Tag Archives: sex toys
An important relationship principle, learnt via cock rings
“You’ve put it on the wrong way.”
“I… no I haven’t.”
“You have it’s… look, the vibrating bit goes next to the balls.”
“No it fucking doesn’t.”
I own a few different cock rings, most of them fairly simple rings with one bullet vibe attached. I mainly own these ones because, until the encounter mentioned above, I always thought that the WHOLE POINT of a cock ring was that I could grind my clit happily into the buzzy bit, then have an orgasm intense enough that my cuntspasms would induce orgasm in the gentleman I was grinding against.
When I discovered that is not necessarily the case, my tiny mind was blown.
It turns out that he’d used cock rings before during masturbation, and had particularly enjoyed the tingling sensation that comes from putting a cock ring on upside-down, and feeling it tickle his balls. This put me in something of a quandary, because I’d always thought that cock rings were meant for me. To discover that these joyful parcels of sexy sensation might, in fact, be something that I had to share gave me a twitch of selfish rage akin to a child being told she has to let other kids play with her Lego.
Four ways to use cock rings that won’t end in a fight
I have come up with four solutions to this problem.
1. Keep the cock ring on my way, grind against him and get him to play with my tits until the resultant orgasmic wave washed over me. After which point I’d take a short break to remove the ring and put it on his way (i.e. the WRONG way), then continue humping until he spaffed. This worked pretty well, but had the drawback that we had to stop shagging just after I’d come, when my knees were weak and wobbly and I was therefore quite likely to fall off the bed, thus shattering my illusion of erotic expertise.
2. Use two cock rings at the same time. I haven’t actually tried this one, but I imagine having two means not only that you can have one the right way up and one the wrong way, you also get an extra boost of a cock ring’s best superpower: the ability to get and keep a guy harder than he’d usually be, for as long as it takes for you to ride him like a horny pony. On the downside, as one commenter pointed out, it’s probably not particularly comfortable.
3. Turn around. I’m on top, so I can technically dictate exactly where my clit goes, and therefore by simply turning around I can make sure that it buzzes against me, and against his balls, thus keeping us both happy. Thing is, while plenty of guys I know are generous enough to appreciate the sight of my arse – even if they have their glasses on and are stone-cold sober – I quite like having my tits played with. In fact, my favourite thing about being on top is that I can grab his hands and place them firmly on my tits, feeling him squeeze and support them like an enthusiastic bra-butler.
4. Get one that has two vibrating bits.
The moral of the story
Relationships are usually about give and take – going out of your way to ensure your partner’s pleasure, and putting their needs first. But occasionally – very occasionally – they are about spending twenty quid on a dual-vibrating cock ring to ensure you have no further arguments on the subject.
If you’re going to get a dual-vibrating cock ring, here are a couple of suggestions: this one’s a budget version if you’re tight on cash, and this one’s a slightly more expensive version but I reckon has a few more possibilities depending on which way round you put it on. This one is out of stock at the moment, but I’d quite like to have a go because it has a sort of cage thingy instead of just a ring, and therefore I suspect is REALLY GOOD at the diamond hardness thing. Use the code GOTN10 at the checkout if you want to get 10% off.
Sex toy Blue Peter, and DIY bondage
“What’s that?” I ask him, pointing to a bundle of canvas ropes, some big metal clips, and a hand crank that makes a delicious ‘rrrrk’ sound when you ratchet it along the fabric. My immediate thoughts turn to DIY bondage…
Sexy conversations I’ve had at work (and a new sex toy competition)
“So… I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘sexpert’.”
“Me neither.”
“What do you want to be called?”
“Umm… filthmonger?”
So went a conversation I had with the awesome Emma at SexToys.co.uk when I went to their offices for a meeting last week. Since April this year, I’ve been ramping up the amount of Real Work I do for sexy companies – from my initial blog sponsorship with Bondara, through writing about hot porn for Dreams of Spanking, and occasionally trying to make jokes about shagging over on The Debrief, as well as other bits and pieces. The most exciting thing about doing this stuff is the conversations I get to have.
While in my vanilla job an email might be subject lined “Updated KPIs spreadsheet”, in my GOTN inbox I get “Rimming?” or “new feminist porn collaboration.”
I get to discuss the minutiae of sex toys – looking at whether people who read my blog are more likely to buy a cock sheath or a rabbit (Spoiler alert – it’s the former). During conversations with my amazing editor at The Debrief, we’ve thrown ideas back and forth on porn moves, and when I met with Emma, we discussed whether people are more likely to wank during a thunderstorm (the jury’s out, but we’re going to look into some stats).
I say this not to make you jealous, but to point out that the world seems so utterly different to me now than how it seemed a year ago. At lunchtime I used to huddle outside my vanilla-job office, surreptitiously checking Twitter on my phone and praying there’d be no cock pictures in my timeline when colleagues were looking over my shoulder.
Best thing about working with sex companies
Recently, the lovely Cara Sutra got a lot of press coverage on National Orgasm Day. Newspapers and websites across the world went wild to hear of the woman who has 15 orgasms a week for work. The Pulse (a sex toy company that makes an amazing-looking vibrator for dudes, which I’m itching to try on my partner) recently advertised for a ‘sex toy tester’ and people leapt out of their chairs with delight. The main message being: getting paid to have orgasms? AWESOME.
It certainly is awesome, and it ticks a hell of a lot of the ‘job satisfaction’ boxes – if you can find something you love doing and persuade someone to pay you for it, you’re doing pretty well in the career stakes. But for me orgasms are always something of a sideline – like a Christmas bonus. Sure, while I’m blogging a particularly hot story, I might break off halfway through to rub myself into a foaming lather of delight, but I’d probably do that whether I was getting paid or not.
For me, the best thing about working in the sex industry is the conversations. From ‘what are your thoughts on rimming?’ to ‘do we get a higher newsletter open rate if we give it a flirty subject line?’ and ‘are people more likely to buy a butt-plug if you review it, or if you write a sexy story about this one time you fucked a guy while he sat on one?’
Sex is fun, but I’m going to do it no matter what. These conversations? They’re my favourite perk.
Enter the sex toy competition
This blog is slightly out of my normal schedule, and is mainly here as a big, enthusiastic welcome to my new sponsor – SexToys.co.uk. You’ll see their banner ads on site from now on, as well as relevant links in some blog posts. I’ll also be contributing to their deliciously eclectic and filthy blog over at The Vibe.
To say hello, they’re running a sex toy competition which will be open for the next two weeks. They let me pick the prize, so I chose a few awesome restraint kits and we’ve put them all together in a bundle – the winner gets all of these:
This bed restraints set (rrp £35.99)
This door restraints set (rrp £29.99)
And this spreader bar (rrp £105.99)
Enter via the widget below if you’d like to win ’em. And if you’d like to support my blog, now’s the time to go and buy some sexy stuff from them.
If you’re from outside the UK, you can’t enter this one, but I’m trying to come up with something good for you guys soon. If you have any particular prize-related preferences leave a comment below and I’ll see what I can do about a comp for people elsewhere in the world!
On the most popular sex toys (and a sex toy competition)
Brace yourselves, I’m doing a special thing. Long time readers will know that for the last few months the fantastic Bondara has been supporting me. This has helped pay for hosting and domain stuff, pass a bit of money on to guest bloggers, and hire an amazing illustrator to create pretty images for some of my posts. To say thanks to Bondara and to you for your support, I’m running a sex toy competition to give away a £100 shopping spree at Bondara. You can buy anything – whether you want to wear it, smear it all over yourself, or turn it on and let it buzz deliciously against your sensitive bits. When you get to the bottom of this post, there’s a widget that you can use to enter the competition.
So what’s this post about? Well, I don’t really do toy reviews, but I wanted to do something that gives a bit of an insight into sex blogging, and also appeals to my nerdier sensibilities. So I’ve done some very top-level analysis of the kind of toys people buy via my site. A sort of ‘if you like my blog, you might like some of this stuff too’ – like Amazon does with books, but for fucktoys. The following graphs have been created using anonymised data based on purchases at Bondara via my website.
Which sex toys are the most popular?
I had a look at the percentage of toys sold for different genital uses. As you can see, my readers are generally a big fan of arses, which makes sense given the number of posts I’ve written about butt plugs. Penis and vagina toys sold equally, which I am pleased with, because it shows a delightful sex toy equality in the discerning audience of this blog.
Which sex products are the most popular?
Of course, it’s not just about things you put in/on/up yourself – there are other types of products too. While toys are by far and away the winner, plenty of people have been stocking up on bondage equipment, underwear and accessories too. For this, ‘accessories’ includes things like condoms and lube, as well as sex toy cleaners and things.
Sex toy sales by day of the week
Statisticians, please shield your eyes, because this one’s a fucking mess. I don’t think the data was significant enough to make a guess on the day that sales were most likely – apart from anything else, my traffic’s always higher on Sundays, Wednesdays or Fridays when I post. Still, in case you’re interested, it looks like Friday is officially the least sexy day, with Wednesdays and weekends being far more popular.
What are the most popular sex products?
I’d hoped that at least one person would have bought the fucking machine that I have on my sex toy wish list. Sadly not, but if you’re after something new, and you fancy following in the footsteps of other readers, here are some of the most popular products (or product categories) from the last three months:
– Cock rings. A solid and admirable choice.
– Male masturbators. I’m not surprised these are near the top of the list because I am obsessed with them – Tenga eggs came through as a strong favourite, which is handy because I have recently got the hang of using them without breaking them due to overenthusiastic wanking.
– Butt plugs. Again, solid choice,and I hope these hot butt-plug stories helped some people make their decision.
– Coquette knickers. I am 100% sure this came about as a result of this post about the sexiest types of knickers.
– Jessica rabbit vibrator. A classic. Also very cheap. I am impressed with your money-saving expertise.
Sex toy competition – win a £100 Bondara shopping spree!
Now on to the exciting bit – all you need to do is enter the competition using the magical widget below, and you’ll be entered into a draw. The comp will run for exactly two weeks – until midday (UK time) on the 11th of August, with the winner chosen the next day. If you win, you can spend £100 on whatever you like from Bondara. I’m afraid you have to be UK resident and over 18 to take part, but if this is popular, I’ll see if I can run something separate for US-based people so you can have sexy things too.
Best of luck, and thank you again for all your support.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
[Note from GOTN – I have never run a competition like this before, and in all probability I am a bit incompetent at it. I’ve tried to make it so there are plenty of easy ways to enter, but if you have any feedback or you’re not sure how to use it please drop me an email]
On why penis does not equal power
Yes, we live in a patriarchy. And in our patriarchy, men are generally at a bit of an advantage in terms of money, power, opportunity, and so on. But I’m not going to talk about that today – I want to talk about power and penetration. Specifically the idea that the power in any kind of sexual play is, by default, in the hands of the penetrator.
The other week I wrote something disgustingly filthy about pegging (aka strap on sex). In subsequent discussion, a few people talked about me ‘having the power’ and ‘being the dominant one’, which was interesting. Even when I’m fucking a guy with a big fake cock, I don’t tend to feel that dominant. I get waves of it occasionally, but it struck me that we do tend to assume that strap on sex gives the wearer an immediate power boost. That it’s the cock that’s synonymous with power. That no matter how doe-eyed and submissive I usually am, just by strapping it on I have performed a transformation into a powerful sexual superhero.
Are strap ons powerful?
Of course, there are a lot of expectations around being the penetrator. Watch most mainstream porn, or even most mainstream romance, and men tend to be seen as the ones in control – the ones doing. Men fuck, women get fucked. But of course, although this is the way the story tends to play out, there are a hundred different problems with it, as there are with most of our expectations around gender.
Naturally the obvious point is that not all men have dicks, or indeed want to be the penetrators. Likewise there are many women who can be powerfully sexual, who can penetrate and fuck, while their partners (male or female) prefer to be more passive, more laid-back. And – in the kind of situations I enjoy – there are many people who switch between the two.
I enjoy sex in which I am the fucker rather than the fuckee, and to be honest I don’t usually need a strap on in order to do that. In the right mood and with a fair wind behind me I can shag a guy using only my delicate, weak, unpowerful vagina and he’ll still feel as if he’s been used like a fucktoy.
Your dick as your weakness
Not only can you be powerful with no dick at all, but there are certain sexual situations in which a penis can be the very opposite of a powerful tool: it can be your weakness, your misery, and one of the ultimate symbols of submission.
Knowing you can penetrate me with your dick might give you power in the eyes of a society with a skewed view on genitals, but it’s not going to make you feel that powerful when you’re lying on my bed, constrained by an order not to come, twitching and moaning as I rub lube gently into the aching head of it. Nor when I squeeze it to just before the point of pain and you beg me to put it in my mouth. And certainly not when I lie on my back, with your bound wrists behind my neck, and tell you to fuck me without coming.
As you pull out, shaking with the need to come and pleading with your eyes, your penis doesn’t feel very powerful, does it?
A dirty story to illustrate the point
So are strap ons powerful in and of themselves? The fact that they don’t give direct pleasure to the wearer does give the wearer a certain element of control. Maybe I’m the ‘powerful’ one when I fuck a guy with a strap on purely in virtue of the fact that I feel nothing – that I’m wholly focused on what I can do rather than what I can feel.
Except even that doesn’t really work, because this lack of feeling can also be harnessed to make the wearer feel deeply cowed and submissive. Ask the guy who loved the trembling feeling of submission so much that I used to wrack my brains in bed at night trying to think of new and better ways to make him feel small – the guy who, eventually, I ordered to fuck me with a strap on.
He got hard and shook and begged me to let him fuck me – wrists bound behind my head, as above. I turned him down and dressed him in the strap on harness instead, letting him fuck me with cold, rubber strokes until I came – twitching and clenching around a cock that couldn’t feel it. A cock with no desire, no sensation, no power. Then I told him I was done, and he curled up hard and aching and unable to fall asleep.
What makes a powerful dominant?
Power isn’t contained within a penis – real or fake – and it doesn’t accrue to you just because you are the penetrator. This is one of the many myths we’ve been fed for a number of years, which we still tend to play up to in much of our fucking. I certainly do most of the time – as a straight female submissive, dominance and dick usually go hand-in-hand. I want to be on the bottom, I want to be penetrated: I need to get fucked.
But it’s nice to take a step outside this every once in a while – think about what it is, exactly, that makes someone powerful. It might be different for different people: what makes him powerful is his voice, and the way he has with commands and words. What makes her powerful is the way she can speak volumes just with her eyes or a turn of her head. What makes them powerful is their imagination – the fantastic new things they can order their sub to do, that brings both parties to the brink of shivering climax.
Power isn’t contained within a particular object, or act, or person: it’s a complex, intricate thing. And it’s good to remind myself of that every once in a while – not only does it give me a better perspective on what I truly love about dominance, it also gives me loads of new ideas.