Super Sleepy

Protocol Diaries: The Airport Pickup

Kate Sloan

Protocol – that is to say, agreed-upon routines and traditions – has been important to me in several of my kink-tinged relationships, but has become especially so in my current long-distance relationship. It often feels like the glue that holds us together when we’re apart, the fuel that helps us power through our long absences from each other’s physical lives.

I am a person who enjoys routines and traditions more generally, as well. I love that my mom makes the same nostalgic dishes on Christmas every year; I love watching fireworks in the park on annual holidays; I love kicking my writer-brain into gear with the same familiar coffee and muffin at the start of every deadline day. These repeated actions lend some structure and purpose to my life, giving me something exciting to look forward to and something comforting to reflect on. So of course I feel that way in my relationships too.

When Matt first started coming to Toronto to visit me, I would always wait dutifully for them at my apartment until they arrived in an Uber. As they neared my building, I would come downstairs and stand outside, glancing nervously at their location on the live map on my phone every few seconds, until they rolled up, got out, and kissed me, suitcase in tow.

But at a certain point, I just couldn’t wait around anymore. Finishing my work early and pacing around my apartment in anticipation often left me feeling agitated and powerless. When you miss someone as much as I always miss Matt, you want to see them as soon as you possibly can. And the soonest I can conceivably see Matt, when they come to visit, is in the arrivals area of the airport.

It gives us the chance to be almost cinematically romantic. The dramatic full-hearted kiss at the airport is such an iconic scene; I can’t help but smile when I see couples reuniting in this way. I notice people smiling at us when we do it, too, as if we’ve reminded them that wholesome true love still exists (though, in private, we’re not exactly wholesome).

At this point you might be wondering, “Kate, why are you calling this a ‘protocol’ like it’s a kink thing, when it’s actually just a romantic tradition?” Fair point, my astute friend. There are three elements that make this activity kinky. First of all, Matt always specifies in advance a particular item I should have ready for them when they arrive, like coffee, candy, or gum. Secondly, sometimes there is some secret sexiness going on under my clothes, in the form of lingerie, a butt plug, or an insertable vibrator I’ve been ordered to wear. And thirdly, anything can be kinky when viewed through a kinky lens. Every time I show up to greet my beloved at the airport, I think of it as not only a romantic gesture but an act of service I am doing for them as their submissive.

I’ve repeated this tradition so many times that my body has started to recognize it at almost a cellular level. When I walk to the subway station, get on the train, and then get onto the airport-bound bus at Kipling station, my brain and guts both know exactly what’s about to happen, and the excitement builds in my belly like the good kind of pre-show jitters. Even though Matt and I have been dating for nearly two years, I still get just as excited to see them in person as I did for our first few dates, and I think this ritual is part of the reason why; it creates a Pavlovian response that puts me into an eager, enthusiastic brainspace, receptive to love and affection.

By the time we get into an Uber that’ll take us back to my apartment, and I lean my head on Matt’s shoulder, I’ve been through an entire emotional journey. This process elevates the mundane aggravation of a long-distance relationship into something almost ceremonial. Love is worth celebrating and getting excited about, and this is one small way I’ve found to do that.

The Joys of Distraction Play (or: I Wrote This While Getting My Clit Sucked)

Kate Sloan

Author’s note: As the title of this post implies, I wrote it while having sex, so in a way, reading this post is entering into a “scene” with me. I wanted you to know that upfront so you can make your own decision about whether or not you want to keep reading.

 

My Sir is the perfect partner for a sex blogger. Here’s one of the ways I know: we were having a conversation recently about the genre of activities we call “distraction play” – people getting deliberately distracted by sexual stimulation while they try to do a non-sexual task – and Sir said, “Why don’t you write a blog post on that topic… while I’m distracting you with my mouth?”

This wouldn’t be our first foray into this particular kink. In the epic sexting sessions of our early relationship, both of us fetishized the idea of me blowing them while they took a business call (dating the owner of a company is hot). Our first time actually trying something like this, they sat in a chair in our room at the James Hotel and read aloud to me from Kinky Trifles while I knelt in front of them and sucked their cock. It was hot to hear them stumble on their words while they were deep in my throat; I liked reducing my normally smooth, golden-voiced partner to a stuttery mess.

This type of kink scene has interested me for years. My first memory of encountering it was the launch of “Hysterical Literature,” a viral video series in which performers read aloud from favorite books while being stimulated by an unseen vibrator. I was immediately entranced and wanted to try this type of kink play from both the bottom and the top. I recall fantasizing about going down on a musically talented beau while he tried to play the piano, and imagining he’d turn the tables on me and finger me with escalating fervor while I tried to play the ukulele. I liked that these kinky games essentially fetishized competence, a thing I already fetishize: the sensation-receiver has to be exceptionally good at the task they’re trying to complete, and the sensation-giver has to be exceptionally good at distracting them. It’s a perverted battle of wits and will. What could be hotter than that?

This type of scene, at least in fantasy and porn, often involves non-consenting third parties: the clients on the other end of a blowjobby business call, for example, or the audience members listening to a piano performance that skips and sputters to the rhythm of a veiled handjob. That element never appealed to me about it, but then, risk and danger have historically destroyed my arousal like a bucket of ice water being tossed over me. I was never the type to enjoy the thought that someone could walk in on me during sex at any time or that I’d be “caught in the act.” I likewise don’t want any uninvolved observers to get grossed out when they realize what’s going on; I’d rather my distraction play be a private one-on-one game, or, at most, that it take place at a small party where everyone present knows what to expect and is excited about it. (God, can you imagine attending an intimate concert at someone’s home, knowing their partner would be sucking them off while they played?!)

A problem with this type of scene, of course, is that you’re doing everything by half-measures. You can’t fully enjoy the pleasure you’re receiving, nor can you fully immerse yourself in the task you’re doing. It’s a wonder this blog post is at all coherent, in fact, given that my partner’s wet lips have been methodically stroking my clit the entire time I’ve been typing this. For this reason, I wouldn’t want “distraction play” to be a regular part of my sex life, because I like to focus on sex as much as possible when it’s happening – but it’s fun to mix things up once in a while with silly, experimental games like this. Seeing your partner in new and different situations is always a hoot, because you get to see as-yet-unexplored parts of their personality or even their sexuality, and this is a great example of that.

Would I ever actually have an orgasm from this type of scene? Probably not – I’m a tough nut to crack, climax-wise, and need to be pretty focused if I’m going to get off. But in fantasies anyway, an orgasm always seems to me like the ideal finale to this type of scene. There’s something unimaginably hot, for example, about the idea of someone’s cock trembling in my mouth, squirting cum down my throat, while their body writhes, their breath catches, and… they finish the sentence they were reading. I always like feeling someone orgasm in my mouth, but I think I would like it even more if I knew my tongue and lips felt so good that they came hard even while scatterbrained and multitasking. A hard-won climax, after all, is sometimes the best and most intense kind.

 

Have you ever done a “distraction play” scene? How did it go?

How They Fuck Me

Kate Sloan

Gender is a sex toy. That’s not all it is, but it can be that.

I remember the first person I dated telling me they’d always been gender-weird and sort of wished they’d been born a boy. I remember their backwards baseball caps and baggy cargo shorts and strong, angular fingers. I remember my heart swelling, like a classical music sting in an overwrought rom-com, every time their boyness pressed up against their girlness. They could be flirtatious and dapper and charming, and none of these things felt gendered to me, or if they did, they felt multi-gendered, a prismatic rainbow of light they cast all around them. We both referred to them then as my “girlfriend” but that word seemed inadequate and small next to the bursting gradient I felt them to be.

In the coming years, several friends and partners came out to me as trans or non-binary, and each time, it felt like a shimmering gift. The trust they placed in me was so powerful, so surprising. I took it seriously. I did research, and asked questions, and said thank you.

And sometimes one of the questions was “How would you like me to affirm your gender during sex?” and sometimes the answers were very, very hot.

I remember my high-school FWB’s admission that they thought they were genderqueer, or genderfluid, or trans. We spent hours on a baby names website together, scrolling through androgynous names, until we found one that fit. They tried it on like a suit jacket and I saw them glow when I used it. That made me glow too.

I took them shopping for smart vests and vintage ties. Thus kitted out, they looked – and looked like they felt – handsome and whole.

The way they fucked me changed. Their approach became more confident, their touch more sure. One day after school, they had me pinned against my front door, hands roaming all over me; I said, nervous about curfews, “Maybe you should get going soon,” and they deadpanned, “Or I could have sex with you.” I felt the shivers of gender euphoria-by-proxy; we felt more aligned with each other now that they were more aligned with themselves. I tugged on their tie and they smiled like a wolf.

There have been other flitting hints of gender variance throughout my love stories, sometimes overt, sometimes covert. There was the high school boyfriend who tried on my red lacy bra and panties on a dare at a party, and loved how he looked in them so much that I bought him a bra for Christmas (to the chagrin and mystification of my mom, who accompanied me to the mall). There was the college boyfriend who told me he’d feel just as at peace in his gender if he’d been born a girl. There was the beardy beau who scoffed at my admission that I’m attracted mostly to masculinity; “I’m not very masculine,” he said, and I saw him suddenly through new eyes. Almost everyone I’ve ever loved, or passionately liked, has stepped outside their appointed gender box in some way. It’s my privilege to have seen these people how they hopefully wanted to be seen. I’m always searching for ways to do that better.

When Matt first told me they were questioning their gender, we were sitting in an ornate, empty bar in Montreal, cocktails in hand. “I’ve been having some… gender feelings lately,” they said, “like really enjoying it when you call me feminine words.” This hadn’t been purposeful on my part – I calls ’em like I see ’em, and what I always saw when I looked at my partner was a person who at once embodied handsomeness and prettiness, beauty that transcended gender lines. We’d played before with dressing them up in my clothes, adorning them with lipstick and eyeliner, for scenes that then portended only power exchange and not a shift in identity. This revelation wasn’t a surprise; it hit me in the gut with a thump of Oh. Okay. Of course.

“What resources do you think I should look at?” they asked next, and I recommended My New Gender Workbook, Kate Bornstein’s seminal text, which I’ve gifted to many a gender-curious friend. I can’t advise directly on these issues but the other Kate can, and I trust her to. She did.

It was a few weeks later that Matt breathed into the phone late at night, “I think I’m non-binary.” A few weeks after that, we went shopping – first for eyeliner and lipstick, then for shirts and bags – and I very nearly cried each time they emerged from a fitting room in something sweetly feminine or starkly androgynous. I couldn’t, and can’t, fathom such bravery. Every coming-out is a feat and a blessing.

The next night, we got sloshed at a Toronto tiki bar, and they asked me, voice shaking, if I had any reservations about dating a gender-weird person long-term. If perhaps I had envisioned a more binaristic trajectory for my life story. I wiped tears from my eyes at the very thought that anyone would reject such a gorgeous, wonderful person for something as unobtrusive as their gender. I told them I love them and that’s what matters. When you love someone this deeply, the fleeting states of what they are never seem as important as who they are, that seed at the center of their heart that stays the same even as the outside changes. Gender variance never scared me away from someone whose hand I wanted to hold. They could still hold my hand, as we walked through life together.

Once again, I saw gender confidence translate into sexual confidence. When my beloved murmured at night, “Daddy’s gonna slide their cock so deep inside you,” or “Do you like it when daddy makes you come in their mouth?” nothing felt different, and yet it all felt even better. When they kissed me roughly until our lipsticks mingled together, or let me put their eyeliner on them before they put my collar on me, I felt assured again and again that nothing had been lost. My Sir, my daddy, my partner, is still all of those things. They simply embody those roles now with truer self-expression and more gender-fuckery – two things that have never scared me and have always pulled me closer to people, wanting to bask in their bold beauty.

Love and lust can take many forms and can flow in many directions. I feel lucky every day to be with someone I love this much – no matter what or who they are, what I call them, what they wear, or how they fuck me.

Protocol Diaries: Love Letters

Kate Sloan

“Dear Matt: It’s hard to know what to write to you in a love letter because we are already so forthcoming about our feelings. A letter of this genre should be juicy, revealing, exciting, and you already know the juiciest thing I could tell you, which is that I’m extremely, embarrassingly, unchill-ly in love with you and have been for a while.” -April 1st 2018

When Matt came to visit me in Toronto for the first time, 3 months into our sparkly new long-distance relationship, he brought me a present: a little blue Moleskine notebook and matching pen. Tools for my favorite vocation, in my favorite color. I glowed from the romance of it.

Once we’d spent a lovely weekend together and he’d flown back to New York, I began pondering what to do with this adorable notebook. In discussing this via text, one of us mentioned something about love letters, and the other said, “I was thinking that too!” And so began one of our many romantic traditions.

“I love you, Kate Sloan. Come fly with me. Be my co-pilot as we chart new adventures together. The plane I’m in is about to land, but six months in, I still feel like our journey together is just beginning. Yours with love, Matt.” -June 22nd 2018

We each hand off the notebook to the other every time we see each other in person. We jettison it back and forth between Toronto and New York (and, on unique occasions, Boston, Alexandria, and Montreal). Each time we say goodbye, the person who now possesses the notebook writes a love letter for the other. Then, when we’re together again, Matt reads the new letter aloud to me, whether he wrote it or I did. Typically, there is cuddling and crying. And then we go out for dinner.

“Dear Matt: You know this already, but let me reiterate how happy it makes me that you are coming out as my partner this week. It makes me feel so loved, I feel like my heart is going to overflow and explode. It makes me feel like I’m really a part of your life, and like you want me to be.” -October 19th 2018

I dutifully copy each of Matt’s letters into my own notebook, so I’ll have them to review even when our tome of love letters is in a different country from me. They remind me, at difficult times, that I am loved and appreciated. I am a verbally-minded person who absorbs information best when it comes in the form of articulate words, and so these letters are one of my best tools for combating the “Does he really love me?” shadows that come creeping in. Of course he does. It’s right there in black and white. (Or blue and cream, as the case may be.)

“Don’t be afraid that you or your feelings are too much for me. Their muchness has helped me get in touch with my own in a more authentic way than I have in a while. Your transparency and empathy as a partner are striking and rare. I treasure you, your tears, and the sense of relief that comes when we’ve said our deepest truths to one another.” -November 9th 2018

The practice of writing love letters – a new one every other month or so – is an exercise in mindfulness and being present. I have to dig deep in my heart and ask myself honestly: What do I love about this person, and how can I express it to him well enough that he will deeply, truly understand?

It’s so easy, in long-term relationships, to stop complimenting each other on the qualities and behaviors you love, because you’ve loved them for so long that it seems unnecessary to point them out further. But, as Matt once told me, some things bear repeating in relationships. “I love you” is one of those things. I want to say it as much as I can, in as many ways as possible.

“You’re serious about me, and I’m serious about you too. I want to be with you for more years, more laughs, more trips, more late-night phone calls, more milestones, more orgasms, more kisses, more everything I can experience with you. I want to work hard to make this last and to make it good. That’s what I mean when I say I’m serious about you, Sir.” -December 11th 2018

I also appreciate our little notebook as a record of our budding romance – the way it has bloomed, deepened, and aged. For all my past relationships, I only have my own journal entries to refer to if I want to remind myself how each romance felt. For this one, I have direct windows into the people we each were when we were newly in love. Our limerence leaps off the page, and re-reading our letters always reinvigorates me, like: Oh yeah. I can feel like that. That’s amazing.

“Even at times when you feel sick, anxious, depressed, or exhausted, I want you to know that I’m happy I’m with you. I love taking care of you, holding you, figuring out ways to help you smile, relax, and feel safe again. I’m here for you through all of that, little one, and I want to be. I’m not going anywhere.” -December 28th 2018

We’re about halfway through the notebook now, more than a year into this tradition. I hope we keep it up until the book is filled, and beyond. I hope we can remember, even on days when our connection may be strained or the distance may be hard, that the most basic and important thing you can do in a romantic relationship is to love your partner and to make sure they know that you do.

No matter how many different ways I say it, no matter how many letters I write, no matter how much time passes or how many miles we are apart, one thing remains true: I love Matt and I want him to know it.

Intimate Intercourse: Dating a Sex Writer (Part 3)

Kate Sloan

Hello again! Welcome back to Intimate Intercourse, a series where I interview my boyfriend/Sir/daddy, who goes by Super Sleepy Dude, about various topics related to sex and kink. This week we’re discussing hypnokink! This is the final part of a 3-part interview; you can read part 1 here and part 2 here. In this instalment, we discuss the upsides and downsides of dating a sex writer, and his advice for anyone considering it.

KS: What are some of the things about dating a sex writer that are hard or weird?

SS: Okay, this answer is sort of like answering the “What is your biggest weakness?” job interview question, because it’s a problem that isn’t really a problem, but – if you’re dating a sex blogger that’s reviewed a lot of toys, and they have, like, 200, 300 sex toys, deciding what toy to use is actually kind of hard! There’s a lot of choices. There’s a lot of things to fuck you with, a lot of things to hit you with, and also stuff you haven’t reviewed yet that you might wanna use, even if you don’t like it or know you might not like it, because you have to. So that decision is a very frequent decision that I have to make, especially ‘cause I’m your dominant, and also there’s so many options. It’s a “paradox of choice” type of thing sometimes.

KS: [giggling] We mostly stay within a relatively small group of things, because it makes it easier to make those decisions.

SS: Exactly. I don’t have to, like, go pull up your toybox page every time we have phone sex, to be like, “Okay, let’s see here…”

KS: But I do think, like, I say a relatively small group but it actually isn’t that small, all things considered.

SS: No. It’s bigger than most people’s entire collection!

KS: Right. And you have an impressive grasp of not only the toys that I have but also kind of the function of each one and when it would be right for any particular moment, which I find really impressive.

SS: Yeah. What else is hard about it? There’s a difficult-to-ignore extra layer of minor anxiety about something going wrong. Stuff goes wrong in sex all the time – you’re tired, there’s boner issues, there’s whatever – and there’s a part of me that’s like, “I don’t really want to fuck this up.” But it’s not rational. I don’t think you’re trying to write about a particular person’s one-off boner issue. That’s not interesting.

KS: No.

SS: So I don’t know. It’s just a thing. I don’t know, is there anything else that I’ve said was hard in the past, or that you think makes it hard for you, as a sex blogger, to date people?

KS: I mean, it pisses us off when people try to involve themselves…

SS: Oh, yeah, it really does. When people are sort of trying to insert themselves or make non-complimentary comments about us, that is kind of rough.

KS: The problem with that is that, yes, I’m a sex writer, yes, part of my skillset is making private, intimate experiences palatable and comprehensible for outsiders, but inherently, I’m not writing about every detail of everything that happens, and my readers don’t have all the context of our relationship because they aren’t in it, and so you can’t assume that you know everything about somebody just because they write about their sex life. And likewise, you can’t assume they’re going to be willing to open up about everything. We’ve had people ask us really inappropriate questions and just be gross about it, and it’s like, “Guys. Just be chill.”

SS: How do you feel about the thing where people say, like, “I love him,” or “I’m so into your partner,” or whatever?

KS: I mean, I am only made uncomfortable by it to the extent that you are – except when people are, like, hitting on you, which is kind of rude, to me.

SS: Yeah, it is kind of weird. I’m very flirty, so it doesn’t usually register as weird to me; it usually registers as like, “Oh, yeah. Okay, cool.” But sometimes it crosses that line.

KS: I just get very protective and very, almost like, “mama lion energy” around that, because I feel this sense of responsibility for what happens to you in my spaces, because I brought you into this…

SS: Totally. That makes complete sense.

KS: Yeah, I’m just like, please stop. Because my worry – not just with you, but with past partners when this has happened also – is that someone will experience too much of that and will decide it’s too much and will have to end the relationship. So that’s always kind of where my mind goes.

SS: Oh, how has that happened?

KS: None of my other partners have really been out as my partner who weren’t in the sex industry already, but if I wrote something about someone that was very flattering or complimentary and people were saying gross, objectifying things about the person based on that, then I would try to keep those people from seeing those comments sometimes, or just try to protect them from that, because I didn’t want them to feel like dating me was a liability.

SS: Yeah. Makes sense.

KS: Yeah. What are some of the best or most fun things about dating a sex writer?

SS: Seeing yourself from another angle, especially an angle of somebody who’s really into you or in love with you, is a gigantic self-confidence boost. I’d recommend it to anyone! Even if it’s private, even if you can just get your partner to write a thing that is never published that they can share with you, or vice-versa, I think it’s great. Hell of a drug! What else? Being able to meet tons of other people in this industry, that I really enjoy their work and think they’re making a big difference in terms of sex-positivity and stuff, is really cool.

KS: Were you starstruck when you met Epiphora and Lilly?

SS: Yeaaaah. A little bit.

KS: [laughing]

SS: Also, getting to see you do your thing. I’ve been in relationships with people where I can’t see them doing their work and being really competent at the thing, and that is a huge turn-on, I think, for both of us, so being able to watch you do panels and listen to your podcast and read your writing, being able to consume all of that competence is also great. And the toys. Yeah. Yes.

KS: Yeah, it is a fun perk that I am able to acquire toys for you to use and for us to review.

SS: Yeah.

KS: And I appreciate that you take that task so seriously, ‘cause I’ve had partners in the past who just sort of would give me very vague, brief thoughts on the toy, and I would always be like, “Hey, I need more than that.” So you’re a good partner for me in that respect as well.

SS: Mhm.

KS: One more thing… What would you tell someone who was thinking about dating a sex writer but was kind of unsure about it or scared about it?

SS: A couple things. The first thing is, I think that a lot of people who’d be thinking about dating a sex writer are thinking about dating a sex writer’s public persona. They don’t actually know that person… yet. So, don’t assume that they’re gonna be having sex all the time, or that they’ll be exactly who they are in their sex writing. That’s just one side of them.

KS: Yeah, I’m frequently depressed or giggly. I’m not always a Sex Person.

SS: [laughing] Yes. And then, maybe you’re flirting with that person or you’ve met them at an event or whatever, and you think it’s more of a real possibility, not just a thing that you’re fantasizing about, like, you might actually get to go on a date with them – don’t make it entirely about that, either. If I was a sex writer, I wouldn’t want to be dated for my job, or for the clout or whatever. I’d want to be dated for who I am. So it’s just, again, it’s just one facet of this person’s life. And for some people, it’s just a job, it’s just an income source. So, be aware of that. And then, the last thing I would say is, think past just the next week or the next month about whether you are okay being public. Don’t be like, “Oh, that’s a problem for later,” or, “I don’t have to worry about that,” because if you can’t [be public], you really need to be upfront that it’s not going to happen. And if you think it’s a possibility, discuss that with the person that you’re dating as you’re working through that process. I would say that if you have worries about coming out and you want to talk about it ever, DM me, because I could talk about that forever. And I will try to convince you to do it.

KS: [giggling] That’s so cute. You’re an evangelist.

SS: Yeah.

KS: Okay. Thank you, I love you, I’m very glad we’re dating.

SS: I love you too, little one. You’re a very good sex blogger and I am glad we’re dating.