Super Sleepy

I’m Engaged!!! Here’s the Story…

Kate Sloan
All the photos in this post are by the wonderful Ashe of Rose Glass Photography, who you should definitely hire for any and all romantic or boudoir photos if you can!

I’ve gone back and forth over the years about whether or not I want to get married. At times, I’ve thought marriage was a pointless patriarchal relic, or at least a bureaucratic process that sought to legitimize love through paperwork and ceremonies – none of which sounded very appealing to me. But as I’ve continued to grow, learn, and change, I’ve come to realize that – like many other modern-day traditions – weddings and marriage largely mean a very different thing now than they did at their inception, and that’s a good thing. Creating our own meanings for age-old rituals is one of the most powerful skills I’ve picked up from being a queer feminist.

Matt and I started talking about marriage a little over a year ago. I remember we were in a dimly-lit French restaurant, eating dinner at the bar, and they said something like: “Last week I was chatting with the woman next to me at the Gramercy Tavern, and I told her that my girlfriend lives in Canada, and she said, ‘Why don’t you just get married? It’ll make immigration easier.’ And I thought, why don’t we just get married?”

I was so surprised that I started literally crying into my food and Matt had to calm me down 😂  It was so affirming to hear this because I’d already basically accepted that me and Matt weren’t ever going to get married or be “life partners,” for a variety of life-circumstance reasons – but in my heart, I felt conflicted and sad about it. Of all the people I’ve dated, Matt seemed like the best long-term partner for me I could possibly imagine: we “get” each other on practically every level, make each other laugh all day every day, support each other when times are tough, and had already proven ourselves capable of working through relationship issues as they came up. Part of me had started to feel like, if I couldn’t marry the person I really wanted to marry, maybe I shouldn’t/wouldn’t marry anyone at all. That made me a bit sad, but also, as a queer non-monogamous kinky feminist, I felt I should probably just accept it, and continue living my unconventional life.

So obviously, I felt a lot of feelings when they brought up marriage as not only something we could do but something they wanted to do. This was also shortly after they came out as nonbinary, and they asked me later that night – tearfully, over tiki cocktails – whether I’d have any problem being spouses/life partners with “a gender-weirdo.” My answer: Of course not. They are the gender-weirdo that I love, and want to be with.

It was unclear for a long time exactly when we’d be able to get engaged and then get married, because of complications involving borders, work, and family, among other things – and then when the coronavirus hit, everything was even more up-in-the-air. Fearing oncoming border closures between our two countries (which did indeed happen), we spent 4 months quarantined together in my tiny Toronto apartment (along with my excellent sweetheart of a roommate and her two adorable cats), and it confirmed for us what we already suspected from shorter stretches of time we’d spent together: that we were indeed a good match, even in close quarters, even under dire circumstances.

Matt went back home in mid-July, and by mid-September we were missing each other so much it hurt. We’d never spent that much time apart in the entire course of our relationship (we’ve been blessed to always live only 500 miles apart, or about a 90-minute flight, which we do not take for granted, knowing that many other long-distance couples are not nearly that lucky). One night, on the phone, Matt said, “I’ve been doing research all day, and I have a romantic plan I’d like to propose. Would you like to hear it?” Their voice shook with nerves. I said yes.

They’d discovered a loophole of sorts in the border closure rules. While they were not allowed to fly up to Toronto, I was for some reason allowed to fly to New York (albeit with all the proper precautions, like pre-flight temperature screening, post-flight quarantining, masks, and contact tracing). They could only visit me if we were legal spouses (although this rule has since been overturned, LOL), so they suggested I fly down to see them and we get married. It would be a tiny, COVID-era wedding – just a few guests, socially distanced, with masks on, in a park somewhere. Sometime in the future, post-pandemic (if such a thing exists), we would have a bigger, more traditional wedding, with friends and family and catering and first dances and tossing the bouquet and so on.

I was nervous at first, and took a couple days to think about it – but upon pondering it more, it just made more and more sense to me. We’d wanted this for ages anyway – why not let the pandemic speed it up a little? Why not look the curveball that was COVID dead in the eye and knock it out of the park?

After I booked my plane tickets, we started plotting and planning. Being queer and progressive, we wanted to look critically at the trappings of marriage and decide which pieces we actually cared about and which we wanted to toss out. We talked about rings – I wanted an aquamarine as the central stone, not a traditional diamond (even though diamonds are, weirdly, my birthstone), both because blue has always been a significant color in our relationship and because I just… like blue. We talked about proposals – Matt wanted to do the asking, and I wanted to be asked, which worked out well. (We joked that they’re a “proposal top” and I’m a “proposal bottom.”) They asked what kind of proposal I ideally wanted – public or private? Surprising, or not at all? Lavish or low-key?

We both sorta disdained the whole “asking for your daughter’s hand in marriage” tradition, but I wanted to check with my parents incase it was important to them. (I know a lot of these way-old traditions feel important even if you know they’re irrational or even in direct conflict with your ethics.) I called them and asked, and they both said they didn’t care about that tradition at all because I am my own woman and I get to make my own choices, but that they adored Matt and knew we’d be happy together.

As I prepared for travel, Matt kept dropping inscrutable hints about the plans they were putting into motion. They told me they’d talked to a few jewellers; when they decided on the final ring, they texted photos to several of my friends and sent me screenshots of everyone’s reactions. (My favorite was Brent‘s; he said the ring looked like it had “mythical powers”!) One Saturday, they texted me, “I maybe am standing in the exact spot where I’m gonna propose to you…” I pried for details, but they wouldn’t tell me anything useful. So sneaky!

The day they actually proposed to me was Friday, October 23rd. In the afternoon, we had a Zoom meeting with a New York city clerk, whose job it was to check that we were physically in the same place and had our marriage documentation ready to go. Matt seemed super nervous beforehand, which was very out of character, so I should’ve guessed something was up! The clerk issued us our marriage license over the internet; it was very weird. Then Matt said, “We should go on a date tonight to celebrate! I’ll make some reservations.” Them handling our plans is the norm in our relationship, and part of our D/s dynamic, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me at all that they were planning us a date without asking me for input or telling me where we’d be going.

It also wasn’t out of the ordinary that they picked my outfit. For the Zoom call, they’d put on a nice blue dress shirt that happened to be the same one they were wearing when we met. The dress they chose for me was also the same thing I was wearing on our first date… Again, I should have known something was going on! They put my collar on me, we applied matching lipstick (Tom Ford’s Cherry Lush, a fave), and then we got in an Uber.

I was a bit confused when we pulled up to the High Line, an elevated public park built on an old railway line, because I’d been under the impression we’d be going to a bar or restaurant. “There’s a bar up there,” Matt assured me (reader, there was not). We got into line and there’d been some technical problem with Matt’s reservation (they must’ve been SO freaked out!) but fortunately, the staff let us go up anyway.

The High Line is a special place for us because we hung out there the morning after our 2nd date, chatting, laughing, and basking in New Relationship Energy. At one point we were sitting on a bench and this little girl ran by; pointing at the railway, she asked her parents loudly, “Why are there train tracks?” and we spent a few minutes giggling over the philosophical rabbit hole that that question could be if viewed through a particular lens.

Back in the present, we strolled across the park, holding hands and marvelling at art, architecture, and autumn foliage we saw along the way. Eventually we reached a particularly beautiful lookout point, and Matt stopped walking. I stopped too, assuming they just wanted to take a moment to admire the view. (Although, honestly, a little bit of me was like, “Where’s that bar, tho?!”)

They asked if they could take off my mask for a sec, and they took theirs off too; I assumed they wanted a kiss. But then they got down on one knee. “HEY!” I yelled, caught off-guard.

Kneeling in front of me, they said, “I don’t know why there are train tracks, but I’m glad they led me to you, and to this moment. I’ve got you, I love you, and I want to be with you forever. Kate Sparkle Sloan, will you marry me?” They took out a Tiffany-blue ring box (I remember thinking, “Huh, that’s funny, that jeweller uses the same color as Tiffany’s does,” never once imagining the ring might actually be by Tiffany’s!) and showed me the ring. It was so completely stunning that I gasped. A vivid ice-blue aquamarine, surrounded by two sparkling diamond halos, set on a shining platinum band. Wow! I started crying, obviously. That’s a lot of information to process at once – that the love of your life not only wants to marry you but also bought you the most beautiful piece of jewelry you’ve ever seen!

Memories of this magnitude are really strange in the way the brain encodes them. I felt simultaneously like the entire image would be burned into my brain forever and like I was missing so many important details because I was just too gobsmacked to process anything properly. It’s funny how, even though I already knew they planned on proposing at some point, the actual event still felt shocking and exciting like it had been a total surprise.

I said yes (of course!!), and they tried to slip the ring onto my right hand, so I said, “Doesn’t it go on the other hand?” and we had a funny moment of confusion until we got it right. They stood up and we hugged and kissed. “Bex and Ashe are here somewhere, but I think they got a bit turned around,” Matt said. Indeed, my best friend Bex and his partner Ashe – who is also a pal of ours and happens to be a professional photographer with a lot of proposals/weddings in their portfolio – had come to surprise me! The plan had been for Ashe to photograph the actual proposal, but the High Line is a super confusing place so they hadn’t actually made it there in time. But, by some ridiculous stroke of luck, a woman who happened to be walking by had snapped a few shots of the proposal on her phone, and came up to us a couple minutes afterward to ask if we’d like to have them. She AirDropped them to me and I was so grateful for her kindness!

Ashe and Bex finally caught up with us, and I cried even more when I saw them. Ashe, who is super professional, skilled, and brilliant, directed us through a re-creation of the proposal, which fortunately we were able to pull off pretty well, perhaps because of both having grown up doing theatre…! Then we strolled along the rest of the High Line doing an impromptu engagement photoshoot (well, I guess it was only impromptu from my perspective), Ashe directing us the whole way and making us feel cute as hell.

At some point, a random man came up to us (wearing a mask) and yelled, “Congratulations!!! …from six feet away, of course.” It was so funny. I love New Yorkers.

After that, the four of us went to La Bain – the rooftop bar on top of the Standard High Line hotel, where we stayed on our second date – and got celebratory drinks and snacks. (Matt had champagne, I had a dirty martini, we split some oysters, yummm.) I carefully crafted an Instagram post announcing the engagement, and it immediately started to get a lot of, um, engagement. We both called our parents and told them the good news. I also talked to my brother, who told me Matt had showed him the ring a while back and that he’d thought it was perfect for me. (It is!)

After drinks, we said good night to our pals and made our way to Upland, the glowy golden restaurant where we had dinner on our second date. It was so special and magical to revisit a place that has taken on such massive mythological meaning in my mind over the years. I felt just as nervous and excited as I did on that date, just in altogether different ways. We spent much of our meal giggling over proposal logistics and swilling champagne that the restaurant thoughtfully brought over for us.

The whole night made me feel incredibly loved and valued – by Matt, and by our friends and family. It was such a wonderful evening of closeness and joy in a year that has otherwise been defined (for me and for everyone) by distance and worry. I’m overcome with gratitude to Matt for loving me this much and showing me their love so tangibly and frequently. I’m excited I get to spend forever showing them my love too! ❤️

Phone Sex Every Day? Sure, Why Not

Kate Sloan

One of the weirdest things about being a sex writer is the cognitive dissonance between the sexual person your readers think you are and the sexual person you actually are.

It’s important to keep in mind, always, as you’re scrolling through your social media feeds and your RSS reader (if you still use one of those antiquated things like I do), that comparing yourself to people you see on the internet is comparing your insides to somebody else’s outsides. You’re never getting the full picture, even if you think you are.

And that’s not as bad a thing as some people would have you believe, either. “Authenticity” and “transparency” are only useful up to a point; y’all don’t need to know about the chin hairs I pluck or the ins and outs of my fibre intake. I mean, maybe some of you want to know that stuff (I know plenty of my readers have unusual fetishes!) but I am by no means obligated to share it all with you. The people who make me the most uncomfortable in this business are the people who insist that my openness and honesty in certain areas mean I’m required to be open and honest in every area. Nope. Fuck that. Fuck that forever.

All this to say: I’m probably not as horny or as sexually adventurous a person as you might imagine. In fact, if not for phone sex, I think these days I’d only jerk off 2-3 times a week, tops, if left to my own (vibrating) devices.

That caveat – “if not for phone sex” – is what I want to talk about today. As you might know, I keep a sex spreadsheet, so I have stats on my IRL sex life for the past several years and my phone-sex sex life for the past year and a half. My partner Matt – who is delightfully chill about the whole “recording detailed data on our intimate encounters” thing – recently pointed out to me, as we were totalling up our sex numbers from the 4 months they spent quarantined with me, that despite having phone sex nearly every night when we’re apart, we didn’t have sex every single night we were physically together. We had sex 84 times in the 121 days they were here – so, about 69% of those nights (nice). I had noticed that too, and had been pondering the possible reasons.

When we discussed it, we came to 2 overall conclusions about why we’re more prolifically horny over the phone than IRL:

  1. Sometimes the “point” of sex (or one of them, anyway) is to establish intimacy and connection. When we’re together IRL (especially when quarantining), we’re already getting a lot of that throughout the day – not to mention throughout the night, when we cuddle and touch and kiss and can smell each other and feel each other’s warmth all night. Sex isn’t less appealing, necessarily, but it doesn’t feel like as urgent a need when part of its “purpose” is getting fulfilled elsewhere.
  2. In-person sex takes more energy. Phone sex is comparatively chill.

That second one is really the crucial one for me, I think. As a person with depression and chronic pain + fatigue, sometimes I just don’t have the energy for sex, despite knowing it would almost certainly improve my mood and my pain status. It’s not only the physical motion involved – which can be reduced or almost entirely eliminated when I’m fucking a capable and enthusiastic top, like Matt – but also the mental energy involved. No matter how comfortable I am with a partner, it still saps some of my energy to constantly wonder if my sex faces look weird, or if my body is actually as attractive as my partner claims it is, or if my roommate can hear the impacts when I’m getting spanked.

It’s a lot like how Zoom video calls can be utterly draining for me (I’m sure many of you can relate) while audio-only calls are comparatively blissful. I just don’t have enough brain-spoons to simultaneously manage not only the conversation we’re having but also how I look while we’re having it. Let’s turn our video off so I can forget, briefly, just how ugly I secretly worry I am.

Phone sex with Matt is so good that I’ve pondered many times whether we can continue having it when we’re eventually living together. And fortunately, they’re the type of inventive, considerate, GGG partner that I honestly feel like we might. I can imagine us residing together in a tiny one-bedroom New York apartment and me saying at the end of a long day, “Hey, I’m super worn out. Can I go to the other room so we can have phone sex?” I’d bring some sex toys with me and slip back seamlessly into that pleasantly agitated headspace I so often inhabited when we had just started dating and our romantic nighttime phone sex sessions were the fuel that propelled me through my difficult, depressed days.

I’ve had a wide range of opinions on long-distance relationships over the course of my life, but I never really thought I would prefer them, or at least prefer elements of them. Maybe it’s a bad sign about my relationship with my body that non-corporeal forms of sex seem to appeal to me more, and rev my sexual engine more consistently, than types involving my actual fucking body – but honestly, the world is a mess right now. “Whatever works.” That’s the phrase I keep saying to friends on the phone and via text when they tell me about some supposedly “weird” coping mechanism or distracting hobby they’ve picked up since the coronavirus swept the world. “Whatever works.” Whatever makes you feel happier and more at ease and more functional is worth at least considering.

I’m so blessed to have a partner who understands and accepts all of my limitations, and not only knows how to work within them but also actively gets excited about finding new ways to work within them. I am so lucky to be in love with someone so good, so kind, so accommodating. And I am so lucky to have access to a type of sex that bridges gaps, raises my self-image, requires very little energy on my part, and makes me feel like a scintillating stunner even when I’m lying in bed with day-old pajamas on and a cavalcade of unsexy pillows cradling my aching body.

 

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

Behind the Seams: Couples’ Edition

Kate Sloan

I’ve always enjoyed the thought of dating someone whose personal style mattered to them, whose grooming and aesthetic were joyful components of their life rather than just perfunctory choices. I admired couples who posed together for chic outfit photos on my favorite lifestyle blogs, and occasionally tried to match my ensemble to my beaux’. This wasn’t just vanity for me – a couple’s outward coordination feels to me like a manifestation of their inward coordination (though of course this isn’t the case for everybody). Matching felt like a love language. Dressing up to delight a partner felt like an act of sweet service.

I’m fortunate that my partner now agrees with me on these points, and we love to go on fancy dates together dressed in outfits that subtly reference each other’s (and also sometimes get us free drinks). Here are some of my faves we’ve worn lately…

December 13, 2019

For our two-year anniversary, we packed up our stuff for a brief staycation at Toronto’s beautiful Broadview Hotel. I’d watched its construction with eager fascination years ago (it was built from a broken-down and legendary old strip club called Jilly’s) but had never stayed there, so I was excited to check it out.

After getting very pretty, we went to the hotel’s rooftop bar for a drink, and then to Michael’s on Simcoe for a magnificent steak dinner. I made our waiter cry by thanking him for correctly gendering my partner. It was a good night.

Matt is wearing:

  • Grey suit – Suitsupply
  • White collared shirt
  • Blue/pink/silver tie – vintage Emilio Pucci and was one of my birthday gifts for them the previous year (I love Pucci!!)
  • Black leather shoes – Allen Edmonds
  • Tom Ford lipstick in “Cherry Lush”

I am wearing:

December 30, 2019

For Matt’s 29th birthday, we went out with a bunch of their pals for a huge prix-fixe meal at a fancy Japanese restaurant, followed by cocktails at Kind Regards. I felt so surrounded by love and joviality all night!

Matt is wearing:

  • Pink blazer – thrifted earlier that day at a Goodwill in Manhattan; we were shopping for fancy vintage clothes to wear to a different party (see below) and I saw this, gasped, and MADE them try it on – doesn’t it look amazing?!
  • White collared shirt
  • Blue/purple/pink tie – also vintage and also a gift from me last year; this one’s by Express Design Studio
  • Black jeans, I think?
  • Black and gold “Please use they/them pronouns” pin

I am wearing:

  • Black sparkly velvet halter dress – Forever 21 a few years ago
  • Black cashmere cardigan – the Gap
  • Black leggings – H&M
  • Black harness boots – Frye (an anniversary gift from Matt)
  • My collar again
Photo by Scott Stanger

January 4, 2020

In late 2018 I met the great Tara Isabella Burton after I read her first book and she interviewed me about kink for her second. This year, she invited Matt and I to her “unwedding“: a black-tie party meant to celebrate her not getting married. The dress code said “as extra as possible” and we took that to heart.

The party was wild. I swilled prosecco and cocktails, exchanged cringey ex stories with a brocade-clad bartender, debated modern movies with a film critic, watched a YouTube-famous chef swing-dance to a live jazz band, met (and kissed) a beautiful litigator, met (and kissed) a flirtatious professor, wobbled around in my heels, and just generally had a raucous good time. Congrats to Tara on “not getting married today“!

Matt is wearing:

  • Blue velvet blazer – J. Crew (I SHRIEKED when I saw this; as has previously been discussed, I have feelings about velvet)
  • White collared shirt
  • Charcoal grey suit pants – also J. Crew
  • Red and navy tie – also J. Crew
  • Black leather shoes – Allen Edmonds

I am wearing:

  • Red lace dress – vintage via my mom; she bought it in the early ’80s to cover a Phantom of the Opera premiere for Global TV, and it miraculously fits me perfectly
  • Blue satin Christian Louboutin peeptoe pumps – a gift from Matt, bought vintage from TheRealReal at 75% off the original price
  • Blue tulle hair clip – a gift from my friend Eric years ago
  • Silver sparkly clutch – bought vintage for $10 from the now-defunct Melanie’s Closet in Kensington Market in 2007
  • My collar again

Do you ever dress to match your partner(s)?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2019: 3 Fave Encounters

Kate Sloan

I had a lot of good sex this year (quit braggin’!), but these encounters stick out in my mind as some of the best and most memorable. Read on for R-rated descriptions of my various perversions and their manifestations!

Bimbo Hypno (Content note: bimboification, ableist language, forced feminization, hypnosis, age play / daddy / DD/lg)

All these years that I’ve been writing 12 Days of Girly Juice posts, I’ve never highlighted a phone-sex encounter as one of my favorite sexual experiences of the year – but phone sex feels to me more and more like real and legitimate sex, and so it would be strange not to include some, especially since it makes up about 55% of my sex life at this point! (Uhh, more dorky statistics like that to come in my year-end Sextistics post. Just you wait!)

My Sir and I had been thinking a lot about “intelligence play”/bimboification/forced feminization, and the intersections therein, when we decided to do a scene incorporating all of these. After extensive negotiation, here’s what we settled on: I laid out a full face’s worth of makeup on my desk and set up my computer there. Sir called me on the phone, put me into trance, and suggested to me that with every item of makeup I applied, I could let go of a little more of my intelligence. I could sink into the bliss of ignorance, set aside my overanalytical adult tendencies, and just be a pretty, childlike little doll. When they woke me up and called me on FaceTime video, I was already feeling spacey, and that just developed further as I began to put my face on, piece by piece.

By the end of the scene, I was slurring slightly on super simple sentences. I looked very cute but could barely formulate a thought. I was deeper in “little space” than I’d ever been before, feeling genuinely like that little girl I so often roleplay as. My daddy took me to bed (by which I mean, we each separately retired to our beds) and fucked me over the phone the way they do almost every night – but this time felt different, because my brain felt dimmed. As someone who’s too often wracked with anxiety and intrusive thoughts during sex, it was magic to be able to just… turn that off. I was always a very bright little girl when I was a kid, but sometimes being a little less astute for a while can be amazingly relaxing.

Matt says: This was definitely one of the most memorable scenes we did this year, even though we weren’t in the same room. I remember watching you on FaceTime video putting on the makeup and getting dumber, and getting more and more turned on as you got dumber, and I was struggling to figure out when I should fuck you! I wanted to fuck you from the beginning, but also I wanted to make you as dumb as possible and let you finish your makeup, obviously… so it was a struggle against my own arousal! I was also thinking a lot about what questions I could ask you to confirm and convince you of your dumbness. I asked you about process, like about why you were doing certain things with your makeup, and you had kind of a hard time figuring that out. The hypnosis, I remember a lot; the makeup, I remember a lot; the resulting phone sex, I don’t remember as much. It was like, sex with you-but-dumber, which was great, but it didn’t stick with me as much as watching you get dumber. But I do remember I came really hard, so…

Unprecedented PIV in Portland (Content note: alcohol)

I don’t know why, but I never assume roleplay scenes will lead to particularly good sex. I mean, for me, that’s not the point of them: they’re more about playful exploration, closer to an improv show than a porn shoot. But sometimes, the sex therein can be incredible.

When Matt and I spent a week in Portland, it seemed like a good opportunity for a roleplay we’d been wanting to do for a while: we would go to a bar and pretend to be strangers meeting for the first time. We decided on Barlow, a swanky cocktail bar around the corner from our hotel. I went over there, ordered a daiquiri, and sat reading How to Date Men When You Hate Men, the loud title of which further contributed to what we already knew: the beginning of the scene would be tricky for Matt. They would have to woo me – a shy, defensive introvert, perpetually wary of strangers’ approaches – into wanting to talk to them. Wanting to talk to them so much, in fact, that I would put my book down to do so. This is no small feat!

Matt came in a few minutes after me and ordered a daiquiri as well, which ended up being the catalyst for our conversation (they were damn good daiquiris!). We small-talked about drinks, books, and the conference we were both attending, and then, inevitably, discussing my line of work led us to disclose (some of) our kinks and (some of) our attraction to each other. I agreed to let them come up to my hotel room, saying “Maybe we could just make out” (which is indeed what I would say if I actually met a hot stranger at a bar in broad daylight in a city with which I was unfamiliar). We paid our check, made our way to the hotel, and giggled nervously in the elevator.

I honestly don’t remember much about the sex that ensued, mostly because its conclusion was so bafflingly intense that it probably blew all the other memories out of my brain. We were having good old-fashioned dick-in-vag sex, and I had the Eroscillator on my clit, and before I even fully realized what was happening, their dick felt so good that I came – way sooner and more easily than I normally would from this activity – and felt them coming at the exact same time. A simultaneous PIV orgasm is one of those sexual goals that I’ve never really understood or fetishized, but it felt so perfect in that roleplay – I had the sense that even though we were “strangers,” we knew each other’s bodies and minds deeply, and were instantly, fiercely connected to each other. That’s pretty much how it felt when we actually met for the first time, so it was romantic to revisit that sensation – albeit while having an orgasm so hard and fast that it surprised me and left me breathless.

Matt says: What sticks out to me about this scene was how difficult it was for me, because I am not used to “picking up people” in this way. Even though I knew you’re my partner and we were gonna end up at home together, I felt really high-stakes about picking you up. So, from the moment I walked into the bar, I was really nervous about what I would say to you, when I would say it, where I would sit – everything about the whole interaction. I was very calculating about it, even down to our interactions with the bartenders, because they didn’t assume we were together, and then when I tried to pay for us together, that was a whole problem I had to solve… It was this, like, choreographed dance in the bar, and once we were back in “your” hotel room, it was much easier to relax into fucking you. I felt like I had “scored” you, which is a feeling I don’t often get, and I really wanted to impress you with my oral skills and PIV skills and stuff. I felt like the way we came together was beautiful and perfect, and if my character had walked off into the night and gone back to their Airbnb or whatever, it would’ve been this beautiful perfect moment, but then we got to spend the rest of the day together and it was even better.

Cryin’ & Goodbyin’ (Content note: hypnosis, alcohol)

I was only supposed to spend a week in New York in August, but as my flight time neared, Matt wrapped their arms around me tight, silently Feeling Some Feelings, and then observed, “I’m not doin’ too good.” I wasn’t doin’ too good either. We rearranged our plans to give me three extra days in New York, which wasn’t very much but seemed like enough. We just weren’t ready to say goodbye yet.

On the night before our actual goodbye, we attended a workshop on hypnosis and sadomasochism, stopped off for some late-night Mexican food, and then came back home. Matt wanted to do some trance stuff (naturally) and asked me what I wanted to feel; I was so flooded with love already that my answer came easily: “I want to feel romantic.” They put me into a deep, slightly drunken trance (margaritas are delicious!!) and then talked me through amping up my pre-existing romantic feelings. With my hazy eyes fluttering, I clutched at them and began to cry. Big, hot tears soaked my beloved’s pillow as they talked me through it, murmuring in my ear about love and trust and togetherness.

When they woke me up, they went down on me lovingly and fucked me with the Eleven lovingly and made me squirt lovingly. It all looked very rough from the outside but was actually maybe the most romantic sex I had all year. Kinksters are redefining “lovemaking” and I’m very glad.

Matt says: I was so sad that you were leaving, even though we had extended your stay. I was just wrecked. I was so fucked up about it. Watching you spill your tears all over my blue pillowcase in this beautiful, long pattern made me feel better about it, and then I was like, “I want more of that.” So I did this trance scene, and I got more tears out of you, and then I fucked you and got you to squirt all over my sheets, and my sheets were just covered in your wetness and your essence… I felt like I had gotten everything out of you that I possibly could before you left, and that made me feel more okay about saying goodbye. I laid on those sheets for days after you left, like, “She’s still here, in a way.” Fuck. It was the perfect ending to that trip.

What were your most memorable encounters of the year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2019: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

Ah yes. It’s time for what is possibly the most self-indulgent instalment of 12 Days of Girly Juice: the one where I highlight some of my favorite and most meaningful selfies of the past year. Read on for lots of my cute face, and the cute faces of people I adore…

December 18th, 2018

Is this my favorite picture of me and Matt ever? Quite possibly!

This was taken in the Fairmont Royal York hotel the morning after we did a roleplay scene in the hotel’s beautiful Library Bar. Our room had excellent selfie lighting, and we, as Very Online millennials are wont to do, opted to take advantage of that.

I love how much this picture captures our genuine excitement and joy to be together. Long-distance relationships remind me a lot of my bipolar disorder, in a way: there’s so much euphoria during dates, and then sometimes periods of melancholy and despair when you’re apart.

It’s often difficult, but just the same as my mental health issues, I usually feel that the lows are worth enduring for the highs. It’s a relationship style that sort of forces you to really focus on your partner and be present when you’re with them, inviting you to take no moment for granted. This isn’t always easy in a world of smartphones and the capitalist grind, so I appreciate that my LDR provides me with an opportunity to live (and love) this way!

I also love that our outfits match… We’re obnoxious like that.

February 14th, 2019

Let me tell you a not-so-tall tale…

When placing an order from JetPens early in the year, I took a look at the rulers section, purely because I am a pervert and frequently enjoy the transgressiveness of using office supplies for impact play, à la “teacher/student punishment scene.” What can I say – I’m an ageplay fanatic through and through. I hurriedly chose one that seemed heftier than a standard ruler – even potentially thuddy?! – and threw it in my cart, alongside the fancy pen and ink refills I was also buying.

When the package showed up, however, I took the ruler out and immediately started laughing hysterically. It was SO MUCH TINIER than I had expected. (“What is this, a ruler for ants?!”)

It was especially hilarious because, as one person on Twitter pointed out to me, a ruler is the one object whose size you can easily tell just by looking at it in a photo online. EXCEPT… I had misread the description and thought the ruler was laid out in inches, when it was actually marked with centimeters. Tooootally different ball game!

Anyway, I love this selfie because it captures my genuine, laughing-out-loud amusement at my own fuck-up. I could barely hold the phone straight for giggling so hard. Moments like that are rare and worth savoring!

February 14th, 2019 (yes, again!)

On Valentine’s Day, I did one of my very favorite things: took myself on a solo date.

Both of my partners were spending the night with their other partners, which, y’know, happens sometimes in poly. I had foreseen this as a potential problem for my emotional stability (how many Valentine’s Days alone can one person endure??) so I’d bought myself a ticket to a musical for children, because I know myself pretty well, evidently.

The night of, I got thoroughly dolled up and then schlepped across the city to the Soulpepper theatre. It’s down the lane from this “Love Locks” installation, a common destination for Valentine’s, weddings, and other romantic milestones. I couldn’t help myself, and posed for a selfie in front of the word “Love,” neon and unignorable.

I look bewildered, in the way one does when one is self-conscious about taking a selfie alone in public. But I love this picture because… I went on this adventure even though I was bewildered. I sat in the front row and drank a beer and laughed and cried and then took myself home on the subway and took good care of myself. You don’t need a partner to be present – or to have a partner at all – to feel loved, and to be loved.

July 18th, 2019

This is a sad one. *takes a deep breath*

My parents moved out of their house this year, after living there for 26 years, i.e. my entire childhood and then some. It was a big, sprawling house, which was one of the things we loved about it, but its bigness had also grown redundant what with me moving out in 2017. So we begrudgingly began the process of putting nearly 3 decades’ worth of stuff into boxes, in preparation to move them to a newer, smaller house.

On our last day at the old place, we ran around cleaning and inspecting and corralling. I walked through the whole house taking pictures and videos of the details I most wanted to remember. And then I found a quiet moment to myself up on the third floor, in the now-empty bedroom I’d grown up in.

I’d lost my virginity in this room, started my blog in this room, said “I love you” to a romantic partner for the first time in this room. I’d cried and laughed and gasped in this room. I’d written thousands of pages there, and read thousands more. I’d stared out the big window at the lonely lights in the apartment buildings opposite, in the middle of the night when sleep wouldn’t come. I’d written songs on 4 different instruments in this room and then sang them for hours, warbling and raw. Every feeling I’d ever felt had been felt first and most intensely in this room.

So I laid on the floor, and snapped a sad selfie, and soaked it all in one last time. And then I walked out the door and said goodbye.

July 30th, 2019

My brother Max is one of my favorite people on the planet. On this night, we went out together to attend a John Mayer concert at a big stadium, after munching hot dogs in front of Union station. We’ve both loved JM for many, many years, through many, many missteps and weird musical choices. He’s still, I think, one of the best songwriters in the biz.

After the concert, Max insisted on walking me home, because he’s a good brother and a good pal. We encountered a bike taxi that was blasting Michael Bublé’s “Haven’t Met You Yet,” a song we love, and we started walking faster to try to keep up with it, all while singing along with the song at top volume. No alcohol had been consumed but we were still sort of high from a night of good music and good company.

We snapped this selfie in the middle of downtown Toronto at an hour when I would’ve been too freaked out to be there if I was by myself. It’s my fave selfie of me and Max from the whole year ’cause we both look so happy and silly. He’s my best bruddy and I’ll love him forever!

September 21st, 2019

There was a Bi Arts Festival going on and I invited my friend and roommate Sarah to attend the arts and crafts fair portion with me, because that kind of event is extremely our shit. We walked all around the ballroom of the 519 community centre, cooing at handmade leather kinkwear, embroidered patches, enamel pins, queer-as-fuck paintings, and other masterworks. I spent far too much money on gifts for various bi babes in my life.

Afterward, we wandered through the Village back toward the subway and happened upon this very queer wall mural; I’ve walked past it a zillion times but I don’t think I’d ever taken a selfie in front of it! So we took some happy smiley femme pics in front of all these powerful symbols of queer history and queer causes.

I feel really grateful to live in a city where there are such vibrant queer communities – and I’m also super grateful to have pals who make me feel free to be myself. 💖

October 14th, 2019

My friend Bex did something really difficult and meaningful this year: he got top surgery!

He asked me to be with him on the big day (what an honor) so I flew down from Toronto and we left at Extremely Early Morning O’Clock to meet up with Bex’s dad at NYU Tisch hospital. (Much coffee was drank that day. By me, I mean. Bex doesn’t like coffee and also probably would’ve been too nervous to drink it even if he did!)

This selfie was taken on the subway on our way downtown, and the excitement is palpable! Later, after surgery, a hospital employee who was wheeling Bex’s gurney into a different room looked at our happy faces and asked, “You were getting a good surgery, right?” We nodded. Yes, very good.

It’s been a pleasure to watch Bex grow and change as a person over the 4+ years we’ve known each other, and I’m honored to have him as a friend (and a podcast cohost). Here’s to lots more years of friendship and growing up together!

 

What were your fave selfies of the year and why were they so meaningful?