Five Head Wartenberg Wheel

February 23rd, 2015

Five Head Wartenberg Wheel
£19.99 from UberKinky

The five heads work exactly the same as a single head — except there’s more. They’ll cover a wider path and the prongs won’t line up exactly, so there will be more variation in sensation. However. they’ll all move in the same direction.

The appearance of this is a little more “Wicked” than the regular pinwheel. Indeed, people who have seen this or my single Wartenberg wheel have assumed it was a tool of punishment that would make anyone squeal. They’re not quite right; although, they’re not quite wrong, either.

Obviously, stimulation can range from a light to possibly breaking the skin. I’v yet to be able to achieve that, but with firm pressure, I was able to achieve a nice “perforation” effect on my skin. It took a few moments for the tracks to really show up, though. I like the marks left by a Wartenberg wheel and they’re not permanent, which is nice.

If you do use it with enough pressure to draw blood, it will be a little more difficult to clean around each pinwheel and all the spokes. I’m thinking a brush or cloth would do the trick without causing it to rust, because that would suck. I definitely wouldn’t let it soak.

The Five Head Wartenberg Pinwheel is everything you like about the original, just more. In fact, I think the quality of this one is higher than that of my original pinwheel, which seem to have edges of different sharpnesses and a few imperfections. When it comes to metal, it’s pretty easy to tell when companies have skimped because of imperfections on the surface. This isn’t the case with the Five Head Wartenberg Pinwheel.

The five head pinwheel comes in the same sort of plastic sheath as other Wartenberg pinwheels. It might be a bit wider to fit it. It’s not wide enough, however. It should be more box-like or have a flared end (like a condom) to better with the pinwheel. Because it’s so sharp, it’s cut the shit out of the sheath during shipping alone. Frequent use, which would involve removing and replacing the pinwheel, would only exacerbate this. Needless to say, I won’t be keeping mine in the plastic cover.

Despite its looks, the Wartenberg wheel can be newb-friendly while still offering more intense sensations for people who like it a bit rougher. There’s not a huge difference in sensation between this one and the pinwheel with the single head, however, so I would based my decision on price and quality.

 

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Categories: BDSM, Reviews

She, Tigress

February 22nd, 2015

When my best friend talks about her marriage, it’s as though she’s describing life as a caged tiger in a zoo. But she wasn’t plucked from her homeland by hunters who wanted to make a quick buck and fast. Rather, she followed the metaphorical steak, so tantalizing that it usurped her entire field of vision, right into that cage. And she was the one who locked it tight after the door swung shut.

My best friend, the tiger, spends most of her time lamenting about unhappiness inside the cage. Yet, she sees no way to make her escape. Not only has she locked the door behind her, but the things that happen once one marries — financial burdens and children specifically — have piled up on the inside of that door, making it seem all bit impossible that she could even escape.

After some eight years of marriage, three children, moving across the world and back and no less than three Army bases, she has begun to lose some of her luster. Her hair is thinning. She looks more haggard than ever before. We play, but not as frequently as before and, perhaps more importantly, it lacks a certain sense of freedom that we once shared. This, I imagine, is similar to the tiger’s life in captivity. His stripes will be a little less intense. His fur will be less shiny. He might mope around, or he may do nothing at all.

My friend’s thoughts of liberation are confused at best. She fiercely wants to protect her cubs. From the cruel world outside. From her husband and their terrible never-ending fights and sometimes, I suspect, from her own self. It cannot be an easy slavery. She describes the lack of romance from her husband. Sex occurs rarely. I suspect he views physical coupling as a way for them to connect. She does not. He must coerce her. The times that their romps have been notable she can count on one hand. I cannot imagine a sex life so dismal.

And I would be remiss if I called her husband her captive. I think, if I am being honest, he is like another animal. I am not entirely sure that he is a tiger she like, and this might be where the problems arise. But he is also a caged beast, and like most beasts, he does not know how to communicate his thoughts or feelings. Instead, he emits a roar loud enough to get attention but perhaps too feeble to get anything done.

Thus, the pair of them, with their litters, lives in a cage from which they both would like freedom but neither of them are sure how to escape. Truth be told, they’re not entirely sure what freedom looks like anymore. and that scares them. They’ve been together for most of a decade, and the world outside their cage surely doesn’t resemble their lives before their mating in any way. Freedom is change, and change is terrifying.

Isn’t it unfortunate, then, that everyone on the outside of the cage feels so sorry for these two? My heart breaks for my best friend, but she is in part master of her own captivity. The boulders against the door are as much in her head and, from the outside, I can see that the key has never been removed from the lock. All she has to do is reach around to open the door.

Scary? Absolutely. I’ve been in a similar position, and looking forward was nigh impossible given how terrifying it was. Damning? Hardly. Here I stand, on the other side, ready to hold her hand and help her to take her first shaky steps on new legs. If only she would stand up first.

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Categories: Everything Else

My Life on the Swingset: Adventures in Swinging & Polyamory

February 17th, 2015

My Life on the Swingset
$6.99 (Kindle) from Amazon

When I was initially approached by author and lifestyle swinger Cooper Beckett to review his book, My Life on the Swingset, I was interested. But I had never heard of the guy or his podcast or website before. I’m no swinger, and I’m not much into podcasts, so maybe this isn’t to be surprised. However, I said “Yes” anyway.

My Life on the Swingset is a collection of edited writings from the Cooper’s blog, along with some new works by Cooper. If you’re already familiar with his previous works, then you’ll be acquainted with some of the characters and events, including the annual swingers retreat Desire, that are mentioned in this book. However, this is absolutely not necessary. You’ll also already be aware of the conversation way that Beckett speaks, with nerdy quips and nested brackets that I couldn’t help myself but smile at.

Conversational tone can be difficult to pull off, but it looks like years writing for Life on the Swingset has helped Cooper Beckett find his voice. In fact, I’d probably be willing to read a paper or novel on just about anything that he wrote if he did so in this style. It took very little time to think of Cooper as a friend and someone with whom I might enjoy a cup of coffee. No doubt it helped that he refers to his mistakes, his awkwardness and his geeky (a common interest!) in ways that make him seem utterly approachable. While My Life on the Swingset might not be an instructional manual, there is a lesson to be learned from this: anyone can be a swinger. It’s not a lifestyle from which you should exclude yourself if you’re interested.

There are other lessons to be found in this book, which was a quick and enjoyable read. Cooper walks us through his experimentation with swinging and the true difficulties that lay ahead for him and his now ex-wife. He talks about new relationships, becoming polyamorous and discovering himself as a bisexual man in a scene that so often discriminates against that sort of creature.

The inside look shows the sort of prejudices even swingers and self-proclaimed sex-positive kinksters can hold and use against one another, and as Beckett moves between the different types of open relationships, he shows this with honesty. Could it possibly offend some people who only want to paint the perfect picture of this lifestyle? Perhaps. But Cooper Beckett is human, after all, just like all of us any anyone who might be in any sort of open relationship. And Cooper isn’t afraid to call those humans his friends or name drop where it’s appropriate. My reading list has grown from suggestions mentioned in these pages alone.

Honesty is key to the stories told within these pages. It makes them enjoyable, and it also makes Cooper seem like the type of person I’d like to better know. Cooper also does his own self-discovery, and he reiterates how becoming polyamorous has helped him learn more about himself. There’s a child-like amazement that, even as his age, he can grow and learn about himself. It’s something that I also love about being alive.

Ultimately, ending My Life On the Swingset was like finishing an amazing conversation with a person who completely surprised me. It finished too soon, and I was sad. But the bitter was married with sweet; surely there will be other chances to pick up the conversation again. And if Cooper’s ultimate goal was to draw me in, make me a friend and motivate me to stop by the website to continue that conversation, I think we can call My Life on the Swingset a success!

 

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Categories: Books, Reviews

Judging His Cover

February 15th, 2015

He was plain. There was nothing special about him. He was lanky with too much gut from years of drinking. His hair was thinning prematurely, and he tried to hide it by wearing it long or, more frequently, wearing hats.

He was tall enough to look awkward. All of his t-shirts looked two sizes too large. If we’re being honest, they were. It’s hard to clothe that frame.

He wore glasses ill-suited to his face shape. Without anti-glare, looking at him was like looking into some sort of abyss. It was empty and soulless.

Whenever he gained weight, his face ballooned out like a chipmunk foraging for its very survival. He tried to hide this by growing a beard. To a certain extent, it worked, but he let it become unruly. At this point, his childlike nose poked out from between the whiskers, and he just looked silly.

That’s all he was: silly.

And yet with all this silliness, his mediocrity and his inability to style himself in a manner that indicated any thought at all, he was confident. He was cool. He was fun. He was the laid back type of person whom you always want to be around because he makes everything look so damned easy.

So despite his awkwardness, his overly-worn hats and glasses that made it impossible to tell whether his eyes were green or blue anyway, I fell in love with him. In spite of myself, I found my mind drifting to him whenever it wanted, whether or not I wanted it to at all.

And despite all of his own insecurities, he carried himself with enough confidence that he was magnetic, his charisma always pulling me closer to him when his arms weren’t physically wrapping around me and bending me to his will. He twisted and pulled and I melted against him, this plain, not-special, awkward boy who was trying too hard to be a man.

What was it about him? It wasn’t visible. It was chemical, running through his veins and jolting across neural pathways. It was gustatory, sliding across my tongue and sticking in my mouth with a sweetness that was only as bitter as I imagined. It was tangible, electric, breath-quickening and pulse-quickening.

What it was that drew me to him, kept me at his side and begging for me, left me looking after him when he’d already walked away, was an eddy of forces so subtle and quick that I was already gasping for breath by the time that I realized what had happened. And by then, his animal magnetism had already replaced oxygen as my primary source of survival.

That is the power of the main who looks plain from the outside but feels like a storm once he’s inside you. Flowery descriptions seem so far from apropos when it comes to the boy who slouches and drinks too much and isn’t sure of his own self worth.

But when I think of the awkward boy with all his flaws, even through the filter of my broken heart, I cannot help but see a little beauty.

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Categories: The Bartender

Uberlube

February 8th, 2015

Uberlube
$19 from Good Vibes

Edit: I have since found that Uberlube works pretty well with wooden dildos, which for some reason, do not seem to work well with water-based lubes. And since Uberlube is a pure silicone product, it’s good even if you keep it on the shelf for more than three years!

It must be hard being silicone lube in my possession. First, it sits on my counter or my table for a few days. Days turn into weeks, and the lube makes its way into my bedroom. There, it sits on my dresser before taking months to move to my nightstand, where it will sit a while more until I can think about using it.

You see, it doesn’t matter if you’re nice and slick, perfect for partner vaginal or anal sex. Long-lasting doesn’t matter. A lack of stick is just great.. someone else. Silicone lube can be compatible with most of my toys and all condoms, and it can come in a cute pump bottle that’s also made of glass. An ingredient list that’s short and easy to pronounce should be something that I approve of. But none of that just really matters.

At the end of the day, silicone-based lubes get the short end of the stick because they feel so artificial to me. There’s no way around it. Water-based lubes are shorter lasting and become sticky as they dry, but it feels closer to my natural lubrication. It’s more natural feeling, less like a plastic bag in my vagina.

So, you see, UberLube didn’t have a chance. Umlaut and everything, I still wasn’t swayed. It was just another silicone-based lube that will likely collect dust because I don’t particularly care for that type of lube. I don’t like how it feels inside me, on my hands or on my toys despite how often and long I’ve washed them.

And while the pump bottle is cute, it’s also not travel-friendly because it could break and there’s no way to lock it. And $19 is far more than I would spend on any bottle of lube. If I was a die-hard silicone lube fan, I’d probably recommend a lube like System Jo for Women, which is a hair more affordable. If you’re really interested in Uberlube, Good Vibes does sell travel sets, which cost $16 each, but the other silicone-based lubes offer a more competitive price.

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Categories: Lube, Reviews

My Sex Life Can Legally Vote

February 3rd, 2015

And marry. And it can drink in Japan.

That is, to say, I’ve been a consciously sexual being since I was around 8 years old. Give or take.

I don’t remember the first time I masturbated exactly. I remember simply grinding against balled up blankets — never pillows — until I became sweaty and hot and felt finished. In hindsight, that must have been an orgasm. But either I didn’t know the word or maybe it really wasn’t. Perhaps I felt some sort of other closure. And I would stop for the night.

Some twenty years later, I occasionally find myself getting off in the same way. I almost-but-not-quite wake up in the middle of the night, reach down for a corner of my blanket and grind against it for dear life. I’ve always been a fan of grinding.

Of course, it’s not the only routine in my repertoire now, but that’s how this all got started. I was still in the single digits, and I was humping blankets when I was supposed to be sleeping. I suppose I became bolder, sometimes doing it during the day time. I recall masturbating in my best friend’s bed one night while she talked in the other room. I couldn’t quite remember where her brother was. I was relieved to know he wasn’t in the room.

I remember, in high school, masturbating with the door to my room not quite closed. Could someone in the living room see the movement of my feet and legs and guess what was happening even though I wasn’t making a noise?

It wasn’t that I was a voyeur. I was just a horny teenager, and I couldn’t resist if the mood strike. And strike it did — hard and often.

During my teen years, I spent countless hours in chatrooms talking to boys, men, women. Cyber sex, they called it. Back then, it was simply erotic roleplaying. There were no photos and videos, not really. People would try to encourage them, but I wasn’t comfortable in my skin in any way shape or form. During those times, the blood would rush to my clit and my G-spot, making me feel like I had to pee. I read plenty of articles about G-spot stimulation, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t impending orgasm. I just mistook the equivalent of blue balls as a different sort of bodily fluid.

I experimented with technique during these times. I once read that you could use the handle of a Venus razor as an impromptu dildo. I tried. It wasn’t necessarily pleasurable and I freaked out when I realized I was bleeding. I was never entirely sure if it was a cut from vigorous thrusting of a first-time penetrator or if that was my hymen. It didn’t hurt, and neither did sex for the first time. I didn’t give it much thought. I was happy to be masturbating and having sex.

I guess there must have been other household objects, but nothing stuck. It was that blanket or nothing. At some point, I added in fingers to rub my clit, which afforded me the opportunity to jack off wherever the hell I wanted. Eventually, the feeling-like-I-needed-to-pee sensation would fade away, and I’d forget about it.

It wasn’t until 10 years after I started masturbating that I bought my first sex toy, a purple jelly beast. In hindsight, it might have been a bit large. But I used it for a couple years, and it worked for several years after that without the purple glitter jelly leaking. I was surprised. I enjoyed this toy internally and externally, but it wasn’t doing me any favors. I can now recognize that my body just wasn’t used to masturbating in different ways.

I decided that I need clitoral stimulation, too, and plopped down money on another purple beast: the Rabbit Habit. In less than a month’s time, I had broken it because my tendency was to pull the base upward, forcing the shaft to bend. I bought another, not realizing the dubious construction or materials were something that should prevent me from doing so. I hadn’t ever thought about silicone, even though the original Form 6 had already been added to my wishlist.

The second rabbit eventually broke, too, but because loose beads are simply a terrible idea. But between the two bunnies, I had managed to have a toy-induced orgasm. Except, I had no fucking idea what it was. The quick contractions of my vagina felt like an alien, and that’s literally how I described it to a Livejournal group I was part of. Some women replied with “Yes! That’s an orgasm.” Others thought I should see a doctor.

I spend a lot of time researching whether or not a person, especially a woman, could have an orgasm and not realize it. Weren’t they all supposed to be toe-curling and earth-shattering? Mine surely weren’t. In fact, to this day, I’d still describe them as somewhat perfunctory. There have certainly been some pleasurable orgasms, but they’re notable, not frequent.

A few more shitty toys, including pocket rockets, would call my makeshift converted shoebox home before I would finally upgrade to something better, mostly thanks to this blog.  I still focus on clitoral stimulation, and I often use nothing more than my fingers despite my growing collection.

Rabbit after rabbit followed. An interesting night with k-balls and the Miracle Massager led to me squirting for the first time, awakening my G-spot. Or perhaps re-awakening it and reminding me of sensations I had experienced but learned to fight years before.

The years following would include more clitoral and G-spot vibrators, glass, wood, stainless steel and various ceramic toys. Several of those years were spent with my ex-husband.

5 years ago, my marriage started to crumble. Although masturbation was much the same, my sex life would change forever when the divroce was finalized a little over 4 years ago. For months, I would struggled to be aroused and masturbate without fantasizing about my ex, an issue I still face when dealing with heartbreak.

For three years, I would remain sexually celibate. It wasn’t necessarily on purpose, but I also didn’t want to deal with the hassle that came with romance and/or sex. I was sick of terrible first dates. And for nearly two of those years, the hot geek was unintentionally breaking my heart.

2 years ago, I finally left my celibacy behind. I was glad to have broken the fast, but it didn’t enhance my sex life. My drive might have been kicked alive once more, but the very act that was the catalyst for this change also opened my eyes to the fact that there would be no coming back for seconds with this person.

Just under 2 years ago, I would begin a haphazard romantic and sexual relationship with the bartender. There were as many highs as there were lows, but the sex was some of the best in my life. It brought out parts of me that I hadn’t understood or perhaps had even hidden from light for years. I felt whole and I finally understood that my sexuality can never be quite complete without a partner.

1 day, 1 week, 1 month from now, I don’t know how my sex life might look. I can imagine. I can hope that the next time I have sex, it will satiate me in every way. But if there’s anything that the past two decades have taught me, it’s that the life my sexuality takes on is bigger, bolder and better than I can imagine.

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Categories: Everything Else

Bruce Jenner Might Be Trans And It’s None Of Your Business

February 2nd, 2015

Edit: this post was written before Caitlyn Jenner confirmed her transition.

I first heard rumors about Bruce Jenner possibly being transgender a few weeks ago. I didn’t give it any thought for a couple reasons:

  1. It’s Bruce Jenner, who cares?
  2. Even if I cared about him personally, what does his gender identity have to do with me?

Now that there’s a so-called sourced out there confirming that Bruce is transitioning, a lot more people are bound to pay attention. After reading a few comments on the Internet, I can rest assured that ignorant, bigoted and sexist idiots are definitely among those people — even though my first two points stand pretty firm for them as well as me!

I’m going to assume, and I may be wrong, but I’ll assume anyway.. That this person has been considering this for a while. Perhaps for their entire life. They may have always felt some amount of gender dysphoria. It may have reared its ugly head in ways that strained relationships, hurt careers and otherwise made life a living hell for the person living with it.

And I cannot imagine what I would do if I was so close to the limelight yet lived in a society that is, at best, ignorant about trans issues. At worst, they’re all bigots. The truth is somewhere in the middle, with some people being surprisingly open-minded while others are so closed-minded it makes me wonder how natural selection hasn’t wiped them out already!

Back to my point, which is all about how difficult it must be to be any sort of public figure and come out as trans. According to people, Bruce Jenner is being supported by family, but maybe that’s not true. Maybe their publicist just makes it seem that way because it’s better to provide a united front?

Perhaps there is no source and this is just the tabloids running amok with speculation. Who knows? Maybe Bruce Jenner just likes the long hair. Maybe it’s not a trans thing after all. Ultimately, it won’t affect me either way. And it won’t affect anyone who’s not Bruce, truly. But I’m kind of sick of the media using it as a sensationalist story just to get clicks.

And I’m sick of the people who take the bait!

 

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Categories: Everything Else

Image © MisterUnlucky; used with permission.