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7 Things I’ve Done That Unexpectedly Improved My Body Image

Kate Sloan

Feeling good about your body is a lifelong journey. Healing from systemic fatphobia, ableism, etc. is like healing from anything else: it’s not linear, and you might have backslides sometimes – but it’s exhilarating to notice an overall upward trend in how you feel about your body, even if it takes years, or decades.

Aside from more obvious things like reading the work of body-positive thinkers, getting rid of my scale, and swearing off commenting on anyone else’s body, there are 7 things I’ve done for my body image that helped more than I ever imagined they would… Here they are, incase they inspire anybody else to foster more body-positivity in themselves!

Got a bunch of tattoos

I have 7 tattoos, and each of them have pretty drastically changed my view of my body for the better. I’ve always admired the aesthetic of tattoos, so getting them has made me look more like the types of people I find hot – and it’s also hard not to love my body now that it’s got beautiful, bespoke works of art all over it! (Some people would disagree, but those people are wrong, and also, who cares what they think?!)

When I was younger, I used to dread the moment clothing would come off during sex with a new person, because I worried they’d judge my body harshly. But ever since getting my tattoos – especially the pink “good girl” bows on the backs of my thighs – I sometimes even look forward to that moment, because people are often delighted to discover the tattoos hidden under my clothes!

Dated people who fetishize the body parts I’m insecure about

They say you gotta love yourself before you can love anybody else, and maybe that’s true – but I know that I largely learned to love my ass by dating butt enthusiasts! I’ve never had huge boobs or any other particularly remarkable bodily features (at least in my view), but apparently my ass is notable enough that more than one devout butt appreciator wanted to date me. So that’s pretty cool. Helps a lot when they bury their face in it like a starving person at a pie-eating contest, too…!

Appreciated the things my body can do

Positive re-frame alert! I might not look like a runway model, but I can still strut down the street in a cool outfit. I may not have a big booty, but I can still dance to Sir Mix-A-Lot. I’m no hyper-athletic porn star or BBW sex doll, but I can still get fucked like a champ. Every human body is a miracle, whether or not it’s considered conventionally hot.

Took improv classes/performed in improv shows

On the note of appreciating what my body can do: it can make up scenes and songs on the spot, apparently, which is pretty fuckin’ impressive no matter what I happen to look like! (The brain is technically part of the body, after all… and without a body, none of my brain’s ideas could be expressed on stage or anywhere else!) It’s also nice to spend time in a community where someone’s dress size doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as their ability to crack jokes and roll with the punches.

Further: when I’m on stage, I barely think about my body. I don’t think about my aches and pains or my butt cellulite; there just isn’t enough spare time or mental energy for that shit. Improv’s fuckin’ meditative, dude. Big recommend!

Got a great body lotion

Simple yet effective: Get yourself a luscious moisturizer with a scent that makes your heart happy (or unscented if you prefer, dear chemically sensitive babes), and apply it liberally when you’re fresh out of the shower. This helps lock in moisture better, and also makes your regular workaday shower feel like a self-care ritual. I’ve been digging the “Vanilla Cashmere” lotion by EOS, which makes me smell like a slutty cupcake (ideal, obviously).

Invested in cuter loungewear

It’s hard to feel stoked about your body when you’re wearing a decade-old faded band T-shirt and baggy threadbare pajama pants. (I mean, for me it certainly would be. I don’t know your life!) Since I’m chronically ill, I spend a lot of my waking hours in PJs or loungewear, so I keep a perpetual eye out for pieces that are both comfy and cute, and wearing them makes a big difference in my day-to-day self-esteem.

Did psychedelics

Now, to be fair, some people find these more anxiety-provoking than soul-healing… but for me, during the half-dozen shrooms trips I’ve done, I’ve basically forgotten my body existed for the duration of the day. And I mean that in the most positive sense. Sometimes I would put on a kids’ movie from my youth, like A Bug’s Life or The Aristocats, and take extensive notes on the life lessons that seemed to leap out at me. I would get so absorbed in this task, and the ensuing self-reflection, that I totally forgot to worry about my body’s imperfections – all I could think about was the beautiful vastness of the universe, and my tiny-but-important role in it. Drugs rule, man.

 

Dear readers, have any of these strategies helped you love your body more? What else has worked well for you? Feel free to let me know in the comments!

 

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

Are You Being Sexualized, or Just Flirted With?

Kate Sloan
Photo by mb

“Does this person actually like me, or do they just want to fuck me?”

This is a question I’ve pondered countless times in my life. It has been the source of much misery and angst. It has been dissected at length in many a journal entry. But I’m beginning to think that the question itself is based on a false premise – that sexual and romantic attraction are mutually exclusive.

It’s weird how often our culture – especially its more heterosexual side – depicts these feelings as a binary, where one cannot truly exist in the presence of the other. Growing up, much of the messaging I received about boys and sex (from media as well as from people in my own life) insinuated that if a guy pursued you for sex, he didn’t respect you as a person – and that if you “granted” him the sex he was seeking, he would respect you even less, and would never deign to date you. Conventional wisdom insisted that if I ever wanted a man to commit to me, I should deny him sex for as long as possible (thereby denying myself sex too, by the way!) – and that if a man was willing to endure a sexless interlude of indeterminate length, it meant he really liked me.

But I feel nauseous just writing that out! What an awful, depressing worldview! I don’t want human relationships to work that way – and I don’t think they actually do, in most cases. Sure, there are shallow cads (of all genders) who see sex as a prize to be pursued, rather than a pleasure to be shared – and there are also people who can and do separate sex from love (or even from liking), as in certain friendships-with-benefits and other casual arrangements. But for the most part, humans don’t experience lust in a vacuum – I think most of us would say our sexual attractions are informed by the non-physical traits we feel drawn to, whether those include intelligence, humor, charm, worldliness, dominance, submissiveness, or anything else.

I can definitely understand why we sometimes forget this, though, especially since being objectified for your body and sexuality can feel gross as hell. In my early twenties, I found it deeply off-putting when someone tried to leap into sexting when we’d barely just started messaging – not only because I felt this indicated poor social skills on their part, but also because it made me feel like a cardboard cutout of a woman, onto which one could project one’s fantasies (and jizz). They might as well have typed “porno babes in bikinis” or “lesbian sexy AI” into a Google search instead of sending me missives about their genitals. Of course their desire for me felt objectifying – they didn’t know me well enough to see me as anything other than an object.

But we have to be aware of when our past traumas are incorrectly coloring our view of our current situation. Although I’m in my thirties now, I still sometimes lapse into black-and-white thinking when someone expresses sexual desire for me early on. Alarm bells go off in my head: They just think you’re hot! They don’t care about your brain, your heart, your art! Once they fuck you, they’ll disappear forever, leaving you feeling worthless and alone!

When this happens, I try to take a deep breath and assess what I actually know. Usually, I come to the realization that the other person’s desire – much like my own – is fuelled and shaped by the specificities of who it’s aimed at. I long for the sweet golden-retriever softboy in a different way than I long for the sardonic dive-bar punk. My crush on the ballsy dominatrix with great eyebrows feels qualitatively different from my crush on the funny flannel-clad barista with fuzzy forearms. Every attraction is its own unique thing, beautiful and bright, and the sexual slant of a desire doesn’t preclude it from also having a romantic element. In fact, my solely-sexual crushes tend to blow away in the wind; it’s only the more emotionally substantive ones that stick around in my spank bank. Sex is so much more compelling when it’s not just skin-deep – and I don’t just mean that as a penetration joke!

So, the next time you find yourself reflexively wondering if someone really likes you or just likes the sex they could have with you, ask yourself: Do they seem curious about you, interested in you, eager to get to know you? Do their compliments (if they give any) reach beyond the realm of the physical? Do they value traits in you that you also value in yourself? Or does their desire seem to stem from who they think you are, who they see you as, or who they want you to be?

These things can be difficult to discern sometimes, but I think they’re worth reflecting on… if just because sex with someone who sees into your soul is one of the hottest experiences imaginable. 🥵

 

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

5 Ways to Learn More About Your Gender

Kate Sloan
Sometimes my gender feels like a queer femme version of a boy at summer camp 😂 (featuring beautiful mb in the background)

I’m no gender expert, but I sure have thought a lot about my own gender. And I think more people could stand to do that type of deep thinking, whether they ultimately come to the conclusion that they’re cis, trans, or some flavor of gender-agnostic.

Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and while I wouldn’t go that far, I do think an unexamined gender can cause you grief. Stumbling through life within the bounds of a prescribed gender role, without ever seriously interrogating that role’s suitability for you (or lack thereof), can breed resentment, anxiety, anger, insecurity, and depression. I’ve seen it happen – often for people who later discovered themselves to be trans, but also for some cis people who came to reject conventional gender strictures that had been stressing them out or holding them back. Who says a man or woman (or enby, for that matter) has to look and act a certain way? And more to the point, do you want to listen to them?

With that in mind, here are 5 quick suggestions for exploring your gender more deeply, if you haven’t already…

Work your way through My New Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein

An absolute classic in the queer-&-trans canon. I’m sure it’s saved countless lives by this point. It’s a workbook that asks you questions about gender to help you figure yourself out. Kate Bornstein is a nonbinary icon and queer elder, and all of their books are fantastic, but this one holds a special place in my heart because of how practical, thought-provoking, and kindness-forward it is. I’ve gifted it to many, many people over the years, and lots of them have told me that they found it helpful.

Talk to other people about their gender

If you’ve got trans and/or queer friends who are open to it, you could pick their brain about gender: how they feel about their own, what led them to their current gender presentation, whether they see gender as a spectrum or something else, etc. Tread carefully, because this can be a touchy subject for some, with good reason – trans people especially are too often expected to justify and explain their gender, often in dehumanizing ways, so it’s quite reasonable if they don’t want to discuss it with you. But if they are down to chat, you might find their insights illuminating. Ideas on gender vary a lot across time and space, too, so you’d probably get vastly different answers from, say, lesbian poets in Bushwick than from trans escorts in Melbourne or drag performers in Paris.

Try on clothes you don’t normally wear

Clothing is one of the main ways we express our gender in the world, so it makes sense that changing the way you dress can be one of the most impactful – but also scariest – ways to push yourself outside your comfort zone gender-wise. Rampant transphobia might make this tricky or outright unsafe to do in public sometimes, unfortunately (which fuckin’ sucks; everyone should get to safely experience the joy of a fitting-room glow-up moment!!), but at the very least, you can do it in your own home. You could borrow a friend or partner’s clothing (with their permission, hopefully!), hit up your local thrift store, or maybe even just alter some clothes you already own. Try on a new gender expression for size, and notice how it feels!

Keep a gender envy journal

I forget which trans friend of mine introduced me to the concept of ‘gender envy,’ but it’s such a specific feeling that now I always notice it when it comes up! Sometimes I’ll see a person walking down the street, or a character in a piece of media, who activates a sense of longing inside me. It’s a specific longing to look like that person, dress like them, move like them, talk like them, and/or be perceived the ways they are perceived. For instance, Jane Lane from Daria and Spinelli from Recess were some of the first characters I ever felt this way about – and still to this day, I love dressing hard-femme/soft-butch like them, and wearing black leather boots and sharp-shouldered jackets like they do.

Part of self-discovery is simply mindfulness: paying attention to which things consistently light you up and attract you. Start keeping a journal of all the people and characters you feel gender envy toward, and you might notice some useful patterns after a while!

Make a list of adjectives

I don’t know about you, but I find terms like “masculine” and “feminine” to be pretty limiting in their scope when I’m trying to define somebody’s gender, including my own. These concepts are highly dependent on time, place, socioeconomic context, etc., and ultimately they can feel imprecise (or beside the point entirely) for those of us who deviate from the beaten path at all.

So, instead of trying to locate yourself on a binaristic gender spectrum, maybe ask yourself which adjectives describe the gender you find dreamiest to imagine embodying. (It’s okay if this changes over time, or even from day to day!) For example, here are some adjectives that describe my particular queer-cis-femme gender at the moment: brash, funny, charming, dapper, sharp, swaggery, sparkly, slutty, irreverent, and bright. What words come to mind for you?

 

Dear reader, how deeply have you explored your own gender? Have any of these methods been helpful for you?

 

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

5 Signs Someone Might Be Good in Bed

Kate Sloan
Trying to decide if I think you’ll be a fun lay or not. (Photo by mb)

I write reviews of sex toys here all the time, but sometimes I wish there were equivalent reviews available for sexual partners: “Clumsy, but enthusiastic.” “Could use some honing, but has definite potential.” “Kept a wand plugged in by the bed and aftercare chocolates in the fridge. 12/10, no notes.”

Granted, different people can bring out different sides of one’s sexuality, and one man’s trash-fuck could easily be another man’s treasure – so these types of reviews might not be terribly useful anyway. Nonetheless, I often do wonder, as I get to know a new crush, whether they’d make me scream in bed, or just make me sigh with frustration. There’s no surefire way to predict this, but here are a few small things I look out for…

They respect boundaries (without pouting)

Arguably this isn’t a “good in bed” thing so much as a basic requirement of consent-conscious sex, but either way, it bodes well. How do they react when you say “no” to them? If you express a preference or a hard limit on anything (sexual or otherwise), do they acknowledge it, remember it, and respect it? Do they ever argue with you about your boundaries, push back against them, or ignore them entirely – and if so, how do they react when called out on that? This can all be useful data when you’re trying to assess whether you’d have a good (and safe) time in bed with someone.

They listen closely & are emotionally attuned

So much of good sex is about attunement, by which I mostly just mean paying attention: noticing what’s giving someone pleasure, and adapting your technique accordingly to make it better and better. The emotional and psychological aspects of sex benefit a lot from attunement, too – it’s hard to feel intimately connected with someone who’s off in their own world mentally.

For this reason, I am far more likely to want to jump someone’s bones if they listen deeply during conversations, ask me good questions out of genuine curiosity, and respond/react to my emotional state when we talk. Shout-out, for example, to the guy who recently brought me a box of Kleenex unprompted because he noticed me getting misty-eyed during a sentimental convo with someone else; that is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about here 🥵 And on a related note…

They are patient & can stay in the moment

Maybe this is a hot take, but I don’t want to fuck someone who checks their phone constantly on dates, for the same reasons I wouldn’t fuck someone who rolls their eyes and checks their watch while I’m telling them a story – that’s rude as fuck, disconnective, and indicates an itchy impatience that is incompatible with the types of sex I like to have.

By contrast, it is wildly sexy when someone stays so focused on me during conversation that it feels like the rest of the world melts away for both of us. It shows me that they probably won’t get bored and tap out after three minutes of lackluster cunnilingus, for example, but are likelier to instead relish every moment they get to spend down there.

They don’t take themselves too seriously

If I lightly roast a man in the course of flirting with him, and he reacts like I’ve just slapped him across the face, either my comment really was out of line (in which case, mea culpa, my dude!), or he’s more concerned with his ego/image/status than with building a connection. And in my experience, if someone’s ego is shaken that easily, it’ll also be shaken by me asking for technique adjustments in bed, bringing up kinks I want to try, or even incorporating sex toys. In the immortal words of Ariana Grande: “thank u, next!”

They’re good at touching

I adore those early days in a new connection when you haven’t had sex yet and so every touch feels electric with promise. It is soooo hot, which is part of why I don’t like to rush into sex with new people these days. Let’s marinate in that sweet, sweet anticipation together for a while, baby!

The ways that someone touches me before they’ve ever fucked me can be very telling, whether they throw an arm around my waist as we walk down the street, idly massage my shoulders in the back of a taxi, or stroke my inner thigh under the table at a restaurant. Are they good at “reading the room,” sensing when (and where) I might like to be touched and quickly adjusting if they overstep? Do they pay attention to what makes me sigh and melt, and do more of that? And just as importantly, how does my body react to their touch? Do I recoil or tense up because something’s not quite right, or do I find myself relaxing into their touch and wanting more of it? This is all hugely useful data.

What signs do you look for when trying to assess whether you might enjoy having sex with someone?

 

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

Mark Me Up, Make Me Yours: 3 Alternatives to Collars

Kate Sloan
Photo by mb

In the kink community, a collar can mean a wide range of different things. For some, it’s simply a sex toy, a way to tug someone around during a scene. For others, it’s a deeply-considered symbol of commitment to a D/s dynamic. And between those two ends of the spectrum are countless variations. A collar can mean whatever you and your partner(s) want it to.

Collars may be the item most associated with commitment in the kink world, like wedding rings in the vanilla world – but just like with wedding rings, some people find that collars are impractical for their lifestyle for various reasons, so they’d rather wear something else. Maybe they have a job where they can’t flag as kinky, nosy family members who would ask too many questions, or a medical condition that precludes any neck constriction – whatever the case may be, there are always workarounds. With that in mind, here are 3 categories of collar alternatives for you to consider…

A mark (temporary or permanent)

Sometimes the whole point of wearing a collar is to be constantly reminded, throughout your day, that you’re in a D/s dynamic with someone you adore, and that they adore you too. To that end, anything which reminds you of your partner can be a useful collar alternative, as long as it’s something you’ll carry around on your body all day – whether that’s a well-placed hickey or bruise, a Sharpie scrawl of their initials, or even a tattoo of a meaningful symbol in your relationship.

A piece of jewelry or other wearable accessory

I once knew a glamorous woman who wore a stunning diamond necklace. When I complimented her on it, she replied with a wink (knowing that I am kinky), “It is what you think it is.” That is to say: a collar-esque symbol can be anything, from a priceless pendant, to a nose ring, to a piece of twine tied around your wrist. All that matters is that you and your partner(s) agree about the shared meaning of the object in question, and that you’ll be pleasantly reminded of your dynamic each time you notice it.

A sex toy, worn under clothes

Chastity cages, wearable vibrators, and butt plug tails, oh my! These products aren’t always practical (I wouldn’t recommend wearing anything metal through a TSA scanner, for instance), but they are great for keeping a sexual connection front-and-centre in your mind. As a bonus, they can generate arousal throughout your day, like a set-it-and-forget-it form of foreplay. Neat!

 

Have you ever tried a “collar alternative” like this? What did you go with?

 

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