I once asked a friend, during a nosy discussion of our respective sex lives, under what conditions he tends to most enjoy sex. I figured he might talk about particular sex acts, positions, or roles – but instead, he said: he strongly prefers sex where everyone involved is completely naked. He'd had awkward experiences before where this was not the case, and so now he felt most relaxed, most free, and most receptive to pleasure when he and his partner both disrobed com­pletely beforehand.

I must admit I was surprised by this, because nudity has never been a particularly important aspect of sex for me. A lot of times when I masturbate or have sex, I only remove the articles of clothing that are directly blocking my path to the relevant bits, and sometimes not even those – a wand vibrator works perfectly well through pants and underwear, after all. If a higher proportion of clothes come off, it tends to be because the person I'm fucking initiates the removal of clothing – or because I'm overheated and need to cool down.

I just don't really care about being naked, and sometimes it's actually sexier if I'm not. Maybe my positive associations with half-clothed sex come from the days when, as a teenager, I'd keep my outfit partly on during sex in case a family member were to open my bedroom door (which lacked a lock). It almost never happened, but each time it did, I was beyond grateful to be able to flip my skirt down and instantly conceal any evidence of tomfoolery (besides maybe my blushing face).

I think a common reason people may not want to get naked during sex is some flavor of body image issues, whether they be dysmorphia, dysphoria, or just the toxic soup of self-judgment we're all fed all the time by tabloid articles and social media. This mostly isn't a factor for me currently, because I know and trust that my spouse adores my body, but it has sometimes come up for me in the past, especially when sleeping with newer or short-lived partners who had not yet expressed liking how my body looks. I want to be able to relax and enjoy myself during sex, and sometimes it's easier to do that if I keep my dress on, so I don't have to wonder what this new person thinks about my stomach or boobs.

I grew up thinking that occasional screaming arguments were a normal feature of marriage, because they were a regular occurrence in my household.

In retrospect, this explains a lot about why I was so ambivalent on the question of marriage until meeting my now-spouse. I had seen how marriage could be romantic and wonderful, sure, but I had also seen how it could be terrifying. It involved legal and financial entanglement with someone who might turn out to be your terrorizer – or, alternatively, you might find yourself turning into the terrorizer, overtaken by the stressors and annoyances of living with someone that closely day in and day out. No thanks, I thought; I’m good.

So it confused me when I got into a long-term relationship in my late teens/early twenties that was not characterized by blowout arguments at the slightest inconvenience. Even when I was annoyed with my partner, it didn’t occur to me to scream at him about it, and it certainly didn’t occur to me to throw things, break things, etc., nor did he seem to have these impulses either. When we disagreed about something, we just… talked about it, and laid bare our own feelings on the subject, dumping them out on the table between us like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle we hoped to assemble together.

The same is true for my current relationship: no screaming arguments. The closest we’ve come is a couple times I physically left a restaurant we were eating at because I got too upset during a discussion of a tense relationship issue and needed to get away from the situation. We always patched those up afterward, with more love than anger.

I love “meet-cutes” in fiction, but I hate what they’ve done to my brain.

It’s such a joyful idea, meeting someone randomly, at a bar or on a street corner or in line at the bank, and having a near-instant connection that feels like it could lead to something. Fun dates. Good sex. Love.

A while ago I saw a Reddit thread where a self-described virgin had posed the simple question, “What is sex like?”

They didn’t specify their genitalia, gender, sexual orientation, sensation preferences, sexual fantasies, or any other details. Reading this post silenced my brain immediately, like a Buddhist koan. What is sex like?

I read an interview with queer romance novelist Casey McQuiston recently, and they defended the merits of “pleasure-reading,” but also the merits of “pleasure-writing.” More specifically, they defended their own right to write beautiful, indulgent stories about hot people having wild adventures in lovely locales, just because it feels good to write that kind of thing, and because it’ll feel good for someone to read it.

This really resonated with me, as someone who writes for a living. The work I do that actually keeps me housed and fed is the least creative part of my work: listicles of the best sex toys in various categories. While I’m profoundly grateful to have any paying work at all, this type of work is not what sustains my soul or revs my engine. I do it so I’ll have enough time and sustenance to be able to do my other work, the work I actually enjoy, like this newsletter (for which I’m so so thankful for your patronage!), and my blog (sometimes), and my songs, and my fanfiction.

Recently I was interviewed by a writer for a book she’s working on about consent. We sat in the sunshine on a Toronto street corner and I sipped a latte while pontificating about risk-aware consensual kink, feminist worldviews, social progress, Jian Ghomeshi and Christian Grey.

At one point, she asked me, “How do you think things have changed, post-#MeToo?”

“It’s like I’ve been poisoned

when I’m with boys &

it’s really annoying!

I’m losing my voice &

I’m losing my joy &

it’s really annoying!”

-a song I wrote in 2023

Having a crush is a fucking nightmare, and I love it.

Some kinks are evident from day one. I’m thinking here of kinky friends of mine who’ve told me that they started looking up words like “spanking” or “bondage” as soon as they gained access to the internet (or an old-school leather-bound encyclopedia set, as the case may be), as well as friends whose proclivities go back even further – think: perverse games with Barbie dolls or G.I. Joes.

But some kinks are slow-blooming, taking their sweet time to reach the level of consciousness. I think cuckolding was one of those for me.

I’m reading a romance novel right now about a “bi4bi” relationship* – that is to say, two bisexual people dating each other – and it’s making me reflect on this type of relationship in my own life, and how healing it’s been.

Last I checked, seven of the nine people I’ve officially dated are some flavor of non-monosexual (meaning that they are attracted to people of more than one gender), whether they call it bisexuality, pansexuality, queerness, or just [shrugs]. This is such a high proportion of my dating history that it can’t be a coincidence, even though it often felt like it at the time.

Prior to seeking trauma therapy, I don’t think I truly understood the difference between guilt and shame – but it’s a distinction that has helped me improve my close relationships substantially.

To simplify their definitions: guilt is the belief that you’ve done something bad, and shame is the belief that you are bad.

For years, people on the internet have been yelling at me about “vibrator addiction.” I guess that’s what happens when you unabashedly write about using (and loving) sex toys.

A favorite example of mine was the woman who wrote me an angry email accusing me of having a “dead clit,” and of pressuring other women to use vibrators even if they don’t want to (something I have never, to my knowledge, done in my life). In another instance, a right-wing misogynist wrote an entire blog post about me, and about how uncomfortable it made him that I like to use sex toys; he referred to the Magic Wand vibrator as “every feminist’s ideal boyfriend,” one of the best self-owns I’ve ever heard.

An oft-repeated truism in the polyamory community is, “Love is infinite, but time and energy aren’t.”

Often this is brought up in the context of people who excitedly overcommit themselves romantically and/or sexually, spreading themselves too thin across multiple partners, resulting in a state sometimes referred to as being “polysaturated.” I know that this is something I thought a lot about, for example, when I was dating a profoundly introverted man who was trying to juggle three girlfriends while also needing a fuckton of alone time every week: his love for the three of us may have been infinite, but his time and energy absolutely were not.

The other day, my spouse and I watched the movie Theater Camp together, the 2023 dramedy starring Molly Gordon and Ben Platt as counselors at the titular theatre camp. (Yes, they spell it the American way and I am spelling it the Canadian way. It’s my damn newsletter!) It was wonderful, and it made me think about summer camp – how it can be a rite of passage, or a ritualized hell, or a liminal space.

I never really had a summer camp community the way some kids do. That is to say, while I dabbled in day camps, I never went to sleepaway camp, and certainly not to the same sleepaway camp every single summer, like some of my friends did. I therefore didn’t develop a sense of camp community, of a whole other group of recurring cast members in my life who I saw again each summer.

Here’s an evergreen sentence for a sex nerd to write: I’ve been thinking a lot about Emily Nagoski’s work lately.

She wrote Come As You Are, an absolute must-read text for any sexually active person (IMO). She co-wrote Burnout, a crucial guide to handling stress and overstimulation in an overworked world. And her new book, launching very soon, is Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections.

There are multiple subtopics within the field of sexuality that particularly interest me, and that I spend a lot of my time thinking about, talking about, and writing about. In the last few years, one of those subtopics is bad sex.

It’s certainly been a frequent subject in these newsletters. Oddly enough, it’s been ages since I had truly terrible sex – but I think my current, mostly-excellent sex life has made me all the more curious about the reasons it hasn’t always been this good.

My spouse and I recently watched the docuseries Escaping Twin Flames together, and I have Thoughts and Feelings about it.

If you’re unfamiliar, all you really need to know is that it’s about a cult which emphasizes the existence of your “twin flame,” a soulmate to whom you’re spiritually bound. The cult leaders knew that their followers wanted so badly to believe in this idea that they would do basically anything to find their twin flame, including – naturally – paying the cult leaders a shit ton of money for “classes” and “workshops,” and doing whatever the cult leaders told them to do.

Is it weird to say that I love crying?

It makes me sound like an emo teen in a Laurie Halse Anderson novel. But it’s true. I’ve been a depressive person for the vast majority of my life. I have a long and storied relationship with crying. Me and crying, we go waaay back.

’Tis the season to be materialistic, so I thought this would be a great week to talk about some of the products I loved most this year, across some of the categories that matter to me most. Let’s dive in…

SEX STUFF

If you asked the average person what time of year they tend to be flirtiest, horniest, and thirstiest (in the euphemistic sense), I think they’d probably tell you summertime. July or August, maybe; those hazy dog days that flow into effervescent, jacketless nights.

This makes sense to me. I've done a lot of my best/worst flirting in those months too. Once the initial revelation of spring-into-summer has become comfortable and quotidian, my short skirts and sleeveless shirts feel more natural against my skin, and I fancy myself a playful, swaggering slut. I wear glossy pink lipstick to bars, and cross my shaved legs under the table, surveying the scene. I rediscover my body, the sensuality of having a body, after experiencing the world primarily through screens and ice-chipped windows all winter. I send ill-advised DMs, plan dates, and remember what confidence tastes like. It’s nice.

The hysteria myth is hilarious, zany, and sociopolitically poignant. Too bad it isn’t true.

For those unacquainted, there is a commonly-cited origin story for vibrators which goes as follows: In the 19th century, women were often diagnosed with an illness then known as “hysteria.” One of the treatments used for this alleged illness was stimulating the patient’s clitoris until she reached “hysterical paroxysm,” or orgasm. Doctors were doing this by hand, until a British physician named Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville came along and invented the first electric vibrator, in order to spare doctors the arduous effort of making women come.

One of my most common wishes, when I’m horny and perusing PornHub one-handed, is that more people did cunnilingus scenes the way blowjob scenes are done.

By which I essentially mean: I wish more people acted like their partner’s clit was the most erotic and delicious thing ever, instead of acting like they’re mildly scared of it – or like they view it as an avenue for lightly teasing someone, rather than a sexual organ that’s directly responsible for orgasms galore.

I got into a minor argument on Reddit today about bad sex.

Someone had asked, “What was your least favorite thing about casual sex in college?” and I replied that most of the people I fucked at that time were both bad in bed and bad conversationalists, which sucked. I could deal with one or the other, because good conversation can balance out the disappointment of bad sex, and vice-versa. But encountering both bad sex and bad conversation in the course of one date was always a one-two punch of devastation. I’d walk away unsatisfied on both mental and physical levels, judging myself for my apparent inability to pick suitable partners.

Some random person on Reddit replied, “Sex and conversations are both a two-way street, you know” – which is a really snarky response, considering that they’ve never met me and have no idea whether I’m good or bad at either of the specified activities. I like to think I’m at least decent at both, but frankly, maybe that’s an assumption I should question. Perhaps in the form of an essay. So, uh, thanks to that rude Redditor for kicking off this thought process, I guess.

The most important thing to know about bad sex is that it’s subjective. Often we fall into the trap (sexual media-makers like myself very much included) of talking about “bad sex” like it’s a monolith, with hallmarks that could be identified by anyone and that could be easily avoided if you just knew about them. But that’s simply not the case. One man’s trash-fuck is another man’s treasure-fuck.

I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for nearly six years. That’s wild, especially considering that I used to insist I’d never want to be in one.

People frequently ask me how my spouse and I have managed to maintain our relationship for this long while living 500 miles apart. Today I’m going to distill the main pieces of advice I usually give when asked about this.

I am on a train to Montreal at 9 in the morning and I want to write about being face-fucked. Fortunately, the seat next to me is vacant, so I can do so without the risk of a stranger seeing the tales of skull-fuckery on my screen.

I used to be terrified of getting face-fucked. Legit terrified – for the same reason I fucking hate it when doctors have to use a tongue depressor on me or take a throat swab: gagging. When I was still learning how to suck cock (and, arguably more importantly, how to enjoy sucking cock), I would sometimes gag even if I was the one controlling all the movement. It’s just not a very natural thing if you’ve never done it before, having this firm tubular object fill your mouth and slide back and forth across your soft palate, dangerously close to uvula-town. Starting with getting face-fucked would’ve been like skipping tricycles and bicycles and hopping right onto a Harley-Davidson.

Heads up, this one gets a little porny.

Last week, I went on a date with one of those people whose pheromones just light up my brain. Science isn't even certain about the existence or effectiveness of pheromones in humans, but I don't have a better explanation for why some people's scent gets me all tingly and blushy, whether or not they're wearing cologne/perfume and whether they've just showered or just had sweaty, athletic sex with me.

Anyway. We had a lot of fun on our date. We talked for hours over 3 drinks (I know I'm really enjoying talking to someone if I find myself ordering more and more things just because I don't want to leave yet!). We went back to my place and kissed in my bed as I laid on top of him, grinding my whole body against his, savoring the sensuality of a great makeout. Then he stripped down and I gave him a slow, sensuous blowjob while he gripped my hair at the roots, guiding my head in an insistent rhythm that got me giddy and subspacey.

Does anyone else remember a viral tweet from years ago which claimed (please forgive my probably-poorly-paraphrasing from memory) that you should never trust a man who doesn’t like cats, because the likely reason he dislikes them is that cats are independent and don’t enjoy being touched without consent?

Like many tweets of this genre, I think this one contains some genuine wisdom and truth but has exaggerated the commonness of the phenomenon it describes. I think there are lots of reasons some men (and people of other genders) dislike cats. But I do think cats’ frequent insistence on their own bodily autonomy is one of them. Some people really don’t trust a creature they can’t control.

I hate “playing games” in the realm of dating. If I like you, have enjoyed the time we’ve spent together, and want us to spend more time together, you will know that, because I will tell you.

…Or at least, that’s what I like to believe about myself. It’s sometimes true, anyway. That’s better than nothing.

I have always found it baffling when a complete stranger attempts to strike up a sexting session with me via DM, something that has happened at least a few times per year for the entire 11+ years I've been writing about sex online.

Don't get me wrong – sexting is fun (sometimes), and I'm certainly not morally opposed to the idea of sex with strangers, text-based or otherwise. I just truly can't wrap my head around how people enjoy sexting with someone they know nothing about, beyond what may be shared in a Twitter bio or depicted in a profile picture. When I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who would do this, my brain turns to static. "Does not compute."

The thing is, thinking about sex acts – as opposed to the people doing those sex acts – just isn't particularly compelling to me. In my fantasies about acts I enjoy (like giving or receiving oral sex, or receiving a spanking), it's not the act itself that turns me on, or at least not entirely. Mostly it's the mental and emotional context around it.

At its most basic, the context in my fantasies might be something like "This person really wants me, and me specifically," or "This person is dominating me." At its most elaborate, it might be something more like "This person has kidnapped me and whisked me away to a warehouse in the woods so they can have their way with me." But I can tell you with certainty that some kind of context is always present. I find nothing exciting about a blowjob in a vacuum, so to speak.

My spouse introduced me to the idea of "date me" docs, essentially Google documents in which you write a longform personal ad about who you are and what you're looking for in a potential partner. This idea really appeals to me because the online dating landscape has shifted drastically toward shortform profiles in the last decade or so, and as someone who cares more about potential partners' personalities than their appearance, I find these shortform mediums unsatisfying and somewhat mystifying when I'm looking to date.

My spouse gave me an assignment last month to write my own "date me" doc, not necessarily to actually find dates (which I'm not currently in need of) but as a clarification exercise about my own desires and self-perceptions. Here it is. Would you ever write your own?

Hi, I’m Kate, and this is my “date me” doc!

The subject line of this email is something that was said on a recent episode of The Ultimatum, the tragic Netflix dating reality show. It came up during a discussion between all of the men on the current season, about whether you need to have sex with someone in order to figure out if you’re compatible with her, sexually attracted to her, and romantically drawn to her.

Several of the men seemed to be saying (I say “seemed” because the high tensions and tight editing of a dating reality show don’t always make for the clearest arguments) that they don’t, or can’t, develop romantic feelings or emotional intimacy with someone until they’ve already had sex with them. I think this is relatively common, especially for men; sexual intimacy is regarded as a reasonable desire for men to have, while emotional intimacy often is not, and so it makes sense that they would try to justify the latter by draping it in the former, or would even feel unable to access the latter in the absence of the former.

I recently wrote some RPF (real-person fanfiction) about some improvisors I’ve been crushing on lately. I think the stories are fun/cute/hot, but I don’t feel right ethically about publishing them publicly or as-is, so I’m sharing one of the stories here this week in an edited form.

Some important things to know: 

1. For anonymity purposes, I have changed the improvisors’ names in this story to Jen Anderson and Will Rossi.

2. These two have been friends and creative collaborators for over a decade and are both married to other people. They mainly do musical improv but also do non-musical improv, write for TV together, and cohost a podcast together.

3. Content note: this story contains kissing and sex where one of the people is drunk and the other person isn't, although it's consensual. There's also a brief vignette in which someone makes someone else feel sexually uncomfortable and kisses them non-consensually while both are drunk.

4. If you know who this is about, no you don’t, and thanks for your discretion. (In other words: just be cool, man.)

Stereotypically, women are often depicted as having a hard time separating sex from love, or as needing romantic love to be present in order to enjoy sex. Obviously this is hugely reductive – not only are there many women who don’t fit this description, but there are many men who do!

That being said, personally I do experience a high degree of overlap between people I’m sexually attracted to and those I’m romantically attracted to. For the most part, a lot of the same traits prompt both sexual and romantic interest for me – humor, intelligence, kindness, competence, enthusiasm, etc. – and so, if I have a crush on you, it’s statistically likeliest to be a crush of the “I want to kiss you and hold your hand and make sappy commitments to you and also fuck you” variety.

But that’s not always the case.

I’m thinking about this because I’ve recently gone out for drinks with a long-time fuckbuddy of mine, who is one of the only people in my sexual history who I’ve felt very physically attracted to but not really romantically attracted to. We’re actual friends with benefits, emphasis on the “friends,” so we get along well on a mental/emotional level and have great conversations – but I don’t find myself daydreaming about his smile, or obsessively wondering when he’ll text me back, or choosing outfits for our hangouts that I hope will impress him. When we make out or have sex, it’s always great – we definitely vibe sexually – but those telltale signs (for me) of romantic feelings are just not there. He’s really just my friend who I occasionally fuck, and I think we both like it that way.

Weed, and occasionally shrooms, make my body respond with sexual arousal to some unusual stimuli. Here are some notable examples:

1. Music – especially chordally lush orchestral music

2. Videos of people being competent at tasks, such as shining their leather boots or chopping wood

3. Makeup tutorial videos narrated in soothing tones

4. Videos of people doing improv (I like funny dorks, okay?)

5. Videos of people doing musical improv (I like funny dorks who can sing, okay?)

6. Memories of wistful moments with former crushes

7. Sunsets

8. The feeling of fabric against my skin

9. The seam of my pants pressing into me

10. Videos of people playing video games at a high skill level

11. Pictures of mountains

12. Pictures of various celebrities' hands

13. Pictures of designer shoes

14. Perfume

15. Videos of barbershop quartets

16. Sex toy reviews

17. Poems (and not even necessarily sexy ones)

18. The feeling of the tip of my pen gliding against smooth paper as I write

19. The idea that someone in the world could theoretically have a crush on me right now

20. Chocolate

21. Pictures of really gorgeous ukuleles

22. Sitcom blooper reels

23. Videos of classical guitarists

24. Oil paintings

25. The concept of being self-sufficient

Drugs have taught me many lessons over the years, and I guess one of them is: a lot more things can be sexy than what we traditionally deem to be sexy! I always seem to be happier and hornier when I lean into my very Taurean desire to fill my life with sensual delights, plus media that makes me laugh or cry or scream or all of the above.

At various times in my life, I've written a sexual bucket list, sometimes known as a "fuck-it list."

It's always interesting to go back and look at the old ones. Almost invariably, they'll be made up of about half things that I've since done, and half things I'm surprised I ever wanted to do. (Like, yeah, fucking on top of a piano looks cool when Richard Gere and Julia Roberts do it in Pretty Woman, but I suspect in reality it would be uncomfortable, noisy, and likely to end in getting jizz or squirt between the keys of somebody's priceless Steinway.)

I recently had occasion to make another sexual bucket list of sorts, and it has me thinking about the very nature of sexual desire.

There are definitely things on my list that would be cool to do almost regardless of the situation or partner(s) involved, like "have a G-spot orgasm," "make someone come in their pants," and "come from fucking someone with a strap-on." (Can you tell I like orgasms?) But as Clementine Morrigan recently pointed out, for many people (myself included), the desire for sex is much more based on a context or a feeling than it is on specific sexual acts.

Oh no. I've developed a new kink again. (And like so many other times before, fanfiction is responsible.)

Earlier this week I read a short "porn-without-plot" Succession fic in which Roman has a wet dream while in bed with Gerri, grinding against her hip in his sleep until he comes. She's awake, and is amused by the whole situation. She taunts him about it when he wakes up, which gets him hard again even though he just came in his sweatpants not too long before.

After I read it, I thought, huh, neat concept, well-executed. It turned me on, but apparently not enough for me to bookmark it, which is usually what I do with stories I think I'll wanna jerk off to at some point.

But then, well... A day or two later, I was jerking off to a different story, and it wasn't holding my attention, so my mind drifted back to the wet dream one. I went on a mad scramble through my browser history to find it again, and got off to it in short order.

I just finished reading an erotica story that involved “hate sex” – that is to say, rough, passionate, angry sex between two people (in this case a man and a woman) who are furious with each other but nonetheless highly sexually attracted to one another – and was surprised and delighted that it included clitoral stimulation. And then I judged myself for even having that reaction to it.

Particularly in TV shows and (non-porn) movies, you will almost never see clit stimulation incorporated into sex, unless the type of sex being depicted is understood to be explicitly clit-focused, like cunnilingus or some forms of lesbian sex. Part of this is practical – the movements involved in clit stim can be more subtle and less demonstrative than the movements involved in, say, throwing someone onto a bed and fucking them with one’s dick, and usually they won’t show genital close-ups in these types of media, so you have to infer what’s being done from the characters’ overall body postures and facial expressions, etc.

I’ve been working on a big secret project that relates to vibrators (I’ll announce it eventually), and one of the questions I’ve been asking a lot of people in interviews is, “What’s your response to those who say you can become overly dependent on, or ‘addicted’ to, vibrators?”

It’s been interesting to hear the wide array of different responses to this; some people categorically reject the whole idea that vibrators even affect our sensitivity or markedly change the way we orgasm, whereas some people say one can indeed become reliant on a vibrator to the point that it may be difficult to come in other ways. However, everyone I’ve asked this question has emphasized that if these changes in orgasmic response do occur, they aren’t permanent.

I saw two pieces of media in the last couple days that made me think about the eroticism of mind-reading – and about how the fantasy of having one's mind read can be hot, but is totally unrealistic.

Maria Yagoda's book on bad sex, Laid & Confused, points out that good communication is the single most important factor in determining how enjoyable sex will be for both/all parties. One of the key barriers to better communication between partners is the romanticized idea that if someone is right for you, they will "just know" what you need sexually, and will give it to you, without needing to be asked or instructed.

Obviously this myth has harrowing implications when it comes to consent; someone can think they "just know" what you want and be totally wrong about that, which could lead to them doing things to you that you decidedly do not want. Further, knowing someone well enough to understand their psychology might indeed give you a hunch about whether, for example, they'd prefer to be more dominant or more submissive in bed, more active or more passive, more gentle or more rough, but a) you still can't know for sure unless you ask them, and b) that stuff is psychological and doesn't tell you anything about physical technique preferences. Sure, your new girlfriend seems to enjoy being dominated and ravaged, but does she like her clit touched in up-and-down motions, side-to-side, or in circles? Does she even like to have her clit touched at all? Stuff like this is vitally important to find out if you want to have good sex, and it's not the kind of thing you can "just know" before you talk about it or try it.

The other piece of media I stumbled across along these lines was a clip from musical comedian Daniel Thrasher. He depicts a female character written by a male writer with the quote, "I love shopping, and my boobs! Everybody dance!" and then depicts a male character written by a female writer with the line, "I know your thoughts before you speak them. You don't even have to say anything. Everybody dance!"

Thanks to my spouse’s trawling of kinky subreddits, I’ve discovered a fascinating new kink. It’s called “ghost penis.”

No, it has nothing to do with wanting to fuck a ghost – that’s spectrophilia. (Not my kink, but I could see it being hot. Actually, I could probably talk myself into it by writing a fanfic scene that featured it. But I digress.)

There’s a phenomenon known as “arousal non-concordance” which is discussed in Emily Nagoski’s book Come As You Are, probably the sex book I recommend to people most often. Arousal non-concordance is a mismatch between your level of physical sexual arousal (erectile tissues swelling, presence of pre-cum or vaginal lubrication, etc.) and your own subjective assessment of how aroused you are.

Arousal non-concordance is said to be much more common in women than men. I think there are a variety of reasons for this. One might be that women are societally encouraged to view ourselves as sexual objects rather than subjects, and to view it as more important to be desired than to express desire, and so we may not be as directly or regularly aware of our own desires and what they feel like in our bodies. Another reason is that we are statistically more likely to be survivors of sexual assault, and it’s scientifically well-established that sexual trauma can contribute to a feeling of dissociation or disconnectedness from one’s body.

If you were interviewing me on a kink podcast and asked me what my biggest/main kink is, I’d probably say DD/lg. It’s the easiest one to communicate in a soundbite, and one that many kinksters will recognize by name. It’s simple – in definition if not in practice – and is indeed a big part of my sexuality.

But my REAL biggest kink is something more abstract, less immediately identifiable as a kink, and much harder to explain.

An internet pal of mine recently tweeted, “Hey does anyone know where I can put all this yearning?” and I sighed because it was just too fuckin’ relatable.

This is a pal who writes fanfic, which I also do, and I think fanfic is one of the many pursuits (like watching porn, reading romance novels, or devouring a TV show that has a tense will-they-won’t-they romantic storyline) that can simultaneously stoke yearning and become an outlet for it. It can make you yearn – for people you want to fuck, experiences you want to have, emotions you want to feel – and it can also, to some extent, scratch that itch in and of itself. But not completely.

(Content note: the movie scene I’m talking about in this essay depicts dubious consent. Also there’s some pretty graphic/sexy description of the scene in here.)

It took me a long time to get around to watching Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, Volume 1. I knew it was supposedly an epic film featuring real sex acts, so naturally, I was intrigued. But it wasn’t until sometime in the last year or so that I finally saw it. My spouse and I watched it together and marvelled at all the wild sex scenes.

Content note: This essay is about sex that is boring, disappointing, unsatisfying, inequitable, and/or dissociative, but is nonetheless consensual. I do mention rape briefly in order to differentiate it from what I'm actually talking about in this essay.

I just started reading Maria Yagoda’s new book on bad sex, Laid and Confused, and it’s making me ponder the myriad of factors that have led to some of the worst (consensual) sexual experiences of my life. (I’m not gonna talk about non-consensual encounters here because that’s a whole other issue, though I do think there are some societal factors that are partly responsible for the proliferation of both rape and bad sex, including abysmal sex education, widespread cultural misogyny/homophobia/transphobia/etc., and the chronic undervaluing of female sexual pleasure and sexual agency. But I digress.)

Why am I so obsessed with unrequited love stories, both in fiction and in real life?

It’s honestly kind of annoying. Throw a character with an unreturned crush into a piece of media I like and I’ll ruminate on their situation more than is strictly comfortable at times, fantasizing and pondering (and writing fanfiction). Tell me a story about your own unrequited crush and, if we’re friends, I will be fascinated to know all the little details you’ve picked up over the course of your fixation.

And of course, when I myself have an intense unrequited infatuation going on… Well, in a way, I become the truest version of myself, but in another way, I become absolutely sick with despair and can’t focus on much else.

If you’d asked me a few years ago why these storylines haunt my brain, I’d probably have tried to argue that everyone is into unrequited love stories, or almost everyone, anyway – that they’re inherently interesting and heart-rending. But I’ve done more psychological digging these past few years than ever before, and I no longer think that’s the case. I think there are clearly established reasons these tales always grab my attention.

Spring makes me into a flirt-monster. The season itself feels flirty – green grass and colorful flowers finally giving you a peek at them after hiding under snow all winter. The sun popping its head out from behind a cloud to say hello. It’s enough to make a girl want to send some truly ill-advised DMs.

And that’s usually what I did, in springs of yore. Hopped on Tinder and swiped for hours, assessing prospects. Flaunted my tattoos and cleavage on bar patios. Posted selfies galore with kiss-face emoji captions.

This is a bit of a deviation from the normal subject matter of this newsletter, but I hope you'll forgive me, because I want to talk about writing songs with robots.

ChatGPT and other such AI services aren't exactly ethical, not least because they're trained on tons of material created by people who didn't consent to be drawn upon in that way, and because sometimes their working conditions are exploitative. So, needless to say, I feel conflicted about using them at all. But I've been very curious about them, and have used ChatGPT to generate cocktail recipes, emails, fanfiction scenarios, and discussion questions for my podcast, among other things.

But my particular fascination lately is using them to help with my songwriting. It's simultaneously super helpful and totally atrocious. Let me explain.

Since I've been writing and recording a new song every week for nearly a year and a half, sometimes I run out of steam, inspiration-wise. My process has gotten much more streamlined and systematized over the time I've been doing this challenge – these days I usually write first-draft lyrics on Thursday, put them to music on Friday, and practice and record on Saturday – but there are still plenty of times when I get stuck. ChatGPT has been helpful in times like these, but only if I'm very specific with my inputs. Usually I'll type something like:

I’ve been writing and reading fanfiction for almost as long as I’ve been on the internet. I don’t recall how I first discovered FanFiction.net – then the biggest hotspot for such stories, although these days ArchiveOfOurOwn.org is the place to be – but I definitely remember staying up way past my bedtime, scrolling endlessly through slash fic.

It gave me a kind of satisfaction that is much easier to find on the internet nowadays than it was back then – the satisfaction of knowing you had found “your people.” The people who obsessed about the same things you obsessed about, and were nerdy in similar ways to you. The people who noticed that that one character always wore a particular necklace, and wanted to speculate on what that necklace meant. The people who wondered about, and wrote about, the traumas that had made these characters who they were. The people who, like me, wanted to know what it would be like if two particular characters fucked each other, even if the original media property’s showrunner or author evidently didn’t think they ever should.

The other night at dinner with my spouse: I’m buzzing with fulfillment. The feeling of knowing what I was put on this earth for, and knowing that I’m good at it.

Usually. Mostly.

As I wrote in a song this week, turning 31 (tomorrow, on the 23rd) is making me reflect on all the things I’ve learned, and all the things I still want to learn.

I think boundary-setting of various sorts is one of the most vital skills you can learn as an adult – and most people do learn it when they’re adults, I think, rather than when they’re kids or teenagers, because kids and teenagers are not encouraged to have boundaries. They’re encouraged to do what their parents/guardians/teachers tell them to do, even when they don’t want to. So it makes sense that it takes so many of us decades to learn what we should have been taught from the very beginning: that our bodies and minds are our own, that we have the right to speak up when we’re being mistreated, and that we ought to have some say in the parameters of our own lives.