’s less urgently pressurey than “Do you wanna ___ [right now/tomorrow/next weekend]?” and it’s bolder and clearer than a vague “How do you feel about ___?” This phrasing also leaves the door open for them to raise any concerns or caveats they may have: “You know, I’d love to, but only if we [keep the lights off/pre-negotiate our aftercare needs/have experimental jazz blaring in the background]!”

“Can I show you a hot porn clip where ___? Then, if you want, you can show me a video you like!”

You’re definitely gonna wanna ‘read the room’ on this one, since some people would be aghast at the mere mention of watching porn with a partner, let alone kinky porn… but if your sweetheart seems open-minded, a co-curated smut screening can be a good way to open up to each other about your desires, without having to use your words. (Although, ideally, you would then use your words when negotiating the specifics of what you want to do together.) And naturally, porn is meant to arouse, so it functions as great foreplay for whatever comes next!

 

What are your favorite methods of bringing up kinks with new people you’re seeing?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

What Does It Really Mean to Be “Good in Bed”?

Kate Sloan

Sexual self-doubt is an epidemic. As if we haven’t already had sex-related shame heaped onto us since birth, a lot of sexual discourse online lumps people into a binary of “good at sex” versus “bad at sex.” Many of us are not given clear benchmarks of what these terms even mean, which makes it even more difficult to put the worry out of one’s mind: Am I a terrible lay?

 

Technique vs. approach

If worries about being bad in bed weren’t so prevalent, my industry – sex writing – would not exist as we know it. Articles abound, online and in print, that claim they’ll teach you “techniques” that will make you into some kind of sex god. Stroke the clit in a circular motion, tap the frenulum to a steady rhythm, finger-blast the G-spot hard, press a vibrator into the perineum. This type of advice is largely well-intentioned, but I think it misses the point: Being good in bed is more about your approach than your technique.

There are exceptions, of course. Sex professionals, for instance, tend to have better technique than many laypeople (pun not intended) – so I’d expect that the beauties at the Discreet Elite VIP escort agency have better blowjob skills than your average cocksucker, and pro dom(me)s are more skilled at flogging than your average kinkster. Often these people are being sought out for their skills specifically (among other things), so it makes sense that they’d have to hone their technique.

But I think, for the average person, it’s better to have a good approach to sex (which, naturally, a lot of sex professionals also have!). By that I mean: Do you pay attention to partners’ verbal and non-verbal cues in figuring out what’s working or not working during sex? Do you ask questions or invite feedback as needed, if you’re having trouble making someone feel good? Do you co-create an environment where you both(/all) feel safe to communicate openly and honestly? Do you have good psychological tools for handling difficult feelings that may come up when someone gives you constructive sexual feedback, and can you implement those tools when you need to?

I think these things matter much more than physical technique, especially since everyone likes different things in bed. Why try to navigate new territory with an old map? I think it makes more sense to learn the skills that will enable you to create new “maps” on the fly when you need to.

 

A or B?

Okay, if there’s one sexual skill you really need (aside from ascertaining consent, duh), I think this is it. Some sex educators call it the “optometrist” approach, because – like an optometrist during an eye exam – you’re going to ask your partner, “Does this work better for you, or this?”

Try it with anything; just remember to phrase it as an “either/or” question, because those are often easiest for people to answer in the heat of the moment. “Do you want it harder or softer?” “Faster or slower?” “Deeper or shallower?”

While actual verbal feedback can be super helpful, especially with a newer partner, you can also use this technique silently in your own mind to try stuff out and discover what works best. Try licking softer, and then harder, and see which gets a bigger reaction. Thrust a little deeper, then a little shallower, and stick with whichever one seems most appreciated. This might sound simple and self-explanatory, but it’s amazing how many people get so wrapped up in their own nervousness (or pleasure) during sex that they forget to pay full attention to their partner, thereby missing crucial cues that could help them get better at fucking that particular person.

 

Compassion is king

Sex is a very, very personal thing for many of us. One’s sexuality can feel core to one’s identity – so judgments on one’s sexuality can feel like judgments on one’s very existence. Those judgments, and the feelings of shame they provoke, can stay with you for months. For years. For a lifetime, in some cases.

With that in mind, I think it’s really important to foreground compassion in all of the sex we have. That doesn’t mean you have to let people steamroll your boundaries, but it does mean you should tread carefully so as not to step on any emotional landmines. Never make critical comments about someone’s body during sex, unless they’ve explicitly asked you to do so. Never laugh maliciously at a partner during sex; strive to only laugh with them, about things you both find funny or silly. If you have to criticize someone’s technique, focus moreso on “Here’s what I prefer” than on “You’re doing it wrong,” because – as ever – they’re not actually doing it wrong, they’re just not doing it the way you like it (yet).

I strongly believe that part of being good in bed is knowing how to create a safe environment for pleasure. No one can fully lean into their pleasure in your presence if they feel it’s unsafe to do so. One way to establish that safety, and to build that trust over time, is to make compassion the baseline ethic with which you approach sex. And I don’t just mean for romantic partners, either – even casual or short-lived hookups deserve the dignity of your respect and compassion. And I’d hope it would go without saying, but incase it doesn’t: You deserve partners who treat you that way too, and it’s completely fine to keep looking until you find one.

 

I’ve only been sexually active for 16 years or so; I’m sure my views on this will change even more as I grow older, and they’ve already undergone many transformations. But at this moment in time, these are the main things that I think make someone “good in bed.” Approach is everything, in my view, because a good approach helps you find the right technique(s) for the person you’re sleeping with, and helps you make them comfortable enough that they can enjoy your technique(s). How does that old saying go? “Give a man a fuck, and you satisfy him for a day. Teach a man to fuck, and he’ll satisfy his partners for a lifetime.” Something like that.

What do you think makes someone good in bed? Sound off in the comments; I wanna know!

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

4 Ways to Tell Your Partner About Your Kink

Kate Sloan

I’ve answered hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about kink in my career as a sex writer and educator – and one of the most common ones, without a doubt, is: “How do I tell my partner about my kinks?”

It’s an understandable thing to wonder. The seemingly obvious answer is “Just tell them,” but if it were that easy, people wouldn’t be asking the question in the first place. What they really mean when they ask this is: How do I conjure the courage to tell my partner about my kinks, given that I know they might react badly?

My best friend, sex educator Bex Caputo, would say: Don’t make it a big deal. If you tell them about your fetish with the same foreboding tone you’d use to tell them you got cancer, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Humans take a lot of cues from each other socially and psychologically, on both conscious and unconscious levels, and so if you disclose your kink in a way that’s fun and flirty instead of scary or self-flagellating, you’re much likelier to get a good response.

But there are a lot of different ways to do that. Let’s talk about some of them. (And please keep in mind that all of these suggestions are just ways to ease a disclosure and start a conversation – not finish it. You should always do some sort of negotiation before trying a kink that’s new to either of you, to make sure you’re on the same page about basic stuff like what’s going to happen, who’s going to do what, what your safeword[s] or safe-signal[s] will be, and what kind of aftercare you’ll each need.)

 

Fill out a Yes/No/Maybe list. This is a classic kink negotiation tool that’s especially useful at the beginnings of relationships when you don’t know each other’s tastes yet, or in established relationships when you’re in search of a sexual shake-up. Basically it’s a list where you both categorize a bunch of different kinks into 4 categories:

  1. Yes, Into = Yes, I enthusiastically want to try this thing
  2. Yes, Willing = Yes, I would be happy to try this thing if you wanted to try it, though I’m not 100% enthusiastic about it myself
  3. Maybe = I might be willing to try this thing under some circumstances; let’s discuss further
  4. No = I absolutely do not want to try this thing

Once you each complete your list, you can compare notes and see where there’s overlap and where there decidedly isn’t, and then go from there.

There are digital tools that make this process easy, like Old.MojoUpgrade.com, or you could pick up a copy of my book and go through it together, adding each kink to your list as you go.

 

“So I had this dream…” If you’re prepared to tell a little white lie to kick off a kink chat with your partner, you could always just say you had a sexy dream about [insert kink here] and then ask a question like:

  • Doesn’t that sound hot?
  • Have you ever tried that?
  • What do you think about that?
  • Would you ever want to try that?
  • Ever wondered what that would be like?
  • Does that seem like something we’d do?

This gives you a bit of plausible deniability, so that if (god forbid) they get judgey or freak out, you can say, “Well, it was just a dream.” (And then maybe decide whether you want to end the relationship and move on, ’cause… yikes.)

 

Porn, erotica, or live cam shows. If you have the type of relationship where the two of you consume sexual media together – whether as a prelude to sex or just for entertainment purposes – then this can be a good way to guide a conversation toward your particular interests.

You could, for example, suggest that the two of you each curate a playlist of 2-3 porn clips that you’ll watch together, or 1-2 erotica stories you’ll read together, alternating back and forth between theirs and yours. Maybe you set a theme, like “things we want to try,” or maybe you both just pick things you like to jerk off to when you’re alone. This is especially great because, when both partners are committed to the exercise, each of you ends up being bravely vulnerable in a way that makes it easier for the other person to do the same.

Sites featuring live webcam models, like FetishCamSites.com, can also provide a media-based jumping-off point for kink discussions. Maybe seeing a cute camgirl spank herself on-screen with a paddle could get your partner curious about paddles, for instance…

 

Sex shop visit. Now, don’t get me wrong: I would not recommend buying a flogger/enema/Neon Wand/whatever for a partner who has never expressed any interest in owning or using one. It’s presumptuous, financially risky (depending on how pricey the item is and whether its retailer has a good returns policy), and can make your sweetie feel pressured to say yes even if they don’t want to.

But, visiting a sex shop together can prompt some productive conversations about sex and kink. It’s easy to make up an excuse to do this, like needing to pick up some condoms or lube, or just walking past a sex shop and saying, “Hey, wanna check this place out?”

If your fetish is equipment-based – e.g. chastity, whipping, pegging – then you can locate that equipment in the store (you may need to check their stock ahead of time if it’s a specialty piece) and then ask your partner one of the questions I recommended in the “So I had this dream…” suggestion above. If your fetish isn’t related to any particular paraphernalia, you could instead pick up a kink book that you know mentions it (perhaps mine!), flip to that page, and ask the same sorts of questions.

 

Of course, there are more ways to communicate a fetish to a partner than just the ones listed here. What methods have worked best for you? How would you want a partner to tell you about their fetish?

 

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

Protocol Diaries: I’ll Have What They’re Having

Kate Sloan

Wouldn’t it be great if you could order your ideal sexual experience off a menu? Well, in certain sex work contexts you can… but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about here.

For a couple months or so, my partner and I have been using two shared notes in our Notes app to basically do exactly that. It’s a communication tool that has helped us both, particularly in these stressful times when it can be hard to drum up the energy for good sex, let alone good, clear, useful communication about sex. The two notes are called the Sex Menu and the Porn Menu, and I’ll talk about them both here incase any of you find this idea useful and want to “yoink” it for your own sex life. (All credit goes to mb for inventing these innovations – I’m blessed to have a spouse just as sex-nerdy as I am, and much more tech-nerdy than I am, who comes up with inventive and sexy usages for things like the Notes app!)

 

The Sex Menu is a checklist of all the sex and kink acts that my partner and I do regularly, ranging from the tame (kissing, breast stimulation, oral sex) to the wild (watersports, electrostimulation, ruined orgasms). As I’m the more submissive/bottom-y person in our dynamic, usually I fill it out to give my partner a sense of all the things I’m up for during a particular session, so that they don’t have to individually ask me about each and every thing they’re considering doing.

However, sometimes we switch it up by having them fill it out so that I can then go through it and uncheck anything I definitely don’t want to do. I tend to have more limits and limitations than my partner does, just due to the nature of our differing brains and bodies, so this works best for us, though of course you can adapt it to suit your particular dynamic.

This tool is especially wonderful for those of us who have a hard time asserting our boundaries and/or stating our desires; it gives me a way to express those things without feeling like I’m being rude, demanding, or overbearing. It also helps remind me of all the acts and toys I tend to forget about; on a stressful day I might not remember that a wax-play scene could help reduce my anxiety, until I see wax on the list and go, “Oh yeah! That could work.”

Because I have a chronic pain disorder, we keep a spot at the top of the Sex Menu for me to fill out my pain level du jour and the locations of the pain. This gives my partner a clear picture of what my body might be capable or incapable of on a particular night. Communicating about my pain can be difficult for me, especially when I feel I’ve been complaining about it a lot lately (which is usually the case these days, tbh), so I like having a built-in spot to describe it; it takes the pressure off me to be my own proactive health advocate.

 

The Porn Menu is another document, in which one of us will prepare a set of links to 2-3 porn videos for us to watch together before having sex. I have found shared porn-viewing to be a super useful pre-sex practice for me this past year, when pandemic stress has made my already-finicky libido even tougher to coax into action. Since my desire is responsive (à la “dual-control model of sexual response” as laid out in Emily Nagoski’s book Come As You Are), I usually need a little help – or a lot of help – to get turned on, and porn has almost always been a big source of that help for me.

My partner and I are both not the biggest fans of mainstream porn with high production values, and tend toward buying clips from indie creators instead. (Pay for your porn if you want porn to keep existing!) Usually we’ll try to match up our porn choices to what we’ve selected on the Sex Menu, so if I said I want oral, I’ll look for cunnilingus porn, and if I said I want to be fucked with a dildo, I’ll scroll through dildo porn sites – you get the picture!

 

Used in tandem, these two “menus” help me and my partner get on the same page about the sex we want to have, and get turned on together even when our lives are stressful. They’re also a reminder that sometimes the simplest communication tools are the best ones!

 

 

This post was sponsored by the folks at MyPornAdviser – feel free to check out their Anilos review if you’re curious about MILF porn! As always, all writing and opinions in this post are my own.

In Defense of Wearing Socks During Sex

Kate Sloan

Recently, I asked my partner to write mini reviews of some lewd self-portraits I shot in Agent Provocateur lingerie (yep, I’m needy as fuck) and, in one of the shots, it became evident that I had teamed this very expensive, sexy ensemble with a pair of blue calf-high socks. Rather than do what most people would do and either wish they weren’t there or not even notice them, my partner noted that the socks “show me that you want to come, and they’re the only thing that will be left on you once I get my hands on you.” I giggled, blushed, and nodded. Exactly.

If you’d be mystified receiving a sext like that, let me explain. A study done in 2003 in the Netherlands, on the neural processes that contribute to orgasm, found (among numerous other things) that wearing socks increased female participants’ rate of orgasm from 50% to 80%. Innnteresting.

This makes sense to me, given what I’ve learned from sex researcher Emily Nagoski about how women can be more sensitive than men to the presence of “sexual brakes,” i.e. factors that inhibit sexual arousal both physically and psychologically. (For the record, I’m not really sure how this information relates to trans women or nonbinary people, or whether gender-non-conforming people were included in any of the relevant studies, although my past experiences reading sex research lead me to believe they probably weren’t sampled significantly or at all.) Having cold feet in the literal sense could give women cold feet in the metaphorical sense about having sex, because in some cases it’s a distraction significant enough that it prevents or slows down the arousal process – at least, for me, and seemingly for other women as well. This is likely compounded by the fact that women’s extremities, on average, run colder than men’s. (Again, I assume the research here refers only to cis people, but would be pleasantly surprised if that was not the case.)

In the many years since I first read about the socks study, I’ve cited it to multiple sexual partners when asked why I tend to keep my socks on during sex, or (in the cases of a few foot fetishists) when lustily asked to remove my socks. It’s interesting how just explaining “My feet get cold,” like I used to do before I knew about the science, was typically met with more resistance than the more recent and more airtight “Studies show wearing socks during sex helps with having orgasms.” It’s almost as if… people trust male scientists more than they trust women about women’s own bodies?! Gee, who’da thunk.

I should note here that many people have a legitimate aesthetic issue with the whole idea of socks during sex. Either they think it looks silly and weird (which is their prerogative – I know even ultra-busty pouty-lipped sex dolls would look kinda odd wearing woollen hiking socks and nothing else) or they’re turned on by feet and/or full nudity. When I fuck someone who feels this way, my partners’ orgasms may be inhibited almost as much by me wearing socks as mine would be by me not wearing socks – so I’m sometimes willing to bend my policy and work a little harder for my orgasms, knowing I can wriggle back into my nice warm socks when we’re done. I do, after all, want my partners to enjoy having sex with me!

But luckily for me, I’ve had about as many paramours who loved socks as ones who wanted to ban them from our bedroom. This, I think, can be attributed mostly to my interest in DD/lg – there are a lot of visual tropes within that fetish, and knee-high and thigh-high socks are high on the list for many kinksters. I still remember the time I settled into bed for a nice long phone-sex sesh with a daddy dom years ago: he asked me what I was wearing, I told him “a T-shirt, underwear, and some knee-high socks,” and he moaned/growled/grunted with such ferocity that I knew I had made the right choice even though he couldn’t even see my outfit.

Sometimes when I talk to other women about wearing socks during sex – and, yeah, my life is sufficiently weird that this topic does come up in conversation with friends sometimes – they seem slightly mystified by my decision to put my comfort first in a sexual scenario. I think this is sadly emblematic of our sexual culture. Mainstream porn, for example – while I adore much of it and think it is necessary and important – is full of messaging which suggests that hot sex and comfortable sex are basically mutually exclusive, especially for women (can you IMAGINE doing reverse cowgirl, while standing, for 20+ minutes straight?! I simply cannot). And indeed, there are some sex acts I enjoy greatly which could not be considered “comfortable” by any stretch of the imagination (getting paddled and getting throat-fucked come to mind), so it’s not like discomfort is incompatible with arousal for me. But for some reason, socks are one place where I draw a line. I’m rarely up for being uncomfortable in this particular way even though I’ll happily be uncomfortable in various other ways during sex from time to time.

I will say, too, that this has sometimes been a litmus test of sorts for how a new partner reacts to boundary-setting or mid-bang communication. Are they really so committed to their porn-borne sexual scripts that they’re going to insist on full nudity at the expense of my comfort? Are they really going to argue with me about this perfectly reasonable boundary I have set for my own body? Or are they going to say “Huh,” shrug it off, and move on like nothing is wrong (because nothing is)?

Despite being a foot fetishist, my current partner is so devoted to and interested in my pleasure and my orgasm that they’ll often encourage me to keep my socks on during sex. And this makes it all the more delicious for both of us when – after giving me a partly socks-enabled orgasm or two – they crawl down my body, rest their hand gently on my ankle, and ask so so sweetly, “May I take these off and look at your feet?”

Respecting sexual partners’ boundaries is so, so important, even if those boundaries don’t totally make sense to you. Every time a partner respects one of my boundaries without question, it becomes easier and more fun for me later on to bend my more flexible boundaries in the name of pleasure. Heeding my “no” now is likely to get you a “yes” later, for something else. I’m glad science exists to back me up when I set this particular boundary, but the truth is, I shouldn’t need a scientific citation to state what I want and have that be respected.

So when my partner compliments the socks I’m wearing in nudes ‘n’ lewds, I know it’s more than just a compliment. It’s an affirmation that my choices are valid, my boundaries are important, and I am beautiful regardless of which clothes I do, or don’t, remove.