Kink In Exile

KinkForAll is an unconference and it’s happening today (Sunday the 21st) from 11am to 5pm in the San Francisco Women’s Building. Yes, men a welcome too, and if you come out let me know so I can say hello to you.

I love sex toys of all kinds, but more than anything I love sexy secrets, and games, especially the kind that come in a pretty box with a ribbon. Susie Bright’s I Dare You is certainly pretty. I was lucky enough to get it from Babeland a couple of weeks ago after checking it out in a bookstore.

The elegant red box contains 30 cards each sealed in a little envelop. Each card has a sexy dare on it from sharing fantasies to playing dress up. I haven’t gone through all the cards yet, preferring to save some surprises for a rainy weekend afternoon, but I do have to say while most of the cards I picked were cute and fun, one was distinctly creepy. Maybe it’s all part of the fun, but I call veto power on the CSI reenactment

Over all, the cards keep it playful though. They aren’t trashy, and I haven’t found any so far that require advanced gymnastics skills. They are also gender neutral so anyone can play, though most seemed best suited to only two players.

If you’re looking for something to spice up your evening in, a way to branch out and try something new, or a distinctly adult party game check it out.

I recently saw a flier for a spanking party in my area. Super exciting, right? Well, if you’re me then yes, but the party is put on by people I’ve never heard of. More over they don’t tell you the venue until you purchase tickets, and the tickets aren’t cheap. Granted, I don’t know everyone in the San Francisco BDSM scene, I’m pretty sure knowing everyone is darn near impossible, but I do know a handful of people so it’s just a bit odd that I wouldn’t know the people organizing a party around one of my biggest kinks. So I look through the website, the dress code, the rules and it all seems ok. But I don’t know, I don’t get a good sense of the vibe, I don’t know the people or who else they’d invite. Do I go? I might, I haven’t decided yet. Would you? What do you look for when deciding to attend an event?

Those of you who started reading after 2008 and after the move from my old digital home have occasionally asked how on earth my current local can be considered anything other than a kinky mecca. I’ll grant you, it is certainly not exile, but this blog was started while I was off in the wilds of Southeast Asia — not a very friendly place to be a kinky woman I assure you. I came back, two years ago now, rattled in a lot of ways and determined to stay put for a while. But another trip is starting to form in my head…where can I teach and for how long? Are the visas expensive? Does coffee have a season? Should I take a language class?

I hope that I can spare some time, less time now than before, but some to wander around the wilder part of our planet. I’m going to need this summer when it comes.

Taking a bit of a break from vibrators, rope, sex toys, and my own relationship angst, I’m going to do a book review.

Slave to Love is a collection of erotic short stories edited by Alison Tyler. Specifically, these are kinky stories, this after all being a kinky blog. Alison Tyler writes in her introduction that she aimed to create in readers the same sort of erotic excitement she experienced when reading her first bit of kinky erotic. Tyler’s selection of stories runs the gamut from 24/7 D/s relationships, to fantasy role plays, to professional relationships. However, my personal favorite story is The Real Prize by Mia Underwood. The Real Prize mixes broken heart angst with rules and seductive strangers to create something just a notch saucier than most of the porn I’ve read. You’ll have to get the book to find out more though — wouldn’t want to give anything away now would we

Anyway, if you haven’t read Alison Tyler’s work before, or for that matter if you haven’t picked up a book of erotic literature since the 70s you might be wondering why on earth someone would pay good money for porn when it is freely available on the internet. Two words: copy editing. Actually, even just good old fashioned editing does it for me. See, what I love about picking up a book, is that I know that each story was hand selected by someone with a reputation on the line. Having run the editorial gauntlet, I assume that by the time a trade paperback gets into my greedy little hands terminology, word length, spelling, and theme have all been debated at length. I expect something that is, well, polished, and in Slave to Love Alison Tyler delivers.

Perhaps for the simple reason that I am a girl, I tend to think of sex toys as something for girls. Not so with Babeland’s Orgasm in a Box kit for him. This kit includes a Tenga egg, Sonic Ring kit (vibrating jelly cock ring with bullet vibe) and a couple packets of Babeland’s lube.

I’ll be honest, I got it for the egg. Don’t get me wrong, jelly cock rings are a great way to add something different to intercourse, but I’ve tried those before. Now an egg shaped masturbation sleeve? I have to see this!

I told my boy that I needed to borrow his penis for science, but alas I wasn’t able to find a lab coat in time. None the less I went into the experiment with clipboard in hand — this being science and all

First lesson: put the enclosed packet of lube in the egg, not on the penis. Putting the lube on the penis can be messy, but the egg is this nice self contained device. Actually the whole thing seemed so neat and self-contained that it made me wonder if this wasn’t designed for the busy Japanese man who needs to get off in the back of a cab on his way to a meeting. Japanese business practices aside, my boy reported that while the egg felt good it required a lot less pressure than other masturbation methods and worked best with a twisting rather than an up and down motion. Why? Because the silicon egg is textured on the inside, and this particular egg had little fingers that moved side to side rather than up and down. Too much pressure prevents them from moving with each stroke so you don’t want that. The egg is also reported to transfer heat well, which I am told feels more natural.

Anyway, I loved watching my boy play with this kit…ok, maybe the egg made me fantasize about tentacle rape just a little, but I still highly recommended as a valentines gift for him.

I got an email today from Sextoy.com informing me that someone made a purchase through my affiliate link and I had a commission coming my way. My first thought was “affiliate what now?” You see, I love reviewing sex toys because I love getting to try new sex toys, but no one has ever actually bought something through my affiliate links before. Now this could be because most of the time I don’t bother to add my affiliate code to my links, but you know what, now I might just do that!

Anyway, thank you who ever you were for funding my weekend mocha habit, and I hope you enjoy your new toy!

I was reading Submitting to Her and finding it comforting to hear other people go through the same things I’m currently spinning around in my head. I keep hearing this sentiment — from my boy, from other submissive men talking about their girlfriends, from bloggers — “I want her to be dominant” they write “I’ll do anything to please her.” And recently I’m hearing a lot of “I want to play like this not like that” and you know, I’m frustrated.

I feel like I am asked to play a walk-on part in someone’s fantasy, and yet I’m having a hard time defining dominance outside of those fantasy tropes. It’s not that I didn’t think dominance was work and planning and negotiation before, it’s not even that I’ve not seen it as a collaborative activity, but hearing what essentially boils down to “dominate me like this, not like that, and do it now” is rather shocking. It’s nice that you’re willing to let me train you as my sex slave, but what happens when I don’t wanna?

From my journal, the paper kind:
I thought I had found that elusive service oriented submissive who got off on serving me tea but that person doesn’t really exist. He may exist when you meet him, when you know nothing about each other and only see each other on good days, but after a while he has to go to work and so do you. It’s not his fault, it’s the same way he had to learn that the perfect always commanding domme who never had a headache doesn’t exist.

I didn’t realize until I sat down with a cup of coffee at my local adult coffee shop how disconnected from kink I’d gotten. Work has been tough and life probably even more so. Now I’m struggling with the idea of separating out time for kink. On the one hand I’m amazed by how much more in tune with sex I get just by making time, away from work, to think about kink. On the other, I don’t want to be saddled with a sense of obligation to be kinky.

A friend of mine has this idea about the ebbs and flows kink libido, which I understand as follows: sometimes you every little scrap of leather has you thinking about trying a 24/7 D/s dynamic or at least a hot drawn out week-long scene. And sometimes your boss forgets that you work part time, your graduate adviser thinks you should do a 180 on your thesis by tomorrow and you have 117 new messages in your inbox, which is to say you just can’t be bothered.

But somehow I had the thought earlier today that being dominant is the promise I made in this relationship. Perhaps it was less explicit than others like say “I will tell you if I have sex with someone else before the next time we have sex,” but it’s still in there. Maybe this is obvious to you. To me it was mind boggling. I can’t tell if layering the kink over a relationship makes it more or less strange. I suppose if we were just meeting up to play the real world wouldn’t matter, and yet it seems like play is vitally important in this “real world” relationship.

Anyway, it’s both sensible and challenging. Sensible because I would be rather confused if he stopped being submissive. In fact I can say from past experience that when my boy isn’t in the mood to be submissive I’m hurt regardless of how reasonable his mood may be. Challenging, however, because dominating someone takes a lot of focus and energy for me and right now my energy is just going to other things. Beyond that being dominant just to please someone doesn’t sit well with me. It’s the latex and blow jobs version of BDSM, which is fine in porn and other settings where money is exchanged for attention, but it just isn’t my thing. It’s work even if it isn’t my job in specific.

I have a couple of possible solutions up my sleeve but I’m curious as to what the rest of you have to say. Any advice?

Ok, I know I’ve taken a bit of a blogging hiatus recently, but you’ll have to forgive me since I was out of the country for most of that time. I’m going to jump right into it with a couple of toys I got from Good Vibrations before I left, and then I’ll backtrack and explain the more personal stuff in future posts since I need some time to clear my head before I can make coherent sentences.

The toys I got were actually two variations on a theme. Both made by Fun Factory, the Smartballs and Teneo Kegel Sex Toys are part kegel exercisers and part g-spot stimulators. They are basically little weighted balls that you insert vaginally and wear around the house or while having sex, or hell while jogging if you like, but we’ll get to the uses in a minute. The SmartBalls are two such balls connected by a flexible neck, while the Teneo is one slightly larger ball (about 1.5″ in diameter). Both are made up of a larger outside with a smaller free-moving weighted ball on the inside. This gives them a little bit of movement (not exactly vibration, but close), allows them to respond to your movement dynamically and adds weight. The SmartBalls are made of non-porus elastomer and the Teneo is made of silicone, both hygienic, body-safe materials.

So what do these guys actually do? Well a couple of things. First if you just wear them vaginally, say while doing house work, keeping the weighted balls in place can strengthen your kegel muscles. You can also keep them in while doing kegel exercises for a bit more challenge. Second, while the health benefits are all well and good these things are also pretty damn fun as g-spot stimulators. When you move your hips the weighted internal balls move with you changing the weight distribution and pressure and creating a titillating if subtle internal sensation. Finally, you can use them to bring your attention to something sexy in a mind-body type exercise.

What did I do with mine? Believe it or not, I cleaned the house. Ok, actually I have to say the SmartBalls were a little too much for me outside the bedroom. Either the flexible neck wasn’t quite flexible enough, or they were just too big but I couldn’t sit comfortably with them in. The Teneo, however, was perfect for, well, for every day use. I inserted it while cleaning the house and taking care of paperwork and it kept my mind on sex even while I was doing the most mundane things. I would particularly recommend this as part of D/s play say if you’re cleaning your dominant’s house and want to keep your mind firmly planted in the gutter.

On the whole, either of these is a fun addition to the toy chest, but if you haven’t played with something like this before I would recommend the Teneo for the most comfortable introduction.