the l word

Monthly Faves: Sword Cocks & Pink Sparkles

Kate Sloan

Nope, I’m not April-foolin’ you… Here are the sexy things I enjoyed in March!

Sex toys

• A trip away from home with less-than-satisfactory vibes left me appreciating my Eroscillator Top Deluxe and Magic Wand Rechargeable even more than usual. There are reasons they’re my near-constant go-to’s: their vibrations are rumbly, they’re intuitively designed, and I never want to throw them across the room mid-session for making me numb and keeping me from getting off. *cough*

• I used my good old NobEssence Seduction dildo a couple times this month, and damn, it’s still an out-of-this-world G-spot stimulator. I’ve also noticed that if I’m turned on enough, using enough lube, and angling it just right, it can graze my A-spot the tiniest bit. Neat!

• SheVibe sent me something new and weird: Blush Novelties’ Drago “sword” handle and a couple of lock-on dildos to go with it. Essentially it enables you to feel like you’re fucking yourself (or a partner) with a sword, which is certainly somebody’s fantasy! My partner and I tried it once and liked it more than we were expecting to. Full review to come!

Fantasy fodder

• My partner and I have been re-watching The L Word (well, it’s his first time watching it, but my… I dunno, 4th?) and I am struck all over again by how hot Shane, Bette, and Dana are. Almost everyone on that show is hot but those three are the ones I’ve pictured fingerbanging me with their strong arms in my private moments.

• M’dude tried his hand at rope bondage for the first time this month, in a hazy scene that involved me being blindfolded and in trance. It was nice to feel like a vacant-brained doll he could move around to suit his needs. I always forget just how much I love being tied up until it happens…

• Still reminiscing fondly on a blowjob I gave my partner while he was sitting in a gorgeous blue velvet armchair. I’ve been saying for ages that I might have a velvet kink and, uh, yeah, that’s a thing.

Sexcetera

• I’m officially a columnist at Herizons magazine now! The first edition of my “Body Politics” column, which focuses on consent and culture, came out this month. It’s about forgiveness narratives and victim-silencing, and you can check it out digitally or in print.

• I submitted my first-ever Make Love Not Porn scene, so if you’ve ever wanted to watch me get high, jerk off, unexpectedly squirt on the floor, and accidentally knock my computer over, go rent it!

• I had occasion this month to reflect on how transformative it can be to pose for sexy photos taken by someone who thinks you’re hot AF. My love took some cute portraits of me in new lingerie and they made me feel better about my body at a time when I was pretty mad at it.

• Sextistics: this month my partner and I had in-person sex 15 times and phone sex 21 times, totalling 36 sex sessions!

Femme stuff

• I am obsessed afresh with Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower, the bewitching scent I first sampled ages ago because it’s Helena Fitzgerald‘s favorite. It’s somehow both as fresh-scrubbed as a blonde soccer mom at a PTA meeting and as ruthlessly sexy as… that same mom, later, in lingerie she knows’ll make her husband wolf-whistle.

• My new phone case from SupplyBlingsShop is the sparkliest, most over-the-top item I own. It is truly on-brand. They also make a super gay one, if you’re into that.

• I’ve been getting back into a slouchy star-print cardigan I bought in 2013 and wore throughout university. Sometimes it’s nice to wear cozy old favorites and feel like you’re rubbing shoulders with the version of yourself you used to be.

Media

• I read a lot of books this month but one of my faves was Nobody Cares by Anne T. Donahue, a series of confessional essays about everything from social media to alcoholism to anxiety to death. It’s been optioned to become a TV show, so apparently I’m not the only one who loved it!

• The other best book I read this month was High Heel by Summer Brennan. It’s a brilliant meditation on the high-heeled shoe as a microcosm of gender politics.

• The Japanese House – a.k.a. the musical brainchild of androgynous wunderkind Amber Bain – has a new album out, Good At Falling. It’s a stunning reflection on loneliness, told through a bunch of absolute bops.

Little things

Didion and Pinter. Solo date nights in the Distillery. The way new clothes can reignite your sense of sartorial panache. Scribbling in a Moleskine with a Palomino pencil over a hot toddy at a cocktail bar. Wearing powerful lipstick to the airport so as to feel braver. Marathonning Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Bex while high. Good aftercare spreads. Interviewing people I find fascinating, and having them say, “Good question!” Tons of good theatre (Sondheim, [tos], MacIvor). The most beautiful hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Hanging out in a mysterious, exclusive park you need a key to get into. Writing naked in the morning. Scotch and ginger. Kale salad. Loading up on my fave strain. Good doctors. Blue leather. Eating fancy food while super high. Queer Eye. Afternoon naps with an eye mask on. Pictures of your beloved that really capture their beauty.

4 Ways to Bring a Little More Gay Into Your Life

Kate Sloan

As the Pride festival nears, I’m spending a lot of time pondering my queerness. Specifically, where my queerness fits into my life as a person in a “straight” relationship.

Being bisexual has always been a bit of a struggle for me, identity-wise, because ever since I came out I’ve always hated the idea of being mistaken for straight or gay (both of which have happened to me countless times). I wish people would just “read” me as bi, but it rarely seems to happen.

And now that I’ve been dating a man for over two years, and have a gender presentation that’s as cis and femme as ever, it seems my queerness always gets lost in the shuffle. Even in queer spaces, I don’t always feel understood or seen. I’ve gotten booed for kissing my boyfriend at Pride events, I’ve had people try to explain basic LGBTQ concepts to me as if they’d be totally foreign to my mind, I’ve had people give me stares that say “What are you doing here?” It makes me sad.

Bleeding-heart complaints aside, I know that there are other people who feel the way I do – people whose identity straddles some line(s) between hetero and queer, and who feel skewered on that fence. Here are some suggestions for how you can re-access the gay side of yourself, if you’re feeling like you’ve lost it a little bit.

1. Volunteer for an LGBTQ organization. There is surely one in your area, so get Googlin’! I’m using the word “organization” broadly here – you could do fundraising at your local nonprofit, get in contact with school administrators to see if you can help set up GSAs, join the street team for your city’s Pride festival, or even see if your local LGBT yoga group needs help washing mats. It can be enormously nourishing to meet new people from your community and to do good work for that community. (And baby, if you ain’t got no time, maybe you could give some money instead.)

2. Consume queer media. If you do this already, do it more! Some recommendations: books by S. Bear Bergman and Ivan Coyote, porn by Courtney Trouble and Shine Louise Houston, documentaries about the LGBT community, and The L Word in its entirety.

3. Wear a queer talisman. Granted, plenty of LGBT folks think it’s tacky as hell to wear a rainbow bracelet or gay suspenders or what have you. But, honestly, when I’m going into a situation where I absolutely do not want people to mistake me for straight, sometimes it makes me feel a whole lot better to adorn myself in one or two loud-and-queer accessories. My talisman of choice is usually my rainbow wristband – it goes with every outfit!

4. Re-read old journals/blog posts/love letters from when you had your first same-sex crush. Remember how weird that felt? How scared and yet excited you were? Remember all the concerns these new feelings raised for you – how/when/whether to come out, what label(s) fit you best, what it all meant? Those seminal experiences paved your path into a queer identity and (hopefully) community, so they’re worth revisiting if you’re feeling a little cloudy on those topics.

I know there will inevitably be people who want to tell me something like, “Just be who you are! It doesn’t matter whether people think you’re straight or whether you’ve ‘got enough gay in your life.’ Just live your life.” And they’re right, to a certain extent… but hey, queer folks should know better than anyone that sometimes you gotta engage in some self-care in order to feel okay about how people are reacting to you. And this is some of mine.

Photo credit: Sue Maguire.