Monthly Faves: Gush, Good Guys, & Gold Glitter

April was a bit of a tumultuous month – I got my PayPal account shut down for being a sex writer and had to reshuffle a bunch of career stuff as a result – but I think I managed to salvage it, for the most part! Here’s some of the sexy/sensual/smart stuff I liked this month…

Sex toys

Rock Candy sent me an 8-inch blue dildo that is just a glorious hunk o’ silicone. I requested it for pegging purposes, because my Ambit is feeling a little too small these days, but the Rock Candy Suga Daddy (what a name) is probably too big for my partner to take unless we’re in the mood for a lot of warm-up. I really like it for vaginal use, though! It’s girthy but not ridiculously so, long enough to hit my A-spot, and partway between realistic and whimsical. Perf.

• I snapped up a glittery gold April Fool’s Day version of Funkit Toys’ NoFrillDo X, fully expecting to enjoy it more for its aesthetic charms than its tactile ones, but actually, it’s delightful on both axes! The silicone is firm, the length is sufficient for A-spotting, and the ripply ridges are lovely. Yay!

• Another dildo? Yep! Still enamored with the VixSkin Bandit. The dimensions are perfect for me, and my partner likes that he can easily change the angle of penetration by varying how he holds the toy.

Fantasy fodder

• My Sir and I watched GUSH, a film by my pal Kate Sinclaire, together over the phone this month. It depicts a cis man squirting – not ejaculating in the usual sense, but something more akin to vaginal ejaculation, only from a penis – and it’s amazing. It made me think a lot about how gender is a construct and you can play with androgynous energy in all sorts of fun ways during sex.

• I got an email from male companion Madison James about a hypno audio track he made (his voice is very good, wow), and it got me thinking about wanting to do a roleplay with my Sir where he plays a sex worker and I’m the client. Sex as a service has been a big fantasy of mine for many years so this makes sense. Maybe one day we’ll pick a swanky hotel bar and do the thing.

• This month I fucked my lovely FWB for the first time in a while and I found myself thinking a lot afterward about how good he smells… and also how hard he works to make me feel good… I’ve only had two sexual partners over the past 14 months and that feels jarring to me, as a former major slut, but they’re both so excellent that who even cares?

Sexcetera

• I’m pleased to announce that my new newsletter, Sub Missives, is live! It’s a place for writing that’s more vulnerable and personal than I would typically get into here. The first edition, about phone sex and mental health, is free, but subsequent editions (including one about service submission and an upcoming one about polyamory and introversion) can be accessed by paying $5/month or $50/year. I hope you’ll sign up if you want more of my words!

• Sextistics: this month I had phone sex 21 times and in-person sex 17 times, totalling 38 sessions in all, making this my most sexually active month of the year so far.

Femme stuff

• I got my first Brazilian wax this month. I grew out my pubes for about three and a half weeks beforehand, which is the longest I’ve ever gone without shaving them, and then a nice lady ripped them out of me. It was painful, but not as bad as I thought it was gonna be, and I loved the results. Still debating whether needing to grow out the hair in between waxes is worth it to me for the thrillingly bare outcome (and high price tag).

• My velvet obsession continues: I bought a pale pink velvet slip from H&M and fell in love with its ethereal vibes. I wore it to my birthday drinks get-together with a grey cardigan, a blue sparkly heart necklace, black boots, and a smoky eye.

• My boy Paul at Avalon Hair Design darkened up my hair again and made me feel like a queen, as always. Thanks, Paul!

Media

• I read Laurie Essig’s book Love, Inc. after acquiring it through the magical media portal that is NetGalley, and it kind of blew my mind. Essig argues in it that the ideology of romance is distracting us and giving us false optimism at a time in human history when we really need to focus on bigger, more pressing issues (like that whole climate change thing, not to mention fascism and late-stage capitalism). While this book didn’t quite convince me to give up my idealistic romanticism, it did remind me to look at romantic myths critically and to pay more attention to the world outside my window instead of getting caught up in insular relationships.

• If you’re interested in the restaurant/bar business, you’ve gotta watch episode 2 of 7 Days Out on Netflix! It’s a short documentary about Eleven Madison Park, a fancy-as-fuck restaurant in New York. This piece of cinematic mastery is a devastatingly well-edited and often hilarious story of hard work, setbacks, passion, and obsession. Would recommend!

• My brother’s band Goodbye Honolulu has a new single out called U Got It and it’s a bop!

Little things

Exciting career developments. The great turquoise wall in my neighborhood that makes for the best selfies. Getting my friend high for his first time ever. Big diner breakfasts while I work. Our new relationship check-in questions, which Matt came up with after doing a bunch of research on relationship health (what a nerd). Surprisingly okay margaritas at cheap bars. Making plans to move in with a friend! Massively culling my wardrobe to prepare for the move. Having a decent pain tolerance. Satisfyingly organized suitcases. Being interviewed by smart folks. The new Pride Converse line. Dramatic readings of Passover poems. Hanging out with my brilliant cousin and his wife and son. Espresso at Café Olimpico. Dining in the dark at O’Noir. Montreal bagels. Riding a giant Ferris wheel with a bunch of iOS nerds. Discussing sex robots and Japanese dating culture at a fancy banquet. “I’m not a trusting man…” Oysters and champagne. Morning sex.

Monthly Faves: Steel Wands & Sweet Words

Hope you had a pleasantly scary Halloween! Here are some things I enjoyed in October…

Sex toys

• We-Vibe sent me their Anniversary Collection and I adore it. It contains updated (and sparkly!) versions of two of their best vibes, the Tango and the Sync. The included case works for both storage and charging, and makes this duo super travel-friendly – always an important consideration for someone in a long-distance relationship like me.

• I’ve owned my Njoy Pure Wand for years but it deserves just as much revere now as it did when I first bought it. Truly, if you like intense G-spot or prostate stimulation, there is nothing better. Also, adorably, my partner bought his own recently, so sometimes we each separately use ours while having phone sex. Aww.

• Speaking of Njoy: I feel like I mention the Eleven every five seconds on this blog, but like… seeeeriously… it is quite good. It’s also integral to the story of how my Sir and I met (our first contact of any kind was him tweeting a link to my own Eleven review at me) so it’s, um, very romantic when he pounds me with it.

Fantasy fodder

• At one point this month, my partner – an actual living kink genius – sent me the following text: “What if the We-Vibe Anniversary Collection was actually sent to you as a medical device to treat your obvious hysteria symptoms, and you have to call in and speak to a doctor over the phone who can supervise your treatment by controlling the device and monitoring your progress?” We did a “hysteria hotline” roleplay over the phone that night – not a new thing for us, but the inclusion of the remotely controllable We-Vibe Sync was a new element of it – and it was so hottttt, helpppp.

• My monthly writing assignment for my Sir involved making some recommendations of porn and erotica for him, and one of my selections was Sherlock fanfiction story where John has a hypnosis kink and Sherlock takes it upon himself to play with this newfound knowledge. I have a long-standing weakness for subby-John/dommy-Sherlock stories, and this one paints a particularly excellent picture of what trance feels like and why it can be so hot.

• Still giggling over this story: in a cab ride back from a Halloween party, I told my Sir I desperately had to pee, and he (jokingly?) suggested we do a watersports scene upon arriving back at our hotel. I told him he wouldn’t be able to get all his clothes off fast enough to account for the urgency of the situation, and he was basically like, “Try me.” Once we were in our room, he shed his clothes faster than I’ve ever seen him do it, and laid down in the shower for me before I was even half out of my dress. While my emotions in the moment were a mix of anguish and amusement, in retrospect it was a surprisingly hot experience; unbridled enthusiasm from a sexual partner often is.

Sexcetera

• Some of my work elsewhere this month: I read my review of the teddy bear vibrator at the Bed Post variety show. I reviewed my favorite band’s new album, while meditating on depression, toxic masculinity, and men’s inner lives. (Please check out the album; it’s divine.) On our podcast, Bex and I discussed sex education, roleplay, polyamory myths, and fear play, and I interviewed my pal Dick Wound about knives, death, sweat, and all kinds of weird shit.

• Excited to announce I’ll be teaching/speaking/reading at this year’s Naked Heart festival! It’s coming up soon; grab your pass online, or you can get tickets to individual sessions at the door.

• Hey, thanks for the outpouring of love when my Sir decided to come out as my Sir! We were both thrilled and relieved that the reaction was so positive. Taking this risk together made me feel even more in love with him and even safer in this wonderful relationship, which was already one of the best ones I’ve ever been in.

Femme stuff

• I got my legs waxed for the first time this month! Actually, it was my first time getting anything waxed. My technician asked me if I had a decent pain tolerance, and I was like, “Uhhh… Yeah.” It wasn’t too bad at all, and I had silky-smooth legs for a little while. Would do again!

• If you’re in the centre of the Venn diagram composed of “people who like spooky things” and “people who live in Toronto or are familiar with historical Toronto landmarks,” you probably need this “Honest Dead’s” shirt. Every time I wear it (in Toronto, at least), I inevitably get asked multiple times where it’s from.

• As I told you on Monday, I have a new collar! I want to give an extra shout-out to Tal at L’Amour-Propre for being so accommodating of our special request vis-à-vis material. Tal is the actual best and I highly recommend their products!

Media

Pinegrove’s new album Skylight is gorgeous (with caveats about the lead singer’s problematic behavior). The refrain of the title track – “Whatever you’re feeling is alright… Whatever you’re feeling is natural” – felt particularly needed.

• I read a lot of books this month, and their common theme seemed to be “shitty men interfering with brilliant women.” Sigh. What else is new. All of them were good, though: The Wife is about a woman who decides to stop giving her husband a free pass to be terrible after decades of marriage; The Real Lolita is the tale of the pedophilic kidnapping that supposedly inspired Nabokov’s masterpiece; Our Kind of Cruelty is about an obsessive love that turns into a sick delusion; and Gone Girl is about… well, if you’ve never heard of Gone Girl, you should really watch the movie and/or read the book, stat.

• My Sir recommended we watch some of James Acaster’s comedy specials together this month and we loved them. What a strange man with a strange sense of humor.

Little things

Eating chicken noodle soup while paging through The Science of Orgasm. Getting slightly better at rejecting creeps when necessary. Interviews with articulate, generous kinksters. Thigh bruises from sweet and loving impact scenes with my Sir over the phone. Seeing Dick get a lap dance at a sex club (OMG) and then hanging out in a hot tub with Lav. When autocorrect knows me too well. Max telling me stories from touring with his band (“I don’t feel too good…”). Kissing Sir in between songs at a Hippo Campus concert and keeping my hand in his hoodie pocket. Knowing he still loves me even though he made me laugh while I was eating a French fry and standing over him so I accidentally spat some potato onto his jeans (“CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, little one!!”). Autumn daiquiris. A literally perfect truffle risotto at the NoMad (and also truffle mac and cheese the night before; give me all the truffles). Boys in bowties. Phrenology skulls (the best creepy decor!). Watching horror movies with my family. Attending a Halloween party with some of my favorite goofs. Feeling like part of a community.